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omnium gatherum, n. : a collection of many different, often unsorted, ideas or items.
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Tuesday - August 07, 2007Hypnic JerksI am of, potentially, too many worlds. But the roar of the ocean makes sense to me. Friday - July 13, 2007How I'm feeling lately, Part TroixHalfway through their show at Town Hall a few weeks ago, Gillian, between songs, said, "Funny thing we've discovered.. New York is a banjo-lovin town!" To which a man in the audience replied, "Damn right! New York Plucking City!" Gil and David laughed, as did we all. Without further ado, I give you Wrecking Ball. .... Thursday - July 12, 2007INDEPENDENCE MIS-MANAGEMENT[REDACTED] I'm taking to the idea of obliterating the days. Thursday - July 12, 2007politiciaShelly Silver.. stop acting like a 5- year old. Same to you, Mr. Bruno. All anti-congestion folks... yes, I see your point, but come on. We need cameras, we need less traffic, this is a good thing. Stop making this about ego and power. And start thinking about the people that put you in office. We need better public transport. Oh, I could go on, and be way more potent about it, but I've other things on my mind.. am going to bed now. Monday - July 09, 2007Monday - July 09, 2007Stockholm Syndrome... it's my new MoO. Yikes. Glad to have the computer back... finally. (The logic board failed, hence my radio silence the last few weeks.) So much action! So many thoughts! Friday - June 15, 2007ConsignmentsSunday morning. I was in a cab on my way to SFO and
my flight back to New York, after one of the most amazing 4 days I feel I've had
since.. I was last in Cali. It was 7 am, and the sun was beginning to burn the
fog off of the bits of water and mountains that I was speeding past.
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" came on the radio. This song, for so many reasons, one of which is that it will be played when I die, with full chorus backing -- is very dear to me, and I took it as a sign -- not Cali.... or not yet. I might just get what I need, here in New York. Fingers crossed.. Saturday - June 02, 2007Postscript: RevelatorThinking about that old line of Henry
James:
"I am too American myself, and lack juices." I am too sentimental myself, and lack bones. Saturday - June 02, 2007Fundamentals, Walden and dead fishThese last few months I've been thinking about
society - rather, societies -- and specifically, American society (though I
haven't excluded other countries or, for that matter, American regional
communities.) The crux of my debate has been whether or not to reject it (or
them) completely. Or, to somehow strike a compromise.. somehow. (Quick
digression: I have admittedly been enamoured of the idea of living in a rural
community, precisely because it places a much greater emphasis on the
contribution of the individual; that it makes the individual an essential piece
of the framework of a place; that it somehow frees people to become and discover
their true selves (though I understand the limitations, ie in rural communities,
there is often great slowness to accept change, both on a larger social scale
and on a collective-judgement-of-individual level (even this has caveats,
depending on the community) And also, it depends on how you want to define the
individual, something I've been grappling with too -- in this context, and,
sadly, most all contexts, it seems to be the notion that one's life is for the
most part historically judged in the context of other people's opinions) Though,
getting back to the urban-rural bit, it's humourous to me, this dichotomy -- it
further reinforces the subjectivity of truth, and the need for individual
existentialism, in a Buddhist sort of way -- that the city, like the country,
can set the individual free. (Which means what about the suburbs -- that they
are the vast wasteland of sheep stuck in
limbo?)
