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Obedience to God

2011-01-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

how much of a question is it whether sufjan stevens is great or the greatest ever. stuff like this, i usually play conservative and err with caution with the simple opinion that he’s great. even in this hype oriented day and age, great is still pretty good, so i leave it as that. and songwriting/performing is a non competitive endeavour, after all.

on some level i cannot deny or withstand criticism for a sort of intellectual inertia by not quite properly ranking a particular someone or a art work/performance. i mean, the statement that someone or something is great already differentiates that person or work/performance as something other than good/competent/bad. it hardly seems that wide or unjust of another step to go from great to more greater.

well, i have two excuses: one is that i know nothing about music. and two, there is often a natural bias for the new, or at least inflate the most recent, and temporal distance tempers such unwieldy predilections.

which is to say i really like his new album, the age of adz. much more than i thought i would from reading initial descriptions, or from first impressions. the second track, too much, largely colored my chilly reception, the electronic noise was too odd, jarring, and alien, to the extent that i couldn’t get pass the hard and harsh “experimentation.” but i also couldn’t stop thinking about the songs, or returning to them, or - by now - getting completely seduce by ‘em.

fer sure adz is different from … well, let’s say it is different from his last group of albums, michigan, seven swans, and illinois, that comprises more or less how most listeners are acquainted with sufjan. teh internet sez that his second album, enjoy your rabbit, is more intensely rooted in electronic territories than adz. i don’t know anything about sufjan’s pre-michigan work, so i wouldn’t be quite qualified to say with adz whether sufjan opened a new bag of sound, or he’s returning and or melding his varied musical interest. there are enough of the rough, jagged edges in illinois to say many of the adz elements ain’t new.

but what do i know.

what concerns me a little is if i were to be asked why adz or sufjan stevens is great. cause aside from it and he is, and he is a genius, i’d be hard press to come up with any more persuasive answer. i don’t know nothing about music. i am not sure how much i have to reinforce this point but there it is again. second, while i probably listen to adz - this applies equally in the past to his other albums - over and over and over again, i don’t really pay much attention to the songs or album. or, i listen as a fan, eager to be impressed and astounded, rather than with a critical - as if possible - ear. basically, i only listen to things i like; and however i may analyze or criticize is through a prism of bits and pieces that amazed me, with the corresponding how and why so.

plus, i would not want to persuade or convince anyone. i do not care if say i love sufjan and you (perhaps) do not. if there’s curiosity, i am happy to feed it, or explore together. if there's not, then there’s not. know what i mean?

one thing i know is my favorite gal h (h stands for whoever h is) stated, to me, that she likes sufjan. which is cool. i am not sure how much i wonder what she thinks of the new album, whether she thinks it’s great or the greatest, and such, but i wonder some. i wonder additionally, especially as it is now too late for me, whether she caught his concert in october.

totally honest, i entertained thoughts of picking up some tickets for sufjan’s nyc show, but as i stated privately before which still holds true now, “the truth is that the venue is too far uptown … it takes a lot for me to leave downtown.” i’ma whiny bitch, i know. though the biggest truth is the tickets were too hella costly. then i saw sufjan perform on late night with jimmy fallon, which was interesting, and read what a marvelous spectacle sufjan’s concerts were, and i think it would totally have been worth the cost and commute, after all. but maybe h caught his show, and that’s what i’m wondering.

that is if she liked adz.

this is what i think, considerable e-words have been spilled for impossible soul, adz’s closing track. it is 25+ minutes long, so you know the song was designed to grab attention. how could it be anything but that? i think it can easily be broken to several songs, because there are at least 5 different and distinct movements in it. but if sufjan wants it to be one song, fine. impossible soul is gimmicky and attention seeking, and yet, still a great song. i guess i did give the song special attention due to the hype, but it easily soars above the hype. that opening movement is so soul warming/wrenching, even as impossible soul eventually diverges along a sprawling path, i imagine h would really dig that first part.

Oh, woman, tell me what you want
And I'll calm down without bleeding out
With a broken heart that you stabbed for an hour
Woman, I was freaking out because I want you to know
My beloved, you are the lover of my impossible soul

er, maybe. i dig the lyrics, but could understand how others might find an opaqueness from the lyrics alone, especially without melody or music to shape it or give it expressiveness. the instantaneous charm (and complexity) of impossible soul might not come through via some rote recitation of the lyrics. well, nonetheless, i found it incredibly tender, and like i said, i imagine she’d like it too.

a bummer is that, as far as i can tell, adz is a banjo free album.1 you can’t imagine the immediate erection i get on hearing banjo strings plucked.2 less salacious, not sure how much of this is a known fact or not, but i love bluegrass and folk music, which has everything to do with the banjo featured prominence in those genres. the banjo kicks ass in rock, and anything else, too.

1. some internet sources claim either the opening track in adz or the ending bits of the closing track has some banjo, but as far as i can tell, those internet sources, as shocking as it may seem, are wrong. to my ears, and according to competing internet sources, guitar.

2. from deliverance. yikes!

i want to say a couple of things about gulet mohamed.3 super condensed version, an american citizen teenager while traveling abroad was taken to an unidentified location by unidentified captors where he was imprisoned, interrogated, beaten, threatened with more violence/torture, and etc. far from sorting out and or otherwise helping american citizen gulet mohamed, united states government officials were either in cahoots or directing the unidentified captors and their actions. as far as i can tell, and this part is more fuzzy, mohamed is no longer imprisoned but detained in some kind of facility. again, instead of sorting out and or otherwise helping american citizen gulet mohamed, now detained without charge, united states goverment officials state that american citizen gulet mohamed is on a no-fly list, effectively prohibited from returning to his country, and express zero interest in the potential illegal detention and or mistreatment of an american citizen.

3. more & more salient details could be viewed here, among other places.

there are definitely issues and outrages more important, relevant, and thought provoking than what i am going to raise, but. 1) this is the change we were looking for in obama? 2) is at best no interest or at worst full complicit how the government is suppose to behave upon the questionable imprisonment and possible mistreatment by a foreign power of one of her citizen traveling abroad? 3) fuck obama. 4) poor kid. 5) how much should american citizens traveling abroad be scared? 6) how much should american citizens with arab sounding names traveling abroad be scared shitless? 7) fuck everyone in the obama administration who did not stand up against this. 8) right or wrong, i accept the fact that non citizens have less protection or, i think more accurately, might expect less than full constitutional/legal protection, but right or wrong, citizens should expect or, i think more accurately, receive full constitutional/legal protection. 9) i imagine folks with a chinese background - given chinese exclusion, chae chan ping, chang chan, chin bow, etc. - would find greater significance or have deep empathy for gulet mohamed’s circumstance. 10) i am fucking naive, perhaps. 11) poor family and friends of the kid. 12) poor america. 13 but not least) resistance to tyranny is obedience to god.

something on youtube that i have watched not quite infinite loop a lot but let’s say a hella alot4 - and i will repeat, it is well worth viewing all the way through and urge y’all to do so - is diane savino’s ny senate speech for marriage equality back in 2009. her speech was, as she herself is, and i hope her career continues to progress likewise, a brilliant, poignant force for virtue. i am not sure what this means exactly, or how much it really matters, but i am planning a visit to her 23rd (parts of staten island and brooklyn) district area. unless i’ve visited already, then i mean plan a re-visit.

4. enjoy.

not to say the following is more better, or that i prefer it more than diane savino’s speech, but anything to do with the trial of susan b anthony is straight up a-mazement. at least the sentencing part.5 the text from the trial record by itself is electric and inspirational, but is definitely enhanced when read, viewed, or heard. thanks to youtube and the late, great howard zinn, there are several, albeit edited, versions to help pick a favorite: a closer to historical accurate costume and set reenactment; christina kirk’s fiery rendition; lili taylor’s contemplative reading; or melissa leo’s spirited performance.

5. the trial record text.

my favorite is probably by christina kirk. or more specifically, i came across the words from anthony’s trial via a bill moyers journal episode where moyer was interviewing zinn who was doing some publicity work for the television broadcast of the people’s speak.6 the moyers journal excerpt was what turned me on, and the people’s speak version is my favorite. but still, kirk’s youtube version, more stripped down and raw, does the trick too. most likely, the revolutionary maxim should be credited to tom jefferson, with tyrants instead of tyranny. jefferson really had a way with words.

6. starts around the 13 minute mark but worth watching start to finish. the transcript.

my runner up favorite is probably lili taylor.

anyway, that the hows or whys there are some inter-relatedness with anthony and savino is if not obvious then kinda intuit is why i’m not going to belabor the point(s).

by the way, do not extend my admiration for anthony’s life and work to her campaigning in the temperance movement. i think sips from the blood of christ are not entirely wrong. even assuming that the temperance movement might be restricted to cautioning against the dangers of alcohol abuse, and not alcohol in general, that narrow, and possibly justified, focus is hardly ever and without much sincerity adhered to. i do appreciate any concerned remarks given if i have been or am about to drink too much, but it’s hard to be a borderline alcoholic without, you know, drinking.

i hope the topicality and humor in savino’s speech do not preclude its inclusion from the ranks of great or recitation/rebroadcast worthy speeches. 420,000 completed views on youtube thus far, and counting; not bad. we can learn from you, you don’t learn from us. i vote aye.

one thing the ivory coast election mess7 got me to thinking was how much does robust capitalism or industrial oligarchism enable peaceful transition of political power. partly i wonder because where businesses and business interest can survive (or really, thrive) through regime changes, they provide financial support and continued political influence for political leaders exiting the government sector. another way to put it, political leaders are reluctant to cede political power because without a vigorous and secure economic/financial fallback they would be subject to the whims of the new regime. with the emphasis that is placed on held elections, are they enough, or how meaningfully so? i wonder this without meaning to sound pro (big) business because the pernicious outgrowth from the free markets are such that even if vigorous capitalism was necessary for democracy or peaceful transfer of power, taming the harms of free market may be more important (or more necessary) than democracy. or as important. or not at all.

7. i could throw out a link, but, assuming you continue reading, i’d say whatever went down in ivory coast is typical with what seems a lot of 3rd world countries. which is partially the point.

a different thing i thought, as i peaked into apartments in various buildings on broadway one cold night, i have been in few or barely any apartments/apartment buildings. i wonder this because it was only recently - though maybe the only accurate way to put this is at a point in time, a point in time that is definitely and irrevocably beyond return or perhaps only persist in primitive or isolated pockets - everyone knew everyone and or at least has been to everyone’s home/land/business: when making a home involved the whole community making the home, when joining or leaving a place elicited curiosity, assistance, or reflection from the whole community. i understand and respect that these dazes substitute institutions have popped up, like the pub, coffee shop, worship house, corner grocery, etc., to facilitate some communal type activities, or even as the kidz do: facebook, tweet, and check-in. and i recognize the duality of the home not just as a place to welcome and congregate family, friends, neighbors, and other guests but, as well, as a place - as judge lou brandeis might describe - to be let alone, with possessions, thoughts, or plain nothing. and while i confess to heavy luddite leanings, i am also not delusional; close-knit communities have a way of fostering suspicion and fear, of suffocating moral, intellectual, and or emotional life and development, of hosting all sorts of other nastiness. yet, wandering pass buildings upon buildings, besides the fact that these buildings exist, i’d be clueless about the who and why of folks within, i’d be clueless to everything a foot past the building's front door even. aside from not thinking about it at all, or in addition to enjoying the convenience and comfort and all else that is gained in modern/city life, on occasions, there is no reason not to consider or reconsider what is lost or forgone. i am assuming it is something(s) that is precious. again, with no judgment on the exact net trade off.

while watching some movie8 or another, a character recited a poem written by pessoa.9 my memory was never what it should be so i cannot recall which one or much details from it. the poem still was remarkable enough that i wish i remembered. which led to a hunt for the precise poem, which then led to a good deal of wasted googling10 and a purchase of selected pessoa poems, titled fernando pessoa & co.11

8. the trailer. by the way, i caught miguel gomes second featured movie, our beloved month of august - i would have said recently, but as of this writing, any applicability of recently would have long been expired. a little rough at parts, as may be expected, but beloved month is certainly bold and quite good.

9. more likely, poems.

10. which considering not recalling the poem or much details from it, i was screwed from the get go.

11. & co refers to heteronyms, which i’m ignoring for purposes here.

since i have not said it explicitly, i will do so: before said movie i did not know nothing about pessoa. which is odd to be so completely unaware of such an important poet/writer, but at the same time seems perfectly normal as there are likely a gabazillion important poets/writers that i am clueless about. plus i imagine i’d, for all practical considerations, be completely baffled where i to come across things from most poets and writers i have heard or read before.

screwed and unscrewed. more googling eventually tipped off a pretty good lead. specifically, this spicy line from the poem was recited in the movie: “all the woes of the world stem from our caring about each other.” further search turned dead-end as i suspect the subtitled translation was specific to the movie. but some success anyway, as an aggressive skim through the keeper of sheep section in & co struck paydirt. 32. yesterday afternoon a man from the city. & co renders the same line as “all the world’s trouble comes from us fretting over one another,” which i think in comparison lacks some urgency. while an internet source sees, “all the evil in the world comes from us bothering with each other,” which lacks … okay, all three variations are presented,12 you can determine what is lacking, if anything, and how much so, uh, yourself. for me, i’d say movie subtitles won this translation grudge match. anywayz, assuming the movie featured a recital of two (at least) pessoa poems, that’s one down.

12. plus the original too: todo o mal do mundo vem de nos importarmos uns com os outros.

here’s two pessoa poems, both translated by rich zenith:

18. I’d rather be the dust of the road
(from Keeper of Sheep)

I’d rather be the dust of the road
And trampled on by the feet of the poor …

I’d rather be the rivers that flow
And have washerwomen along my shore …

I’d rather be the poplars next to the river
With only sky above and the water below …

I’d rather be the miller’s donkey
And have him beat me and care for me …

Rather this than to go through life
Always looking back and feeling regret …

Since we do nothing in this confused world

Since we do nothing in this confused world
That lasts or that, lasting, is of any worth,
And even what’s useful for us we lose
              So soon, with our own lives,
Let us prefer the pleasure of the moment
To an absurd concern with the future,
Whose only certainty is the harm we suffer now
              To pay for its prosperity.
Tomorrow doesn’t exist. This moment
Alone is mine, and I am only who
Exists in this instant, which might be the last
              Of the self I pretend to be.

i would not say they are the best examples, but are examples.

I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

2010-09-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

Not studious about it, but let's say a vagabond browser, a main sad thing about modern industrial agriculture is monoculture farming. More or less producing or growing one crop over a wide area. Monoculture suggests some virtues, like cheap productivity, but the gist of why it is a horrible, ugly evil is that it leaves the crops, the soil, farmers & end users vulnerable to diseases, bugs, weeds, pesticides, pathogens, oil price flutters, and corporate whim/litigation (cough Monsanto uncough). If it is not obvious why, think about it for a second longer. Still foggy? then read or watch any of the food propaganda books/movies. Or e-surf.

The postmodern remedy to the food supply ailment is decidedly simple and very retro, oldie but goodie risk managing diversity, albeit with modernize techniques. Again, the why should be obvious. What is most appealing to me about diversification based production approach is that it drastically improves sustainability.

I might have been hasty to say the whys are obvious. Or even if obvious, the details might not be. I googled about monoculture and diversity in farming, and one interesting thing I found was the once, and possibly renewed, popularity of rice duck farming.1 Essentially raising ducks along with irrigated rice fields where the ducks control weeds, eat bugs, poo natural fertilizers, offer alternative income, and even, from what I can tell, alleviate global warming. In the process, harmful chemicals/fertilizers are eliminated, or rendered superfluous. As well, fish and other vegetation can sometimes be incorporated, which enhances whatever existing perks from the ducks. Neat.

1. More details here.

This is also part why I'd be hesitant to test, even with all the supposed benefits, a vegan or hardcore vegetarian diet. It is antithetical to the (postmodern) natural order. Duck consumption enables organic (no petro fertilizer/chemical pesticide) rice farming methods. Or, duck tastes yums. Nix the reason for raising ducks, hello chemical poison again. Though these particular webbed-footed waddlers do not seem to be foie gras candidates. That would be but too perfect.

A nagging issue I have with the whole diversified, sustainable, organic, local utopiod farming movement - to sorta add my voice to the Alice Water boo bird chorus - is that local/organic is pretty much code for white bourgeois, see the farm to table eateries: Blue Hill at Stone Barn, Eigensinn Farm, Manresa, and Chez Panisse. That shit is hella expensive. That fact extends from those several gilded restaurants with their tasting menus and pre fixe fixations to regular day in and day out grocery shopping: regular people are suppose to afford organic/local? The whole thing strikes, from my anemic wallet's viewpoint, as too qu’ils mangent de la brioche2, ya know.

2. Misattributed, according to teh internet, to Maria Antoinette.

If push reaches shove, I'm not sure which I would mind less, being called cheap or poor. I mean cheap comes with a noxious brew of negative connotations, made that much more potent in that it is a conscious decision, or at least a somewhat voluntary choice. Being poor, well, circumstances commonly force that societal hand. Then again, is there anything worse in the world than being poor?3 Well, I'm not in a position to choose one or the other. Convenience is usually the tie breaker. Most of the time that means industrial farmed produce, but I stalk, from time to time, what's at the greenmarkets and organic stores anyway. Or, for this summer, I am participating in a local CSA.

3. Money makes the world go round.

The diversity that is a boon for farmers, environment, and food lovers is a stickier matter when it comes to romantic re-la-tion-ships. Apparently cheating or, less judgmental, covert juggling of multiple dating partners is quite the rage these days. Or that's at least what my friends have been telling and practicing. Yet I've been a bit of a buzzkill on this. The guilt trip I laid down led one such friend to claim reformation, ie booting one girl and sticking with the other. Which was not what I was going for at all, assuming he does follow through and or does not have other girlfriends on the sidelines.4

4. Since then, word is my pal has resumed sipping the dating around waters, despite being in a relationship. And because it's taken a hella long to write this, the gal he stuck with has dumped his ass. So he is back on the watering hole sans anchor. Hard to keep pace with people's dating habits sometimes.

I re-routed my arguments by suggesting that he's a plant in the desert, when it rains, no plant is gonna stop doing whatever plants do with water, which I assert is indiscriminate absorption, to fake fidelity. His life depends on taking full advantage of the moment's downpour, I think that was the botany case I was building.

An earlier conversation, almost certainly the same back fence gossip - cuz you know, when we scamps get together, we're worse than a sewing circle5 - I mentioned something to the effect that when it rains, it pours.An old idiom with wide applicability: good breaks, bad luck, financial windfall, change in health, job offers, whatever; sometimes when something happens, especially something that has not or does not happen with great frequency, it abruptly happens in great quantity and or intensity. I only wish I put it as cleverly for the case at hand - namely dating opportunities - as one friend did: pussy pour. So indiscriminate absorption, ya know.

5. I'm rather ambivalent or with even lower estimations regarding Tarantino's movies. But he has a way with clever dialogue.

I guess I am a little naive because this line of gossiping does come as a surprise when I hear about it, or shamefully, I am impress by or encourage the licentious ways. Well, I encourage it because the stories and misadventures associated with promiscuous going ons are highly hil-arious. Practically every part of it intrigues me: the process of multiple dating, tactics used to evade detection, the faux guilt buildup from the libidinous lapses/trickery, the almost or actual slip ups, and so forth. It all seems so mystifying and daunting.

What I did learn, sorry cannot give away too many of the details, as even while I can safeguard my friends anonymity by not naming names, details might be a giveaway. What I did learn is that if a dude is going with the alternating weekends with alternating chicks, spending time with family (provided that you do not introduce either girls to the parents or do not get them too close) or work (provided you do not work at McDonalds) is a fine alibi. Picking up stray hairs from sofa/bed/chairs/etc is a must. As a matter of practice, skimp on details or maximize vagueness first, foremost, and at all cost, otherwise it will blowup the alibis or excuses, and eventually trapping oneself in the tangled web of deception.6 No matter how one tries to enforce a rigid (daily) call routine, the other chick will call at an inconvenient time.

6. Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire. Not sure how it would play out if one were to quote Voltaire, in English, in lieu of even a vague, detail skimping answer, - the secret of being a bore is to tell everything. Oh, and Sir Walter Scott.

I would think not answering a call is the surest way to lead to suspicion, but apparently either that's how some folks prefer to handle it, or circumstances dictate the call goes to voicemail.7 Regardless, it does lead to some sort of confrontation when the call is eventually returned. As in: what were you doing? why did it go straight to voicemail? why didn't you pick up? and, what were you doing? and, why didn't you pick up? and then, repetition. Plus, not answering calls is not just suspect to the chick calling, it seems to me rather doubt-raising to the chick one is with at the time. But I suppose one tip is to switch to vibrate or silent before going full on straight to voicemail/turn off cell mode.

7. Regarding the voicemail(s) left, an inevitability is the frantic "it's an emergency, call me back" message. I sez to my friend, "Universal code for 'it's an emergency, call me back' is 'it's not an emergency, it can wait til whenevers.'"

Beyond the close calls and the general inconvenience and financial cost of dating more than one chick, there is some psychological/spiritual/emotional price too, as my friends have confessed feelings of anxiety. I can imagine. You decide whether it is remorse for their actions or fear from getting their paws caught in the pussy jar. A friend regularly exclaims that he believes he's going to hell for his actions, especially as one of his main squeeze is sooo nice or sooo trusting. Another cyprian pal tells of sleepless nights and or nightmares. And so forth.

I have asked them why do it then. Or why risk it when you already have a good thing. One response: cause the reward is so gratifying. Uh, okay.

I would say, unless caught red handed with the other woman, the best thing to do when confronted is to feign bafflement over the accusations. But that's not really true. Because, unless caught red handed, it doesn't really matter how it is handled. Despite some heated words, if all she got is suspicions, she cannot do much but try to bait a slip up or some other telltale sign. As long as one avoids her (and your own) traps, and, as mentioned above, eschew details and embrace ambiguity, appeasement and exoneration is pretty much assured. That is, if things rarely reach the confrontation stage. Happens too often, that only means ya just don't care.

Not sure if why I find all the lothario-esque double dealings so richly hilarious comes through sans name and, for the most part, sans details. I mean, I do feel bad if/when the discovery leads to the hurt feelings and other trauma, and I worry for the loose moral moorings of my pals. But it is different looking from the outside; from the exterior, it's pure entertainment. So it is pretty funny. Assuming I ain't one of the victims, I suppose.

Or, more funny.

I do not mean to imply, or be direct about it either, that strict monogamous relationship is the gold standard or is in any way morally/spiritually/anyly superior. It isn't. Or it would be beyond me to make that determination. What other people do is their business.

Furthermore, whatever fidelity (if any) I practice is mostly due to profound lethargy. Maintaining a relationship with one person is difficult enough, but more than one? while also keeping the romantic shuffling clandestine? Geez, that seems like hard fucking work. For me, being direct and open, to the degree that I am direct and open, which is a tough to call because most folks that I "socialize" with probably would say I am mysterious or secretive. Which is a fair interpretation, as when I am not direct and open, I tend to be non-responsiveness. But being direct and open is simply easier. I rather not try to be careful, or to make something up, or otherwise selectively censor. A slippery slope that also impugns on my favorite mode of communication, silence.8 What formerly was just not having anything to say becomes conjectures that the silence is hiding something. Not that traversing in that grey or middle area requires that much more effort, but lazy is lazy.

8. Otherwise known as the time between post. For which I originally intended in jest, but now, the humor is long past the expiration date.

Hmm... I think what I mean by direct and open is like a type of genuineness. I understand that misunderstanding or misinterpretation, or hell with the mis, just interpretation is inevitable. The thing that drives people's understanding of things is their understanding of things. But to the degree where I do not contribute other than through the specificity of my words or actions, that is what I want. What that does is I do not have to take a more circuitous route in saying or doing something, I do not have to explain what I am doing or saying, I would just say or do whatever it is. Or not say and not do, for that matter. And if someone still misreads or reads more than what is there, then I can brush it off; that is not what I said or did. And that's it. Redundancy risk taker that I am, I do not want to be an advertisement: selling sex, arthritis relief, confidence, or no money down real estate purchases when the only thing I am usually offering is a moment of personal interaction.

Which, needs to be said, is an approach to life and living, to the degree that I actually adhere to that triparted direct/open/silence directive, is not something that I think is that great either. There is the perceived misanthropy, and then the often long stretches of self imposed loneliness and desolation, and well, it is not nor should be for everyone, maybe myself included.

Diversity in romantic couplings could be said to be a tricky matter because of the (often) necessary deception. I wonder if the aforementioned gratification my friend spoke about is based on "knowing" two different girl in a single day, or getting away with it. In keeping with the theme, why mutually exclusive? could be both. But you know what I mean, deception prompts moral/ethical questions, and the arduous task to maintain that deceit.

I am not going to saying that deception/cheating is unequivocally evil, it may well be. But I haven't really thought about it through that frame.

But beyond the implied problems of deception, the perceived taboo of multiple dating partnering seems closer to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, and I am sorta repeating, that too would also be outside my comfort zone to deem a definitive, unequivocal evil. There are any slew of justification/mitigation, and - not to mince words - outright good reasons to seek an extra-traditional relationship structure. I won't go through 'em all, but that a second and simultaneous girlfriend, or boyfriend, might be a fun (life) experience, that alone seems sufficient to preempt automatic foreclosure to such prospects. The way one pal put it, when he tried to reverse my goading back to me, "I know you like to read a lot, V., but sometimes you could be the novel instead of just reading it." Ha. And as this is be the blog - what transgressions need I tread for that, I wonder.

Being lazy, an easy test would be, and this is all in the hypothetical, where I to be in a relationship and be curious about pursing an extra-relationship, er, relationship, how would I feel if my existing partner was to consider the same thing, practice deception in that pursuit, and or perhaps how such a multi-relationship would be tolerable/acceptable/approvable.9 Might seem despite my portrayal above that these matters were too removed from my moral/ethical comfy zone for consideration that the answers would be quite easy. I would guess - I hope not too much of an assumption - most folks would say that they would, respectively, feel shitty, be mortally wounded by the betrayal, and no chance in hell of tolerating, let alone accepting or approving such arrangements. But I will stick to my original theses, as I think the answers are not quite that easy and - without getting into it, and without suggesting that I am "deeper" or "more complex" than anyone - my answers would be contrary to (reemphasizing, I assume) most folks.

9. Too Catholic? According to Wiki, the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese broadcasted, essentially, the golden rule long before Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John did. If that makes a difference.

Anyway, like I confessed, I am thoroughly enchanted and intrigued with romantic double dealings. I am a little ashamed to take enjoyment in my friends' unrestrained sybaritic impulses, or, for the friends being cheated on, their (perhaps) mistreatment. Then I kinda figure, it is none of my business, and I have very little, I'd say none, influence on anyone's action. People do what they want to do, and that includes staying faithful, sampling in the dating buffet, or how much to tolerate in a souring relationship. And if I eagerly await a new installment of romantic misadventures, or crack a few jokes, it is really nothing but what it is.

For what it is worth, according to Wiki, ducks are generally monogamous. But then again, I suppose, so are most men and women.

My favorite currently produced television shows (that aren't on public television) are in descending order of preference: Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, and Rules of Engagement. As things stand, however, due to the steady deterioration of my stolen cable and the vagaries of my own prime time free time schedule, the only one of the three that I catch and can watch on a semi periodic basis is Parks, which I am more than okay with.10 I love Amy Poehler. And the rest of the cast too.11

10. Fuck me. Looks like the teevee broadcaster have different plans for their fall schedule. A plan, for now, without Parks.

11. Aubrey Plaza = drool.

It goes down like this, superficially I can say subjectively that Parks is better than the rest. And that would be fine as it is my opinion and I am basing that judgment solely on my opinion. Except then, such statements communicate very little other than perhaps express my enthusiasm. It is tougher if I were to think what, even if subjective, makes that show better. Or maybe what Parks does objectively better that I give higher subjective value to? In some ways, it requires extended examination of things that I instinctively (perhaps) think/feel/judge. And in some additonal ways, finding out what it is, subjectively or objectively, I am thinking, feeling, or judging in addition or above those instinctive items. In any case, as is likely evident by now, I am the longwinded type that would not settle for letting things go unqualified or unjustified. Which tends to devolve to too much talk-y, or as here, type-y.

Basically, if the teevee is on, I would watch most anything, especially if a particular show is blessed with syndication. Regarding The Office, I read something about something over the i-ternet in which one faceless person posted a comment to the effect that Jim and Pam, the nominally supposed sympathetic characters/protagonists, all the pranks they play on Dwight, upon reflection/as a whole, are just asshole-ish disgusting. Which swayed me. Office is a good show, mostly well made and acted. At the same time, it is voyeuristic fascination with pettiness, stupidity, humiliation, and vacuity. Is that what I really want to be getting from a show, or consenting a show to foist upon overly sensitive me? Well, I try not to think about stuff like that.

I do understand the whole theater of cruelty idea, or understand following a quick googling. And I can understand the assertion that there could be value in the mere presentation of unpleasant things. Albeit these days I am more and more suspicious of that being an excuse for an inability to actually say something or to offer an alternative to said presented unpleasantness, the re-connection that is the point of the theater of cruelty. So Parks is better, in part, because in addition to being fun and funny, the characters and their motivations seem to be more humane, or multi-dimensional. More generally, Parks forgoes easy cynicism and ironic detachment, and its characters open themselves to risk the cliches and express the more common or basic elements of life: sharing fears, friendships, love, hassles, pains, and so forth.12

12. I substantially stole the sentence and its sentiment from a (presumably) different e-commenter. Less eloquent as I twist it for my purpose.