Anyway, I believe this afternoon that I reached the conclusion to opt-in -- albeit with reservations. And I'm trying to figure out how to build in an escape clause (Kate, it's called "I quit" -ed.) so that I know that I will never be stuck. There is nothing more I hate than having to rationalize my stuckness. I've done it way too often (thank you HKIS Discp. Com for the trap door) Anyway. The reason for all this deliberation has largely been motivated by a desire to, as honest and as true as I can be to myself, make a major decision in the course of my life. (I still have some concern -- hence all these reservations -- aww hell, how much personal choice on a fundamental level is there really. There isn't a goddamn lick. GET OVER IT ALREADY) But it's been a thought experiment that I've conducted pretty seriously (ie. we are ignoring the fact that I've spent the past few months attempting to become a homeowner in a very specific place, ie Brooklyn, and to a large extent herein is where the questions that dare not ask for names regarding individual choice come to bear) And I feel, despite my flip-floppiness, that this decision to opt-in will ultimately prove to be beneficial -- for the time being, at least. (I've made the choice to not cut out the back-and-forth.. ok, well I cut out some of it.. to provide a sense of the combat that occurs in my brain pretty much all day, around every idea. Tips of icebergs, flashes of fins.) {"Fill up your obit column space, chillun," God bemusedly thunders.} Turning to the vast bleak expanse of irony and vacuity that awaits me.. (oh shush, I thought you'd gotten over your cynicism -ed.) No, seriously. It's the 1800's-westward expansion era, I'm 50 miles west of St. Louis, and I'm alone in a wagon full of supplies, and facing a sunset. I made the decision to leave that gateway, and apparently there is a new life full of riches ahead of me. But I'm so bewildered by the concept of the empty horizon and, just looking at the numbers, I have how many miles to go? that I'm struggling with even the reins, though I knew how to use them before. Right, so, point. Now I face an even bigger question: Where do I fit in this society? .. and the tougher question to answer.. Shall I let the culture define my place? (I'm obviously a bit loath of this idea.) Or is that too dead fish of me? Oh god, these questions, who am I RATIONALIZATIONS ok, i have to stop for now. goodnight. (redux) Ho, oxen! Giiyaah. (general aside note: always hit read more. a lot of cut material ends up down there, though perhaps not tonight. i always have to put something in that box, though, in order to publish.) Monday - May 14, 2007Not right nowI've taken Franz Wright's poem "The Word I" and run
away with it.
Apologies to Mr. Wright; I've done his brilliance a disservice. Ach, it is what it is. The Word "I" Harder to breathe near the summit, and harder to remember where you came from, why you came Spring's harder, and harder to say the word "I" with a straight face, and sleep-- who can sleep. Who has time to prepare for the big day when she will be required to say hello to everyone, but goodbye to the aforementioned pronoun, relinquish all the mind's attachments completely, and witness the end of one's world-- harder in other words not to love it not to love it so much Tuesday - April 24, 2007Automatic reflexesHistoric breeze, tonight's. I know its scent too
well.
And yet it crashes into the intersection of another memory of a breeze, of another time of walks among trees.. oh bother. save it. Saturday - April 14, 2007..speaking louder than wordsI demand arguing on behalf of the primacy of
thought:
THOUGHT THOUGHT THOUGHT THOUGHT THOUGHT Action is subject to the judgment of rules I loathe. Thursday - April 12, 2007Indeed.“I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay
folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie. And I want my
grasp of things true before you. I want to describe myself like a painting that
I looked at closely for a long time, like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day, like the face of my mother, like a ship that
took me safely through the wildest storm of all.” - Rainer Maria
Rilke.
Wednesday - April 11, 2007ce qui était, ce qui est, ce qui sera....
The long silences need to be loved, perhaps more than the words which arrive to describe them in time. - Franz Wright. Friday - April 06, 2007Nashville Skyline Rag, RevisitedOut of meaning, importance, and love.. and, of
course, only a tiny smidgeon of defiance*..
I took my manhattan uniform on a field trip today. ...we went to nashville. (I retroactively bought a terra-pass.) I think it held up well, though a button did fall off my coat. Seriously, more on this later, I have many notes to transcribe from the backs of receipts. But now my eyes are so heavy I can barely see the screen.. and so many brooklyn errands to run tomorrow.. Tuesday - April 03, 2007WhiffsWas walking, in business mode, down an old Tribeca
street this morning, wearing the black manhattan uniform plus trench coat
(secretly, gleefully, felt like Jolie, should have added holsters strapped to my
thighs or something, would have sent all the Canal street vendors scurrying out
of the way instead of blocking the path and at times almost intentionally trying
to trip pedestrians) and heels (feet are now having their revenge for their 13
hour abuse) when I smelled the fumes from two blocks away, and they stopped me
in my tracks. They remembered me, and I them. My stomach got that wobbly
feeling, and I wanted a brush. A big fat one.