Somewhere else in the e-verse, a (yet) different faceless forum commenter posted that almost every episode of Parks passes the Bechdel Test.13 I am fairly certain that is not true, because the rigors of situational commercial television comedy should make Bechdel Test compliance pretty difficult in even a majority of Parks episode. But who knows, maybe it is true. In which case, neat.

13. Original Dykes to Watch Out For comic, video discussion, or google? The merit or imperative of the Bechdel Test, moreso in a mass/populous long form medium like movies, is - if not obvious - still, to me, very relevant. It is useful tool for critical (even if subjective?) evaluation/viewing. At the same time, what I hope to "get" from a movie, or any artistic expression, is mostly aligned with auteur authorship. The presence or absence of any conventions, such as car chases, happily ever after endings, or soft core teasing, let alone whether chicks are yapping about their yeast buildup is not a determining factor.

Other than that, Megyn Price is brilliant, amazing, and priceless. Modern Family is smart enough to not get in its own way, or fall into dumb traps.

why read fiction

2010-03-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

one friend said he does not (like to)

read narrative fiction because of its disconnect

with reality, because fiction offers

no "lessons", or no real / useful things to be learned or applied.

i am not going to opine on this,

because the stance is pure,

mind-boggled daffiness. if this friend was serious about it, that is.

sometimes people

say things just to not say nothing, if you know what i mean.

i generally do not understand that.

i am fine with not talking.

but the compulsion to just say things happens with

such typical frequency that it is what it is.

besides on occasion taking

due notice, a contrived asymmetrical brow set or a long sidewise glance,

it is of small overall consequence.

maybe i am wrong.

then as well, this feels such a small matter

to feel too awful for being wrong about.

Further Process in Ego Building

2010-03-11T18:25:00.000-08:00

Oboy oboy oboy, so apparently, Jia Zhangke is going to be in town to participate in some thing for Asia Society, and for a retrospective at MOMA. I am so excited, someone has to hand some tissues over. Jia has been so much discussed here that I will not (over) bore you with my fawning. But there is a bunch of his flicks that I haven't seen, either I was not quite aware of Jia at that time or couldn't make time, that I am genuinely so excited. Oboy!

Asia Society, I had mentioned, hosted a sorta Tsai Ming Liang mini retro recently. For some reason or another, my fear of leaving downtown, or trekking uptown, I skipped it. Well, out of what they had planned to screen there was only one must see for me, and I just couldn't make it for that. So you know, life goes on.

I was not sure what I was expecting in Taipei before I got there, but once there, it was awesome. I told my friend, it feels like how I imagine Hong Kong to be in the 1980s, which may be due more to the areas I hung out than anything. What I meant by that was that Taipei seemed less a full fledge modern city, than a large city with many modern touches. Today's HK is more to me like a modern city, all new high rise and mall centers, with hints of its cultural legacy underfoot here and there. Like I said, both impressions likely were biased by where I stayed in the two cities. In HK, I was based in Causeway Bay or Central. While Taipei, I was around the back alleys of Taipower Building Station/National Taiwan U. But really, just look at the night markets, food hawkers/stalls, and such, in HK, they have been receding, if not at places pushed all together out. Taipei still does it right.

Neither fortunate nor unfortunately, it rained all but one day while I was in Taiwan, some months ago by now. Okay, unfortunately only in the sense that I was coming from Japan, which was (in the Kansai district especially) hella chilly, and I was eager for tropical Taipei for a nice balmy and humid change of pace. Now, wiki tells me: the northern part of the island has a rainy season that lasts from January through late March. Oh, no matter. The downpours came off and on, and was mostly mild, so not much inconvenience. Except no outdoor hot tubbing in Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Plus, boy, I hate soaked sneakers and socks.

Still, the wet weather helped create a vivid and specific type of image and experience. Some ways, I felt I was in Tsai Ming Liang's Taiwan. Not that I was getting my perv on, but one of the recurring imagery/motif in Tsai's movies is water, or rain, or leaks/puddles/riverways/and so forth, at least predominant and recurring as dancing dream dwarves are to David Lynch. I am thinking of The Hole, or The River, my main access point to Tsai's movies. Just a touch, cuz while the rains magnified the grey melancholy and the struggles for and against modernity that seems evident (for me) in Taipei, it ain't as bleak, austere or nasty as Tsai typically portrays either. Taiwan Up, as 101 brightly exhorts.

My friend said that slogan caused some confusion when it was unveiled cuz of its context-free and grammatical vagueness. But, come on, we are talking about Chinese folks. Look at the (mis)spelling on neighborhood Chinese takeout menus, English is always going to be... uh, Chinese to them, if you know what I mean.

Deserves mentioning, about Taiwan, and Japan, the food everywhere was simply awesome. Foodgasms, my travel friend would explain with still pent up longing. There are too many favorites, but at Hualien, the scallion pancake with its oozy fried egg inside is stapled to my memory. And Ximending's street stall stinky tofu, oyster pancake. And all those many wonderful izakayas in Tokyo and Kansai district. And the rice. And sweet oily mackerels and sardines. The kao liang, sake, & shochu. And I can really go on and on, and on.

The benefit of adopting a rather vegetarian intensive diet is that the Lent restrictions has been a piece of cake. It never made a difference in years prior because the once a week meatless meals was not such a hardship anyway. But aside from the more modest portioning, I am keeping it one meal per Friday, it feels like an everyday meal for me. The other day, at a neighborhood Japanese dinner, a friend said that if anything I should give up alcohol over meat, cuz that would be, like, meaningful to me. Which may be true, but I was like, I am not there searching for ways to deprive myself, ya know. It is not a competition. Besides, this lent thing is a purely symbolic gesture. I rationalize, perhaps. Anyway, they were feasting on all sorts of meat protein goodness, seared steak, tender tongues, and marinated mackerel-zushi. It was not as tough as you would think, sitting meekly on the sidelines while they pigged out, but it was not totally easy either.

The Jia Zhangke flicks I really hope to catch are: Xiao Wu, Platform, and The World. Xiao Wu (or Pickpocket) is his debut, and Platform is his second (and many estimate as his best). World came out when his reputation was firmly entrenched, and for whatever reason there was some backlash. It was still highly praised, but there was some reticence. World is a departure or shift in Jia's moviemaking, so I am thinking the popular (so to speak, cuz I can't imagine popular acceptance of any Jia movie) and critical reception needs time to come around. Maybe it already has. I am talking a little out of my ass though, as I have not seen the movie. What I did see, that dizzying delirious great opening (and bits from the trailer), looked unfuckingbelievably super.1

1. I borrowed World on DVD once, and had to turn it off after the first 3 or so minutes. Way too good not to watch in a proper movie screen. A dolled up modern Chinese person wanders the sprawling underbelly of an entertainment complex, repeating a plea if anyone has a band aid. An offscreen someone eventually responds, yelling at her to quit yelling. Jeez, that's like a metaphor or something, right? And that is just the opening sequence! Here's an alternate trailer.

Anyway, I was really tempted to catch MOMA's first screening of World this Friday. But. I was thinking of seeing if my girlfriend might want to see some Jia flicks with me, and figured World would probably be an ideal entry point, or Platform. Part of the reason is that Zhao Tao is in both of these, while still undiscovered for Xiao Wu. I must have already expressed that Zhao Tao is, like, the best actress ever, right? Maybe the best working actress currently? In all the good ways, Zhao Tao reminds me of my girlfriend, or maybe it is the reverse. For example, both are quite easy on the eye and radiate a fantastic, daring energy. Which must all be boring for you the reader (if anyone), my private fawning. Anyway, she said she was busy Friday, and the weekend in general. So I am going to take a chance to wait and see if maybe she can find time (and patience) next weekend. Even if it means missing Jia and Zhao introducing and Q&A'ing this weekend's screenings. However, I will be miffed if I miss any and all three of those movies.

Um, maybe I overstate with the "girlfriend" business.

Which may indicate relationship's problematic nature.

But for the moment, it seems fun to say or write "girlfriend." For a change.

Which may indicate loser.

Until recently, I kinda felt that Jia's nuclear detonation output would compel a designation as the 00's director of the decade.2 Admittedly a useless title, especially in a noncompetitive endeavor. However, in these accelerated times, Jia tackles the reality of modernity and modern life head on. Or at least better than anyone else.

2. Johnnie To? Claire Denis? Manoel de Oliveira, Eric Rohmer, Michael Haneke? They are in the discussion, but do not make the final round for one reason or another. Hong Sang Soo's rep seem to be soaring, but I lost touch with his movies years ago. And definitely not Wong Kar Wai.

Then while reviewing the various top decade lists, movies by Apichatpong Weerasethakul kept popping up around the top of the top lists. By that somewhat empirical basis, I am rethinking. Still a futile exercise, for the same reasons. I should preface this here by saying I only caught one Weerasethakul flick, Syndromes and a Century, which was really good, but I think its many merits are, in one form or another, present in his other flicks. I do intend to earnestly look out for screenings of his movies, but a disclaimer is deserved nonetheless. One is one. Anyhoo, the difference in Weerasethakul's moviemaking is that, above dreams and other subconscious doodling, there is transformative and mysterious magic. How everyday life, or despite it, is still informed by forces unseen and ancient.

The similarities between the two directors are likely numerous: patient, careful observations; sympathy for the struggle and the struggling; a wide, wandering curiosity; confident mastery of the language of moviemaking; thoughtful assembling of imagery, sound; and so forth. Yet, when it comes down to, I believe, assessment by the list-makers, it's the difference in emphasis, or approach, that finds one of these two directors more favored than the other. Jia's investigations into the perilous and loose grounds of contemporary reality/life versus Weerasthakul's assertions that the mystical still hovers outside (or inside) reality/life. It is unfair because the (probable) perceived differences are so inadequate, but it does speak to what kind of movies folks find more timely or essential for today (or as a recap for the decade). The portraits of the consequences and muddled interactions of modern life, or reminders that that invisible unknown has not yet forsaken modern society. Weerasthakul's otherworldliness wins out among the critical establishment. Of course, all the movies I have seen from these two dudes have been a-mazing, so really no losers here.

If I was the box in type, and again based on only viewing Syndromes and reputation, I would say Weerasthakul belongs in the camp of fable and myth tellers. Not in the way where the uncanny is used as a device or some other artifice, like what I kinda feel the surrealists do. But with the sincerity that the extraordinary (co-)exists, only our ability to relate/perceive/understand it has diminished. And the fable tellers offer an avenue for reconnection. Like Native Americans' (and most indigenous/"pagan" cultures, probably) communion with the spiritual/natural world, or the brilliant movies of Manoel de Oliveira and Eric Rohmer, or magic realism literature. Maybe.

Oh, and today, I did see Xiao Wu.3 Quite amazing. The MOMA introducer told how the museum promptly purchased a print of Jia's debut flick soon after its screening in the New Director New Films series. It is one of those debuts that you can tell more great things would be forthcoming.

3. "Today", and as I use most temporal place markers, is a vacillating term, in case you have not guessed.

Otherwise, I love Joanna Newsom's songs like I love my dick size.4 I did pick up Ys by harpist Newsom some months ago. I was initially a little wary cause I thought I missed the boat, since her CD had been out for a bit of time already, and what's cool about being unfashionably late to a party? But ever being cool ain't something that I should be much worried about, so I e-bought the download, and so glad I did. Astounding CD.

4. Raekwan, Ice Cream?

And so far, Have One On Me, her just released newest CD, has been close to as stupid good. Soulfully folksy, but at turns swooning bluesy, epic, & private, and then her enjoyable erratic voice, and the shimmering sprawl of literate lyrics. And everything else. So far, not much backlash. Have One is marketed as 3 CDs, with a 2+ hours of runtime. All the (18) tracks are listenable, but it would be a stretch to say all of the songs are successful. For whatever reason, I have not been able to connect to a few of the songs, at the moment. Those few songs may just not be up to the standards that I set for Newsom. Just as well, however, I may not be ready to be properly receptive to her new directions/ideas. This was the case with 1 or 2 of the Ys track, and yet, I ended up loving those Ys track more than the ones that initially drew me to finally buy that album.

Despite my saying there are some weaker tracks, boy, those many more marvelous Have One tunes are just flat out, like I already stated, good. In the loving lullaby for babe Esme, Newsom sweetly insists, "Kindness, kindness prevails!" I like to think so.

In a nationally televised late night performance of Soft as Chalk, Newsom showcased some goofy facial expressions as she twists and culls glorious life to her song. Do people criticize/mock when men folk strain to seek and bear voice to their tunes? I'm thinking no. Still, Newsom expressiveness does lean to the grotesque at times. It is what it is. But neither is that a criticism, or if anything, quite the opposite. Like keen athletic fingers that move with quickness to hold chords, or pick strings, hammer keys, Newsom physical toils to contemplate and produce magnificent, unique vocal performances are for fascination, applause, and admiration.

I watch you sleep,
repeating my prayer.
(Give love a shove
and it becomes terror.)
Now I am calling
in a sadness beyond anger
and beyond fear,
Who is there? Who's there?
Who is there?

I glare and nod
like the character, God,
bearing down
upon the houses and lawns.
I knew a little bit,
but, darling, you were it,
and, darling, now it is long gone.
Sweetheart, in your clean, bright start --
back there, behind a hill, and a dell,
and a state line or two --
I'll be thinking of you.
Yes, I'll be thinking,
and be wishing you well.
We land, I stand,
But I wait for the sound of the bell.
I have to catch a cab,
and my bags are at the carousel.
And then -- Lord, just then,
time alone will only tell.

I'm thinking something 'bout a long distance relationship on the rocks. A plane ride, for reunion, or in separation? Maybe I am a dim-bulbed philistine, but some of the piano bits from Soft as Chalk reminds me of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, or some ragtime-y rhythms. But this comes with a confession that I know, even putting it mildly, zilcho about music.

Have One's finale song Does Not Suffice is, like with any last song from a decent album worth its salt, quite outstanding. It ties some of the thematic strands and whatever narrative the previous 17 tracks traversed, including bits of melody off In California. Then Newsom offers her intonations, and those direct, precise images. And that nervy inquietude. The song starts:

I will pack up my pretty dresses.
I will box up my high-heeled shoes.
A sparkling ring, for every finger,
I'll put away, and hide from view.

Coats of boucle, jacquard and cashmere;
cartouche and tweed, all silver shot --
and everything that could remind you
of how easy I was not.

I guess it is not gonna be exactly your traditional happily ever after. I always say breakups and other relationship maladies are made for the most wonderful silver linings. Like yielding rich, plaintive love songs. And those word choices! Some I would never imagine ever annunciating. Kahil Gibran, in The Prophet, puts it:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

It is not complete garbage to say I am only happy when it rains, ya know. I tried to para-quote that sorrow carves to contain more joy bit in a conversation not that long ago, but very likely horribly mangled it. Now however, I think I will get it closer next time I fake erudition. Still, I simple cannot wait - as if it was a matter of choice - to get into a relationship if just for that messy disintegration.

Newsom continues, boiling the matter down:

It does not suffice for you to say I am a sweet girl,
or to say you hate to see me sad because of you.
It does not suffice to merely lie beside each other,
as those who love each other do.

Ha. I don't want to see you sad because of me. I probably said that baloney before. Or not. If not, at least I got material for next time. Optimism precludes an "if ever" addendum to next time. Well, maybe it is not exactly optimism if I am already prepping for the dissolution/quarreling.

Not Suffice concludes with this evocation:

The tap of hangers swaying in the closet --
unburdened hooks and empty drawers --
and everywhere I tried to love you
is yours again, and only yours.

Such lovely devastation. And precision. Actually, Not Suffice, from my limited exposure of Newsom's oeuvre, presents a rather different type of Newsom song, for its directness, a - for all practical purposes - artlessness. Her lyrics/poetry at times, while immensely eloquent, is given to a faith in the expressiveness of imagery and allusions. Not Suffice seems so naked and confessional in comparison. Though, if you ever gone through a (good, or more often bad) break up, serious question, what's with the overall need by the heartbroken one to state the matter as such, given the probably awareness or reality that the heartbreaking person (typically) no longer gives a shit? Maybe that old bugaboo closure?

And yet, Not Suffice does not actually conclude with those lines, but with an instrumental passage. I love dissonance in general, and Newsom really ends her song, and the album, in a shock wave revelry of weighty sonic rupture. An urgent contrast to the stately sparseness that carries through most of the song. A sorta minute and a half coda to the coda. Is yours again, and only yours. Loves it.

The only thing better than a new Newsom CD is something from my most favorite band ever, Lali Puna. Their, or more appropriately her, as Lali is all about frontwoman Valerie Trebeljahr and her singular electric genius, new Our Inventions CD is hitting stores and e-stores soon. Oboy. O-boy. Here are some videos. Trebeljahr looked like she got a little chunkier from the 04 to 05 year plus span, or her arms did.5 That, however, has no bearing that Trebeljahr remains the hottest and my most favorite chanteuse. And man, is that sky in St. Malo gorgeous too.6 Our Inventions soon, and hopefully a tour stop near me.

5. Assuming you click thru.

6. See note 5.

Till then, I just paid downloaded Beach House's Teen Dreams. Not sure how I feel about their atmospheric tunes, but not bad so far. Victoria Legrand has an androgynous-y thing going on with her singing. And the music is pretty and affecting. From what I gather, this Baltimorean dream-pop duo has been at it for awhile already, Teen Dreams is their third long play, but I just heard of them. Speaking of androgynous, I'd say Owen Pallett kinda gets there. Any delineation gets mushy in my ear where dudes range up to fine falsettos and chicks deepen with husky, bluesy voices. I am really doing my best to resist Owen Pallett's new CD. I pretty much like everything about him and his music, but it comes down to money. Or maybe someone has and wants to lend me Heartland?

By now, some, if any, may have noticed that I shuffled the sidebar links, including the new appearance of two links. The pieces of iwashi sushi I had in Tokyo, at various kaiten-zushi shops,7 was all, as is said locally, oishii. One of the Denpachi restaurants was, according to internet sources, in Shinjuku, the ward my hotel was in. Denpachi supposedly specializes in sardines. Never got the chance to go. Perhaps next time. In the US of A, the tinned stuff is among the usual suspects in my pantry: topped on sandwiches, sauced for pasta, and so forth, all yummy. Plus, sardines are healthful and a fairly sustainable wild fish sources; proper management is still a must however. But the sardine fan site showed me to what to look for in the market, what is good and not. And I admire the silly, happy devotion.

7. Even at Narita, a last sushi high before leaving. As tips go, if you have the time, go to the food court in the domestic terminal, the chow is a little bit better there.

The other new link is to my photo site. It is ... uh, well, it is what it is, photos.

Mt Rushmore/Crazy Horse Memorial/Badlands

2010-03-04T14:47:00.000-08:00

It would not be entirely accurate to credit my crush for life girl for my if not total conversion but greater emphasis on a vegetarian diet. At different times, T was fasting, a vegan, an eggs, diary & fish vegetarian, and, as she puts it, "as long as I don't know what's in it" vegetarian. Plus, an aversion or allergies to shellfish, mushroom, cumin, and counting. What the? Forget assigning credit, try understanding first. Women folk are not easy to figure out, even a perfect in nearly every way one like T.

It wouldn't be difficult to come up with reasons that have nothing to do with my enduring infatuation for T. A reason, if annoyingly secular, is that, mostly cook at home a hella lot, meat is way mad expensive. Or, the vegetarian alternatives are much less so: legumes, rice, tubers, greens, and that sort of stuff. Not to mention carcass proteins are a hassle to shop. Another is health reasons. Often all the basic nutritional needs and without many of the harmful arterial side effects can be met with a balanced veg diet.

A big reason is also a greater vegetarian diet conforms better with how I feel about the environment and culture. These days, no kidding ourselves, the veg most people get and consume are off mechanized, science enhanced, and filth producing industrial enterprise. Yet, as we still have to eat, the veg farm/industry is leaps and bounds mo' betta than meat production. That's the environment side. And also the answer to the lesser of two evils choice between grain fed vs grass fed beef. It don't matter. Just eat less of either/both. Way less, like way over 50% less for the typical fatassed American.

The culture side has probably more to do with my luddite leanings/yearnings. For most of history, and currently still for many people 'round the world, meat proteins make up a tiny portion of most meals. And usually prominent for "special" meals, whether prosaic weekly family dinners or bigger celebrations. That luddite taint did all sorts of things to alter my kitchen habits. I don't really imagine this as weird, but, for example, I keep a freezer bag in the ... uh, freezer with all the odd ends of various veggies and herbs I may on occasion utilize, like the stem sides of carrots, fronds of fennel, stripped stalks of thyme, and add 'em as either aromatic for stock, or straight up for veggie stock. Also a freezer bag for poultry carcasses, another for shrimp shells, and etc. for, again, stock. A small jar of rendered duck fat, when I had from past-made duck whatever dishes; duck fat is taste bud dynamite. And a larger-sized jar of my "red cooked" master stock. These type of use and reuse things happen in a lot of households, and, I assume, were status quo in the not too distance past.

With chilly winter on the way out, I'm looking forward to rebooting my container herb garden. Even with only one short season managing my small windowsill patch with dubious success, winter without fresh and accessible herbage was a harsh deprivation. While sorta planning out what varieties to incorporate, what I worried about was soil and fertilization quality. Do you know what compost is? I don't, but that impairment does stop me from figuring it might be something I need, if it was affordable. Anywayz, the point of which is that I started thinking, gee whiz, I should be composting. Well, specifically contributing my organic rubbish to a compost. Composting ain't always easy to do in the big city, but more feasible in less urban setting. Of late, I have been sorting non-paper/plastic/glass waste into two bins, for landfill and for composting, and plan out trips to the couple of collection areas in my neighborhood. This borders, I think, in taking things a little far. Maybe. The gist is that these collection entities gather the organic trash, add it to their far away compost heap, let nature do her decay thing, and then package the stuff as expensive potting compost. Sadly, no likely return favor in free or discounted potting compost for me. Oh wellz.

It also would be inaccurate to say that magically radiant T played no part in my burgeoning sorta vegetarianism. Quite some time back, my favorite girl C stated her desire for a vegan conversion. I was totally, like, whatever. T's example, like T herself, is something else. One is the tremendous force with which I am happily attentive to everything about her, resulting that I would be much more receptive to her vegetarian/vegan tales. Then, some of it is participating in her decision and sharing the pleasure in that. Holy shit, does that sound unhealthily obsessive? Hmm... it would be a lie to say I ain't obsessed with T, and her dark nourishing eyes. I don't necessarily mean sharing in her experiences or using that as a vehicle to relate better to/with her, but at the same time I want to foster however my own interests may align with hers. Well fuck, that certainly don't sound less obsessive now, does it? Maybe this gets it better: the fact that T was a more or less dedicated vegetarian made it fun as I changed my dining habits, even while my changes evolved independently. Not related to anything, but the distracted, grand potency of T's voice is pure joy.

All said, I'm not and wouldn't wanna be a vegetarian. Tortured or otherwise slain animals and animal products taste yums. That alone should be sufficient reason. If there was a dawn of time time where human folks sustained their groups/packs/villages exclusively on vegan meals, I would say that was rather short lived. Humans are omnivores by nature. Moreover, denying or rejecting meat is in many ways a denial or rejection of important familial and societal celebrations/traditions. This mangles it but there is the subverted "eat to live, not live to eat" adage. Turning away from something that taste good, and has been a key element in any cultural celebration, seems like a mighty, awkward strain. For the animal's part, I do my best to honor, as a lot of chefs and foodie and farmers like to flaunt, every section of the carcass, from hooves, sweetbread, blood, offals, to ears, cheeks and stewed tails.

As for, probably not all, other arguments for vegan adoption, about the cruel treatment of animals, I, and this seems kinda brutal I know, I don't care. Animals are, I believe by definition, animals. Maybe it's because my cold evil heart and soul has never been properly thawed by pet ownership, but as foie gras and lamb, as clear cases of more inhumane aspect of food production, are so delicious, it's really tough breaks for any organism lower than humans in the food chain, which is basically everything.

Aside from the feelings, or "feelings" as I mock, of the animals themselves, there is also the gross avalanche of filth that is associated with meat production, as it relates to the food itself and the defacement to mother nature's natural landscape. Disease, hormone cocktails, feces, chemical runoffs, profligate inefficiencies, usurpation of vast tracts of land for nefarious and unnatural industries. But you know what? Somewhat recently in a too brief - because anything short of forever, as it relates to T, would be too brief - conversation with T, she accused me, I hope not too seriously, of hypocrisy for stating sustainability as one of my chief dining principles, cuz meat production, as, like I confessed, I still eat beef, is just about the worst use/disaster to the environment. I replied, I know. The thing is that nearly everything that is horrible about livestock cultivation goes on with non-livestock industrial farming too. Any high ground is a rather low hung fruit. And for counter arguments about going organic, or careful, selective purchasing from trusted sources, well, the same could be said for meat and meat products too. No? Right?

It's tough to sustain a morally or intellectually honest position on this unless it's really a dedicated shift to a fringy, marginalia type stance. There must only be a slight incremental harm in modest consumption of meat products as opposite to a complete vegan diet. Unless the vegan food source is really home grown or well researched reputable providers. In which case, that's pretty impossible except for folks with abundant space to farm and garden on their own, or for the ultra wealthy who can afford the exorbitant premiums of reputable goody two shoe providers. In which case, I hate from envy those people. About the moral position for the inhumane treatment of slaughtering/exploiting animals. Well, treating animals inhumanely is not a big deal, because they aren't humans. But okay, let's say that's subjective or I'm a total dick and am completely wrong on this. I think then, is whether abstaining from inhumane treatment through non-consumption of meat a valid moral position. More to the point if cruelty is such a yucky evil, is abstention enough? I'm not talking about full throttled radical PETA-rorism, but let's say a devout vegan who shops at Whole Foods, and thus adds cash money to the bank accounts of those who promote animal misery and torment. It doesn't take much to get messy fast. Or likely, I'ma just stupid or simple about all this, and not know what the fuck I'm talking/writing about.1

1. And just as much, I have no idea what T does aside from her various stated dining status.

Regardless I hope I'm not coming across as preachy, cuz I know that ain't peachy. So what does this all come down to? Nothing. What a surprise, huh?

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.2

2. Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself".

Once upon a time, I was posed, "What was the most beneficial course you took in college or highschool and why was it beneficial?" My answer, "None specifically. The courses in college and high school should be taken for the pleasure in and of itself."

Part of Mike Rose pretty darn outstanding book Why School? deals with this:

We live in an anxious age and seek our grounding, our assurances in ways that don't satisfy our longing--that, in fact, make things worse. We've lost hope in the public sphere and grab at private solutions, which undercut the sharing of obligation and risk and keep us scrambling for individual advantage. We've narrowed the purpose of schooling to economic competitiveness, our kids becoming economic indicators. We've reduced our definition of human development and achievement--that miraculous growth of intelligence, sensibility, and the discover of the world--to a test score. Though we pride ourselves as a nation of opportunity and a second chance, our social policies can be terribly ungenerous.

Not one to shy from redundancy, Rose again, this time not from the book:

What we hear from across the political spectrum is that the reason we send our children to school is to be ready for the 21st Century economy. And the way we measure our success is through a standardized test that is typically far removed from the cognitive give and take of the classroom.3

3. From Huffington Post.

Now Rose, and is clearly stated repeatedly as such in Why School, does allow, "[t]o be sure, a major goal of American education is to prepare the young to make a living." The problem lies where that the economic/career motive tsunamis every other consideration. "But parents send their kids to school for many other reasons as well: intellectual, social, civic, ethical, aesthetic. Historically, these justifications for schooling have held more importance."

What I'm getting at here is that in, and I should qualify as limited/abbreviated phone conversations I had with a relation o' mine, let's call the dude J, several talks with J, he described his lil' girl's college misadventures, and his main desire that she gets out of there with marketable job skills, aka employment prospects/security.

My view on this is more extreme than Rose. But let's mellow with Rose first. Rose might say to J that his concerns are valid, but insufficient and way too confined. These various excerpts are good, so don't casually glance through any of them.4 Why School addresses some of the things that are lost, no longer addressed or obscured, as economic goals have dominated the educational discussion, and why revitalization of these non-economic considerations is a matter of tremendous urgency:

We educate for a number of reasons, and people have written about them since the first decades of the republic: to pass on tradition and knowledge, to prepare the young for democratic life, to foster moral and intellectual growth, to enable individual and societal prosperity. All are legitimate, and a good education fosters each of them.

There's not much public (and private) discussion of achievement that includes curiosity, reflectiveness, uncertainty, or a willingness to take a chance, to blunder. And how about accounts of reform that present change as alternately difficult, exhilarating, ambiguous, and promising - and that find reform not in a device, technique, or structure, but in the way we think about teaching and learning? Consider how little we hear about intellect, aesthetics, joy, courage, creativity, civility, understanding. For that matter, think of how rarely we hear of commitment to public education as the center of a free society.