... it was an industrial paint store, all the more apropos as Tworkov painted with the stuff, and I'd been thinking about ol Jack lately.. But mainly it got me wondering.. planting a seed of doubt-ish things... more later. (developing) Apropos, too: Peter offers a review. I ought to post the one I wrote after attending the opening the other week. To edit and then to post. Ach, tomorrow, tomorrow, kinder, macht neues. Saturday - March 31, 2007Been thinkinand you know, there are very few things that deeply
anger and upset me, but the following is up in that top
five:
When history -- personal, shared history -- goes completely unacknowledged. Friday - March 30, 20078 Speed Automatic Gear Shift with TiptronicHoly hell, what is happening to my life.
Ridiculous RPMs. My conceptions of the following things are changing so drastically I don't even know where to begin: - speed - activity/motion - time - capacity - energy .......... As Lucinda was singing to me earlier, "I asked for water; he gave me gasoline." Saturday - March 17, 2007A follow up..... on something I mentioned about three years ago
(three
years?!!?) -- if you are interested, some of the
talks given at the University of Chicago - Chicago
Society's "Consolidating Democracy in Mexico" conference in
April 2004 are now available as part of a podcast (iTunes link) from the Center for
Latin American Studies, as part of a larger collection of talks
entitled "briefing series." Very cool.
Friday - March 16, 2007Friday - March 16, 2007Friday - March 16, 2007Of similar opinionFrom this week's ever-anticipated Schjeldahl review
:
"Ryman is a favorite of certain academic critics who, loyal to intellectual adventures of avant-garde art in the fifties and sixties, ignore most contemporary art and seem to mark time until a new development, or Second Coming, merits their engagement. Still, Ryman stays fresh and taut. Even out of date, his conscientious integrity ought to abash today’s hordes of careering youngsters, whose idea of the future of civilization reaches little beyond the next art fair. But to be shameable, under present conditions, may be an unaffordable moral luxury. ... Is all of this a mite thin and forced? It is, along with almost everything else of recent vintage in an art world where frenetic production has outrun any substantial supply line of ideas. Nearly a century of experiments in abstraction have become a fund of handy tropes. What’s lost—while being barely preserved, with monkish zeal, by the likes of Ryman—is a sense of risk at the frontiers of convention. Pablo Picasso once zeroed in on the fundamental problem of abstract art, which he rejected, as “only painting. What about drama?” He added, “There is no abstract art.… A person, an object, a circle are all ‘figures’; they react on us more or less intensely.” The best modern abstract artists countered with jolting demonstrations of art’s intrinsic powers, independent of worldly reference. But their project proved self-defeating, as the looks of a Pollock or a Mondrian became just additional items in the world’s image bank, alongside Titian nudes and Mickey Mouse. Picasso’s cynical wisdom (minus his driving genius, of course) is common sense now, as artists like those in “Comic Abstraction” mix and match stock elements, with ever less drama and with intensity dwindling away. " Tuesday - March 13, 2007HoursWhat am I doing with all this nostalgia? This
reminiscence.. am I trying to draw a line in my history so that I can start
writing about it, to distance myself from it, to package it because I don't know
what else to do with it and everyone else is telling me to move forward? Am I
trying, somehow, to glean lessons -- or simply to frame my own narrative? How
shall that narrative be defined? Yes, it seems, given what I've just written
(can I blame the current culture?) that I'm crafting a novel. Isn't that what a
resume is? Here, I present the resume of my life, my curriculum vitae -- vitae
-- vital, vitality, life, my life's lessons.
They don't fit on a page. I'm not actually working on my resume. I'm reminiscing. I am digging my heels in the ground and trying to do things at my pace; in an attempt to honor the past, and thus, the future. ... Monday - March 12, 2007Watching the moon rise.In spite of -- and beyond -- human nature, I am
trying, and trying to insist, upon my consciousness.
Perhaps it is a Sisyphian task, but I truly advocate another way -- transcendence. Sunday - March 11, 2007Oh me-oh-my-oh, would you look at Ms. ManhattanReading Seneca tonight. "On the Shortness of
Life."