We need public (and private) talk that links education to a more decent, thoughtful, open society. Talk that raises in us as a people the appreciation for deliberation and reflection, or for taking intellectual risks and thinking widely - for the sheer power and pleasure of using our minds, alone or in concert with others. We need a discourse that inspires young people to think gracefully and moves young adults to become teachers and foster such development.

4. In fact, Rose has an exacting perceptive writing style that is quite good.

I come around on this this way, any parent holding that economic/career preparation is the goal for his or her child's education, that position is just plain folly. Rather, those other more aspirational goals should be the sole motivation for a young adult student. Borrowing Rose's word from different sections in Why School:

A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it.

All the foregoing helped me develop a sense of myself as knowledgeable and capable of using what I know. This is a lovely and powerful quality - cognitive, emotional, and existential all in one. It has to do with identity and agency, with how we define ourselves, not only in matters academic but also in the way interact with others and with institutions. It has to do with how we move through our economic and civic lives. Education gave me the competence and confidence to independently seek out information and make decisions, to advocate for myself and my parents and ... to probe political issues, to resist simple answers to messy social problems, to assume that I could figure things out and act on what I learned. In a sense, this was the best training I could have gotten for vocation and citizenship.

Or, I'll repeat: The courses in college and high school should be taken for the pleasure in and of itself. The main gist for why is that, and obviously there are qualifiers for this, young adult kids have zero clue about careers or any economic/vocational future. We are talking about maturing teens who firmly believe manga and anime to be the epitome of artistic expression, who make selection of majors based on the choices of their boy/girlfriends, who have hardly been in the real and wider world, let alone can project themselves in that world

For J to hold to the belief that the goal of higher education is preparing his daughter for a career, that first requires - even greater - faith that his daughter is capable of deciding on a job path early on in college, stick with that job path through college, and then pursue that job after college. Goodness, even Job wouldn't be able to muster the requisite stride for that leap of faith. Now there are, like I said qualifiers, in the form of exceptions like strict vocational schools. Or the highly motivated, serious minded youths who are already dead set in pursuing dentistry, pharmacy, accounting, agriculture, and so forth; in which case, good for fucking them. Or those with obvious talent, like my blog idol desaite, who back in the daze as a wee high schooler was already a highly accomplish and superb spinner of prose.5 But J's daughter, like most of the bourgeoisie dreck - I don't mean it quite as nasty as that sounds, but it is what it is - use college to find, and discover, and, yes, blunder. Or, most kids change majors, flunk, drop out, make bad decisions about alcohol, drugs, & sex, nearly go to jail, run up fantastically high bills, stay up way too late, eat poorly, choose bad friends, and so forth. No use fighting that.6

5. I also gloss too quickly the fact that many kids leave high school ill prepared with basic academic skills, and need college as remedial training.

6. Not too long ago, I was talking with some people, and I stated how it wasn't till well after college that I began to appreciate food. By way of bringing an analogy to this, imagine asking a college student what would be a great meal. The typical response likely would be something safe, vague, and/or boring. And this is only about food. It takes time, experimentation, curiosity, and daring to even look at food. Projecting a career is going to be different or simpler? How?

So my stance, dads should encourage and harness that exploration and curiosity first/foremost/solely in their children, or better yet, participate in it. Nothing productive happens in college. I know it's hard for J, footing the tuition, housing, meal plan, and miscellaneous, to accept that college is a degree dangling scam. Well, J is sensible, so he knows higher education is more or less a con, but most fathers think their progeny somehow will be different and really take full advantage of college. Nothing to say for this except, sigh.

The better way to beat the system is to forget all that economic career mumbo jumbo, but use school for the kid's pleasure, taking whatever classes that fosters, informs, and intensifies curiosity. And if she comes out the other end more curious, that's a victory. Or, perhaps this will make it more palpable, that cultivated and honed curiosity likely will go a longer way in making J's daughter marketable and interesting, and fiercely aware of herself and her abilities.7

7. If anything, mastering time management probably would have the biggest impact on ones career.

Then again, there'd be less to convince if she passes all her classes.

As qualifiers go, I also don't want to seem like I am cavalierly disparaging youths out there. Toward the end of Why School, Rose quotes from John Dewey:

The child of three who discovers what can be done with blocks, or of six who finds out what he can make by putting five cents and five cents together, is really a discoverer, even though everybody else in the world knows it.

I bring up this gentle appreciation of cognitive growth because it applies to jaded college students as well. Which might seem an odd way of not disparaging folks, declaring that they not know the things pretty much most adults know, but J's girl and most young adults are still discoverers. And in this respect, I'm rather reverential of and amazed with the depth and range as their potential get realized. Envious, even.

So, there were talks of an extended road trip this summer. San Francisco was supposedly a potential destination, but I was made to understand that Vancouver was among the options too. Vancouver, or specifically the northwest, holds much more appeal to me. There is just many more stop options for the drive. The way I see the route, there would be - from east to west - Chicago to Mt Rushmore/Crazy Horse Memorial/Badlands to Yellowstone Park to Montana's Bozeman dinosaur attractions and natural hot springs to Glacier National Park to Emerald City Seattle, and etc. Essentially, plenty of neato places en route for a quick 5 minute scramble.8 Anyway, you know what various google sources said would be another worthwhile stop along the way? Cour d'Alene, for its lakeside, resorty scenery. Cool.

8. See "Bande a part".

This is off of near the end of Tom Pynchon's Against the Day:

Jess brought home as an assignment from school "write an essay on What It Means To Be An American."
"Oboy, oboy." Reef had that look on his face, the same look his own father used to get just before heading off for some dynamite-related activities. "Let's see that pencil a minute."
"Already done." What Jesse had ended up writing was,
It means do what they tell you and take what they give you and don't go on strike or their soldiers will shoot you down.
"That's what they call the 'topic sentence'?"
"That's the whole thing."
"Oh."
It came back with a big A+ on it. "Mr. Becker was at the Cour d'Alene back in the olden days. Guess I forgot to mention that."

Apparently it's easy for me to forget my history. Cour d'Alene was also the setting for some mean and murderous labor tussles.9 Now the Idaho city is famous as a popular weekend retreat for the region's well to do. Cool. But anyway, for the time being, Vancouver seems to be out of the running for the summer.

9. "Against the Day". A-mazing.

This is not, seriously is not, Obama is a big fat phony w-site. The many cheapshots visitors (if any) may perceive notwithstanding. Well, I uh, well, he is. Which is besides the point. The ultimate thing is that I'm woefully ill equipped, nor have any such interest, to be his e-attack/watch dog.10

10. I guess this requires slightly more clarification, in the slightly drawn out story type of way. On Democracy Now recently, there was a show-long interview with Rob Redford, who depending on age group, was either your mum's or your grandmum's prime screen heartthrob. The interview was ... alright. Like always and in all things, cause that's the type of jerk I am, I can find things that I wish were different or, to brass tack it, better, but alright is alright. Anywayz, there was some questions lobbed for Redford about his outsider status. In response, the once matinee headliner described his formative years studying in Europe and his entanglement with politically curious youths in Paris, which included, "And they would challenge me politically, and I knew nothing. I grew up at a time when Nixon was the senator in California, Earl Warren was the governor. I thought they were boring. They were guys in suits that sounded boring and acted boring, and so I didn't have any interest in them. When I was challenged, I was humiliated. They said, “How can you not know how you feel about your country? How can you not know about the politics, when you’re in the strongest country in the world?” Well, I was chagrined." (Emphasis mine.)

This blog is meant to do certain things, in some ways a lot of things, and in many more ways no things. But even where the content might have a political slant, this a not a political blog, whatever and however that might be defined. Yet, that is not to say that political considerations, more specifically as Redford describes it, "how you feel about your country," should be dismissed, discouraged, or ignored and so forth. Even in the oft skewed and more oft inadequate way I stay inform about these things, knowing about how you feel about your country is dearly important. Just that for me, not sure if this needs to be added but what the hey, up till today at least, this blog is not where and how I'm doing it.

Why School, in addition to the above, intrigued me with quite a few other ideas. One rejuvenating surprise was that the purpose of education is to produce an in/evolved citizen. It is a prominent expressed in several of the excerpts I had above: "to prepare the young for democratic life," "commitment to public education as the center of a free society," and "the best training I could have gotten for vocation and citizenship."

I had asserted that pleasure and curiosity building was the main aim in education, but in a sense, it's not that removed from Rose's conception of a realized citizen. Citizenry has so much to do with curiosity, being interested in those things that might not seem to be of immediate concern, but in fact actually is. Where the self is not viewed in isolation from the world, but within the broader world/community/neighborhood/other hokey idealism.

The other outstanding thing Why School does is the examination of opportunity, and in the process reveal how powerful it is.

... I'm especially interested in what opportunity feels like. Discussion of opportunity are often abstract -- as in ideological debate -- or conducted at a broad structural level -- as in a pollicy deliberation. But what is the experience of opportunity? Certainly one feels a sense of the possibility, of hope. But it is hope made concrete, specific, hope embodied in tools, or practices, or sequences of things to do -- pathways to a goal. And all this takes place with people who interacts with you in ways that affirm your hope.

People leery about calls for standards need to remember their benefits and reclaim them for democratic ends, despite the fact that standards and assessments can be used to limit access and stratify students into educational tracks, or can lead to an overly prescriptive and narrow curriculum.

I habitually (possibly simplistically) diss hope. But perhaps all those hope advocates know something I don't (I am still a discoverer?). Anyway, last year I wrote that I like to see within the first year of the Administration:

Retool DOMA, if not its obliteration,
Drastic troop drawdown in Iraq.
Drastic troop drawdown in Afghanistan
Guantanomo detainees released or tried under courts in accordance with full due process rights.
Increase spending on infrastructure (non-highway variety) and alternative energy.
Universal health care
EFCA passage.

If I had my heart set on any of the items, let's just say disappointment city, as either it hasn't or ain't ever going to happening, and in some cases horribly and intolerably so. Which regardless, not that Obama needs it, I'm going to give him a pass. Unless anyone has no clue how the USA government work, it ain't only about Obama, but also those little people in Congress too. And judiciary, and bureaucracy, other folks in the executive, and etc.

For sure, culpability (and credit) is most readily charged to the president, as the national figurehead and all, and for that matter, I ain't absolving Obama either. Rather, responsibility to fix and improve our nation and the lives of her inhabitants is shouldered by all the different members of our mutilated government. Nothing prevents any specific person from tackling headon the challenges and roadblocks, from correcting what needs correcting, from pushing the work of government to a better path. They, just as much as Obama, were elected to - or otherwise voluntarily accepted - office. This is not a call for the folks in Congress (or any other branch) to cooperate with the White House, or with each other. No, government officials meed to rise above party, lobby groups, or any other allegiances and make their intelligence, independence, energy, and conscience their guide to bring the necessary change and reform, and be loud and persistent (aka not measly symbolic outrage) when things do not go well. It's not okay to defer to get along decorum, be hand tied by partisanship, or bend to the meekness within ones own political party or the fear/confusion of the populace. And I'm not ignoring some members of Congress, for example, who try to do good work, but, as I'm raining blame, I guess it ain't good enough, and they gots to do better. Otherwise, all that remains is squandered opportunity.

Since this is a pox on all houses screed, let's not, for us folks in the private sector, settle as a fatass, docile citizenry either. To not be discouraged before the fortifications of evil, especially as those carapaces are most often held only by flimsy compromise and neglect. No more turning a blind eye, or throwing up hands to formidable status quo. If the men and women in DC can not find the opportunities in these dark and contentious times, good and brave citizens can. Otherwise, why school?

----------------------------------------------------------

This might reflect poorly, but here goes.

Tarrytown, NY is historically and usually linked with Washington Irving. For which the immediate thing that pops to my mind is how cool that Tarrytown was the birthplace of peanut butter, and other peanut product derivatives.

Seconds, maybe a minute later, oh, that's George Washington Carver. And I still have no idea what the Legend of Sleepy Hollow or Rip Van Winkle is. Well, I kinda do and don't. I misremember it as Rip Van Wrinkle, and suspect it to be a cautionary cosmetic tale about frown lines, brow furrows and such.

No Safeword

2010-01-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

As I continue to read Pynchon's Against the Day, one thought that keeps popping up is "holy shit." And most of that is just for how a-mazing the writing is. There is this urge to rip out the page and to gobble up the words, and then a paragraph later, sentences later even, same thing: tear page shove in mouth words in belly.

Then the whole Obama thing, as in his campaign for a Peace Prize repeat with the cruise missile strikes in Yemen and corresponding mass murder of civilians, including lots of children, fuck sake. He's our (or your) hero?

Or two other hot button issues of climate policies and healthcare reform. I can afford brevity because as anyone (if any) following along here might already predict about my perspective on the O-administration tackling of any significant issue or its agenda as a whole: nothing is happening. Nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing. And that's the optimistic take.

Being the good leftist that I fake out to be, the last Bill Moyers Journal was pretty interesting.1 Robert Kuttner, whoever the fuck he is, sez he (and I think by extension, the public) would do the hold-nose-vote-bad-bill for healthcare reform to bolster the failed president and the failed Democratic party. And saying failed is being kind, cause what we have here is a betrayal. I mean seriously, ain't it like, okay, he got elected already, that ain't enough for his confidence? The American folks have to get another round of mass anal raping and wish something good will happen in 2010. Really? Tighten the buckles, slip on the ball gag, and assume the strappado, is that right? And in this BDSM passion play, the politicians never tell you, there is no safeword.

1. Um, well, this entry was conceived, and more or less mostly written, end of December 09, so "last" would be very inaccurate. December 18, 2009 episode? Similarly, the Yemen missile attack, dated, though relevance hardly outdated.

For Obama and the Democrats and their waterlogged healthcare reform, I think, rather, Tupac: We might fight amongst each other but I promise you this / we’ll burn this bitch down, get us pissed.

The second segment of Bill Moyers' television show was on battling in the foreclosure crisis. What might not be obvious but I should make so, is that I don't really care about a lot of the banking problem. For the most part, I realize the politicians are in bed with the banking industry to screw ordinary people. And admit that a hella lot of money has been burned to save the banking fat cats. But I give them more of a pass because within the banking industry there is more competition with each company to screw each other (as well as other big corporate interest) over. And most players are financially sophisticated. Even Mr. Joe and Mrs. Josie Shmoe home buyer, the contracts and mortgages are there for their due diligence review. So I'm not naturally sympathetic to all the get-aheaders who got in over their heads.

I'm also befuddled over the freakout over bonuses. Especially with the absence of parallel outrage for bonus payouts in pharmaceuticals, information technology, industrials, sports, entertainment, agriculture, and so forth. It's like some talks with my dad about the Yankees, he's steamed about Alex Rodriguez's salary, but ignores the fistful of money stuffed in ownership's pockets. I can't see the exact sense, or intellectual honesty, in joining the bank bonus boo chorus. I also own some shares in a couple of such financial institutions, but seems to me, considering the widespread criticism, that doesn't imply bias, one way or the other.

But back to the point, the Moyers Journal foreclosure segment was a feature on Steve Meachum of City Life/Vida Urbana and it brought up alot of good points that I'ma guessing I need to re-think part, if not all, of this housing meltdown business. Something to do with not evicting these miserable loser legions and allowing them to repurchase (or refinance?) their homes at the "fair market" rate, which coincidentally is what the banks would be doing anyway via the foreclosure proceedings, but don't for the original owner out of a profound belief in punishing (aka moral hazard) the poor suckers. Huh? There is something seriously wrong, or seriously can be improved upon, here.

Meachum's story also spotlights why I'm increasingly antsy with what the media or politicians or pundits state as a lack of protest or unrest with all the rotten happening in business and politics. I see plenty of folks putting up fights, mostly brave, sometimes hopeless. If anything, I see the media, politicians, and pundits not paying due attention to the populous movements, and more, much more, tragically missing out on the chance to join in them.

A fine goldmine of a Moyers Journal also had his 2009 book recommendations. Oh social consciousness wet dream! I'ma maybe taking too much liberty in saying "recommendations" for what are instead his 2009 top book picks. Ain't exactly the same thing as recommendations, I'da think? Oh wellz. But I've been seeking to restock my to read pile with a new Amazon order and the list has a couple of need-to-get. Like Why School? by Mike Rose.

As valid as voodoo maybe, but it is like making a connection to read on a subject that I think H (for Helen) has a more than passing interest in, amirite? The assumption is that anyone working in education must have a stronger than strict professional interest. At least until he or she is so tenured and then it's just joining forces with the teacher's union to leech the system, uh, maybe? Anyway, who's to say whether Why School will be hardcore or relevant enough. But that's all I got, and it's as a good of a source I got for guidance on the state of education, which I have to assume is a freakin mess.

Once upon a time via internet chats, H would, uh, chat with me off and on, less so for what's been a pretty long time already. Other professional or personal priorities might be filling her down time commitments, or maybe a late discovery that I'm a rotten to the core cad. Or nothing, just one of those things that happen. Whatever, if any, connection that occurs from reading a book, I suppose it's one sided. Certain things from our past conversations resurface, some matters that are of concern for her are shared, aspects of her daily/professional life textualize, and so forth. Not in a definitive or emphatic way, but in a rather measly but tonal way. Still, it's hard to say, for example, whether reading up on education will be ultimately reductive, as in anticipating or foreclosing what H might say, or expansive, giving color or shape to her stories. In any case, when (if) I chat with her again... well, hopefully we'll find amusement with life's simpler digressions and not broach on work related ho-hum. And if a talk don't come up as soon as I may like, Why School will just be a makeshift pathway to be around some of her preoccupations.

This past holiday, among other gifts Santa-surrogates gave me, was Superfreakonomics and Logicomix. Logicomix was not super. For a lot of reasons. One of which is that the chicks in the comic are so poorly written. Objects for men to, on whim, lust, pity and ignore. Half objects even. In a better universe, Alys or Evelyn would step out in flesh, blood, and bone, find the co-writers, and slap them bloody and hard. But then again, if they somehow did join our real life world, they'd probably have more pressing matters to attend than my revenge fantasy.

As faint praise, I would say Annie Di Donna did a bang up coloring job in Logicomix, a lot of the warm vibrancy, say, of Herges' Tintin or Krahulik's Penny Arcade stuff. I'm geek enough that coloring is interesting. Otherwise, Logicomix flunks the decent graphic novel standard. I took Superfreakonomics with me on my trip, expecting or fearing I'd finish it super quick and it'd be a deadweight for the rest of the trip. But even with double digits flight duration - each way - I read only a lil over 100 or so pages. So much for stressing that I would run dry of vacation reading material.

Also otherwise, now that I did finish it, Superfreakonomics is pretty good, and useful.

A bit of some odds and ends. In a recent blog entry, I listed some directors not mentioned at all in either of Time Out NY's or London's decade's best list. And you know what? about my snubbed list, not one of em a chick. Which, in typical I'm never wrong recalcitrant fashion, those eight directors I named were for those that had two great flicks this past decade (and from my viewing, wouldn't have resulted in any female directors not already listed). A wider net with 1 great flick probably would have resulted in more female directors (such as Mia Hansen-Love).

But I don't think I could too vigorously defend my excuses. One thing about blogging is I can go back and kinda see, when I did such exercises, the representation of female directors in my past yearly top 10 (or 5) lists. 2006 none; 2005 Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Lucrecia Martel & Zana Briski; 2004 none again(!); 2003 Lynne Ramsay; 2002 Lee Jeong-hyang, Jeong Jae-eun, Claire Denis, & Nicole Holofcener (as an honorable mention). Gee, that ain't much of a record. I ignore the so so movies of Ann Hui, Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyer, Mira Nair, Sofia Coppola, etc. Ultimately, I haven't really caught that many chick directors. I've never seen any Catherine Breillat, Kelly Reichardt, Jane Champion, Chantal Akerman, or Rebecca Miller, from the brighter batch of chick directors, if a confession is called for.

Still, more than my own viewing habits (without mitigating the narrow scope of those choices), it's the industry that really is not giving the gals opportunities to make and then to showcase/distribute/market their movies. And by extension to the industry, critics and the media are also implicated. From Time Out NY's decade's top 50 list, only two chick directors were represented Claire Denis and Mary Harron. Time Out London's decade's top 101 list has 4 chicks: Marjane Satrapi, Catherine Breillat, Kelly Reichardt, and Sofia Coppola. Not a lot of chicks there. Rather pitiful. Film Comments 2000-decade survey has 4 female directors in the top 50: Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Kathryn Bigelow, & Lucrecia Martel.2 Over at Film Salon, in its discussion for Films of the Decade and Directors of the Decade, you know how many female directors or female directed flicks were mentioned? 1. 1 for Rebecca Miller's The Ballad of Jack and Rose.

2. I absolutely love Agnes Varda, and she is a first rate director, but lists that mix documentaries and narrative movies suggest, to me, insufficient rigor. Or, not enough consideration is given to either form of moviemaking, and hipness, splashiness, or name checking becomes central. Or that's my first take problem with it.

At some point, a movie needs to stand on its own merit, without consideration to class, age, gender, ethnicity, sex orientation, nationality, etc. There's been entire years that no movies by female directors (if I saw any) placed in my fav/top list. And I haven't considered a decade's ranking. So all and all, who's to say where'I'd rank movies by chick directors. But there is something tangibly and terribly amiss going on if one considered the state of women directors or women made movies. Maybe.

This all is so inadequate, ain't it? I know. I'll leave it as is.

This is UK's movie rag Sight & Sound compiled top 10 for 2009:

1 A Prophet (Un Prophète) (Jacques Audiard, France/Italy)
=2 The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, USA)
=2 35 Shots of Rum (35 rhums) (Claire Denis, France/Germany)
4 The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) (Michael Haneke, Germany/Austria/France/Italy)
5 Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) (Tomas Alfredson, Sweden/Norway)
=6 Up (Pete Docter, USA)
=6 White Material (Claire Denis, France)
=8 Bright Star (Jane Campion, UK/Australia)
=8 Antichrist (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland/Belgium)
10 Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, USA/Germany)

And here's NY's Film Comment version:

1. The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow, U.S. 772 points
2. The Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/Spain/France/Italy 762
3. Summer Hours, Olivier Assayas, France 745
4. 35 Shots of Rum, Claire Denis, France/Germany 605
5. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson, U.S. 552
6. Police, Adjective, Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania 542
7. Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, U.S./Germany 499
8. A Serious Man, Joel & Ethan Coen, U.S./U.K./France 472
9. The Beaches of Agnès, Agnès Varda, France 404
10. Lorna’s Silence, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy/Germany 382

Nothing to say about this except: Let the Right One In, awesome, awesome, awesome movie.

Keeping in spirit with nothing to say, also this. I don't know anything about A Prophet, or haven't followed the publicity for it. About Jacques Audiard, back in 05, I caught The Beat That My Heart Skipped with my favorite gal C (for Christine) cuz she was hot for Romain Duris. I wasn't too bowled over by the movie or Duris's performance.

These days, in the ww-web, Pascal's Wager is most prominently raised in association with the disaster that is the environment. Summarized as: the benefits of treating the global warming as a real threat, even if the catastrophe never materializes, far outweighs the gamble from doing nothing against global warming. The argument goes: taking steps as if the threat was real means (A) catastrophe is averted, if global warming were to happen or (B) net boon of long term advantages such as cleaner environment, energy independence, better national security, renewed manufacture & tech base, and so forth, if global meltdown is a sham; not taking any steps against climate change means (C) catastrophe dooms everyone, if global meltdown occurs or (D) long term disadvantage of bad environment, continued dependence on foreign oil, increased national security threats, lost opportunities with new manufacturing and technology, etc., if global warming is fake.

Which, when I first came across such formulation, seemed imminently sensible to me. Other e-folks quickly shot back that it was an updated Pascal's Wager argument, for which I mistakenly thought validated it. Too easily impressed with fancy terms. But it was apparent that the term was not meant to reinforce said argument, but to debunk. I wondered, then, how or why.

I'ma willing to bet the fallacies or drawbacks with employing a Pascal's Wager type argument would be easily obvious to many. Cause most folks are just plain smarta than me. If I hada cook up sumthing to counter the climate Cassandras, I'd go:

1) Erroneous faith in ability to predict the right steps to be undertaken.
2) Erroneous faith in whoever or whatever is planning/executing the steps.
3) Erroneous assumption that other individual, corporations, or governments will share similar views/goals/steps/etc.
4) Related, but distinct enough I think, unpossibility that sufficient coordination/cooperation among other parties (individual, corporate, or inter/national level) can ever happen.
5) Erroneous faith that the right problems are targeted.
6) Erroneous faith that the right causes to the problems are identified.
7) Erroneous calculations on the (net) boon slash cost.
8) Etc.

Extending a line of inquiry or injecting a lil more complexity (scientific, economic, social, personal, etc.) and the Pascal's Wager type justification for climate action starts to look silly, or naive, or wrong - depending on how nice or not nice you wanna be to the person bring up that gambit. I'll take as example something that seems kind of removed from the core stance of many climate doomsayers, grass fed cows. At first blush, or for the half informed like usually myself, grass fed beef is the way to go, for many reasons, including the suggestion that it's a more natural product: pasture land, wilderness, and all that mother earth jazz. While grain/lot fed beef is another abuser of fossil fuel, natural gas for fertilizers and oil for pesticides. But things get mightily complex and murky but fast with even tiny bit of secondary examination or googling. Contrary to the idyllic image of cows in pastures, grass feeding (if even close to similar beef production is maintained) would lead to mass deforestation, way above the mass pollution and land degradation already. Plus, the rumination byproduct methane burped out by grass fed cows are much greater, as in several times much greater, than from grain fed cows. Methane is considered a much more harmful contributor to global warming. So... what's someone making an environmental wager suppose to do? go toxic methane belching, expensive (again, id'be by several factors more so), healthier grass fed beef or go fossil fuel propelled, science engineered, affordable grain/lot fed beef?

Or is one's individual/city's/state's/nation's/continent's preference on this question enough of a difference maker to curb/correct global warming? Or what authority (moral, scientific, etc) is sufficient to coerce or persuade others to the same decision? Or does grass versus grain feeding even warrant serious, if not policy level, at least mass movement changes? If so, how certain is the benefit or cost of these changes? If so, how fair is it for certain groups, like the cow people, to bear the cost? And all this is just from a cursory thought exercising, if you forgive my indulgence and/or inaccuracies. But just taking the question a little further out points to how complicated and serious things can get.

And I'm far from saying to maintain the status quo or be paralyzed with inaction. Climate change is surely real, and the danger of it is clearly serious and real. I'ma just saying what a non starter it is to frame the global warming inquiry as "gambling" on catastrophic climate change, or finding only/net benefit in taking such a gamble. Or if Pascal's Wager is hole riddled to justify faith in (a) god, similar holes gap for legitimizing climate action.

And about the grass- v. grain-fed cow dilemma, as if I possibly could, I'll get back with the answer to this, don't worry.3

3. In this instance, I even might, for reals.

So anyway, the internet remains a glorious thing. I was visiting a forum, or blog, or however you wanna describe a website that allows folks to vigorously interact via posted comments, and some other visitors posted about a/the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I had no idea what the heck they were talking about, but hey, I didn't think too much of it at the time, because it was the web after all, who has spare time to google every weirdo tidbits that comes up? And who needs to know everything about everything? But it would be a testament on how terminally unhip I am. Later on, I guess while surfing to get a better grasp of the differing opinions on Pascal's Wager, which I'm gonna just shorten to PW going forward, cuz typing it and mentally "speaking" it in my head, that term really ain't too catchy, Flying Spaghetti Monster appeared again. At which time, I did Googled at last, and neato.4 Blasphemy aside, or a sign of fervent devotion? that perhaps explains my frequent pasta craving.

4. As you are e-reading, not too hard for ya to likewise Google, if you don't know and wanna know.

More recently, at the same site where I first came across Flying Spaghetti Monster, one of the dudes there used the term "shown throat." Which again, I hadn't the foggiest idea what it meant. This time, I wasn't the only one caught in the cloud of confusion, and another site visitor succinctly replied, "?" Though shown throat must be more broadly recognized as the next post, by someone other than the dude who originally used the term, explained it.5 Essentially some animals, like dogs for example, present their undefended vital as a sign of submission. Neat, again. Such an endless source of surprise/diversion, that internet thing.

5. "Amirite" was also something that I saw a bunch of e-people use, that I didn't know what it was, and wasn't compelled to figure its definition. Or at least until I eventually was compelled to figure it out.

Woohoo!!!1!! World Champions!!1!1!!

2009-12-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

This will make no one happy.

By now, for those who have interest in these type of things, the United States State Department has 1) completed its review of landmine polilcy and 2) no plans to sign the Ottawa/Landmine Ban Treaty. Let's see what kinda trouble we can get into with this.

Following a google of transparent government Obama, 4+ mill results promised, result 1 of the shown 1-10 had this (pertinent excerpts):

Transparency and Open Government
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. ... Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. ... Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government.

Us folks learned that the O Administration took up the review of the landmine policy because they said they finished it. That's fucking transparency and openness and participatory and collaborative? Holy fuck. Or, the audacity of, ya know, meaning or doing whatcha say. Keep hoping, I guess.

Golly, more of my fussing about O is probably too oldhat for anyone (if anyone) who have been following along here,*A but then the stale taste would be even more evident for anyone (seriously, is anyone?) who have been following the - let's not use "progress" because, well, it ain't - going ons of the O. Yeah, landmine policy may not be on every American's hot topics, but it likely is for quite a few. And for the administration to take it up in secret, why? I mean, I get the secret dealings with the the pharmaceutical (ie, not transparent, open, participatory, or collaborative unless you mean, only with the moneyed interest), like hell yeah, what's not too understand about blatant reneging of a campaign promise cuz, like, lobbyists were shoving a shitload of cashmoney down Obama's throat - luckily, he swallows - but landmines? Is there a pro-landmine lobby? Aside from the military, I mean.

*A So it's no all on O, though as Prez, it really is, for whatever role Hillary played in this, and especially if she played none, criticism shared.

As to whether O telling the International Campaign to Ban Landmines to screw off is a right or wrong thing, jeez. I think this. It is a tough decision for any state to relinquish any of her rights, particularly in regards to the use of force and self defense. Yet obviously there is already a long, long list of treaties and conventions that does exactly that, so nothing too unusual here. When asked why not ban, a Whitehouse spokesperson came up with, "We would not be able to meet our national defense needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this."*B Hrmph, working through this, the other powerhouse non-signatories would be Russia and China. For what it's worth, Steve Groose supplied, "In fact, the U.S. is the only country that has said it will never join the convention. Even others like Russia and China said it will eventually join." Next, all of the NATO pals have signed (or acceded, if ya wanna be super technical). So ... that leaves S Korea and Israel? Both Koreas have laced the DMZ with landmines, in a peculiar form of detente. As for Israel, genocidaires already, ya gonna knock them about landmines?

*B If there is trouble googling the source, or for anything else here, let me know.

I always think describing who is in and who is out of, say, a treaty is a little too gimmicky and cute, but Iraq and Afghanistan ban landmines, Pakistan no.

If it's unclear, I'll be a little more clear: landmines, landmine use, and the gross suffering that they demand, forgotten but potent in the ground years after whatever petty conflict had been decided, are decisively wrong, evil, stupidly evil and bad. Last year, mostly from old, landmines killed and crippled in the thousands and thousands, most of those thousands civilians. Not to mention the ass massive economic and environmental wreckage. The right and wrong is O's decision for the USA to not be part of the ban.

In Obama's, if I had to be kind in assigning an adjective, ironic Peace Prize speech:

I believe that all nations, strong and weak alike, must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I, like any head of state, reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates – and weakens – those who don’t.

Now, not joining the Landmine Ban treaty is not quite the same thing as throwing a landmine early spring planting party. Critics of O's landmine decision will point to the fact that the US has been in substantial/defacto compliance with the treaty: haven't used 'em since the first Gulf War back in 91, banned the exporting the things since 1992, cut production since 1997, and backed plenty of de-mining work. So that's kinda the light to view the right and wrong. Not extending whatever moral authority/legitimacy the United States may (still) have to a vital humanitarian effort. And trusting the kindheartedness of the Commander in Chief will suffice in upholding standards that govern the use of force. Which ... well, I guess when you factor how the Commander in Chief has (not) upheld requirements of the US Constitution and the ratified Convention Against Torture for, say, privacy, executive misconduct, due process rights, interrogation methods, and etc., yeah, etc.

Not shielded from wrong or concern, the United States has one of the top three stockpiles of landmines, some 10m antipersonnel mines and 7.5m anti-vehicular mines. And have used, recently, cluster bombs, the left behind explosive "duds" that act as de facto mines. So ... whatcha think, right? wrong?

I wish I coulda remember the precise context but over a pretty good dim sum*C in Flushing, Queens, S (for somebody)*D muddled about risk management, how chicks are more and better risk managers, and then religion as a risk management decision, describing a system of thought where it is better to spend an hour praying in case God exist to prevent bad things from or to promote good things to happening. In any case, I gotta believe the one hour praying includes travel time, cuz, like, seriously? Anyway, S asserted a sorta perversion of Pascal's Wager. A term which shoulda'b familiar with those active in forums or comment section of blogs, as Pascal's Wager is easy namedropped by the largest forum/blog habitues, the overspenducated types freshly exposed to philosophy or maybe game theory and stats.

*C The only half decent dim sum houses and, for that matter, Chinese and Korean restaurants in general are found in the boroughs, not Manhattan. If you really want to get down to it.

*D If the jig ain't obvious, when I use a letter to represent a somebody, that letter also is his or her initial. In this case, S is Shel. In other cases, Peter, Christina, Lynn, and so forth. There's a range of reasons, the prime one often being no reason, for doing things this way.

Outside in still balmy for late autumn 39th Avenue, I framed, "Worshipping god as a risk management maneuver don't seem like a feasible idea, or with extremely limited utility, to cover your bases wouldn't ya have to worship MP*E and/ or the moon and/or the fire hydrant? Who's to say any of those ain't God?" Inconsistent revelations is one of the more generic criticism leveled against Pascal's Wager, though I guess I'ma casting it on a much more basic, though I wouldn't say invalid, level. MP is a knockout, ya gotta figure an hour on hands'n knees with her would be ... be... uh, what wuz I talking about again? Essentially, to the bored annoyance of some in the larger party, I persisted, "Where does the idea of religion come from? Or why this alleged god, and not some other, factors in the risk analysis? Ain't everything about (modern) religion from its practice to conceptions of reward and punishment, and so forth, pushed by culture, ie forced by men?"

*E And so forth?

For some reason, S proceeded to posit that the risk management somehow could explain the genesis of religion/religious belief. Like a prehistoric cavedude 'xplaining scary flashing storm clouds or badly timed upset tummies and after some quick and dirty risk analysis by the other primitives, voila, new cult fever. I'm like, you saying that risk analysis explains why modern people practice faith, or was where religion sprang from, or what, both? Serial? Instead I keep a-jabbing with a variation of my questioning, "You mean folks collectively and spontaneously decided that?"

Somehow he granted that religion was/is generated by culture, but still missed the implications of that. By then, I was pretty miffed, and couldn't help but ranted on how in the dawn days of any religious movement, choice wasn't on the table, either believe or die. And dat religion, either as the ruling class or complicit with the ruling class, was a tool to prop the elite and to subdue the vast rest: human sacrifices, witches at the stake, (Tibetan, for example) systemic illiteracy, rigid caste structures, divine emperors, etc. I mean, Christians bided their time as feed for Roman lions or hung broken bodies on crossbeams until they headed the heap, at which point torture and lit bonfires for the unconvinced, or aiding and abetting with the whole indigenous genocide thing. The aforementioned conversos or die.

Nerves restored upon nearing the Main & 39th cross section, white and blue clunky buses jamming up the already too stuffed grid for passenger pick ups & drop offs or shift changes for routes, depending on one's outlook, ending or restarting. I woulda've just added that if the modern age permitted choice in faith, and if risk analysis was done as S described, some weird variation of Pascal's Wager decision matrix, heck, that would be really, really poor risk analysis. Seems to me, it'd'a be more a referendum for, depending on one's taste for cynicism, which male culture was mo betta' at accurately articulating God and His/Her expectations or, well, which male culture is just mo betta'. Only the former slightly plays into the reward/punishment of the matrix. But we had to touch up the old ATM for hard currency cizzash. After that, a coffee break some place.

A-and 'spite how this sounds, to myself even as I review, wasn't meaning to be a blase rascal about religion, god, spirituality, and the rest of that stuff. Them're an entirely different matter. And should disclaim, punching holes in Pascal's argument ain't to dismiss his contributions in mathematics/probability/game theory/so forth. Erhmm, justa long way of saying I didn't know what point my friend was trying to make. The how of his thought processes not the substance, cuz wasn't like it was serious talk 'spite my taking it seriously. Passed the time for the Sunday afternoon alright though.

This chat transpired not too long ago (side conversations pulled):

S: yoo
need help
me: wazzup?
S: i cant think of a present for (a friend)
i looked into a jacket
but they ran out of small
...
im screwed
does she look like a medium to you?
or a small
...
it would be good traveling jacket for her
she is doing a (long) vacation
...
man
if she is a med then im saved, but there is only one left
me: go med
for a shell, usually she's gonna have a fleece or something heavy underneath anyway
and it ain't like she's gonna lose weight

I WAS KIDDING!*F

*F Can't stress enough, totally, just, kidding. I've zero opinion about anyone's appearance. Cuz I don't. And glass house situation, ya know. And that friend, she's a mega cutie pie.

Back ta trashing Godbama. I kidded the other day that I'm gonna quit being an optimist, cuz some train tickets I sought got sold out. The 39 Nays on December 2 from the NYS Senate are an entirely different matter. I can't quite say what I got here is expressly a pro gay site, or weblog, or however the kids define this www stuff, but the right for gays to marry is clearly something I support. Like, it's fucking equality. Now that my state has declared itself a safe haven for bigots, cowards, fascist pigs, & psychotic shitards, I feel lost. Basically it's as if everything positive, great, and hopeful about my state and my being in my state has become misery. And I'm hoping that time or the necessary fight to convince the 39 Nays of their immoral vote will change my perspective, but right now, I just want to get the hell out of this place, bat-style. Go/find/be someplace where all 'em French slangs like liberte, egalite, amitie, raison, charite, justice, vertu, fraternite, etc., where they, you know, actually mean something other than something-to-be-trampled. Not much of a fighter's attitude, is it?

38 of the 39 Nays are the dirtbags State Senators who rejected gay marriage. The remainder nay is for Obama. His position on gay rights gives cover for every coward and scum in politics to continue to deny equality and human rights to human beings. Obama's stance excuses spineless Democrats, and bolsters Republican sleaze. It churns the hate and intolerance machine. This is his great and grand fucking leadership, audacious hope and change? I ain't the type to mitigates the personal responsibility of the 38 NY State Senators for their dirty, horrific vote, but Obama, as the Prez, as the supposed transformative figurehead, as the self-labeled agent of change, why, there is no way to say he don't bear an unique and weighty onus for perpetrating a regime of hideous tyranny against human beings. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to god.*G So the fight goes, incredibly disappointed but unbowed.

*G See *B?

Roman Catholic, union gal, 23rd Senate District NY State Senator Diane J Savino's 7+ minute of realness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCFFxidhcy0. Play it the whole way through, definitely worth the watch. I could leave it on infinite loop. Was this kinda like following Obama in the early days, well, I mean, besides the fact that Sen. Savino actually/really does and stands for things.

I also gots to read up more on Gov. Paterson, Savino sez her Senate career was due to his tapping her shoulder, and the upswing of decent Democratic Senators may be credited to Paterson's groundwork while in the Senate. Plenty of mediots are saying he's in trouble, questions of competency, snub by Obama, & behind the scene forces squeezing him out of a 2010 run, but I can't say so far he's been awful, or, as politics go, inexcusably awful. Read up beyond re-reading Wiki that is.

MW mentioned midway thru our memorable movie conversation that she saw and liked Agnes Varda's The Beaches of Agnes. Cool, huh? Cuz I adore Varda, and Beaches was awesome. Pedro Almodovar's name came up, cuz his new flick was a standout draw this past New York Film Festival.*H Did I say "memorable?" Yikes, and I don't remember if MW caught Broken Embrace, or wanted to catch the screening but didn't. Well, memorable in not strictly factual detail way? 'Bout Almodovar, I sez, "He's super and all, but, you know, when is he gonna not make just another Almodovar flick?" As in he's peaked, and the recent batch of hyper-saturated melodramas are somewhat trapped and stuck, or let's put it this way, safe. And MW was totally getting what I meant. Well, of course, dudes are easily fooled into thinking any gal he's a talking to "gets" him, especially with alcohol involved. But still, I'ma saying, we more or less agreed. Though going through the motions on such an elevated plane - as my cousin recently caught Broken Embrace and couldn't more highly recommend it - might still be darn good, still worth forking over whatever price the movie theaters charge these days in admission. And who knows? certain moviegoers may never have been hip to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and so on.*I Plus Pe Cruz. She is like, like how the fat kids would approve, yums!

*H Bummers, Picasso-esque beauty Rossy de Palma doesn't appear in the trailer to "Broken Embrace." Cat Power in the soundtrack!
*I In roughly a fortnight, give or take some days, it'll be out with the old, in with the new decade. Once upon a time, skimming critics' year/decade/whatever time frame best of movies list was kinda fun. Less so nowadays as there're few/no critics I enjoy reading. But okay, I checked out Time Out's lists (both NY and London). A-and not awful, some good surprises, feels more open and international even if the stink of tokenism still stinks. And since I like to concentrate on the negatives anyway, who were the snubs and what does it mean? Among those with more than one super flick this decade not mentioned at all: Jia Zhangke, Manoel de Oliveira, Johnnie To, Stephen Chow, Jin Jo Hur, Chang Dong Lee, Takashi Miike, & Shunji Iwai. Even from directors who I only saw a single sampling of, still plenty of choices not from the USA or Europe. Maybe too much, as the kids say, wishcasting. Yet.

Even if intermittent avowals that I hate misogyny don't exactly recast these web-sheets to a feminist site, on the subject of bras I support: burn em and ban em. The health reasons are mostly for exceptional cases. And there are more than enough comfort and health justifications to go without them. However, I wanna spotlight a couple more. The first is the important stewardship of our planet. No bras means lots and lots less, depending on country of origin, Kleenex, Scottis, Vinda, Zewa, Tempo, Marcals and Puffs squandered as stuffing material, and the matching conservation of precious limited resources to produce and transport said tissue. Deforestation wrecks far-reaching environmental, social, and biological abuse, you know, endangered fauna and flora, icky pollution, global warming, exploitation of indigenous folks and so forth. No bra, healthier earth.

Second is cleavage fraud. I don't know about you, but it's a bit of a letdown when after the wine, and chow, the phatic babbling, electric light dimmed, wicked light aflicker, Curtis and Marvin grooving the playlist, a-and then, "Alright, now we're cooking," second base petting. Followed by the "Uh, where's the rest of that?" shock -> sorely disappointed look, both of which quickly gotsta be kept hidden as best as possible, cuz don't wanna place at risk advancement to the next base. Am I right? I mean, ain't like I'm mislead all the time, there are times when I'm like "whoa," or "sweet," or "yeah, baby." And the tricky part is I've gotten (see what I'm doing here?) my hands on the genuine enough to nurse expectations, and to get badly nipped for those expectations. Well then, just have to resort to bag of visualization tricks to keep the hard on the hard-on. Sport and nursing bras are a different practical consideration, but otherwise, no need to heave illusions to intrigue. Cup size, I hope I'm not suggesting anything but, hardly matters. Anyhoo, ditch the brassiere, ladies, and no sweatin things out in 8th circle Malebolge. Paired naturally, for dudes, tinfoil wrapped cucumbers bait and switch is a no no too.

Wrote that shit.*J

*J That's borrowed from one of the Matt & Kim youtubes I had prior linked. And I intended to phrase it the same way Matt sez it, but only so much can be done with letters on a screen. So fine, I'm getting the footnotes reader friendlier, but you got to click thru the links yourself.

union and contract

2009-11-21T11:41:00.000-08:00

marriage advice, as it is, went like this. first email:

you definitely should tie the nup-knot, but that's purely for selfish reasons. another excuse to head over for your wedding and or bachelor party! from an unselfish perspective, and without meeting the lil gal, can you really do better? and then depending on your answer, i'll stress, are you sure you can do better? i guess if you have someone that you get along with, it'll be hard to beat that.

follow up email:

shoot over some pics of your girl, i'll let you know if she's worth it. haha, obviously kidding. have you spoken about marriage with her? of course, that type of conversation inevitably leads to trouble, as in she wants marriage - and what girl hasn't been daydreaming about that day since, I don't know, 13 years of age - and you respond, "uh...," that kinda kicks the relationship into a different gear, the impending end kind.

still, if you two have been at it for awhile, in a sense, ain't marriage a formality? the past x time frame, weighing it as if you were already married, whatcha think? not bad?

ultimately, you're lucky. you still have so many years if needed. most gals' bloom have been set to fade by the time they hit 18 years old.

that's one way to put it.

anywayz. following the most joyful events/news, like ever, ever, ever, that being the 27th championship by the new york yankees, i gave thoughts to cave and purchase the jay-z alicia keys combo empire state of mind. jeter likes it, which would be good to go for me. casual listening, the tune ain't awful.

but then, i thought it'd be prudent, clickity click, to google the lyrics, and you know what? i fucking hate jay-z, and misogyny, and by extension why the hell would alicia keys back that rap.1 most of negativity fell on the later verses which preached the good girls gone bad cautionary tale, which is fine and all, except. except it's juxtapose with the earlier parts that glorifies stash pot, selling rock, and all that hood/thug/nigga-for-life lifestyle. other words, everything that fosters the situation where women-folk are marginalized and objectified and commodified and made into or thought of nothing but hoes and 'itches. jay-z is such a pedestrian at best, but more often boring, rapper; the storytelling is not much and the worldview is limited and callow.

different rappers offer:

So will the real men get up
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up.2

or:

I love it when you call me Big Poppa
Throw your hands in the air, if youse a true playa
I love it when you call me Big Poppa
To the honies getting money playin niggaz like dummies uh
I love it when you call me Big Poppa
You got a gun up in your waist please don't shoot up the place (why)
Cause I see some ladies tonight who should be havin my baby, bay-bee.

some unfairness, pretty much any rapper today pitted against pac or biggie, respectively, will fail.3 but either one reaches for the brass ring, or is horse poop. and i guess i get it, jay-z ain't trying to elevate the rap game, he's just there to get paid. in which case, stfu jay-z.

and alicia keys, i love her and all, - well, i love that she looks slamming, i've no opinion on her music - how can she sing jay-z styled bright lights as an inspiration? seriously. pretty repulsive, really.

All I need in this life of sin, is me and my girlfriend,
Down to ride to the bloody end, just me and my girlfriend.4

'noth'r thing, black eyed peas. they (and individually for their side/glam projects) have about the stupidest lyrics, like, ever; the kind that just plumb insults even the half-attentive listener. that they've been exploding ever more into the pop scene - cough, directtv, halfway is mad stupid, cough -5 whether it's ok or not to be a luddite, i'm thankful i am, to degrees, one.

before leaving for northern capital (or beijing), c (for cousin) googled, you know, entertainment options for her holiday. supposedly n.c. is drawing considerable attention for its underground, "experimental"/experimental music scene, no wave and other soundscapes. best of all, she said to me, she'll get to catch a few shows from hot or important acts, as some concerts coincide with her visit. she whipped opened her brother's computer notebook and youtubed a lil something by carsick cars, the one she likes most/more or perhaps the one she thinks i'd be most/more tuned in with, and then a lil video feature on chicks in n.c.'s rock scene, basically an interview of two cutie drummers: shi lu, aka atom, of hedgehog and li qing of carsick cars. i don't pay attention that way, since we were having dinner together, and asked her to email me the links. which she did.

she would shortly ask if i checked the links. "uh, not really?"

later, she hauled back from the vacation a bonanza of n.c. rock/cd trove for me. maybe i'm too preoccupied with my own musical interest, or i wasn't ready to be receptive to new/fringe music but days later, she explored whether i listened to any of the cds, "do you like carsick cars, snapline and pk-14?"

having not played any of the cds left in a stack on a corner of my table, "uh, (some made up poor and incredibly bad excuse)."

"but anyway," she said that, "we're in luck, they are touring the east coast. and shows in new york too. we can go see them." them equating to, from the flyer emailed to me, carsick cars, pk-14, and xiao he.

"uh, i guess," i committed. not really, cause i totally flaked on the free, more experimental session by xiao he and carsick cars' mastermind shou wang in a noho area basement, that she later would quiz why i didn't attend and describe as amazing. i can't really dispute, free shows have a built in advantage of being, well, free.

no matter, a couple of days after, the bands were going to put on a real(er), more conventional rock and roll show in a williamsburg stage. and she was going, and i went. by the entrance way, c knowingly pointed to a cute-ish, four-eyed chinese girl outside, "that's li qing of carsick cars."

"goodie." inside what turned out to be a rather small, but small in the way i like because of the intimacy, club slash dive bar slash, for those who may differentiate, hipster hangout, xiao he was most of his way done with his opening act set. m (for movie girl i had earlier met) was there. serial. m, i soon learned, knew most of the n.c. rockers quite well, and she was there - stationed close to the stage, filming or following along with an earnestness more than, or different from, simply enjoying the bands - as much for business as for fun. a little later that night, when the three n.c. acts finished, she would shake loose her documentarian obligations, and boogie down.

anyway, 2nd up were the supposed veterans of the n.c. scene, pk-14. when they had technical difficulties with a newly purchased amp, i heckled, "was it made in china?" irreverent snark is kinda my thing. an earflap beanie topped girl turned, chuckling, to find me to approve my verbal volley. before i knew it, she totally swiped the joke in hollering the same thing to the stage, but in chinese. biter.

this applies to next to follow carsick cars as much as pk-14, they were ok. by far not as experimental-soaked as i expect, a little too cool or perhaps rehash of their influence to impress me too much. joy division already did pk-14's seething intensity. and i yelled into c's ear halfway into a carsick cars song the summation "yo la tengo," which, while i really, really like hoboken yo la tengo, uh, their haze sound is so mid 1990's. otherwise, it's like they didn't allow their guitars to, as it were, go to 11. not that i necessarily like spine tapping loudness, though generally i do at live shows, but i prefer things slightly more raw or messy. midway into pk-14 sets, xiao he bulldozed through me and the crowd, probably to stagger outside to, i assumed, excavate a portion of the too much alcohol downed.

Was this amazing girl flirting? How come he couldn't tell?6

then, the resident brooklyn bands took the mic and the stage light glare, were slightly louder, and more raw and messy; in particular, these were powers were incrementally funner. soft circle and these were powers were, ultimately, more of the same okay. the fact that it was a cheap admission price, i'd upgraded it all to pretty fun. and then, was m looking at me meaningful? i mean, at me, as in when i turn to look over the crowd, she was clearly looking at me. to come clean, i have no recollection of ever being on the receiving end of that sustained gaze. i likely had been, back in the daze, but then caught up in other preoccupations, i paid no mind. but now, probably due to a slumped confidence, aka desperation, now, i notice her ... noticing.

with some personal history being behind the cornea side of things, first, there is the part where it is just being the thirsty receptacle of not just the light waves bouncing of, from my past experience, the girl,7 but the additional waves seemingly emanating from her. then, reviving a faulty greek notion, the belief that my optic nerve could and would salvo back messages of intent, desire, and more, embedded in so many particles than necessary. no light task, with the particles having to go against the wave, so to speak.

it was not, what the happy hours prowlers are said to excel at, "checking out," as that would be too loose and brief. nor could it be described via the blunt implications of "staring." rather, eyes voluntarily transfixed. finding instead of seeking, as if time would stall for nascent curiosity, speculation, lust, and comprehension. and there! like puneal and seneh ablaze, warning signs to shield my too long held eyes, except i could and would not. it was clear then it was a kind of wish. the distance shortened, narrowing to hushed contraction, or never was. and contact, imminent, even inevitable. or so i felt it to be from the last time i was so struck.

from the lookee side of things, unable to speak on behalf of the girls i looked at, from the experience that evening, one moment i was bounding in place, the first instance, to the bright drum beats of a soft circle's song and, m again, her looking again at me, a these were powers pop concoction. next moment, off guard and confused for being not only the possible object of attention, but perhaps affection. unsure whether or how much to be flattered. the initial unease fast giving way to even more unchartered territories, ie now what? but somewhere the sense that keeping or regaining m's serious and steady look was of utmost importance. or as - perhaps even very - likely, i sequenced events a little off, and the whole business of m's look was the old "what the fuck is he looking at" look. though that look, i kinda feel i'd recognize, easily.

"we should get together," m left things a couple of days later. at a sorta bon voyage dinner for a friend, she was there, more and more beautiful in my mind, already a stunner in real real life. after dinner, i walked m and the nigh homebound friend to a local wine bar in my downtown neighborhood. my botched response, "yeah, we should," before the last round of rushed hugs and farewells, and i started the slightly wistful walk home. was this amazing girl flirting? how come i couldn't tell?

She sat down, took a look at him. The Eastern eyes, the tension of whose lower lids had found a perfect balance between heat and appraisal, certainly were promissory of heartbreak.8

by now, i have played and still regularly play one of the souvenir carsick cars cd, you can listen, you can talk, their newest. not bad. and have clicked thru to the youtube videos. and so forth. uh, ... well, about that. i do not know anything about drums, for that matter guitars, rap, wave-particle duality, or really anything else either. like, zilcho. the strongest and chief memory i have about drums and drumming was from my bloody valentine. colm o'ciosoig's contributions were so there, so assertive and vital to mbv's sound and songs, especially against the band's rep for guitar fuzz and feedback. about the same time most likely, dave grohl with nirvana. shortly thereafter, janet weiss with sleater kinney. later, arlen thompson. most recently and in a big, throught shifting way, wondrously off-kilter kim schifino. one more time! generalizing a bit, i like my drums, you guessed it: 11. exactly, one louder. one more time! something more to the fore, and that stands out in the song and of the drummer's personality. one more time!

in n.c. is a place called heaven's peace doorway (or tiananmen), which infamously and tragically was the setting back in 1989 of what is now inadequately known as the june 4th incident. if you were glued to the tv at the time, or got some of the reporting afterwards, it really was some awful and heart wrenching shit that went, and in many cases still going, down. serial. but, you know what, why does the u.s. media give special coverage to remote china every june 4th, when their own government were the gunmen behind:

orangeburg massacre,
jackson state killings,
kent state shootings,
lattimer massacre,
bay view massacre,
memorial day massacre (of 1937), and
bonus army (of 1932).9

not to mention the government's longstanding complicity and or omission that gave company thugs/gunmen and bigots free rein to murder: greensboro massacre, thibodaux massacre. not to mention the native americans genocide, which is perversely celebrated by national holidays: thanksgiving day and columbus day. not to mention a whole fucking lot of things. not to mitigate or deflect the base stupidity and evil of the red-heads' decision at h.p.d., but i can't shake the suspicion that ongoing u.s. media attention is driven by a different, ulterior agenda.10 you know, if extreme sentiments are being solicited by the media turds, namely that china was/is uniquely barbarous and the u.s.a. is an immaculate virgin to cast judgment, i'd take the other polar tack, namely how things went down at h.p.d. is, and was, typical worldwide, and the lower class's struggle for reform is, as was, perpetual and universal. what is reported is significant for what is not being reported. they got money for war, but can't insure the poor.

this has been simmering since june, when the coverage, conversations and outrage for that h.p.d. incident boiled anew. though, depending on whether one is a calender half done or half to go type of person, either still means considerable steam loss here now.

and in the daylight we can hitchhike to maine
i hope that someday i'll see without these frames
and in the daylight i don't pick up my phone
cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home

when, or possibly if, i attest to being a new yorker it is from the angle of city pride. but before the end of the year or, what the optimist might describe as, soon, the state senators will be privileged in doing the amazingly right thing, following the lead of the assembly-folks, by passage of S04401 to allow gay marriage, and restoring civil rights and equality. mad props to black and blind gov dave paterson for having the audacity and moral fortitude that pres barak did not muster in putting the executives branch weight behind same-sex legislation. i hope one doesn't have to be black and blind to understand what human/civil rights and basic dignities are and mean.11 for whatever reason, i'm keeping faith for good news out of the normally dysfunctional senate, well, because i can't believe, despite ample contrary evidence, that reasonable people can be long unreasonable and flat out vile. that is saying i believe in long shot miracles, isn't it? but i'm all set to be the beaming proudest and happiest new yorker, like, ever. new yorker as in a citizen of new york state. as for roughly 53% of the 60% registered voters of pine tree state maine, go fuck yourselves.

plus: world. series. champion. new. york. yankees. !.

--------------------------------------------------------------

1. fuck, down on kayne, down on jay-z, down on the black eyed peas, down, so far, on nobel prize winner barak, does it seem like the only black folks i do like are dead black folks, tupac, biggie, malcolm, & martin? ... awkward. mmm... i really like spike. and tyler perry. and, well, badass carsten charles. 27, baby.
2. course, things ain't never that simple. a lot of tupac's rap trek the same misogynistic and gangsta terrains. tupac was also too entrenched, by association and or choice, in that thuglife scene. and the sexual assault conviction, even accepting tupac's version of events, is bad, bad business. for jay-z's real life, what can be said other than he's a soldout shill, which is awful but mostly innocuous. which still, i love tupac. there's his music. but also, 1) he served his sentence; 2) (maybe it's just an excuse, but) he was a young dude; and 3) he was still sorting his way and place in the world, still learning and growing. this might being a poor way of reconciling things, blinded a bit, but tupac was getting there, you know, black jesus, lennon, marvin, getting there to be transformative, something greater. except, well except tupac couldn't get out of his own or bullets way.

3. keep ya head up and big poppa, respectively.

4. me and my girlfriend, yeah, thanks jay-z for fucking up tupac's classic track.
5. so many dumbass commercials during the baseball postseason broadcast.
6. against the day, tom pynchon
7. that would, of course, be my crush-for-life girl, t.

8. see fn6
9. this had the added benefit of federal tanks rolling in to handle things.
10. yeah, there is a scale differences between china's crackdown and certain of the massacres/killings/shootings perpetrated in the united states (some but not all), but come on, there's so many chinese people, per total pop, it's really not that ... yikes, better not finish this. probably worth mentioning, and under reported, is that mass protest are frequent events across china, as are the associated unrest, riots, and severe government responses.