Quite a bible. More on that later. Also revisiting older decades, and trying to live up (ironically; or, perhaps, to live down) to something my father said, in reference to a Gillian Welch album (Soul Journey) that he, too, has fallen for... I started to bring her up at dinner awhile back, as far as lyrics I identify with, and he interjected with the words from her first track -- "Yeah, I want to do right, but not right now." That wasn't what I had been going for -- I was, obviously, thinking of "Back in Time" -- but it gave me quite a pause. Reflecting on it, an even greater pause -- the actions in my life seem to be advancing so quickly in these last few weeks -- perhaps a response to the molasses pace of recent months? -- that it seems to be pushing me into a new paradigm. I welcome it; it is the sign of a new era. The "right now" seems to be coming to a close. And tonight I don't know what to do with it, as I haven't been able to all week. Where am I? I can't trust my instincts. At least not right now. "Life is long if you know how to use it." Wednesday - February 14, 2007Dreaming back through life, your time -- and mineNostalgia is, and has been, one of the strangest
things on my conscious lately (and by lately, I meant for a few months now,
though it's been getting a lot more intense these last few weeks.) Nostalgia not
as much for the far past, but the near -- ie, from 2003 or so on. I can't escape
it. Very strange. How can one start mythologizing and revisioning such recent
times so
quickly --
even though they may have been difficult?
Tuesday - February 13, 2007W(o-a)nderingWhy are there no female Christopher
Hitchens?
It's apparently about to snow in Wichita. It's funny how one can adjust to make a home out of nowheremotels. (something I've thought about for awhile now, but haven't written out loud.) Was feeling impertinent earlier. Then, revolutionary. Then, conciliatory. Now: tired. Goodnight from a booming Nashtown. Wednesday - February 07, 2007Reveling, reckoning, reconcilingWishes, Wants,
Dreams:
- to build things. Houses, homes, furniture, a life. - to live on my own farm. to grow plants, to raise animals, to ride. - an old ford diesel truck to run off of veg oil. i'm unyeilding on this point. - writing tomes from my desk in this farmhouse that i've built. - painting, when i feel inspired. - cooking great meals for good people. - california. - big sur. Reality these days: - NYC realty - "joining the 21st century" - selling myself to everyone i know - being insanely lost, in a way i thought impossible, in my home town - being insanely lost everywhere, metaphysically - i think this might be an extreme case of art post-partum, or else it's an existential crisis of an epic nature - endless, unfathomable compromising (And I was so content, even last week! I could point some fingers, if I felt like it, but I'm trying not to.) I see why most people miss their youth. I'm holding out as long as possible. Dreams deserve the hardiest and bloodiest of fights. Friday - February 02, 2007Ach ach ach ZAMI seek something torrid. Torrid! What a fantastic
word.
LIGHTNING Wednesday - January 31, 2007Immediacy as proximationBeen revisiting a thing I've been thinking deeply
about, wrestling with, reflecting on the essence of human experience in the last
few years or so, with specific regard to how one reconciles thought with action.
Tonight it takes the form of how one interacts with another. as far as: when one has great love, admiration, respect, in all its platonic and/or romantic forms, how does one properly translate the deep feeling into words, or, more importantly, action? I happened across a photograph taken recently of me with an arm around a friend, and it struck me in a way I can't figure out -- and I wondered about how I express my brain (or get too wary of the way it gets translated.) Frankly, I loathe the discrepancy between my thought and my action.. another time for that hashing-out. Again, simple thoughts. If only I had a brain stenographer! Wednesday - January 24, 2007How I'm feeling latelyGive a listen to Manuel Obregon's piece, "Allegro Solemne". (err, make that a
link. The file won't play.)
Also, do you believe in magic? Yes, I do. Finally: "Sometime in your life, you will have occasion to say: what is this thing called time?" and some nice prose to accompany this perfect, reflective Simone tune, courtesy of the Times: "We are poised between the extremities and homogeneities of nature, between delirium and ad infinitum, and our andante tempo may be the best, possibly the only pace open to us, or even to life generally. If we assume that whatever other intelligent beings that may be out there, in whatever alpha, beta or zepto barrio of the galaxy they may call home, arose through the gradual tragicomic tinkerings of natural selection, then they may well live lives proportioned much like ours, not too long and not too short. They’re dressed in a good pair of walking boots and taking it a day at a time." Saturday - January 20, 2007Whew.I think it's a good thing that one can't take
pictures of shudderingly beautiful star-teeming night
skies.