11. oh snap.

... four letters. Only L O V E.

2009-11-03T01:09:00.000-08:00

What a klutz I am. I should have added, by way of a footnote, about the tyranny of viewing arts, letters, drama, culture, politics, progress, etc., primarily, even strictly, through a Western perspective. At the same time, I really do not know nothing, I mean nothing, about the theater traditions in Asia or Africa, or America. I mean, I know dey got their pageantries, like kabuki, puppets, mask shows, songs, dance, backflips, but. But I'm saying, well, those ain't narrative drama/tragedy/etc. They's opera, pantomime, musicals, dance, whatever, something else what ever else.

I guess from those cultures that have a extended rich written traditions + poetry + literature + whatever else - that'd be mainly Asians and Arabic - why no parallel track to what the Greeks were doing, and the rest of the Western culture/Europeans would strive to develop. Something that was realistic/naturalistic. Or, strictly secular. Instead the Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Japs, Koreans, etc., stuck with exaggerated spectacles.

Was it democracy? Burgeoning humanism? A beneficial byproduct of competing/conflicting nation states sharing a more or less linguistic source? Or the riches gained through trade and exploitation nullified the stifling oppression of the religious state?1 Or just the way the beach ball bounces?

By the way, I know nothing about the cacophonous cross national/cultural achievements or ambitions, I should state outright, if it was not obvious enough. And I'm not talking about influence, because Western/European culture have been influence big time, always have. I'd imagine the renaissance got its big injection from what the Arabs preserved and spread to Western thought, or Bartelby's aggressively passive "I'd prefer not to" seems some kind of Buddhist mantra, Picasso got his African masks, modern art got its re-conceived perspective via Asian art, Hitler filched his party logo from the East, Pound's Chinese/Japanese induced imagism, Pollock's Mexican muralists, the Beats and Beatles and their Swamis, it goes on, and on and on.2 But what I am getting at is the reverse. How these other national/ethnic got transformed, influenced, and so forth by the West, or perhaps how non Western societies tackled the issue of modernity. Did linear perspective blow up the Japanese art scene? Did Shakespeare, Goethe, Moliere, Ibsen, Brecht, etc., transform and expand Korea's theater?

I know in other mediums Western influence was well incorporated and reciprocated. The most glorious, for example, movies and movie tradition sprang up in Japan, Sengal, India, etc. And literature. In both cases, the Western modernist traditions were absorbed then redirected in a way that still retained cultural vitality/identity. Yet, for the life of me, I don't know one play originating from Korea, China, Lebanon, etc. not just historically, but also in today's time frame.3 However, it'd take an especially powerful naivety to be blind that it is a small n' easy step to go from screenplays and teleplays to the stage. So if I were to discuss Thorton Wilder, and the innovations and development of the dramatic tragic theater, and I totally skipped any consideration on what was going on in Korea, Iran, etc., while I kinda can't really blame myself, I kinda don't mind being hard on me self, and say I fucked up.

Or flatly, I feel horrible, a sickening type of horrible in perpetuating the cultural imperialism that I find rotten and repugnant. I should have qualify my hackneyed theater discourse by stating that it was framed around a predominantly Western/English language perspective, and or also acknowledge the high probability that similar developments were going on in other cultures. Heck, those various cultures likely even done in faster and mo' better. And other apologies.

Not that I need any positive reinforcement or kind words; or, I do need them. Someone wrote: "I love [that'd be me here]. I'll never tell him to his face but i am very fond of that lad." Thank you.

The uhd'r thing I shud a' ad'd was that I'm so fucking well read and deep and know who Andrew Marvell is and my shit is so fucking brilliant, and works on so many multi-planes. Or not. But I lapsed in not footnoting "criminal coyness," which jokingly references: "Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime."4 See, deep, brilliant, and fucking well read. Or not.

A couple more things regarding this. Way back in the daze, I pretty much, over long distance, old-fashion copper wires, relayed to my cousin a line by line reading of Marvell's poem for her English/writing class essay. I feel dirty about that, aiding and abetting her transgression, but I guess, whatevs.

Another thing, I still feel, perhaps with some guilt, that Prufrock is amazing.5 I remember, back in the daze, on a coffee break from the trading desk, my then co-worker pal read to me and Sixth Avenue Prufrock the whole way through . That recital had a large part in my "getting" Eliot and his remarkably accessible fun and lyricalness.

Third and last, only that I have not explicitly expressed, J (for just a perfect someone) is perfect. Recently, a friend L (for lass) somehow got the impression that I wrote poems, and asked to read 'em. So, well, I e-sent one poem to L. An older poem, back, again, from the daze, when I still, like, actually wrote poems. L said it was aight, and ask for more. I obliged, sending to her my last proper poem. That poem had a part that was a mediation on J.6 I guess since I don't often re-visit my back-then writings, preferring to just leave them as is and move on, I hadn't re-consider that piece much aside from setting an implicit threshold that future poems should exceed.7 But re-reading it before gmailing to L, god, it brought back all these beautiful memories of beautiful J. In all honesty, whatever I/reason/god(dess)(e/s)/books/pop tunes hadn't already transformed in me from, it's hard to describe, but from something extremely and deeply guarded, elusive, and shrouded to a more blatant openness, she blew the covers off, and finished the job. I don't think of myself much as a confessional type poet, or really writing much about/for a particular person, because I guess, that is not the type of writing I'm interested in. But that poem, or that part of the poem, when I had to think of someone to model a "you", that was all and only J.

Fuck, this is drowning in opacity. The point is that she compelled me to love and to love her. Which I do, then, and now.

I should say that it is a bit of a shamed that aside from an everlasting affection and admiration, I didn't try, or try harder, to fan the flames of that relationship beyond the platonic flicker. I don't think I could or would ever be good enough for her. Is that really low self esteem?8 It's odd in the sense that J swelled and stretched and ballooned the outer limits of my romantic/spiritual soul, but in that I cannot be by her side, it is just fucking heartbreak. And, not that I ever stop thinking of her, but in re-reading the poem, it was like she was in front of me just again, and I was re-finding all the words and images for how I felt about her. Which in a way, since she could only produce the most profound and truest loving feelings from/in me, that was terrific, but well, then again, J ain't in front of me, and I'm not with her, that's much less than terrific. "look elsewhere for answers; answers are selfish and whitewash. / only questions seduce, and incite; you: why, how, and what exactly?"

And a retraction, I take back whatever endorsement of Mike Bloomberg. Bill Thompson is just not so awful of a mayoral candidate to say Bloomberg is clear cut better. I'm still irked by Thompson's mindless response to accusations that he took campaign cash money from investment managers doing business with the city. But, if I had to really think about it - and I guess I won't have to think about it until I am behind the black curtain at the polling station - flaunting term limits is not right.

Thompson doesn't seem to be the most eloquent public speaker, but more important than that, he lines up with my view on most issues and he looks like he can handle the local petty politics. And what has Bloomberg done in eight years that really needs four more?

I suppose City Comptroller and Public Advocate are foregone conclusions. Though regarding John Liu: do we really need shoe throwing in City Hall?9

Hmm... any good movies out? Funnily, I almost hardly ever watch a movie more than once in the movie theaters, partly because movies, as NY prices go, are hella pricey. Second, I can rarely justify going for a second viewing when there are so much that I haven't even seen for the first time. Yet, I love 35 Shots of Rum and it was freaking marvelous watching it again. Second time: Mati Diop still ravishing; Gregoire Colin still riveting; Alex Descas still badasses; and Claire Denis is still Claire Denis da bomb. I actually would be tempted to see 35 Shots a-again. That is how much I love Mati Diop, and that stunning wedding dress she wore, and that absolute blisteringly masterful bar room sequence. And Gregoire Colin. And superlatives etc.

Also, City of Sadness. Hou Hsiao Hsien's early masterpiece is great and all but I was planning to skip it this past weekend. However a good pal/movie buddy said he was going, so what the hay, it's in Brooklyn and I love grey old Brooklyn too. And Tony Leung is young and earnest, and Tony Leung, above all. I guess City of Sadness is a complicated movie - or I can understand if some folks find it that way, telling a complicated piece of Taiwanese/Chinese history/terror, without watering it down, but rather enhancing its complexity with an austere, elliptical style - but I found it follow along-able and still damn good.

Lastly, if your idea of fun is some handjob action between father and son, you can count your lucky sicko stars because Taiwanese - speaking of movies, cross-culture, and modernity - virtuoso Tsai Ming-Liang is getting a sort of mini retro treatment at Asia Society.10 Some omissions in the selection of movies, but whatevs. Tsai deserves more exposure.11 Lots of boredom there, but I get a cinematic hard-on from boredom. Which reminds me, I had a really fun flick conversation with this chick at a LES bar recently, we were comparing White Material with 35 Shots, and Resnais, and Jia Zhangke, Antonioni, Haneke, and so forth.12 Haha, we agreed that boring, static, nothing happening, extended sequences are brilliant awesomeness.13 I should have asked what she thought of Tsai.

---------------------------

1. Need it be said that I don't know anything about anything, just taking wild stabs here. I wonder if it's worth reading Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present. A friend of mine was reading it - or carrying it - and if the book's take isn't too myopic, which is kinda my point there, it might be interesting. But then again, since it's a shit load of pages, I need something stronger than "might" to motivate me to start it. Plus, I always think of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society when I think of history.
2 Uh, Google?
3 I blame Google or Wikipedia!

4 see Fn 2?

5 see Fn 4.
6 I titled that poem 3 components. Hmm... is it bad that I don't include the poem itself?
7 I should have stated: future, if any, poems.
8 I don't mean it quite like that, but J is just too/so beautiful, perfect and lovely. In a way, it's intimidating. In another way, I feel that there would be time or occasions despite my diligent efforts to make her happy that I wouldn't succeed. And in that she should ever be unhappy, due to me, for even a moment, I could not or would not be able to bear it. Of course, what kinda sick, miserable bastard am I that would want a relationship where I could bear to make my partner unhappy. Jeez, that's what I'm saying, ain't it? Otherwise, I'm happy that she likely is happy now with whomever she's happy with.
9 Like this example. Is that bad stereotyping?
10 More info. I should withdraw that handjob comment because Tsai Ming Liang isn't mainly/solely/at all about that. Or that shouldn't be a reason not to go watch his movies.
11 This is funny. How Wikipedia describes Tsai's The River: "a 1997 Taiwanese New Wave Film by Tsai Ming-liang. The plot focuses around the character Xiao-kang, a young man in his early 20s, who begins to suffer inexplicably from severe neck pain." Without giving it away: So. Not. Close. To. Describing. The. Movie. At. All.
12 She asked which directors/movies I like and, like, I completely blanked! Doh, as a outdated, 4 fingered, thin haired, bulbous cartoon homeboy might say. I am loathe to do this, because I love Claire Denis, and sitting at Alice Tully I was captivated with it, but White Material came up short to whatever bar I think Denis has set. Still amazing stuff, but. Well, all that "but" implies.
13 I had planned on more. On Herman/Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, which was really, not in a good way, boring as hell, but, I guess in a good way, pretty interesting. Then more stuff about the media, and how it relates to, oh I don't know, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. Hmm... the main gist of it could be: what the fuck is going on there, why are American soldiers still there, do you know that flesh and blood human beings - woman, children, regular folks - are getting slaughtered there, and the fucking mainstream media is such complicit and ugly dogs. Also, considering that most media folks can read, and presumably have read Manufacturing Consent, how the hell do they live with themselves. And you know who is gay, Glenn Greenwald. I kinda suspected it because sometimes from the TV, he looked just a smidge too clean cut and thin. And sometimes on the radio, boy, is he overbearing. You know, in that gay way. It kinda all falls in place now. Only kidding. But he is, apparently. And with a partner already. Good for him. But, like I said, more planned but have to cut this short and sweet, because I really feel bad if anyone, actually I'm assuming no one, you know, reads this blog, but if he/she/they did, and voted or supported Bloomberg because of me - in which case, youse an idiot.

They Are Crazy About? Romance and Illusion?

2009-10-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener is terrific and irritating. Or I am having a difficult time cracking it. Perhaps an old fashion attitude, as if something must/could/should be taken away from a piece of writing/art/music/etc. But if there is a point (a larger point, a grander point) that Melville is putting out there with Bartelby, I'm having a hell of a time narrowing in on it.

Like, who is the hero, or heroic, and then how and why so? And then: really? Does free will and passive resistance need a (noble) cause to make it admirable?

Maybe something about the limits of compassion, understanding and/or sympathy? Or, re-examining/testing/pushing those limits? for no other reason than that more compassion, understanding and sympathy may be administered? for someone not seemingly receptive to compassion, understanding, mercy and sympathy? I don't know. It feels like I'm stretching Melville's story to fit my agenda. And, not that I have to "get" it right away.

The terrific part is that Bartleby has awesome prose work, and is such a wild, wickedly absurd comedy. The story was way ahead of its time. And Melville is the shit.

Perhaps another reason Bartleby is sticking to me as problematic is that I read it after reading Billy Budd, Sailer: An Insider Narrative. That other titular character Melville casts in the most sympathetic and glorifying cloth, draping welkin-eyed Baby Budd with descriptives like handsome, angelic, and innocence. Bartleby on the other hand is matched, inscrutably, with pallid, forlorn, ghostly, cadaverous, etc.

I should say that unlike, I'll characterize as additionally lazy, common readings of Bartelby as one who has been dehumanized by a capitalistic and industrial system, I don't see him as that. And against more popular critique, I found a genuine evolving humanism with the narrator.

I should add that one big problem I had with Orwell's 1984 was the characterization of Julia, that she was half drawn and served mostly and merely as a prop for Winston's story. I say this because perhaps the same issue might be charged against Bartleby, that since his motivations were not mentioned or, at best, implied, he was a prop for the narrator. Without looking back at 1984, at least in Melville's story, it was written in a voice/person from the narrator's perspective and the information about Bartleby was constrained/limited to what the narrator could receive/perceive, which is not so with 1984. 1984, I believe, had a more omnipresent third person voice. I believe. Or I could be sloppily applying contradicting and different standards.

Only perhaps tangentially related:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.1

Shakespeare is also the shit. Shakespeare is a necessity, ya know.

Not that long ago, I caught Wilder's Our Town. Having never read nor watched it previously, my understanding of it springs mainly from a couple of its most popular scenes, and the ideas behind its innovative staging, structure, and use of the narrator. But seeing the whole thing, via a well crafted production, Wilder's play deserves the classic tag. What I got, as modernity and time accelerates, it is not (or perhaps, not only) technology and tradition that gets transformed/waylaid, but core values, virtues, and humanism may as well; and truthfully anyway, these (moral/ethic) things consistently teeter on the edge, even in the best of time. Which, really, is one of the obvious themes/messages of the play. Hopeful not sounding quaint, but with the impression that Our Town laments a bygone halcyon age (way back in 1938), the play remains up to date and resonates on today's issues/problems.

Odd, or not so odd, is that all the innovations within the text, or historically in the staging, which Cromer utilizes deftly, along with his surprise twist in the end, went over my head. Or didn't strike me as unusual as the 1938 crowds may have thought when first viewing Our Town, and, the surprise twist, didn't strike me as unusual as all the subsequent, post 1938 crowds visiting Our Town, as I didn't have that pent up history and expectations. In the first case, those innovations that Wilder included in Our Town, sparse sets, the stage manager breaking the "4th wall", temporal shifts, and more, are commonplace these days. Commonplace in the mainstream, even. And Cromer's added touch, without familiarity to what specific convention he was breaking/stretching from the usual Our Town staging, I accepted it as just par the course of a contemporary minded staging.

Though by saying it didn't strike me as unusual, is not to say that it was not awfully powerful and thoughtful. All that stuff was powerful and thought provoking.

I can't work at all. The moonlight's so terrible.2

Jennifer Grace, with what I found to be at times awkward and at times, or perhaps simultaneously, charming diction, was pretty off the hook super as Emily Webb.

If I had to think about it, what is mercy and how is it better or different from kindness, compassion, charity, etc. Thankfully, at this moment, I am not thinking about it. Though generally I aim for a certain precision.3

Not that I don't miss the mark either.4 If I had use the word honesty or some derivation, as an example of what I might have said, which I can't quite remember having expressed thusly but certainly easily could, I would prefer if your email was more honest, it could have been imprecise. I don't mean honest in the sense that instead of what was actually written that I wanted something else, some type of big bean spilling confession. In general, if given the option, I guess I wouldn't mind if folks take a shut the fuck up approach. But what I did mean, if I used honesty (or a derivation), is honestly. Communicate in such a way where the meaning/intention and what is expressed lines up, a sort of directness or plainness, sans abstraction, nuance, subtlety, and criminal coyness.5

More perhaps tangential:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.6

Orwell is alright. I'd say the great enemy of clear language is unclear language. The great enemy of sincere language is insincerity? Though as excerpt and quotation goes, there is the context bugaboo to factor in.7

It is an inaccuracy to consider innovation (or avant garde or modernism) through the lens of newness or radicalness. Part of it is that, fo shizzle, but just as much is how it relates to the historic/classical/traditional approach and whatever is contemporary or for that matter timeless. In that sense, art/culture/science/politics/technology/anything is not a search for newness or strangeness for its own sake, but, or what I most look into, is what type of dialogues are transpiring, and how or why these dialogues are meaningful.

Take, for example, Wilder's shattering the 4th wall.8 Circa 1938, that device of commenting directly and somewhat objectively with/to the audience was something, but as innovation goes, the playwrights way back in Pericles' days routinely did so via the chorus. And then Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream ends with Puck disclosing to the audience/reader:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

And besides, Luigi Pirandello's Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore.

Which is to say, yeps, there is a new or unique quality to Wilder's Stage Manager, but also with more than a cursory long look back at the traditional/conventional classics.

Along with how it relates to the past, Our Town engages the progression in its contemporary culture/politics/arts/etc. Literature already had long ago taken to addressing the reader in a straightforward manner, but modern literature, via Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, etc., opened up the mechanical parts by emphasizing language and structure. Movie house newsreels gave direct and immediate narrative to current events. And RCA, Westinghouse, GE, Zenith, Atwater-Kent, one of those consoles ruled the waves, radio waves that is. In addition to the regular radio programming dominating the familial experience, there were those casual, intimate, chatty President FD Roosevelt fireside chats. And Pirandello (and Bertolt Brecht, for that matter) blew the spot already. Wilder's innovation(s) was propagated by its time, or perhaps a comment or summation of the manifold confluences going on.

This play is called Our Town. It was written by Thornton Wilder.9

From there, television, movies, and theater ran with it, most typically utilizing a 4th wall breakdown for comedic effect, or cynicism, or hipster posing. But oh wellz. Though I don't follow enough theater/art/culture to really qualify a proper opinion. Sam Beckett does/did some innovative stuff, I know that.

Like most other (perceived) innovation (avant garde and modernist posturings too), the actual innovation is not discovering something totally new or different, but focusing on a narrow strip of what was already existing, like what the Greek and Shakespeare already did, and stretching, pulling, prodding, stripping and otherwise refining it from a contemporary minded perspective. Innovation or modernism, or forward progress, for the most part is an exploration of stripping or taking away. Along the same lines, it is not so much (or not solely) the subject material that is so cutting edge or explosive, but refining or rethinking techniques or the medium. Look at Manet.

Let me backtrack to more personal stuff. I get picked on for favoring modern, though I'd say I like contemporary/minimalism/conceptual more than modern per se, art. But I concede on a certain level it is all the same, in terms of what it does to a viewer's expectation, modern and contemporary. Anyways, take the Italian renaissance, it was partly predicated on rethinking representation via linear perspective lines, and using it to enhance representative realism and to create a focal point/area. Popularized by Brunelleschi, formalized by tradition and the academy, and tired by tradition and the academy.10 Linear perspective rose from innovation and descended to rigid, bored convention.

Then, in terms of the development of Western art, whatever the perspective rules were they were splintered by Manet with his multilayered perspectives and flatten/shallow surface/plane. Among other things, in say Le dejeuner sur l'herbe half tones are eschewed, lighting is exaggerated and crafted as oppose to naturalistic/realistic; in say Olympia the composition is reduced to a two plane spatial construct with no middle, lighted foreground fronted a dark/black background that, to me, recalls the gothic/pre-Renaissance days; or in say Un bar aux Folies-Bergere and its ambiguous, destabilized, or irreconcilable mirror reflection.11

Not to suggest that was all Manet did, cause he had plenty of other tricks up his smock sleeve like his color palette, texture, brushstrokes, choice of subject matters, and more, but to my point, Manet could see what linear perspective was offering and how muted or disconnected painting under that regime had become in commenting on and communicating with contemporary times.12 There is the old standby of photography's emergence shaking things up for both the creators and viewers of art, and Asian art, African art, world art just getting more and more accessible. Plus all the other mid 1800s going ons, fervent industrialization, martial skirmishes, rampant colonization and so forth. Manet unhinged the rigid application of perspective, stripping it down, loosening it up, and opened a way for a new dialogue. And his updating ultimately paved the way for further experimentation with impressionism, post impressionism, cubism, non objective, abstract, pop, minimalism, etc.13

Actually, horrible. I am so out of my element in discussing art as I know jack about it. You rightfully'd say, anything else for that matter. Not to mention how incomplete this whole redundant digression is.

Dreams dressed in blue,
It's all they need for now and forever,
Dazed by the moon,
They shatter their heartbeats,
With singing.

Somebody lurks in the shadow,
Somebody whispers,
Somebody lurks in the shadow,
Yeah yeah yeah.14

Just one more thing about innovation. Pretty much everything descends to rigid, bored conventions. The thing, in the end, is to stay opened, and tuned.

I just want to end saying, considering Kayne's lyrics, is it that shocking that he disrespected Taylor Swift? Fuck Kayne.

Oh, and Michael Moore. Lots of folks take exception to him perhaps playing a little loose with the facts, or self promotion, or manipulative editing or whatever. Which I mostly come away quite perplex. Moore comes out and brings attention to some of the more vital issues going around, attacks them with a tremendous sense of urgency and humanity, that coincidentally is (shamefully) no way addressed by most other mainstream media outlet. And above that, most of the haters I think insist on a level of accountability or credibility that they don't turn around and hold let's say business leaders, the media, or government officials to anywhere close to the same standard. I totally don't get it, and it's mad stupid.

And oh, I regularly check out Glenn Greenwald's blog. In one entry, he spotlighted two things, which I liked so much, I am doing the same. This about Iran and, from that site's comment section, Iranians ain't no Arab.15 And then a young lad chats with his parents.16 Really really nice story. Good for him/them.

This, respectfully, is for the fallen dead Mid East veterans:

Over here are some Civil War veterans. Iron flags on the graves - New Hampshire boys - had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they'd never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves. All they knew was the name, friends - the United States of America. The United States of America. And they went and died about it.17

---------------------------------
Footnotes:

1. Will Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.
2. Our Town.
3. Achieve is a totally, like, different matter.
4. See footnote 3.
5. Fuck, this teeters too much to too personal and whiny indulgence.
6. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language.
7. Great, now I have to read the essay. (theme music) Ok, maybe slightly out of context, but whatevs. Yeesh, I don't think my blog writing would please Orwell's corpse. Orwell's essay was too preachy, and kinda boring. And gives less incentive to complete Herman/Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. Yet, this line was nice too: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
8. 4th wall implies, and this is my made-up, not-very-helpful definition, a reassessment of the relationship among the audience, text/author, and the production/performance, and with cross complicity or collusion.
9. Again, Our Town. That's how the play begins.
10. Popularize because I don't want to quite get into the re/discovery debate with regards to linear perspective. A taste of the controversy.
11. Or perhaps reconcilable after all.
12. A lot of critical and popular writing have focused on Manet's choice of (controversial) subject matter. Which is interesting, but not the main thing I key in on. Partly because I'm much more of the art for art's sake camp, and don't need a narrative to make things compelling. Partly because speculating on the subject matter either is too gossipy or too much pushing for an agenda. And partly, well, I don't think it is that controversial/shocking/necessary/etc.
13. Picasso and Matisse throw out Cezanne as the "father of us all." But come on, Manet is the guy when it comes to advancing modernism. Moreover, Manet really came from the Salon/Academie/classical tradition and he was really pushing against that from the inside. Manet ended up obliterating the old mold is another story. And the impressionist and post impressionist and Cezanne sprung up, taking certain things Manet was doing to a new place, and adding to it. I had a bunch more on Manet's relationship with the classics, but, uh, that's why Google invented itself. Right?
And this is from me who before really did not appreciate and really hadn't love Manet's stuff.
14. M83, Kim & Jessie.
15. I'd like to visit Iran one day.
16. Definitely tangential. In the local mayoral debate recently, a question asked was whether the candidates thought Obama had done enough for gay right. Thompson said, "He's been there for nine months, Yes." Bloomberg after a pause, "No." From brief Googling, Thompson supposedly has supported gay equality/rights for a long time, but his affirmation for an administration who has done absolute zilch for gay rights, typifies why he can't win. Bloomberg, I don't know, I don't feel quite like NYC has gone through a rainbow renaissance under his 8 year mayorship, I guess I take his more accurate assessment of Obama's piddling record. That, and other reasons, this is my official endorsement, 4 more years of Mayor Bloomberg.
17. Our Town, still. Excerpt with Paul Newman as Stage Manager.

Two Franc Pieces

2009-06-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

When I am not writing, I read. Then, when I am not reading, I write.

But that's not the case. Most of the time I, uh, sit?1

Or most of the time I, uh, take to the drink.

Let's leap to those more mundane considerations.2 In America, there is this personal, widely anticipated, yearly holiday called birthday; practically everyone has one, and it occassionally involves the giving of cards, text messages, phone calls and presents. In other countries, I assume, that celebration goes under the guise of Christmas or Saint Patrick's Day, possibly, and salted cods or candied persimmons or gold teeth are the only items exchanged instead. But being American, or a native United States-er, I have never exclusively received fish, fruits or dentures.

Recently and, I will come out and say it, too often, I've received, instead, t-shirts. I was going to call one particular relative to tell him (with due ingratitude), "no more cups" then "no more t-shirts."3 I got the "no more cups" part out, when I spoke with him on the phone, but he responded, "don't worry, no cups, just check your mail for t-shirts." Oh thanks. Never mind the fact that for years and years, while I'll take it as a compliment, he - and his family, I suppose -had sent me t-shirts a size too large.4

No more t-shirts.

Coincidentally enough, one friend, among the friends who returned from the vacation in Asia, got me two t-shirts as souvenirs from Vietnam.5 Cool. He probably paid, like, a buck a piece for them.

So with this big American birthday tradition, though it is, already, for me in the rearview mirror, this year, it ain't too late to bring up to date my gift/wish list.

- I like a hand blender, one of the immersion joints. Soups, shakes, and homemade mayo, yo.6
- I could also use a universal pot lid. I have a couple of 11"+ skillets that invariably I go wishing I had a lid for, in which case, I guess it doesn't happen often enough so that I cannot make do with aluminum foil as an ad hoc solution. Other hand, needing a larger lid happens more often than you think cuz, or at least ubiquitously whenever I pretty much cook for more than 1 person.
- Salad spinner. Water kills salad dressing, so it has been told. It's also practical to have to prevent spoilage and facilitate storage for when/if I buy a big mess of leafy veg.
- Silicone spatula. I have whichever phobia it is that surfaces whenever nonstick cookware and utensils are used.
- I guess Silicone tongs, for that matter. I stir and prod most often with tongs. Or, I pretty much and definitely use tongs for just about everything.
- No Silicone babes, however.7
- Le Creuset pot. It'd be nice to have a heavy, versatile, and highly heat retentive pot, to braise and stew, from stovetop to oven to anything else.8
- A splatter guard. Perhaps more luxury than necessity, because it is not too much fuss to clean and wipe, but why not.
- Seems kitchen intensive? I'd take a decorative piece for one of my wall. My apartment "living room" is a dull large whitewash pane.

There is still a shit load of DVDs that I had hope would hit the market or, if available, attainable. I am gonna go lazy and just crib from earlier lists, with some updating.

- Olivier, Olivier: Agnieszka Holland's flick screened at the MOMA early, early in the year. I saw it. Liked it. It should get the big splashy DVD treatment.
- Cold Water: This is just about one of my most favorite movies ever. For me, it's Olivier Assayas at his finest and with the incomparable jailbait Virginie Ledoyen.9
- Les miserables: The marathon French version, with, and mainly for, Virginie Ledoyen as Cosette. Just slap some subtitles on the sucker for us non-French speakers.
- Inquietude: My initiation to Manoel de Oliveira, who is amazing.
- Doomed Love: I want more Manoel de Oliveira, particularly this which many consider another masterwork.
- Celine and Julie Go Boating. I saw this too. Really, really lovely, as is all the Jacques Rivette flicks.
- Drunken Master 2: The action sequences are so damn out of this world elegant. I believe some big company has shanghaied the DVD rights but cannot recall who.
- My Sassy Girl: The Korean theatrical, and the best, version needs to be packaged as a DVD.
- Mahjong: The hope for a complete Virginie Ledoyen collection continues. But I otherwise really dig Taiwanese New Wave'r Edward Yang.
- A Brighter Summer Day: An important as a director as Edward Yang needs to have more of his shit on the retail shelves.
- Terrorizer: See A Brighter Summer Day comment.
- A Confucian Confusion: I have yet to see this, otherwise, see A Brighter Summer Day comment.10
- Night Zoo: If you did not know, I could not have a higher opinion of Leolo. Night Zoo is Jean-Claude Lauzon's other, as well as debut, movie.
- Make Way for Tomorrow: The inspiration for Ozu's Tokyo Story, and my pal David suggests that it's terrific.
- Rancho Notorious: Fritz Lang is a favorite of mine. I like Westerns. Therefore, I have been dying to see Rancho Notorious somewhere.

Available DVDs in the United States that I would love to see on my DVD pile:

- The Art of Buster Keaton. I absolutely love the Great Stone Face.
- Les vampires by Louis Feuillade.11
- The Decalogue by Krzysztof Kieslowski.
- Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection: The one that includes Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup.

There are also CDs that I probably want.12 Though, at the moment, there is only one CD that I desperately want:

- You Made Me Realise by My Bloody Valentine: An early EP, but make sure it is the version that includes the song Drive It All Over Me.13

A little old school media charm, I still acquire books:

- Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon: Only the paperback version.

I would want to load up on more Will Gaddis, or WG Sebald, except upon reflection, it's been a bit while since I got into a fiction book written by a chick. Maybe old guard George Eliot, Ruth Rendell, or George Sand?

Are there good contemporary chick writers? Margaret Attwood? Kelley Link on my Amazon wishlist, no Zadie Smith, maybe Scarlett Thomas, Jeanette Winterson, is she still hip? Annie Proulx?14

My cousin likes to tell what she've seen that is so good or so amazing or so etc. Books (in which case, it'd be read, not seen) or DVDs. She likes Cassavates, There Will Be Blood, Herzog and stuff like that. She dissed La Notte. I basically said, the only shit you like is where folks overact or act crazy. She defends by saying she likes slow stuff too, Tsai Ming Liang for example. I counter, plus shit that is overran by sexual deviancy. She's been trying to convince me to read a couple of erotic Jap writers.

Showboat acting, by the way, is not a signifier of inferior quality. I bring it up more to identify her preference. It is also true that it is something that I am definitely not drawn to too. I don't really care how great Daniel Day Lewis is if the whole point of, let's say, There Will Be Blood is to watch him jerk off, acting wise. At the same time, acting is likely one of the strong suit of the American movie industry. Unfortunately, with the blind ascendancy of the star system, the Hollywood movie basically is purely a vehicle for and dominated by the movie star. I am not sure when exactly this shift happened, I think of someone like Paul Newman, certainly a tremendous star, but he is so generous in his flicks that even in a somewhat straightforward vehicle like Cool Hand Luke, the rest of the cast share in the heft and glory. I am not a cinema historian, but by the time we arrive at Tom Cruise, Will Smith, or Tom Hanks, the entirety of any movie picture is to be utterly secondary or subservient to the movie star. Not that my cousin would, heaven forbid, entertain anything by the more traditional or mainstream lead actors.15

Oh dear, one birthday too many, I guess I am not talking exactly on point because there is a big superficial difference in a Daniel Day Lewis movie and a Tom Cruise movie. Actually, I think my point is there is not that big of a difference, it is a systemic thing where the bent of the American movie industry, big studio or the indies, are all star geared, There Will Be Blood exemplifies with its forceful hollowness. A picture gets green-lit because a star signs onboard, and so the script or the director tailors pretty much the whole raison d'etre for the star. And that is part of why so much stuff coming out of the United States has over the top acting. And therefore is just not my bag.

I should say that I also like a view of the steamer sex side too. Go read Henry Miller'sTropic of Cancer, it is grandly stupid/ridiculous.

At night when I look at Boris' goatee lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider. I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls, rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum. You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across your navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that you'll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris' chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces...

Moreover I pretty much got my movie legs from the twin bootleg videotape bill of Clockwork Orange and Betty Blue. Boy, did we think that Gabriel Yared's Betty Blue soundtrack was the shit back in the day.16 And Leolo, gloriously, with a panning away shot, has a juvenile delinquent fucking a pussy cat.

I just don't have the enthusiasm to dig fully that marginalia/fringe of Marquis de Sade, Anais Nin, etc. I don't rejoice in the naughtiness, depravity, or the transgression, or the whatever.

Since first reading Sebald - what has turned out to be - many years ago, I, uh, haven't read anything else by him, but would love to. He has an interesting experimental bent but in a different sense. Whereas, say Gaddis, Markson or other writers that I like, plow through linguistic, Sebald tills in the Proust tradition, uprooting memory or perhaps subconsciousness, which as theme or subject goes, gets me weak at the, let's say, intellectual knees.17 And in case I have not said it enough, j'adore Marcel Proust.18

Perhaps not widely advertise, and most mundane, is that I'm a huge Yankee fan. With that:

- a Yankees autographed item;
- a Yankees jersey or a Yankees cap;
- a Yankee World Series championship; a Yankees victory; or, last resort,
- a chance to watch a/the game on television.19 I am coaxial free, Time Warner less, no YES.20

You know what is not super delicious? Usually, whenever I prepare a meal, as I go through the mise en place, the last thing I do is the garlic, because well, since it's typically among the first or second thing that goes in, I prep it close to last to spare washing another bowl to hold it. And then through the normal course of cooking I am busy timing what goes in next and what follows what, and maybe washing the larger prep items, that the knife and cutting board is not washed right away. Then serving and eating and that stuff. But, let's say, I want a piece of fruit to end, I absentmindedly and inevitably go to the same knife and cutting board to cut up, most recently like, my apple. And then of course, garlic apple. Less delicious than even that sounds.

- Maybe a garlic press? Though I really frown upon shortcut clutter devices like that, but why not.21
- Well, as I am just wetdreaming, a new pair of kicks would be nice, specifically New Balance 1110.

-------------------------------------------

1. Here you go, a paraphrase from / reference to one of my most favorite book, Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress. And, for whatever reason, partly because it is short, it is accessible to quoting and paraphrasing for many situations. And I love it, where the supposed mystery or exoticism of the creative process or life is debunked by more mundane considerations.
2. To be honest, and prosaic, attracting notice or visitors to this/my site is not, for me, trivial. Then again, that consideration is violently strained in relation to what is actually written and, uh, the frequency of said writing. This, sadly, reinforces that strain.
3. Tongue cheek no more cups because once I was given a couple (or few) novelty cups that in all honesty got consigned to pen holders, dust collection, and whatnot pretty much instantaneously. I have a wee apartment, a micro studio I'd say, and if I already have anything there already, like cups or mugs, it is pretty much all the space that can be afforded to those items, or that necessity permits. I ain't got room for another bunch of cups. And I only have that many pens, ya know. Dust, however, is another matter.
4. I since had enough and emailed his oldest daughter, "For the future, I wear medium." That's not a hint, by the way.
5. I like to visit Vietnam one of these days. Insightful! Except who wouldn't.
6. Since I have been experimenting in the kitchen with greater regularity, I feel I am gambling at the various food poisons roulette table: bacteria, worms, parasites, oh my, Salmonella, E coli, toxoplasmosis, trichinosis, and so forth. Lots of chicken, runny eggs, runny cheap eggs, some pork, everything done to the just medium rare demarcation. Though, perhaps, the use of the various bad fats are a greater, more severe and long reaching concern, bacon fat, butter, duck fat, etc. Otherwise, you know what's the key ingredient for mayo? raw egg yolks.
7. That might be too judgmental.
8. Or is that super bougie? I just like a lil something versatile enough to stick in the oven if need be. One of the ghetto ripoff options will do, I suppose.
9. I am much less enthused about Assayas these days but I suppose I wouldn't mind catching Summer Hours. He is still good, but not quite the groundbreaker I first thought.
10. Since I first threw up this list, Edward Yang passed away. The local theater is showing 24 City, by Jia Zhangke. That, I really want to catch that. In case I have not mentioned it in quite this way, Jia is pretty much an everest on my favorite movie directors range. He has a brilliant formalism in his flicks. At the same time, he, through several movies running, documents China, shifting urban life, shifty capitalism, the twenty first century like a motherfuck. A lazy habit, but I frequently name check Godard when I bring up Jia, for many reasons, but one is that they both really are in touch with what is here and right now (or Godard in the 60s) while also amplifying it to a universal context. Yang also engaged in this type of zeitgist critique/mirror as Taipei and modernity collided.
11. Not that Rivette owes anything to Assayas for their shared filching from Feiullade and Les vampires. Rivette has overtly been doing so for decades, and perhaps I should state outright that I have not seen Les vampires except for some excerpts and of course the iconic Muisidora images. Irma Vep probably is the Olivier Assayas movie, at least what stakes his reputation, and squeeky latex'ed Maggie Cheung is probably, up to now, I'll be optimistic, his most lasting impressionable image, and it might have prompted Rivette to put in that awesome up through the skylight sequence in Va savoir, and I really love - though some of my friends are less enamored by - Jeanne Balibar, in which case, purely as a homage the Va savoir scene was nicer, by perhaps being more playful about it. Of course, Irma Vep bluntly and actively is tilling Les vampires.
12. Even more mundane, I really wish for or need to win over a pal or pals who are earnest music fans. There is just too much music that I want to check out that I know already will not hold much interest for me beyond a song or two or be so so overall. Like right now, including some others I have mentioned in passing, I do not want to buy the Boy in Static cd or the Land of Talk cd, but I do want to give it a good listen to. And really, I buy a lot of other stuff and can hold my own when it comes to reciprocating. Otherwise, see update at footnote 17?
13. My upstair neighbor, by the way, when I open my iTunes app and check his shared library, has Drive It All Over Me. I do not know how to broach a request to burn me that tune.
14. Not that I am particularly a slave to award winners, I looked over the the National Book Award finalists for the past couple of years, and boy, there are a decent amount of chicks representing. Eesh, now I have to look through them to see who actually might be worth my credit money. Marilynne Robinson, Julia Glass, Shirley Hazzard, Lily Tuck, Jennifer Egan, Francine Prose?
15. Oops, that heaven forbid was uncalled for. I am the same way, a summer movie by the top Hollywood money makers turn me off too. At the same time, which actor starring in a role plays a very minimal part in which movie I catch.
16. I leave Betty Blue as it is, because, well, it's kind of a so so movie but is saved by being personally essential, fun, a remarkable intro to gap tooth pinup Beatrice Dalle, and an exemplar of quality soft core french movie. Ha! Complete coincidence, Betty Blue got renewed distribution, a director's cut no less, oh my.
17. If I appear to accuse my cuz of a type or types, I certainly have a type, as well. Mostly it's an enhanced or elevated formalism. For movies, who directs the joint contributes by far the biggest factor for my viewing decision. At the same time, but mainly because it's the aspect that I can most easily fawn over, the acting bits are usually what I comment most on. Zhao Tao, I since caught 24 City by the way, continues to be fucking awesomeness. My biggest beef also continues to be the insufficient or nonexistent praise for Zhao's tour de force performances.

Supposedly, this past May, the New Yorker magazine ran a mountainous feature on Jia Zhangke. I am no subscriber, so if anyone is, please forward me a copy or scan of the article. Thanks. I should throw that up on my list. And finally, if you do click thru to the various Jia Zhangke trailers, his choice of music in said trailers and throughout his movies is phenomenal, ain't it? UPDATE: Googling a bit, and this is interesting, as it this piece. In which case, I definitely want some CDs by Taiwanese Lim Giong, for example. Pretty kickass.

18. Proust, I am unsure the relevance of, was a reader of George Elliot and George Sand.
19. The thing is, it is common knowledge among pals that I am a huge Yankee fan, and also no secret I am cable less, also; everyone I know has cable and therefore have access to Yankee games. Invite me, biz-atches.
20. Yankees Entertainment and Sports.
21. Small living square footage, limited utility (though I do use a lot of garlic), not minimal price tag, more cleaning, etc.

Completely unrelated, I should add that I don't understand this hyper crackdown on trailers on youtube/internet. Granted, a lot of the trailers I hope to get were older movies, back before the creation of the www. But it is flat absurd how much vital material is being brought down.

Saint Crispin: The Leathermen's Patron Saint

2009-04-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about the Jews instead.

Just (half) kidding.

The kind of scheme behind my last entry was to, well, it was manifold, probably none of which bore any sweet fruit, but one had to do with, yes, some progress in fixing the damn and severe Rockefeller laws, finally.1

Drop the Rock.

I know some folks feel reform is a woefully inadequate half measure, but, be that as it may, then let's keep the pressure on till full repeal.

Genesis was a while ago, enough so that Michael Vick lands behind bars, and Plax Burress may, and Barkley has, and many others have. Is there some way that millionaire black men folks can avoid imprisonment?

No matter how you break it down, no matter who is the President of the United States, the number of blacks (and browns) in prison is difficult to believe. More black prisoners than enrolled in college, apparently.2 1 in too low of a number of blacks are in prison, or are likely to be imprisoned. Why is that? And why can't they stay out of prisons?

Avoid the legal system, dudes. Maybe there is extreme unfairness that you may be targets, and it is equally extremely unfair to actively avoid being targets, but do it. Drink less, carry guns less, dog fight less, hustle drugs less, hit your women less, whatever it is, it less.

And if for whatever reason, imprisonment occurs, it sucks to say this, but gain perspective, wisdom, learn, grow, spirituality, whatever (it worked for Malcolm X), and no recidivism based return visits.

I have not thought it all the way through, and I am sure whatever I just wrote came across as bigoted spewing, but I don't want to see any more brothers in the slammer. The biggest and main flaws are in the structural failures of the legal and economic systems, but fixing those, which should be constant effort, probably will be slow goings.

And dang, maybe it is cause I am very stupid so never knew, but look at the numbers for black and brown chicks in prison, we need less sistas and moms in prison too.3

I do not mean to mitigate the harm drugs do and can do to individuals and to the society at large, but the systemic imprisonment of whole slices of mothers and fathers ain't the best idea either. The thing with the Rockefeller laws is the mandatory sentencing, which aside from removing other valid and perhaps more worthwhile considerations - such as treatment, rehabilitation or mercy - of the judicial system, I think generally leads to prosecutorial abuses (ie using the threat of hefty mandatory sentences to press quick and perhaps baseless pleas for lesser charges) and political abuses (you can infer what a perpetuated large prison community can do for local economies and political districts here).4

Chris Brown and Rihanna. I know that I am a terrible evil person for saying this, but I am mixed on the whole Chris Brown beating the crap out of Rihanna. I mean Rihanna is a Barbadian hottie and a pretty good singer, and did not deserve nor ever should be beaten. But Chris Brown, from limited googling, came from a, I think, broken family and was routinely surrounded with domestic violence, and that's something, from my understanding, that inevitably resurfaces in successive generations. I wish it did not, and it is so removed from my life that I do not know much about it, but that shit just happens. I do not mean to make excuses. (Speaking of terrible and evil, while watching the movie Jumpers, during the scene - and standard plot device - where the girlfriend, instead of waiting for a more convenient time, decides and insists on confronting her boyfriend with her emotional and their relationship issues while the baddies are gonna just arrive for another standard Hollywood showdown scene, I turned to my pal and deadpanned, "I don't blame Chris Brown." True story.)

I do not understand Chris Brown, I mean, if I had a hot girlfriend (I'd settle for a homely girlfriend, at this point) who was also talented and wealthy, I'd guess I'd try to make her happy, and especially make sure she don't wise up nor second thinks. But when one is brought up surrounded by violence, instead of only and completely wishing Chris Brown gets raped in prison, I am hoping, since I don't think this was an isolated incident, that it gets worked out so that Chris can control whatever demons he has in him, especially if Rihanna wants to stay with him, which I don't understand why she would - you know she should be able to do better - but then, with domestic violence situations, the dude/assailant skips out on legal punishment and the couple usually hooks back up.5

I am reading as quickly as possible Roberto Bolano's book of poems because I paid for it so I want to read it, I like Roberto Bolano's prose work, and I eventually want to pass the poetry collection on to a friend who is recuperating from a, I just found out, hernia operation. Which is a little strange, as not so far requiring that surgery yet, I do not know what a hernia is and assume I do not have one.

My friend, she is Mexican, and Roberto Bolano is Chilean by birth, though spent time in Mexico (City), and the book is a bilingual collection, so I think she might enjoy his poems. Or, just as likely, not.

The poems so far, even if reading in too rapid succession, and even while normally not being a reader of poetry, I think of myself, despite now hardly writing such/much, as a poet, but a poet who doesn't read much poetry? I am willing to reassess whether I am a poet, after all; if you know what I mean: a poet who doesn't write poems is hardly a poet.

I have only read, still, so far, By Night in Chile, but I have The Savage Detective on my to read pile, maybe next, or soon to next. I already mentioned reading Pathologies of Power, and in the same shipment with Savage Detective was Milton Osborne's The Mekong: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future and I am just about done with that, which is going to make a streak of two terribly unremarkable books, even as the writer of the Mekong emphasizes Cambodia, a place that I have deep affection for since my kinda recent trip there, a place I long to return to, because the countryside and cityscape are naturally beautiful and the people are naturally beautiful and friendly. I wonder if I told the story of how, after hanging out with my pals, partying it up till early early morning, taking the tuk tuk(s) back to my/our guesthouse, the recumbent street, by that time, paying no notice to the few remaining travelers, those too wild and or wasteful to heed the requirement and security of a good nights sleep, me and my friends bore witness, probably not more than 20 or so feet away, as a dude on a moto stopped, showed his pistol, and fire shots at another dude. Loud cracks from gunshot bangs. Then the murderer revved away. I/we briefly saw the victim slump to collapse, some color of blood marked on the pavement, and my/our driver(s) continued on. Anonymous assassin anonymous dead anonymous capital city.

I discovered the next late night, chatting at a bar around then around again from my guesthouse, from the bar owner, that the shooting was gang related: insult retaliation, territorial spate, drug tussle, dick measuring contest, something like that, those things dumb men with guns do.

That isolated event, and some others, of course, does not totally discredit my fairer impressions.

Also, some friends of mine, pretty much all my friends who I typically hang out with, are now (or will be) in destination Asia: Shanghai, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. I did get an email asking me to send some books to the friend who is based in Shanghai. So from my to read pile, I had to choose to read the books that sucked, and now, among the remaining books which I think should not suck, and I wanted to soon get to, I picked some to send away. This friend, one thing I remember is that he was a huge fan of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, a writer that I don't have a strong preference for, but think is cool that someone might favor. This friend, from high school, I always scoop up a bunch of books for whenever I visit him/Asia because he asks for them, or I know he would ask for books if he had not. He frames the book request as a loan, but since years ago, he has so many of my favorite books, that when I survey, with tender yearnings, the bookshelves of his home perhaps he might say, "oh, you can take those back," but has not thus far, and I am too cowered by tact to breach.

As long as he actually reads them, I suppose, it's all good. I did buy, instead of taking mine, another copy of Savage Detective, because, it was on sale at the bookstore, and, especially, I think he might like it. In high school, I think we shared an English teacher, so he probably has fond memories of reading, among others, the big Spanish language/Latam writers fashionable at the time. I don't think we were in the same English class, or maybe we were, but that same teacher probably went over similar material. He also took Spanish as his second language, and read Borges and Lorca and so forth. Of course, he jokes to me, when I emailed him to confirm I got the books and have handed them to the another friend who was soon to leave and join up with them in Vietnam, he jokes, "Thanks ... I figure if Saigon and Shanghai get boring we can do a book club discussion." Ha ha. Or not.

He does tell me to send the books I completed, which does not make it easier as I don't wanna give away the books I like. Sheesh. I finished The Romantic Dogs, that's the title by the by for those Bolano poems, and stuck it in and sealed the envelope with a short get-better-soon note to my friend, and I am already regretting not having access to the book. I know there is going to be stuff I want to review, or loot, for my own purposes! Easy come, easy mailed, as they don't exactly say in that way.

I suppose I count as a regular visitor to Glenn Greewald's blog, and there, I found this. More or less, he did a study on Portugal's drug decriminalization (which is not same as legalization, by the way), titled, coincidentally enough, Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies. I recommend clicking through to see the video of the Cato Institute presentation. As mentioned in the links, I concede it is difficult to gleam definitive results about factors contributing to the decline in drug use. There may be too much noise from, let's say, different metrics used by different countries or demographic changes or changing attitudes over time or cultural stuff and so forth. But I think the main point, as Glenn points out, is that decriminalization (and most likely legalization) significantly contributed in managing the health problem and did not produce any increase drug use, or even sustained a plateaued drug use level, or transform Portugal to a drug market haven, as so many idiots warned, feared or expected, but if anything, the change in policy led to steep declines in drug use. You can check out the details yourself, if you care. But Portugal's decriminalization and, now, reformation of the outdated?-it-was-never-in-date Rockefeller drug laws are coming none too soon.

Similar none too soon vein, Vermont and Iowa, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Maybe I am not googling correctly, but I could not find any comment from our great leader, the Barak, regarding this most welcomed change you can believe in. President dude, come on, step up, congratulate the Vermonters and the Iowaers, and those merry gays and happy lesbians. Do not leave it such a state secret.6

If it is not entirely obvious and or you are too lazy/busy to bust out your Google, Vermont and Iowa refer to the inclusion of marriage rights for those people afflicted with the gay, or as how the kids referred to things 3 or so years ago, teh gay.7 Also, it is apparently proper to refer to lesbians as gays. I thought gays were just for the coal shovelers,8 but either I was flatly unaware, or there was a shift in pop usage or semantic shorthand or ... oh well, a little wiki grease kinda dislodged that confusion.9 I guess I can accept using gay to apply broadly to the homosexual community (despite the obvious pitfalls where it renders LGBT, well, kinda nonsensical); but maybe I am sexist, because, in fact, when I think homosexual (like gays) I do not even think of as a term broadly for the various homosexuals, instead, I think mostly, mostly, something more nautically themed, hot sailors maybe, or better yet, hot sea-.10

Tangential with full frontal male nudity, among things that I found annoying about the Watchmen is, maybe I should not get into this, because it will certainly devolve to yet another hackneyed chewout on the soul/mind grinding Hollywood moviemaking system.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.11

I ain't no fucking redcoat, that shit don't work on me. Though the way things go here, the pinched range of subjects that (probably? or, most definitely) no one cares much about (in the first place), plus the mutilated waves of redundancy and digression, it'd surely be a short breath held.12

--------------------------------------------

1. News articled.
2. Check this and that.
3. Effects on women.
4. That link is also good for further Rockefeller drug law discussion. And I also love Amy and her Democracy Now program and her work generally. I only skimmed from an older book she had out (not to be identified), but the forcefulness of her writing and opinions is surprising. She also recently was in town to promote her newest book (not to be identified either), but well, I cannot do everything I want to do.
5. I have no direct source to back up anything regarding the tendency aspect of domestic violence, by the way. But that is how I remember it.
6. If it is not obvious, that's also a big ol' diss on President Obama, the details, this is no glow either.
7. I came across the gay before in popular culture but Rachel Maddow, via her show Rachel Maddow Show, I don't have a link to the specific bit, probably some gay in the military thing, but the way she went off on, I assume, the military brass fearing the gay, or, I suppose, it could be gay marriage, like, how the gay will somehow plain wreck otherwise happy straight households, her phrasing of the gay really sparkled for me. I do think Rachel's show is pretty good, which by the way is available on podcast, which is how I get it, only the audio because I do not have the bandwidth or drive capacity for the video, and since I am at it, Democracy Now also podcast, also, for me, only audio, not video for the same reason. Where was I? oh, I do think Rachel's show is pretty good, I listen to it pretty much weekdays daily, it's entertaining and decently surveys each day's more significant happenings, though, perhaps not surprising (or perhaps surprising, who knows how effectively I write or how closely you, if there is any you(se), read), I like my information even more in depth. Rachel is also a cute pie, and I would not hesitate to say that I would totally do her but for the fact from her own jokey reference (Google suggests that, but I could not find an exact cite with an exact quote) of butch dyke, and instead, I fear, I would be the one getting done; let's put it this way, I have never been nor think I am quite ready to be fisted.

This may or may not be the segment but it is an example of Rachel and the gay.

By the way, this is the closest I got in the supposed connection with butch dyke and Rachel's self description. And that is a real stretch to conclude that as self described or self proclaimed. Not that it may not be true. But it's more symptomatic on how the media or cowardly writers or talking heads likes (loves) to use or find excuses to use words and or phrases that would otherwise be taboo.

8. I'm not even going to tell you what they thought that meant. Arrested Development, series finale.
9. Here ya go; though if wiki was so terrific, it'd also have a section on "the gay," wouldn't it?
10. Best show ever. Same AD, same series finale. I simply prefer true gender neutral terms, congressperson, chairperson, humankind, etc., and view non gender neutral terms as sublimated or covert sexism.
11. God for Harry, England, and Saint George! Henry V.
12. Good gracious, and I hate being a tease too.

A New Post for Defensive Driving Florida John

2009-03-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

Badly paraphrased folk wisdom, "Those who can't do, write," is perhaps evoked by two excerpts.

When the head of what was recently known as the "gulag" acknowledges publicly that prison conditions are tantamount to torture, human rights groups needn't focus on forcing such confessions. That is, if the jailers are quick to admit that prison conditions are deplorable, what role, really, remains for sustained public pressure to have the Ministry of Justice officials unveil the truth - a truth now obvious to all?

I do not understand how a writer on human rights can dismiss the big fuck storm surrounding America's prior statements of "tantamount to genocide" as a barrier to action, or more to the point, belittle the need to "unveil the truth." Declaring torture obligates a range of treaty triggered legal responsibilities, while tantamount squeezes crocodile tears. Yeah, there is a difference in context, and by sharp degrees, from the above quoted statement and the shame-rife historical legacy of "tantamount to..." but it feels, to me, unsavory to be directly cavalier about it.

And so the jail in Kemerovo was dank and crammed with other young men awaiting trial, most accused of nonviolent crimes like the one Sergei readily admits committing.

The excerpts are from Paul Farmer's Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor, the discussions in chapter 4 covering the recent rash of Tuberculosis outbreaks, most focus on the Russian penal structures, overcrowded and poorly ventilated. My hangup is what the hell does "nonviolent crimes" have to do with anything.

I have no fucking clue about what it is meant to signify, and I finish the chapter to find the/a point. I do have some sensitivity, as an American, and as a paranoid living in an American dystopia, that the division of nonviolent and violent crimes is code for class and race based delineations: nonviolent = CEO/Wall Street hustlers and violent = niggers. So what can Mr. Farmer possible mean or intend? Nonviolent criminals are less deserving of detention as they await trial, that nonviolent criminals are less deserving of Tb? That they deserve better detention facilities? That there is no connection with violent crimes and being young and poor? Violent crimes cases should drag in bureaucracy while the nonviolent ones get fast tracked? What, and why exactly?

I won't even accept that nonviolent crimes are of the type that normally allows being released (like say, from dank and crammed detention facilities) because these accused criminals are the type that would make their court dates. First, only in the movies are violent crimes about serial killing psychopaths. Most are probably standard issue domestic violence, robbery, battery and assault, so there shouldn't be a problem with those accused individuals returning for their trials. As well, as the criminal system goes, the detention is normally tolled (or counted) towards any eventual sentencing, so if guilty - as Mr. Farmer says Sergei admits - then the detention period, by itself, is not at issue. Finally, nonviolent crimes are serious crimes; yes, serious crimes. To my eyes, financial crimes are even that much worst because they exasperate the conditions that foster violent crimes.

If there is a problem with Russia's legal system, with the snail crawl pace of bringing cases to trial, then the problem is with Russia's legal system and bureaucracy, and the type of crime has nothing to do with it.

True story, even if a while ago, at a dinner party, where one dude was black, and the rest mixed, in a conversation of how blacks should be properly identified these days by the media or popular political currents, whether negro, Afro American, or African American, or whatnot, and the shared experience of these friends on the historical shifts of the linguist traverse and current observations on the perceptions of the different identity markers, I asked, eventually, "But 'nigger' is still good, right?"

So, what more should I say about the(/my) usage of bad words? Nigger, bitch, & fag, these words, as any words, are part of the pop lexicon and therefore open to use. Obviously, because of history, which goes a long way of making them bad, any actual expression of these words comes with the threat and/or expectation of incendiary impact and/or response. Or you would think.

Well, brave face talk and all, I do think more than twice (or try) before keeping those words in, let's say, for something like here. That's not technically true. The bad word used to describe black folk rings a clear alarm, but the bad words for gays/les and women folk are just something I kinda lately find myself, uh, thinking about. I mean, and not as a defense, obviously I don't use any bad words as an epithet, or being the easygoing type, I could not conceive of a situation where those words would be used. But pop culture being what it is, and the still pervasive second class status given to samesex preferrers and women, there is a near blind eye in referring to these sub groups in a derogatory manner, as oppose to the quick ire for race base slurs. And it is a strange parallel track, for the same sex preferrers, there is an active, up to date active, war to deny them basic rights, like marriage. Whereas for the ladies, I can only imagine their mistreatment is as ancient as the damned dawn of civilization. Or certainly, as ancient as my birth, or conception.

Assassinated Tupac raps:

You know it makes me unhappy
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up.1

I love Mati Diop. And Gregoire Colin. And Claire Denis. Which is to say 35 rhums (35 Shots of Rum) was pretty good.

As was Vredens dag (Day of Wrath).

Watchmen was enjoyable to a point.