It's good to be home. Now: down time, heavy art post-partum, deep sleep, catching up on reading, watching Daisy hilariously scratch her back on the living room sisal rug, readjusting to the loud noises the ghost makes in this house, walks on the beach, watching Orion move through the sky and talking to him about his journeys, fathoming the future, going to the post office, cooking, intellectual and artistic explorations, serious writing... Beginning my life anew again in old, familiar days and ways. A renaissance born of sheer happiness, in and of itself a remarkable feat. I think this might be a great, formative year. Wednesday - January 10, 2007American Reflections.A whirlwind, a whirlwind always, and
forever.
Back in Nashville for the opening of the show tomorrow. Relevant articles here, here, and here (scroll down on that last link.) UPDATE 1/24: And (hahaha heh heh, chuckling in disbelief and joy) check this vandy piece out. So this is what shock and awe means! Monday - December 25, 2006Merry Happy Jolly...from Bangkok. Saw this yesterday while waiting
for the sky train, and I liked it.
Really wish I was having downtime, but this country is truly breathtaking. More on that in January or February, when I actually have the time to write. This is a fast trip. The worst kind. But the experience compensates. Anyway. Merry.  Sunday - December 17, 2006Hammocks, and carrying that weight --Am laying on my broken hammock here in Nashville,
listening to Sufjan Stevens, one of a few close musical companions on my summer
road wanderings. Thinking about the last 24 hours, the last week, the last
month, the last year.
One could call it revisionist history, I imagine. But it's been a fascinating year. And I'm glad for it. I wish I could have another such opportunity, but for writing this time. Although no doubt I will miss paint, and I don't want to lose it. I lay here with such calm, in a way I couldn't have imagined a year ago -- or even six months ago. I'm clearly still prone to fits of sadness -- and yes, they are fits, in the truest sense of the word -- but they are honestly sourced, and dealt with appropriately. I feel very content with myself. Today, at least. And that makes it the best day. Wednesday - December 06, 2006Ze Beatles, amashedI'm just taking a quick break for dinner, but was
reading through the New
Yorker and stumbled across this brilliant (I've
intoned similar thoughts about him before, but hell, his linguistic pirouettes
are alone worth the time it takes to read his pieces, because they capture the
essence of a song and/or artist like no other pop music writer ever has --like
in this piece, for example, with cryptic
badassery to describe "Come Together"?!?! It's
beautiful and fresh, hip, straightforward, with a sense of self-acknowledged
utter amazement/baffling that simultaneously implicates you, the reader, through
the mutually proffered recognition) ok.... anyway, this write up by Sasha
Frere-Jones on the extended length Beatles mashup that's just been put together
by George Martin & son. Give a listen to his overview here; read the piece here. Mm mm
mm.
The other year I mentioned a few other good mashups floating about -- some Beatles-based, some not. The mp3's should still be up and working, though if not they are fairly easy to track down on the internets, specifically on the google. Among other things, he makes a terrific comment about "Tomorrow Never Knows", one of the most hypnotizing songs the Beatles ever recorded (I've been listening to this song in particular a lot lately, trying to deconstruct it...) In between my long stretches of Gillian-airtime in the studio, the Beatles (every album, yes, including 1) have been on repeat the last couple of weeks. I've been listening to their music since I was out on this side of the womb, and I still find new things in it every day. It is Glenn Gould-good. Tuesday - December 05, 2006i can't i can't i can't i can't i can'tyes you can, yes you can, yes you can, yes you can,
yes you can
Monday - December 04, 2006it's a wonder that i'm in this world at all"There is a purpose, a running keel
-----
There is a captain with a steady wheel -------" -gw. Je me promis. Sunday - December 03, 2006Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?(to borrow from
Gaugin.)
I'm going back to the studio, now, after a nice 40 hour respite from painting. But, thought I would post a link to the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery exhibitions website, where, if you scroll down a bit, there is some evidence of what I've been up to, and where I've been going with this. I also updated (more to come) the Artwork home and drawings. That's that for now. A la prossima. Tuesday - November 21, 2006A note on a voice I can't stop listening toGillian Welch embodies redemption, resurrection,
transcendence, infinite wisdom.