35 rhums least directly critiques gender politics and only a wee smidge more on class/immigrant politics, mostly done by showing the everyday lives and surrounding world of the characters. But Mati Diop is drop dead smokin beautiful. And Claire Denis is, like, the best woman moviemaker - a qualification that is only applicable for herein context, cuz otherwise it'd be one of the greatest moviemaker. I haven't seen any Chantal Ackerman flicks, then, maybe, Denis is definitely top 3? Her buoyant excellence as well as artistic control in this men dominated world and industry is a statement that speaks for itself.

The men dominated industry speaks for itself. I abhor the Academy show, but you know how many chicks won the best director awards? None.

Vendredi soir is light (or modest) Denis fare, but it is a bit ahead as my favorite. Beau travail is probably her critical high point, and my first movie from her, and which pitched my mind on fire. Outside the explicit Ozu homage, and despite some in the critical establishment printing and blogging otherwise, 35 rhums is a major, shimmering Denis work. Even ignoring the homage - I didnot catchon to it until the ending when it was quite blatant; and if it is not blatant to you, go watch (more) Ozu, fast - 35 rhums stands on its own movie legs, and blooms. Plus, it is so fucking good. And I am glad Colin has not let himself go.

Mati Diop. Mati Diop. Mati Diop. Mati Diop. (The restof thecast is terrific.) Mati Diop. Mati Diop. Agnes Godard.2 Again, not that the Academy show is an arbiter of anything, but you know how many chicks have ever been nominated for cinematography? None. No,really,none. Statement speaks itself.

Anywayz, Vreden dag not only about gender issues, but clearly squared on it, with the several panning shots of the (of course) all dude inquisitors peering judgmentally on various sordid scenes of torture and confession. Vreden dag is terrific when you consider, in varying degrees, the various hero(ine)s and villain(esse)s are, at the same time, guilty and holy, shames, as an example, let's say, Arthur Miller's The Crucible. The audience can sort and feel through, amazingly enough, ambiguity and complexity. I like it when a director does not assume the viewers are morons.

Vreden dag kinda recalls Dreyer's earlier La passion de Jeanne d'Arc in the inquisition scenes.

Why do/must we fear our women? I add.

Fuck and spells. Don't stone our women, male religious sadists/fundamentalists (among others). Time to heal our women, be real to our women. And to let them be.

Anna Svierkier as Herlof's Marte steals scenes like a grey fox. She is wonderful and Dreyer's handling of her is wonderful. Hopefully I can catch maybe one more Dreyer flick in the upcoming weeks, Vampry most likely.

A problem some folks have with the Watchmen is Malin Akerman's performance. I am outside that circle and think she is super terrificness, and, if there are faults, I blame the source material and or the script and or the director for them. Plus, she is smoking hot. And she kicksass pretty well. And she does enough to tie a lot of the movie together. A freakin comic book movie.

I am not going down that useless road of giving the evil eye to the American movie industry, or perhaps to the wants and expectations of the American viewing public, for confining hot chicks to dumb and boring roles.

As for the rest of the Watchmen, if you can stomach The Dark Knight dreck, it's more of the same. Well done Hollywood rubbish. I don't know whether to frown over the lack of imagination or ambition by the individual moviemaker or the systemic/structural failures/restrictions of the creatively/morally bankrupt studio system. And if you couldn't stand, like me, The Dark Knight,moresame rubbish.

Malin Akerman, let's now praise famous blond Swedes.

I swear, listening to a lot of New York based The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, many of the songs, I swear it sounds British. Thank goodness for My Bloody Valentine or The Smiths. Or is 1990 really a long,long time longago? I don't remember the source, but I agree that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - who I just found out about but are in enough apparently to preemptively turn me away from their sold out Brooklyn show - neatly retread, without breaking or innovating from - some internet tastemakers tag The Pains of Being Pure at Heart as best new something or another, and I guess that would be true if one is jonesing for unfulfilled nostalgia - those fun old molds and grounds with their exquisite pop pieces.

Well, I cannot be too judgmental because I paid downloaded the album, and want to see them for a New York show in May.Maybe.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart also has a Peggy playing keyboards and singing/harmonizing.

Keyboards are okay. Because Valerie Trebeljahr, among others, plays the keyboard. Chicks on bass turns me off even with the bass being one of the things that makes a particular band's sound sound special and the fact of many superb bassists being chicks, the lady from Los Campesinos! being a recent example of how revelatory it was when I saw and heard her and the rest of the band sorta rock. During a pretty good Los Campesinos! show, I turned to my friend and said that the bassist, she, definitely played a big part in making it a pretty good show.

Just, it seems a cliche. May be that is a bad way to look at it. But the token woman does not have to play bass. I think.

I arrive fairly late to the news that seminal riot grrrl band, who soon became one of the best rock bands ever, Sleater-Kinney - we just want to say that we're not here to fuck the band; we are the band - disbanded.3 I feel a little guilty because while I do trulymadly love their music and the band, I kinda stopped following them even though pretty much whatever new album they were releasing prompted full trottle excitement and a desire to buy the album and to catch them perform. And now, that's it. Searching through the internet to rediscover them, damn, their tunes are hot, and individually the women seem awesome. Janet Weiss performs now with Stephen Malkmus though his laidback style deprives the music world the ferocity of her heavy drumming. And the other two chicks are doing something interesting too.4 And, some Sleater-Kinney folks were/are bisex'u'ale, lesbian, and straight.

Let the LGBT marry already.

Pathologies of Power and Mr. Farmer continues:

AIDS specialists rarely say this bluntly, but the majority of those 30 million people have simple been written off, because the first priority for the first few billion dollars is prevention, not treatment.

I wonder if the idea behind this assertion is that prevention is just a stupidbad idea. That the benefit of prioritizing money and dedicated attention to a portion of the 30 million currently afflicted with HIV/AIDS, and a result of easing the dire medical and social conditions of, let's say, 5 million of these poor folks, supersedes the harm of another 30 million AIDS/HIV sufferers. If prevention is any part of a strategy,5 then,well, it has to be cashmoney funded too. And for that matter, just as I suppose Mr. Farmer is crushed by the mistreatment of the 30 million with AIDS, other AIDS specialist would be crushed by, let's say, poorly funded prevention strategies that allows an additional infected 30 million people. Mr. Farmer could be a little more blunt too.

Z noticed that my hair was cut. Finally, someone did. I have been obsessing over my hairdo because staring in the mirror, uh, the trim I performed myself, it is damn uneven. I am tempted to touch up the back a little, but I imagine further sniping would only highlight the ongoing disaster.6

A thing I have been doing has been snapping pictures of my dinners. Or, M had weeks ago sent me a photo of a Japanese style pork belly thing he made, and I thought it was cool. So I have been intermittently doing so with my photos in return to him, and others. Subscribe to my Twitter feed for your updates!7 I have not been too diligent with keeping it up, especially when I have friends over and I am rushing and totally forgetting to take out my camera until way late, and most of my cooking is completely and unimaginatively unremarkable.

Bad contrapositive: those who do not write, do. By many accounts, Mr. Farmer's medical and community work, Partners in Health is a prime example, will one day be beatification worthy. But I just have not been enjoying his writing, and that's even with my sympathy matching pretty closely with Mr. Farmer - that the poor should receive preferential treatment, as oppose to the sham "cost effective" treatment. He just is not critical enough of the things he lays down in writing, which in turn undermines to certain degrees the force of his arguments and, as with me, frustrates readers. Or he fancies himself too much a writer; that afterword is eck. In which case, the editor should have stopped bending over for Mr. Farmer's professional and humanitarian awesomeness, and, like, read the dang drafts. There is always room to blame the editor.

---------------------------------------------

1. Keep Ya Head Up.
2. Interviewed here and also.
3. A performance, another, and 'nother, and one and a second video, plus a better online appreciation. No bass in the band, instead the guitars are tuned down to C# that creates a similar yet distinct fullness to their sound.
4. I discover the trio before the ascendancy of youtube so, even having seen them in concert and music videos, I really didn't distinguish them as individual ladies. But along with the aforementioned shout out to Janet's skillz, Corin has that defiant, unfettered, irritating-only-if-you-find-god-irritating vibrato voice and Carrie is simply magnificent.
5. Pope Benedict XVI, shut the fuck up already.
6. I did take up the shears again one morning and no more harm done than already done.
7. I'm just kidding of course, I do not Twit. Despite this web presence, I confess to an astounding lack of tech savvy. My claim to a photo twit should be a dead giveaway, as I believe Twitter is purely (short) text base.

Persistent Strands

2009-02-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

Oh, so, like, I'm 1/3 in to Against the Day. Unfuckinbelievable. I finished Dally's section where the lil gal goes from the wild West with a stopover in Chicago to New York in search of the momma that, well, left her. Dally does find her momma, Erlys, both characters gorgeously named by the way, who is now hooked up with a magician family, the Zombini's. This section is pretty short, a blackjack of pages, but well, yeah, shows many winning parts, natural 21's - to overplay my unremarkable analogy. These aren't the highlights, just some stuff that I guess I don't mind starting from that point on.

Dally had imagined once that if she ever found Erlys again, she'd just forget how to breath or something. But having gathered into the family chaos with little or no fuss, so, like some amiable stranger, she was only looking for chances to scrutinize them both - Erlys when it didn't seem she was looking, and then herself in one of the mirrors that stood or hung everywhere in these rooms - for signs of similarity.

Nice, huh? Just hints of deep embedded heartbreak. A kind of action you'd expect, you might even say, "no duh," but it's done up in a nice, long sentences. Then.

Even without theatrical shoes on. Erlys was taller than Luca Zombini, and kept her fair hair in a Psyche knot, out of which the less governable tresses continued, with the day, to escape. Dally, reckoning that the way a woman, in her continuum of Tidiness, deals with hair-irregularity can provide a clue to some other self she might be keeping less available, found, somewhat to her relief, that Erlys more often than not would go entire waking days without bother from the stray undulations, though she was known to blow away as needed the more persistent strands that got in her line of vision.

I want to write like that! Or 1/2 like that. Or once 1/2 like that. A lil further down.

Not Bria. Not even when she started working as Bria's knife-throwing dummy would Dally give that much trust away to her. She noted the girl's look of indifference when her father addressed her as "bella," though that never kept him from saying it. He was clearly enraptured with all of his children, from the most obvious future criminal to the most radiant saint.

"Don't mistake me for one of these Neapolitan spaghetti-benders," Nunzi in a fair impression of his father, "I come from Friuli, in the north. We are an Alpine people."

"Goat-fuckers," clarified Cici. "They eat donkey salami up there, it's like Austria, with gestures."

I admit that is my idea of laughs. I am generally attracted to low culture. More stuff happens, then.

A silence, grave and unnatural, had crept over the lengthy apartment, as if to suggest, without a Zombini in earshot, that this would be the perfect moment to come out in a fierce and long-held whisper, "I was only a little baby -how could you just leave like that?"

You know what, again, a confrontation you kinda expect, so it is not like it is revolutionary. But then again, I don't know, through all that preceded it, it does earn that payoff. On a personal level, it is Dally, a person, a character, stating plainly something that coyness or fear another might, particularly in real everyday life, execute indirectly or just keep recessed. Mom responds.

A kind of smile, almost thankful. "Wondering when that'd come up."

So it goes. More stuff follows but the section closes.

But wouldn't you know it, before she could work up much more of a head of steam, the subgods of theatrical timing that seemed to rule this house decided about then to put into the situation after all, and here came Nunzi and Cici in matching white sharkskin suits, practicing Hindoo shuffles and French drops, cheerfully oblivious to the fury and consternation in the room, and full of the latest news about the sailing. And there Dally and Erlys would have to leave things for a while. In fact, the chore level being what it was, till they were on board the Stupendica and well out to sea.

And there it was. I like it better than The Pirates of Penzance.1

You know who died, and the same who that I hardly recalling reading anything from except after his death notice an essay? Updike. If that was it, that essay of Ted Williams last at bat, I'm okay with it.

I wonder on the horrible thing to say, where that ranks.

What I watched recently that I really like is the Swede movie Let the Right One In. I l-uv Lina Leandersson.2 An atypical vampire picture, Right One In is modest in scale and scope, but not, particularly, its imagery. Not scary (I was looking forward to squealing like a lil girl) but otherwise very sticky on the brain. I'm trying to get my reader mitts on the Lindqvist source novel, maybe via Amazon, maybe a local bookseller, whichever is cheaper, that's how it normally works, because the novel is suppose to be decent and has takes on things the movie either did not develop much or at all.

The problem with Amazon, if the point is to go the cheapo route, is that it's cost effective only if it meets the free delivery threshold, which requires a higher overall purchase. Not much of a problem as I am not adverse to further stocking my, it seems to be, not exhaustible to read pile. Still, it is picking the appropriate books or other Amazonian merchandise(s).3 I don't mind a Chomsky polemic, as I have not read anything from him. Manufacturing Consent seems like the classic of his canon, or at least has something more/different to say other than his, and this isn't a knock, anti-Americanism. I assume. Alternatively or additionally, I am piqued by Gomorrah, the Italian mafia book by Saviano, because I want to see the to be released soon Matteo Garrone movie version of the book. Matteo, an up and coming sensation that I had no clue who he is until just recently.

For that matter, I would like to see the Manufacturing Consent documentary, directed by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick, as well. Achbar's co-directed The Corporation was impressive. So, in a sense, breaking the twenty five bucks barrier would not be a huge problem. I may also wanna pick up Lucrecia Martel's debut movie, La Cienaga. Argentinean Lucrecia, she hot. I may wait too, Martel's rep has, just has, to earn a retro treatment sometime soon.

Okay, I'm okay with leaving Updike as I found him, somewhere else. Complaints possibly arise from astute reader(s) here who spot, among other things, the relish in which I pilfer from him and his Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, like "and there it was" or "gods do not answer letters." Um, stop being so astute, for goodness sake. Another money excerpt, bandied occasionally around by serious-minded to(/through their sure descent) vapid/obsolete sports personalities: "For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill."

I'll say "and there it was" is cool and everything - someone making notice of that phrase was the driving impetus for my reading the essay after all - but fitting it for William's final swing of his final at bat and the resulting, you couldn't write it up better, home run that has to be a misfire. It just seems axiomatic in the great game of baseball which is defined by failure (the boring standard, screwing up 7 out of 10 is celebrated with a multi million dollar contract), that phrase for sure was meant to describe a strikeout or something, something to make an out or end the match. And seems contrary to what one feels in the fan stands and contrary to the natural assumption of fan's expectation. It is a great phrase, but as used, I have to wonder what and how it magnifies in context.

The Brooklyn Academy of Art movie people will soon be offering a review of the works of Carl Theodor Dreyer. It is their turn apparently as Dreyer's works routinely, deservingly frequent, is screened by movie-minded institutions. I am psyched nonetheless as I love pretty much every Dreyer flick I have seen, all its glorious boredom too, and still have several key works - he only have a handful of full length feature - to see. Before that, BAM will visit, as way to celebrate Gomorrah's release, Garrone's career thus far. I hope this Italian upstart is decent, and for Italia's sake, the new waving lasts.

Playing around locally right now, I hope to see Medicine for Melancholy, Barry Jenkins debut directorial effort. I really do not have a good memory of all the shit I catch in the theater but I cannot remember the last American movie I saw, let alone like halfway. The American movie industry is consistently the shittiest, so maybe I'm deluding myself in these downtrending days to buy american. If Frozen River is still around somewhere, I will be tempted to check out Courtney Hunt's own debut directing job too. Black 'Cisco hipsters, upstate bottom rung mommies, buy American! - I don't want to masquerade as an elitist and say it cannot belong in a stimulating package.

Before I go on, one fantasy I have is that when I write my screenplay - haha, okay if - one scene I definitely may have is shooting a couple of steps back to show the secondary cameras, fill lights, backdrops, sound people, grips, and gaffers milling about, etc. It's not exactly original as Brook's Blazing Saddles kinda faked it for his infamous climatic sequence, and Kiarostami kinda does it with his mystical closing credits to Taste of Cherry, and de Oliveira kinda does it with his (I wouldn't mind to say a nod or comment on theater's intersection with cinema) opening and closing credits to Benilde or the Virgin Mother. Prankster wonder boy Haneke imbues Cache with that kind of tone, the director on high pulling the strings situated in the forefront. And probably a bunch of other directors and movie that I have and have not seen. But I have not seen it quite done like my plan, definitely not in the hipster meta posing the rage these days, but played straight, still recording the scene just pulled back enough to expose the moviemaking apparatus. Okay, if you ask why, I remind, dial down that astutity. Otherwise, structure, medium, et cetera are just stuff that I find sexy, as well as fertile sources for, um, something.

I swear, listening to the opening and several inter-dispersed music patches in Los Campesinos! Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1, among other songs, I swear it sounds American or Canadian. Thank goodness for Pavement or Broken Social Scene.4 Or is it a damning indictment on the sad state of pop music? On the flipside, I have been seriously getting down with Why? and their new-ish (depends how you date a March 08 release) full length work, titled Alopecia. Listened to it a bit when I first downloaded (via iTunes) it, but it is on hefty rotation now. "Stalker my whole style / And if I get caught / I'll deny, deny, deny." Loves it. And Jolie Holland well done The Living and the Dead too. I'm tempted to hear what Margot and the Nuclear So So's' Animal or Not Animal have on tap. Or crackling, seance inflected vocalist Joanna Newsom? Or wait for her next new album release, the one the diehards will accuse her of being a sellout? Though the only thing added with that is - as indictment goes - my musical taste is Wonder fucking white breed. You say the world is Joseph coat colored? - not through my headphones.

Funny, I went back to check exactly where in the West Dally left from on her momma quest and that earlier section ended.

They had been in and out of each other's arms so often, she had no uneasiness with good-bye abrazos. Merle, who had a sense of the bets on the table here, knew he better not spook her now. Neither of them had ever had much interest in breaking each other's heart. In theory they both knew she had to move on, though all he wanted right now was to wait, even just another day. But he knew that feeling, and he guessed it would pass.

Sigh. That sure as heck does not straighten my flaccid self-confidence. Loose end roundup: Telluride, Colorado and Merle Rideout was the Dally-raising daddy.

Before finishing this ride. About Jolie Holland, until recently I had no clue that she sang or existed, yet she's fantastic. She has brilliant bluesy delivery. And her lyrics and phrasings trip out so that the poetry, rather than punctuated or line broke, unfurls from the one to the next, the emotions stretch and layer and topple upon each other. From one of my favorite songs from her cd, The Future, line breaks ignored.

Everything around here makes me sad, everything is part of the dreams that we had that will never be the way we wanted them to be when we dreamed these dreams that we had we wanted them to be the future that is now is not how we dreamed of the future with a house and a love that would ride into the future with my arms around you tight, etc.

Saddle time, Obama is the new elected top American cheese. Now what? I like to see, within the first year of the Administration:

Retool DOMA, if not its obliteration, so minimally the federal government will not be complicit with the bigotry of same sex marriage ban. I know Obama is not the proximate cause of Prop 8's passage, but, as the change agent and leader he lay claims to be, then he certainly did not help.
Drastic troop drawdown in Iraq.
Drastic troop drawdown in Afghanistan, there's no credible reason for us to be there either. Unless you get kicks out of murdering civilians.
Guantanomo detainees released or tried under courts in accordance with full due process rights. You can make what you will of the one year deadline for Guantanamo's closing. I personally do not have an opinion on the actual planned physical facility closing, aside from seeing the one year cutoff as a gross travesty versus any kind of actual relief. But, hey, I'm not easy to please.
Increase spending on infrastructure (which includes grid, smart mass transit, and water projects) and alternative energy; boo to highways.
Universal health care, of some sort, though I have to wonder whether the sham plan Obama touted during his campaign is a step back or a baby step to, like, a real health care plan. Yep, I am still harping on that.
EFCA passage.5

I set these down under realistic expectations - or perhaps I should say not quite institutionalize-worthy delusions. I skip areas that I really want to see reform in, like penal system, that I know no one cares about. And hopscotch over education, environment, and the economy and such because I really know zilch about what should or should not be done except perhaps cheer when my favorite sties get more pork. And I suppose left out all the things that is slipping my mind this moment.

The year deadline affords Obama some time to get his sea legs underneath him and, for the most part, I do not need things to happen RIGHT NOW. In which case, if you thought Obama was a spineless suck because of the FISA reversal and his dodge on gay marriage and so forth, right now is hardly a rehab moment. I suppose I am referring to DOJ's recent toeing the State Secret privilege shield that was used so heinously in the Bush days.6 Not that the bad news you were waiting for were not already in full apparent force with certain Obama's appointments - not just the establishment retreads like Daschle but I mean torture fanboy John Brennan. I'll include Hillary Clinton in that grizzled Beltway mix, and would stick her toes under the fire as Iraq and Afghanistan (I would add Palestine, Pakistan and most of Africa too) are within her Secy of State sub-sphere of influence that needs substantial work. As for the non-investigation of the dark Bush years, only the delusional would double down for anything different.

------------------------

1. See (or google with) Marshall's Pretty Woman. That silly, bad joke is sadly the raison d'etre for this whole mess of words here.
2. Amazon won, doubly so as I gone way above the $25 mark. But all that matters now is the Amazon fairy is in transit.
3. Uh, pedophilia ranking, where? Don't worry, this isn't going to be a recurring rhetorical gimmick.
4. Yes, I called it right! Though Broken Social Scene is, like, totally redundant. They basically want to be Canada's Pavement, no?

5. Solidarity Forever, sing along to the chorus!

6. Here you go, and followed up. Oh snap!

keep ongoing

2009-01-31T13:07:00.000-08:00

and more. it's hard for me to say that it's coming any more or less together cuz if you been following along, things now, last day of jan 09, will seem hardly less haphazardly slapped in than before.

i am still most focused in putting things in, but there is a bit of pressing and pushing of what's there to test what kind of shapes may come out.

the two other times i did this interactive or "making of" poetry thing i updated less and usually after substantial progress. i likely would not have gone through these iterations thus far. in one sense, updating after "breakthroughs" is less satisfying because it doesn't show the kind of banality that is actually involved in my writing. in another sense, it's more interesting because it bypasses a lot of the banality that is actually involved in my writing, the shortage of easy and meaningful progression. eh. maybe next time more definition.

its lighting, or the sound of it,
woke me
from dream deep sleep

gray and dullness overlaid the room, tattered municipal light slipping in
becomes a feeble wasted scepter pitched against the wall

as reignless as my fingers are ringless

all appeared normal but the potential for new ugly scars of barbarism
loom

this domicile, no longer protected by the familiar rule of law
why do i still sleep here?

why not sleep outside?
burrow beneath snow and layers of new
concrete and older pavement
stepped on gum, discarded cigarette butts, lost loose pocket change,
flyers, delivery menus, pressed bottles

carbon, crude, diamond

to ancient dirt, recomposing and decomposing

mingle with the mold and rot of roots
and examine their contrary aspiration as they divert
vital energies up through soil to
bodies that rise in viscid sky and heaven

visa

uncross my fingers

normally i am disinterested but startled
while sluggish, i became interested before i could
be disinterested

i missed it initially

unsee what is seen

disturbance

boring blank scenes against the furnishing from the afterglow

a magic lantern

some one loves you very much,
some one loves you very much

the worn petals of your rose mostly blacked and bruised, the fragrant provocations expired

not lost but still troubled

bioluminescence

firefly

i make fists
i give fists

it happened,
the thing that does not happen.

to say a few words

sweet cream ladies, forward march

where had i left it all behind?
my heart,
my heart, it is in it still

i at last ask myself, am i awake after all?
how awake? after a short pause.

then i am in a navy suit, and i say hello to miss receptionist. "good morning." and at
my desk and my monitor turned on. still no email? i call, - it's not ready? ...
very well ... tomorrow ... when, no, before, i get in ... okay, bye. that frees
up my morning a little but might have to stay late tomorrow. i check my calendar.
re-schedule my meeting. a very important meeting. nothing to go over now. not
my fault they will have to stay late too. may be it will not take too long.

i telephone - hey, yes, good morning, oh no, nothing, yeah, i have a lot of work
here, can't really talk, just wanted to let you know, in case i forget, no, well, i
want to ask if we can move dinner later tomorrow, nothing, just, well,
you know, it's okay? excellent.

the big moment. i have to check this. the inventory application opens. come on,
come on. week on week change. yes. this is going to

be a big quarter. nice. every market above target. those Atlanta stores are catching
fire. finally. about time. i know they have been working hard to pick things up for a long
time. no doubt, prayers too. but that tie-in promotion, i knew it would work.

i'm not finish

i have secrets

indigo, madder & chay flags soar, an array of lithe idols, and ringed pungent chains of blossoms

jealous gods
jealous hearts
i held your face in my hands
i looked at your eyes
the friendship my childhood was on the lookout for

that thing happened
that thing is the thing that does not happen

the over ripened lips, set to burst
the accelerating rhythm of blood's machinery vibrating against my palm
the spring of crooked line of scarlet creasing your cream thighs, i kiss around the source

crossroads migration sleazy

i recross my fingers

bolt passed the finish line, eventually

gertrude stein does not write or say anything anymore
she's dead
the funeral completed before i was born

loveland

i sought a misunderstood flame

and the monsoon that beats down, washing dirt, sin
leaving only unquenchable lust and that flame alive

i cannot continue

Rekindle This

new finish line

confession confession
confess confess

the floating flame. premonition. of it reaching my bedding,
the down comforter, fire like wings that would envelop me.

consuming me. a pyre, an inferno.
i am not a virgin for appeasement.

i whisper a desperate breath to extinguish that flicker.
i barely have a breath left
it withstands my attempt anyway, and comes closer.

i duck under cover

pythias, do not return! stay away, stay home, stay and watch your baby
be born, and crawl, and grow big,
become unruly become your equal become a new father himself

stay away and love your wife and father and mother
tend your house and fields and friends
stay away and live and ponder and deny and exercise and dream
and exert and reminisce and become old, lost, senile, and spent

as if to attest, you must bear witness

like joan of arc or a jew Tomas Trevino de Sobremonte, Antonio Jose da Silva
kiddush hashem

קידוש השם

Auto da Fe quemadero (burning place)

discovery of guilt

i cannot understand the ongoing plea of love
no i don't love you nor will i

never was much of a gambler
i lost it all on my very first wager
i don't think i'll get the chance again

i ask for god's blessing - gods do not answer letters - i will continue asking

all night

Knocking on the doors of ya hummer hummer

2009-01-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

let's see if i can make this short and sweet (by which i mean not short, as convoluted as i can muster cuz that's my style, and brutal). recently i wrote:

I'm gutless. I want to be a badass but, I dislike intentional cruelty. What am I withholding anyway: my inestimable friendship, a chance for her to do that closure thing, or the favorite cobbler emergency: a booty call? I toy with absolute crudeness and cruelty because it's fun, and because it's useful to explore, but I only wish I could dispense so, but never do.

and

In a poem, Auden offers, "... indifference is the least / We have to dread from man or beast." I don't quite get it, because indifference is pretty sucky. A takeaway nonetheless is that it is still dread-worthy. Not replying is like indifference, I think. Indifference or indifference plus? The poem is The More Loving One.

so these will be some themes i may waddle in, posing as a sort of sequel to my last largely/fully ignored entry.

convolution, let's go. roberto bolaño's novella, titled By Night in Chile, starts:

I am dying now, but I still have many things to say. I used to be at peace with myself. Quiet and at peace. But it all blew up unexpectedly. That wizened youth is to blame. I was at peace. I am no longer at peace. There are a couple of points that have to be cleared up. So, propped up on one elbow, I will lift my noble, trembling head, and rummage through my memories to turn up the deeds that shall vindicate me and belie the slanderous rumours the wizened youth spread in a single storm-lit night to sully my name. Or so he intended. One has to be responsible, as I have always said. One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one's actions, and that includes one's words and silences, yes, one's silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one's silences. I am responsible in every way. My silences are immaculate. Let me make that clear. Clear to God above all. The rest I can forego. But not God. I don't know how I got on to this. Sometimes I find myself propped up on one elbow, rambling on and dreaming and trying to make peace with myself.

bolaño is suppose to be this moment's it lat-am writer, nevermind that, at the tender age of 50, he's been truly dead for 'bout 5 years. don't worry if you ain't hip to his prose stylings yet, while i think the cool factor deadlines with my partaking in the groupie party, i think as the books (of which i read only one, and a wee one at that) that will stake his reputation are his lengthier pieces, like The Savage Detective and 2666, where thick book spines, latino root, and, i assume as not having read, ample experimental bent - jorgie borges, tommie bernhard, and davey lynch are typical comparison points - i wager, if you read any bobbie bolaño's novels/novellas, you will be the only person of your clique who will have done so. i have Savage Detective on my to-read (eventually) stack; if you do read it, feel free to share.

his writing is said to be a markedly new voice or next voice, away from that boom (those yarns of dictators, whores and magic realism, ringlead by vargas llosa, fuentes, and macondoite garcía márquez) or those anti-boom-ers (whoever they are, but from what i hear: european/pop/postmodern looking, which tend to be imitative, and therefore usually second-rate). uh, i actually do not read a lot, hardly any, lat-am books, so add a salt pinch. bolano does set himself far apart because, from By Night, there is something wild going on, which can be interpreted as "unique," "new," or "fresh," and there is this precise control over things that have to do with words and sentences, like imagery, pacing, tone, word choices (as much as a translation tells), etc. By Night has a dizzying quality, because there are things like (per the borges and lynch nods) surrealism and (bernhard-land) a mad man's rant, which somehow always have long, shifting and dramatic sentences; dizzying, or boring. the way i read, however, ain't too much of an roadblock for leisure's pleasure, i pass over stuff until hitting on scraps of narrative or lyricism that turns me on, which By Night gots lots.