I love all of her work, but the album "Soul Journey" is first among equals. Truly equals. Thursday - November 16, 2006ACH ACH ARGHSo, I think I know why Reynolds Price said that you
can't really, fully write before you're 35 or so. (Especially for someone like
me, who lives now as a 30-something, but experienced the teens and 20's all the
in the space of 6 years between high school and
college.)
It takes at least ten years to get over everything, so that you can sit down and write a paragraph without cursing all to hell, delving into self-loathing and shame, deja vu awkwardness, desires to call people and correct records, clarify positions.. and ultimately throwing your computer and yourself out the window. I haven't resorted to the last bit yet. Time will tell. I guess, though, that I should be painting, after all. What did Goyen say? Ah, yes. "It is enraging to work in words, sometimes; no wonder writers are often nervous and crazy: paint seems to be a more benevolent, a more soothing and serene-making medium." Wednesday - November 15, 2006Deja VuThis is reminiscent -- way too strongly -- of my
high school experience, on
so many
levels. And, more likely than not, not in the most pleasant of ways.
 That is all for tonight. Wednesday - November 08, 2006Thursday - November 02, 2006A note on healthcare, of sortsIn '08, this should be the strategy, the policy,
and the general framework for the
rhetoric:
"You know, I've noticed that politicians in Washington have gotten a little bit of Attention Deficit Disorder. And deficits are something we're going to come back to later, but I want to talk about health care right now. No one seems to think in the long term anymore, but that's what I'm about. And I'd like to propose a solution. It's not going to be a quick fix, but I believe that it will ensure the best outcome for all. And it will help you build trust in your representatives, and in me, and in the fact that government can do good. First, we get the 46 million uninsured Americans on a health care plan. Deal with the people who don't have it first. You build a system that has accountability and transparency, and basic fairness and simplicity. (Simplicity in a flat-tax kind of way.) Once the system is up and running, and running well, then we can go to the rest of the American people, and say, "look at what we've done. Now we will open this to all of you who have healthcare." And that is what I propose. There will be nothing about this system that has even sniffed at big pharma. We will look at and talk to big health care companies only because we can learn what does not work. And we will talk with you and engage you, the American people -- not by polling, but asking you questions and listening to what you have to say -- to see what works and doesn't work. And we will consult with various states who have implemented programs, to see what their experience has been. And, if need be, we can reference what other countries have done, if it has been effective. Because this is a system that should work for all Americans -- the people using it, the people running it, employers, industry leaders, doctors, nurses, and most of all, it should make sense to government. If it's just going to become another wasteful bureaucracy, then we will scrap it and go back to the drawing board for a better solution. But I'm going to engage you in this process, and together we will make long-term strategic decisions that will change things for the better. It's the glory of participatory democracy. Now about those deficits.." The person to deliver this talk: Barack Obama. He can work with Jim Cooper of Davidson County, Tennessee on this legislation. Cooper has worked a lot on comprehensive health care plans in the past. As far as the rest of Obama's bid, I'm working on compiling his cabinet right now. So far, I've got Bob Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury and Al Gore as head of the EPA. Those are the locked in folks; there's a bigger list of contenders for the other seats. The biggest problem is coming up with VPOTUS. It should be an elder statesman (and yes, a man), from either the Republican or Democratic side, who has universal good numbers. I would say Colin Powell, but I think the presentation to the UN stuff would come back to haunt him. I really should be in Washington, I wake up thinking about this stuff. Thursday - November 02, 2006BackstoryA brief, fleeting
observation..
Everything seems to be moving towards telling the backstory. The behind-the-scenes. Part of that has always been there, but it's gained a very firm foothold in fairly important arenas that inform our sense of ourselves, our culture and society.. Think of the film "A Prairie Home Companion" (which prompted this post) but also "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (and the similar, though I've not watched it, 30 Rock), and telling campaign stories in major news mediums, notably print but also tv -- not talking about issues, but on how issues are delivered, the stagecraft, the propmasters, the scriptors.) Is this related to the rise of ombudsmen? Consultants? Or, on a larger scale, is this related to a culture-wide acknowledgment and/or acceptance of the fact that the viewer knows what they see in large part on a daily level is false? I think there is something deeper, especially in a certain vain that has been growing in the last year or so (one that seems more optimistic than anything similar in the news media) -- and it's perhaps the trend which will reject or ultimately refute the irony of the times.. I can't fully articulate it right now, and it goes a lot deeper than I can reveal, but I didn't want to lose the thought. However, it's obscenely late, so I'm going to bed, and hopefully I will pick up on this later and see where it runs.. Wednesday - October 25, 2006Multiple discernible realitiesUnbelievable.