anyway, i proposed (recently) silence. does my silence rises to god and heaven? very carefully? and immaculately? thank you bolaño. more

con-

volution because silence, an old slogan formulated, = death. though, when i think silence,

it is david lynch's movies. he is best known, probably, for putting together dense surreal dream/fantasy/nightmare puzzles, plots and images. but i'm most stuck on the soundscapes (and music) he creates, where silence roars, hums and drones, and otherwise is purposefully present, lush, haunted and/or often violent. also Mulholland Dr. contains a club silencio and the movie ends with an evocation, "silencio." you know what else? i previously considered Lost Highway as the better Mulholland, because with similar fantasy/reality bifurcation, i thought its exploration on male in/adequacy more compelling. but. googling around for silencio i found a bit more to Mulholland, like,

diane/betty was likely abused as a child.1 it fits well plot-wise (and lynch preoccupation-wise), and gives a, i want to say richness but it feels like an awful, awful way to describe child abuse. i'll say texture instead, a texture that augments the watts character and different types of motivation, and wraps the movie more tightly together. it is awful for it to take child abuse to read betty/diane more sympathetic too. but. i want to get my hand on the dvd to check the accuracy of my memory, from which recalls enough signs to credit the abuse idea; still, i like to make sure, i do not like, normally, extra textual readings. the same source that outlined the abuse backstory offered a connection of Mulholland to godard's technicolor knockout movie Le mépris. i dig that. among many odds'n ends, bardot's character is camille, the "real" but no less fantasized rita is camilla. and Le mépris ends with an evocation, "silence," subtitled in italian as "silencio." interesting.2 kind of?

how or why silence = death was appropriated by the pink triangle movement?

the same Mulholland and silencio e-source brought up the proposition that the greatest sin there is, is silence. further googling: an assumed quote but absent where and when which kinda diffuses the potential steel cage match with auden, is from holocaust leftover elie wiesel via, "to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all." you know what, i'm going to limb out and say wiesel never ever said that, but that someone, by paraphrasing some of his statements, said he said it; that's the closest i got from google,3 and until something contrary comes up with a where/when citation, that is what i will keep saying. wiesel is properly credited with:

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. 1986.4

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil. 1999.5

which does not help as auden's poem weighed in in 1957. i guess there is little purpose in trying to reconcile auden's indifference against wiesel's indifference. Refugee Blues - "Stood on a great plain in the falling snow; / Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro: / Looking for me and you, my dear, looking for me and you" - with mentions of hitler and german jews, was out by 1939, so auden would not be one to make the, at the time, common but specious excuse, "we never knew."

indifference is the least to be dread from man and beast even with the genocide legacy? auden's line, i suppose, is for indifference he is being (poetically, hypothetically) subjected to; in a way, the narrator professing that stick and stone fractures, but the stars paying no mind don't,6 which is a distinction. i still feel it is a puzzling assertion, but, as well, how does ten thousand stand and march at the same time? and, if elie pushes the requirement for speaking out against injustice, why new found appreciation in shutting the fuck up on israel's mis/handling of palestine and palestinians?

assassinated 19th century president lincoln did not say: "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."7

as well, dead irish bernie shaw gave: "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."8

oh, there is a world of difference in the silence or indifference i espoused and what the notables describe; theirs is much more for the political realm. but with my protestation for being a mere dilettante in absolute crudeness/cruelty and disliking intentional cruelty, i cannot help being suspicious. have i been carrying out my evil daydream wishes, then, to boot, bragging about indifference plus? so strange, i say there is a world of difference, and. difference spreading.

so there is this thing where i read and watch (relatively) complicated books and movies. Le mépris, a kind of shocking thing is that when it was released, and contrary to its late 1990s re-release as a art house picture, was distributed as a mainstream movie: godard skyrocketing hype, blonde bardot was the it sex kitten, big money budget and so forth; i read, as i was not yet born circa 60s. it's hard to imagine anything as nobly/frustratingly daring getting wide release these days. not that it should necessarily not have a wide appeal, but not being easily digested is another matter. Mulholland is tough, but to me, and without disparaging how good and fun it is, it is still bound to a traditional, close system narrative; once you get it, you get what it is more or less about. Le mépris' tableau of, among other things, relationship wreckage is open, at turns messy, sporadic and abstract. convoluted also is gertrude stein's writings, like:

A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.

A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.9

this link here is one practical takedown, hopefully too a good starter for more reading/appreciating gertrude stein and other experimental works/art.

cubist gertrude stein, i have not read too much from her. i left off: and. and let's say it's not, as i purport, a world of difference with my silence.

let's say my silence is the epitome of evil. it would be awful. hurting someone usually is. intentionally, now. then. it would be unbearable.

or difficult to stomach. when i think about it. if. i wonder if that's what i really mean. could be.

let's say my silence is not the epitome of evil.

i do feel slightly tricked, or perhaps deceived by pretty word play; tricks are something a whore does for money. or candy. folks, casually it seems, insist on extremes and extreme duality: greatest, most, worst, epitomes, etc. referring to things in those terms is dramatic, but as to real life and real life situations, eh. indifference may be the epitome of evil. that much worse? it would be nice not to be talked down to, as if i or other readers were nincompoop gods, with fatal allergies to nuance. to be honest, i was set to quit my well worn silence, as it were, to err on safety's side, to avoid epitome of evil. then instead, i was dead set to safeguard that tired silence to not fall, like a klutz, into some kind of pascal's wager's trap. easy on the eyes extremes abdicate responsibility too.

let's say, as bolaño writes, silence carries with it a moral obligation. i am responsible for my silence. huh. writing that, well, that didn't magically answer jack shit. i don't know. nuance may, after all, fucking suck.

is it worth raising - rick warren's invitation is indifference?

there is a famous feud between garcía márquez and vargas llosa that reaped a 30 year long silence between the two former buddies. it is unnerving that, and i have only read garcía márquez, but assume it applies to vargas llosa too, where one reads, or writes, to open or shoulder the enormous field of possibilities in supernatural sympathy that such a feud exists/persists. in my black and white perspective, the feud (all feuds?), if not phonies and liars outright, makes these two writers gravely suspect.10 "Grave the vision Venus sends / of supernatural sympathy," auden warned in a different poem.11 the b-side is my own education on the single hurt color. what exactly am i coming away with? - ammunition for being more recalcitrant seems pitifully awful. at the same time, what am i withholding? her coming back with power, power?

... we're hungry like the wolves hunting dinner dinner
And we're moving with the packs like hyena ena.12

let's say i dislike intentional cruelty. that is what i am, actually, doing. silence is that. it's also not absolutely, or the uttermost expression of that. i spoke of complicated art, books, movies, music, etc., and their purpose and i'll not fib or pose, i am drawn to them mainly for the silly and lewd jokes (gertrude stein is alas quite a dirty bird) and awkward, solo rump shaking in my living room (cuz m.i.a.'s beats were too evil). the residue, however, is discontent. perhaps. heavy discontent for what and how and why of status quo. that is silence now, which is preferably over most of the other alternatives, many times over, especially given my perchance for a thud-life, downer attitude, but even so as the best option, silence has its demerits. one, namely that it forecloses, - let's say this jilted sweetheart is, even if it is for emotional finality but more if it is for some kind of personal transformation (as friend, person, world citizen, whatever),13 is sincere - silence forecloses whatever small way i can possibly facilitate that; affirmatively so. in that small, small because, come fucking on, it's not hard to figure out, i'm monstrously flawed but can muster grade-a amends rote, small but not minimal then, way i may be backstopping an evil and or cruelty that outweighs whatever it is that makes silencio beneficial. may. be. or may be not.

not an improvement on silence, i e-reply:

dear a (for a person),

first, if you ever write to me again, please learn to use the spell check function.

the rest, just apologize. don't tie your apology to a demand for forgiveness, or other accusations. it makes your apology phony. and, if you explain why so, the better. apologize, say why, and say it won't happen again, at least to your ability's best and accept responsibility otherwise.

i'll likely not give a damn regardless. because i ...

and so forth.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. www.mulholland-drive.net/studies/sexualabuse.htm.
2. it is to me. thank you geeks toiling away in ma's basement.
3. www.tikkun.org/archive/backissues/xtik0211/israel/021124.html, referring to an 1992 interview:

Wiesel's interlocutor pointed out that, "as a survivor of the Nazi terror, you have taught that silence is the greatest sin, that it should always be avoided."

taught, as opposed to stated. also, this source addresses certain questions as to wiesel and the ethical dimensions of the palestinian issue.

4. en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel.
5. www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ewieselperilsofindifference.html.
6. the same The More Loving One.
7. just goes to show. apparently it might not be lincoln who said so, as i couldn't find a where and when source. instead en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ella_Wheeler_Wilcox turned up. so, ella wheeler wilcox instead.
8. en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw.
9. from Tender Buttons.

10. a reason why i don't like extra textual reading, because it pollutes, to a degree, the work itself. a work of art (or craft), i feel, is an independent entity.
11. probably taken completely out of context, but. Lullaby, a lovely bombshell indictment on love. first stanza:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtless children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me,
The entirely beautiful.

12. Bamboo Banga off m.i.a.'s newest cd Kala.
13. i hate closure, by the way. or i think closure is code for free run emotional violence. what is it about closure that makes it perfectly acceptable to tell someone "i'm over you," especially when time and reality makes that assumption a given. i understand emotional finality can be done without resumed emotive shelling, but i am speaking of how it is generally and widely applied (and make neither accusations from those old sad songs of experience nor predictions what anyone may do). even though as it is part of the relationship open quote process close quote and a skimpy final price to pay for another's relief - jesus via irs agent forerunner matt also adds, i paraphrase, that those who want to save their lives/comforts will lose it - i put up too much protest and need to just take it? great, now i make myself out to be like jesus lugging that crossbar while the discourteous security cohort struck, spat & mocked - though these modern days, we call it doing the three-seventy-second, and have gotten around to incorporating without limitation:

a. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
k. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. Taking photographs of dead ... detainees.

wow. u.s.a. u.s.a. usa.

The wheat fields have nothing to say to me

2008-12-06T21:11:00.001-08:00

I received a surprise, an email from an old flame who asked for a meet up. The trick for me, then, is to come up with what would be the absolutely crudest and cruelest response back for that past due flicker.

Readily: 1) no reply; 2) prickly favorites like "pass" or "no thanks"; or 3) a more deliberated explanation. Or some another drawn out come back.

I love another's. Optional different ways to say (or not say) the same or different things.

Why, oh why, now? Which is a prosaic way to approach the matter. And it's a shady smokescreen because I would bet she was probably drunk off her bored ass, hit with some type of personal or professional complication, and/or overcooked with nostalgia. Which is not to say that I am an enemy of the common folk.

I should say upfront I still very much, uh, love her. I'll get back to this. Don't worry.

Common people, among other things, dig – overdig – nostalgia. And I made a crack on it, because well, nostalgia ain't my bag. It betrays reality. Or at least clear vision. A

clumsy conversation about the state of the state via the economic crisis I had with a friend led to an accusation of me of, well, I thought it was a perversion of outlandish optimism but now, I think more correctly, gross inconsideration.

My friend was confessing the potential dire personal and professional aftershocks for herself and her friends due to the market seism, which I then returned that the financial meltdown was hooey. She soured; my answer came off, to her, too offhanded. I shifted to justifications that the crisis is somewhat exaggerated, should be short-lived and recovery forth comes. Which she mocked. Which is why I felt her stung reaction was that I was too blind in my rosy outlooks, too readily asserting things will get better soon. How do you know?, she

quizzed. I don't but I hope so, I

non-assured. Hope?, she flabbergasted.

More clarification was that was how cycles work: up, down, up, down, repeat. By some accounts, the government's manipulation seems to be working. There was a consumer credit and housing bubble, and systemic failures/fraud by financial/governmental institutions exponentially compounded the mistakes. Too much too easily created cash that sought more too easily created cash. But some of the growth were real, as the fundamental business productivities and innovations were real. I don't know, extreme shortsightedness or instant gratification leanings would judge the current situation as only disaster. I don't know, reining back runaway exuberance should not be unwelcome. Yeah, nothing is immune to catastrophe - which this may end up being, and protract - but it's not fever drunk optimism to see a painful rebalancing as a reset for a squarer foundation, and, likely, a return to renewed irrational uptick soon. The fed fund rate is 1% now. 1. freakin. percent.1

But that was not what she was getting at. Her annoyance stemmed, maybe, from the tone more than the substance of my response. Or, let's say, after extrapolating whatever substance from the ill-received "hooey", I did not overthrow her primary peeved reaction, which I think is absolutely valid: regardless of the historical imperative in an eventual recovery, there is still a human cost - or immediate cost - that I too lightly regard, which is to say she is fair in her denunciation of me for a bright-line insensitivity for others. Which I have no argument against. Not quite.

My crack was intentionally - perhaps not obvious enough - outrageous. I followed it up challenging her to name one sap who was detrimentally effected, say lost his or her job. She could not. Which she at once threw back at me for absurdly requiring a live physical specimen before seeing the situation on the ground (or wallet) for what it is. Well, the bottom

line is I do not give a shit about the fickle twenty/thirty-something mobs shaken by the latest economic shakedown. Years ago, my family only benefited from the trickle-down eighties when one of the haves flushed their toilet, then I was too young to do much in the tech/internet heydays, and more recent, I will still blame youth/inexperience for staying on the sideline through the new century's housing bubble, and you know what?, through it all, with the collapses, downsizes and downturns interwoven, my family/friends/colleagues and myself scraped and scratched by, so that overall things ended up ok. Maybe dread over being modern day Evans cover models ala a Let Us Now Praise Famous Yuppies spook the bend and break confidences of some young folks, but the force of history shows things work out.2 Not that I cannot fore/see the - I'll be cynical - inconvenience or alarm many do/will/might experience from a steep economic cliff dive, yet to those with a perpetual sense of entitlement or rigid tunnel vision for the now, things really are not and will not be that bad.3

Now, for old folks who have seen their retirement expectations materially rocked? - yeah, it does suck.

Which still means getting caught up and worked up in the moment, even an epic disastrous moment, distorts perspective. Let's put it this way, Kipling starts a reliable poem of his with, "If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs," and continues:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on a turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss.4

The ongoing downward spiral may suggest lost head territory and its accompanying mayhem and despair. Yet, these are also times of opportunity and transformation. Not only in the cutthroat sense of the stoney Continental aphorism: "Buy when blood runs in the street."5 Though I prefer the Omaha hayseed variation: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful;"6 which adds the counterintuitive but rather commonsensical bonus that caution be purposeful not only when heads are rolling, but also the opposing extreme of heady brashness.

No, I refer to opportunity and transformation in the sense that well, why not. New

directions, new focus, renewed focus, self evaluation, etc. For the bougie overclass, along with "how bad will it get?", additional questions, I think pertinent, are: "is it really that bad?" and "is it bad?" And I don't even mean it in the dry/fester/stink/crust/sag vs explode dichotomy, though it can mean that; no, I mean it in a more anarchism, mysticism, Earth Mother orientation. Which, life in the woods wise is probably even less for everyone than the conventional and straightforward "it's crazy, it seems it'll never let up, / but please, you got to keep your head up" message. But the race makes us rats, right? I am not pimping that is (only) how life should be lived - radical, pagan, and on a brown rice and sprouts diet, but those are pertinent questions. Otherwise, yes, I'm saying keep your heads, brothers and sisters.7

I finished 1919 by John Dos Passos. I should first say that it fills me with a terrible sadness to imagine I might complete JDP's shitty USA Trilogy before picking up the next volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Sadness and self loathing, actually. I have no clue why expressing so

was necessary.8 Going through JDP's first and recently second volumes reinforces to me the limits of experimental writing, or of the stream of conscious ilk: a bit tedious, which includes a self-seriousness, and lent a little too cheaply to sallow parody. I am not denying it takes a special kind of guts, tirelessness and/or rigour to, first of all, write the Newsreel and Camera Eye segments, but to put it in the draft and publish draft, goodness, that takes a cake. At the same time, it's also not all that interesting. To be clearer, the Newsreel portions are snippets, incomplete or often disjointed fragments from, I assume, of the period headlines, news clips, pop tunes and advertisements; the Camera Eye's are strictly loose "automatic" unconscious-ish ramblings captured; get it, camera eye. Both modes of expression are sort of interludes to the main narratives but are so pervasive through the trilogy (thus 2/3 far) that "interludes" is an injustice. Sti-

ill, it is a total disservice to say that JDP's trilogy is shitty and the Newsreel and Camera Eye segments are uninteresting because on an absolute basis the experimentations with the collage form and structure are/were important and influential to narrative writing/development, creating layers and supplementing commentary/texture using "real" or outside sources. This boldness applies too to another USA device, Biographies, short sketches of true life notables JDP sprinkles in here and there. It is hard to imagine how these wild structures could not uncage possibilities for writers. It's just that, to me, it is not extremely interesting in and of itself. Some of it turned out to be incredibly moving, such as The Body of an American prose poem, but overall I am so-so on most of the rest of the execution.

The trilogy, or 2/3 in, is also not bad. The multiple narrative threads, ostensibly conventional but not exactly, are very compelling. Along with the drama, history lessons and travelogue, the social and political stuff is jam packed as hell too. And the usage of colloquial voices is world class. JDP today is likely the most lost of the lost generation writers, but well, rediscovering might have a golden payoff.

I must have mentioned before I fucking love Thomas Pynchon. Because I do. Pynchon aligns close to JDP with strong affinities to anarchists, wobblies, class conflict, cynicism, anti-authoritarianism, drifters, good for nothings, etc. Pynchon's latest, titled Against the Day, is set around or about JDP's trilogy, maybe a little earlier, though temporal hopscotching is a Pynchon trademark. Thinking of JDP, I wonder what brought me to him and his USA, and in fact, probably, connecting Pynchon with JDP isn't terribly a novel comparison, because, likely, a decent amount of reviews, discussions and criticisms of Against the Day mentions USA, which possibly steered me to see what Amazon.com had in store.

Anyway, I have been slogging through Against the Day, slowly, now momentarily stalled at about 20% in. It's really super, but, uh, I want to make sure to devote proper focus so I've been 2-timing with ancillary stock from my to-read pile for awhile. But, I bring up 1919 and Against the Day partly because, you know, thinking back a century or so ago (42nd Parallel spans 1900 until America's entry to WW1, 1919 continues through, uh, 1919, and Pynchon's novel is set roughly 1900 - 1920s), wow, those were harrowing times, chockful with messy turmoil, anxiety, and uncertainty, equally on the cusp of transformation and frustration; and for crystal sake, I am talking about the twenty or so years prior to the Black Days of late October 1929 collapse. The legions of poor, or less fortunate, mostly kicked about, got kicked around, and sought ways to keep their heads up. Which... brings us to today and wolfcrys of Great Depression Revisited. I mean seriously. Yeah, I mock the extent of the current financial calamity and the suffering or unnerved young professionals. But it ain't exactly like anyone is getting his or her head stomped by a Pinkerton crew, they never sleep.9

A JDP buddy, I assume, was modernist poet Ed E Cummings.10 EEC wrote since feeling is first which begins, "since feeling is first / who pays any attention / to the syntax of things / will never wholly kiss you," which kinda spells double toil and trouble for me taste testing her lip gloss - if that was my goal, and if that's still a popular cosmetic option. It is possible, at that moment, she indulged conversation not to hear my formulaic contrarian stance on the troubled economy, but instead was in the mood to commiserate the distressing days. Empathy, to start. Possible, sure, anything is possible.11 Inexplicable, thy name is woman.

EEC, in the same poem, goes on, "kisses are a better fate than wisdom." Too late now.

And, is is is. I have to stick with what got me to the game in the first place. I mean, does Coca Cola tinker with its fizz soda recipe for moody generational taste buds? Uh, aside with New Coke.12 So, presently,

irony? Since that ruinous conversation, where she marked me a cold hearted, supercilious silly, to my subsequent email entreaties for hangouts, - did she consult a brush off schematic to sort out the appropriate putdown? Then

again, the problem with being a tortoise-speed writer is that everything has changed. Shortlist of the best moviemakers today is Jia Zhangke.13 I underestimated him with my first exposure to his flick, Unknown Pleasure, but it really popped after mulling in my head a bit. Then the next movie of his I watched, as I was watching it, and immediately at the conclusion, I found I still shortchanged him, and that's from the revised opinion that he's the shit. Still Life is magic.

That too is a shared opinion by many, a search on Google should confirm craploads of links that if clicked through should have e-reams written on Jia Zhangke, his movies and how he is a great cinema poet of rabid globalization, disaffected life, profligate consumerism, real people, and so forth;14 in contrast, what is sparingly mentioned is the contributions of his often main female lead, Tao Zhao.15 I mean, she, after all, is the one giving her face/body/voice to shape Jia's ideas. She's not exactly super sexy, but she also is. Consider the critical/media attention paid in other similarly long-term collaborations, think Karina, think Vitti, Cheung, Hara, or Li, how in god's once green earth is Tao Zhao not elevated, if not higher, then to the same pedestal?16 The point is: please, someone write hosannas to her. Oh, foxy Stephane Audran was also really fantastic and pivotal for Chabrol during his (first) major hot streak.

About the changed situation: there was a lull of silence from her, that broke. Eventually she wrote back. I am nothing but not impersistent. It wasn't like the way it was before, but the way it was before is not easy to describe, nor all it was cracked up to be (nor - shouldn't need pointing out but I will - without pleasant moments; or, sans nostalgia's hue). BTW, I did not mean, if I did, to create an impression that my friend is a vacuous cheerleader for bourgeois aspirations. Because 1) she probably is not like that, instead rather grounded, kind of soulful, and possesses a cagey wit; 2) bourgeois aspirations are not awful, I dig status and status's trophies; and 3) really, I was not saying anything close to that. I will skip the implication of how she'd look with a cheerleader outfit, and sensational pom-pons.

I do not think no reply is the worst response to my surprise email, even if that was how it went down.17 No reply, obviously, is not doing anyone any favors either.18 I will not get into a I-said she-said thing with this; like many (most, all) failed relationships, ours failed, poorly.

Change. Time advanced; with my non-responsiveness, she called.

Oh why, now, why? Which is a drab, superficial way to approach the matter. And all a fallow sidetrack anyway because I bet she was boozed off her bored ass, sunk in some type of personal or professional malaise, and/or overbaked with nostalgia.

I answered my phone, and conversation. Resolution, however, eluded. In one sense there is no way the outcome could come out the way she envisioned without a fundamental capitulation of,

of my own sensibilities. I do not want to forget or forgive. In another sense, I have forgotten and forgiven - how can I not?, the particulars happen so long ago that they have all been swept out of mind. First off, from her perspective, I've said and'll say this: I am not worth it. I am not. That she somehow bothers to try attests to how the past warps/corrupts perception.19 I, also, was not.

Juxtapose my side of things: she is not worth it. At the moment, I'm at a pretty different place with not only a different, but also rather narrow, range of interests and priorities. And a nostalgia bender with her does not fit. Which has a couple of seeming unfair aspects. One, I probably do hang out with pals and sort of pals where they or their plans do not necessarily (or immediately) match my interest and priority scheme. Two, assuming some pals and sort of pals acquiesce or give no notice to my surly term laden socialization, it does not follow that this ex (or anyone else, for that matter) should conform. Third, admitting to a rather de minimis standard for the "fit" part, for her to return to the tame folds of my tolerable graces, all that may be required is judicious application of buzzwords/phrases. In which case, why not just tell her (or anyone else who so desires) what and how to say them and move the matter along? And of course, there is always the get-over-myself edict. I can

rationalize or soften, to a certain degree, the rough edges of the iniquities, but this is still real complicated, like, high Hausdorff dimension shit, and really taxing for me, and I do not know, there is not much I can do, by way of a response, that would be entirely satisfying, for me or this ex. And, I am not giving up the impasse. And, there

is preciously little I can do to end that would be satisfying, for me or for

=======================

1. It's a way oversimplified recap of the market upheaval. Error filled too. Um, housing bubble; made worse by even looser credit (the Republicans' favorite boogie man - subprime loans to black folks) standards; which lead to bad mortgages bundled in derivative products; which hungry hedge funds and foreign money snapped up higher yields, partly thanks to credit agencies not accurately capturing the greater risk involved with the bad mortgages; which kind of folded back into itself as credit default insurance based on the bad (but not accessed as such) mortgages circulated more hungry money (from the insurance premiums) and reinforced the illusion of safety (these mortgage products are insured, yo); which in this parasitic relationship, it's difficult to say who is the host and who's the leech; then the first dropped domino, and mortgage quality deterioration questioned openly; in short order shitload of banks stuffed with all the bad mortgage products stirred a confidence crisis; and as the economy (and demand) was propped up by artificially high home prices before, well, no more propping; demand overall wanes; the banks/entities holding the structured bad debt are screwed one by one, the insurance companies (and banks) responsible for the credit default insurance are screwed one by one, and overall, the falling housing market gives way to a broad economic/demand slowdown (or downturn, or recession, or depression, or THE END OF TEH WORLD!1!!) so pretty much everyone is screwed; and while this is going on, banks de-leverage, essentially not lending money out but holding their own capital tightly in case 1) the bad mortgages they still hold blow up; 2) investors/clients/counterparties pull out their money from the banks; or 3) potential borrowers are not of sufficient credit quality (with the assumption that everyone is infec/sted with the bad mortgages and if not, the slower economy casts a deathly pall generally); so add on top of everything a nasty credit crunch/squeeze, which is a problem in the larger sense that financial institutions making loans for car/home/hdtv purchases are key greasers to move the economy, and in the immediate sense that financial institutions providing short term lending is how many companies finance their day to day operations; in other words, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!1! Resolving the credit squeeze is a big deal because there needs to be day to day operations. The lower fed discount rates, fiscal stuff, and TARP are kind of making a difference, I kind of feel. Anyhoo, this, also, is likely more than a little inaccurate, and where it is not, still too broad and underpowered. 29 October 2008 Fed Reserve lowered the Fed Fund rate 50 basis from 1.5%. Echoed perhaps better here.

2. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee (words) and Walker Evans (photos). I think a WPA thing, but not 100% sure.
3. And moreover, young folks should get their personal finances/investments in order: retirement accounts, long term horizon, diversified portfolio, reinvesting dividends, etc.
4. Rudyard Kipling, If
5. Most usually credited to Baron Rothschild, one of them.
6. Warren Buffett
7. In order of reference: Langston Hughes, Hank Thoreau, and Tupac Shakur. Google the rest.
8. Proust's multi-volume novel deals and dwells a lot on memory and time, but it is not nostalgic, not at all.
9. Their motto. Actually, JDP's treatment on war is really spot on, like in The Body of an American mentioned above (and Pynchon similarly). And talk about modern times parallel, wars/conflicts have sense today? BTW, 42nd Parallel is the first, 1919 the middle child, and The Big Money finishes it.
10. Met in college, were roomies, travel pals, WW1 ambulatory drivers, and JDP was EEC's best man in the 2nd marriage.

11. Would it make me a horrible person to tease regarding a visit from a bloody monthly guest?
12. 1985
13. Discounting, say, the nouvelle vague heavies Rohmer, Rivette & Chabrol who are 80 +/- and Manoel de Oliveira who will be on the old side of 100 soon. They all have made kickass movies recently but I have to figure they are just as likely to drop dead almost anytime soon.
14. You know, all that good stuff that goes with modernity, and China. Though it is common for a lot of directors to start out hot, which Jia has been scorchingly so. It's gonna be interesting to see how things go with him now that he has cleared out a lot of his pent up ideas and needs to put up fresh material.
15. She was not in Jia's first feature only.
16. Anna Karina - JL Godard, Monica Vitti - M Antonioni, Maggie Cheung - KW Wong, Setsuko Hara - Y Ozu & Gong Li -YM Zhang. Okay, there are also, of course, great collaboration with directors and male actors, but feel free, go ahead, have fun with list yourself. Tao is as good or better than the above-mentioned actors, deeper & more versatile in talent and performances. I mean, icon Karina, who is certainly good, I do not consider great, is MIA from key Godard flicks during that same span: the shot across the bow Breathless, Masculine Feminine & Contempt.
17. I'm gutless. I want to be a badass but, I dislike intentional cruelty. What am I withholding anyway: my inestimable friendship, a chance for her to do that closure thing, or the favorite cobbler emergency: a booty call? I toy with absolute crudeness and cruelty because it's fun, and because it's useful to explore, but I only wish I could dispense so, but never do.

18. In a poem, Auden offers, "... indifference is the least / We have to dread from man or beast." I don't quite get it, because indifference is pretty sucky. A takeaway nonetheless is that it is still dread-worthy. Not replying is like indifference, I think. Indifference or indifference plus? The poem is The More Loving One.

19. I will say that her efforts are halfhearted and inept (which is definitely not a diss on her), so maybe I am wrong, she applied the deserved attention to the matter.