This is the ultimate sign of the times: not only does the American public get more political information and truth from watching fake news and fake pundits, but now we also get substantive foreign/military policy discussions -- and actionable, pragmatic planning -- from mock government institution meetings and war games. (I'll post articles after the jump.) (The IU study of TDS I linked to ("public info", above) is worth a read, too.) I don't know what the final shoe will look like -- the limits of my imagination have already been stretched thin -- but I'm sure it when it does drop into the Imelda Marcos-ian pile, it will be a most spectacular thing to experience. Were it that the first Dadaists had lived to witness 21st century America, they would surely be proud. [On a slightly related note: Iraqis have picked up the trend, with their own version of "The Daily Show", of sorts.] ..................................................................
DADA knows everything. DADA spits everything out. "The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." --- unnamed WH aide quoted in Ron Suskind's 2004 NYT Magazine piece "Without a Doubt". From Hugo Ball's Dada manifesto: "Just a word, and the word a movement. Very
easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency
must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada Germany
cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada bourgeoisie, and
yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with words but never writing
the word itself, who are always writing around the actual point. Dada world war
without end, dada revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and
also-poets, esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada
Huelsenbeck, dada m'dada, dada m'dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada
Tza.
How does one achieve eternal bliss? By
saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture
and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How
can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice
and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada."
and from Wikipedia: "The Dada philosophy is the sickest, most
paralyzing and most destructive thing that has ever originated from the brain of
man." Art historians have described Dada as being, in large part, "in reaction
to what many of these artists saw as nothing more than an insane spectacle of
collective homicide." Years
later, Dada artists described the movement as "a phenomenon bursting forth in
the midst of the postwar economic and moral crisis a savior, a monster, which
would lay waste to everything in its path. [It was] a systematic work of
destruction and demoralization...In the end it became nothing but an act of
sacrilege." Reason and logic had led people into the horrors of war; the only
route to salvation was to reject logic and embrace anarchy and the
irrational."
Goodnight, day! Friday - October 13, 2006Historical perspective, or American amnesia"At times during the eighteenth century, war could
be a gentlemanly endeavor. Captured officers were regularly paroled -- that is,
sent home upon their promise to engage no longer in hostilities. Such had been
the fate of General Burgoyne after Saratoga. Soldiers of the rank and file were
often exchanged for their counterparts from the other
side.
But the British government refused to accord such courtesies to captured Americans. London contended they were not belligerents but rebels. To an early application from Franklin regarding treatment of prisoners, the British ambassador in Paris, Lord Stormont, responded curtly, "The King's ambassador receives no letters from rebels, unless they come to implore his Majesty's mercy." Such might have finished Franklin's hopes for ameliorating the prisoners' plight, if not for the assistance he gained from others in Britain. The Parliamentary opposition to the North ministry seized on the suspension of habeas corpus, as it related to the American prisoners, and attacked the government for hypocritically undermining essential English institutions in the name of defending them. English prisons were a scandal in the best of times, and though conditions there pricked few consciences regarding regular felons, the harsh treatment accorded the Americans elicited letters to editors and other forms of low-grade protest." -- H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, 583-4. UPDATE 10/22: To elucidate my point, see this. Thursday - September 28, 2006Then and Now.Some reflections.
1) On the recent, partially declassified NIE (this is a .pdf link) (let's hope someone turns up the gas on Negroponte and the Administration so they let the second, Iraq-specific NIE come out) -- something I wrote awhile back, entitled "Iraq, The New Afghanistan". Many other things I could link to, but after linking all these other things below, I've become weary. 2) The Office of Special Plans, which I mentioned last November -- those lovely folks of CTEG who brought us the "intelligence" for Iraq -- are at it again with an Iran Directorate. Look out! (By the way, I find it interesting that all of a sudden I've started seeing programs pop up on TV advertising "Final Reports" and other documentary type things on Iran, the Iran Hostage Crisis, etal. The Final Report one in particular -- because the ad makes it seem like the hostage crisis is happening right now. It's going to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel, 67% of which is owned by the Fox Cable Networks Group. It's not the first time I've seen such innuendo advertised on that channel, either. These little subtle plugs about "Iran as evil nation we must attack" are reminiscent of 4 years ago during the Iraq war selling /buildup.) 3) Regarding the recent truces and scuffles between the Taliban, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda: see here, here, here, here. Recent related headlines: "Britain Greets Pakistani Leader with Accusations of Ties to al-Qaeda" (NYT), "Bush seeks truce in leaders' spat" (BBC), "Musharraf Defends Deal with Tribal Leaders" (NYT). Cheers to Jon Stewart for putting it to Pervez point blank the other night. 4) A general observation about Katrina, New Orleans, and American amnesia: I found the following statement, nestled within this piece in the Times this morning about the GOP's choice of the Twin Cities for their '08 convention, particularly illuminating (especially in light of the August 28 New Yorker article on the failure to rebuild New Orleans): "While Democratic officials had four cities to choose from, an early contestant, New Orleans, took itself out of the running when it became clear that its hurricane damage would not be repaired in time." The convention is two years away. The hurricane happened a year ago. Do you mean to tell me that they won't be able to fix the damage in THREE WHOLE YEARS?!?! Unbelievable. Monday - September 25, 2006And..OK, so I've been drawn in not just by environmental
news. I'm getting back into foreign affairs lately, too -- FA and their domestic
implications. Hey, midterms are coming up, I get sucked into the buzz just like
everyone else.
I think this is quite perfect. Game, set, match. Monday - September 25, 2006Drowning polar bears.Yes, I've been MIA. Settling down and painting,
among other things. More on those later. But I've been somewhat consumed with
environmental news in the last day, so I thought I would post the following two
articles, both terrifying. The Revenge of
Gaia is en route via Amazon -- as if I didn't
have enough trouble sleeping already.
Article from the WaPo with James Lovelock; and new satellite images of arctic melt shock scientists. I wonder if anyone has started buying up land in the Arctic yet.. seems like it might be a good investment. See "An Inconvenient Truth" if you haven't already. Friday - August 25, 2006You know,It's really quite breathtaking, the things I've
seen and experienced, for the short time I've been alive.
I was reflecting tonight on lives cut short, due to the recent death of a collegiate friend, and I guess the above realization is the thing that lets me feel at rest, mentally and physically, the thing that will let the prospect of meeting my friend's fate weigh upon me in the way these things do, mostly in an empathetic, almost ghost limb way for others; that if something were to happen, at least I have led already an extraordinarily rich life, and have tasted many of its finest pleasures. (Admittedly, this is also selfish, too, perhaps, because I don't know if she was able to achieve anything similar, but there is nothing like a wrongful, young death to make one question one's own mortality.) Anyway, as far as less important corporeal matters are concerned, to the horror of my weary body, I've embarked yet again (this time a much quicker run) on a roadtrip, a more purposeful one but nonetheless grueling. Goodnight from D.C.; soon to Duke, Nashville, and then back to New York. I'm realizing why I so staunchly committed myself at age 10 to only riding horses as my method of transportation. How I long for a slower time. Monday - August 21, 2006Finally..The New York Times must have hired a new person in
the last 6 months, because their coverage of Nashville is finally starting to
get up to speed. Hence this article today about the Music Row
Democrats..
Well done. Glad to see you folks getting some things right. Now, Ford for Tennessee! Sunday - August 20, 2006Staying by the ocean.Well, so it's the East Coast, but, hey, it's free,
and beautiful.
I'm not going back to Nashville. I can't. It's too sad. I'm going to stay and work out in Long Island. So that's done, I guess. I just have to go back and clean out my stuff. And those paintings... Saturday - August 05, 2006Wednesday - August 02, 2006Thank you Susan."There is, however, a place reserved for the
resurrections of the self, even when time disperses it in ever widening waves.
That is the landscape. As landscape all events surround us, for we, the time of
things, know no times. Nothing but the leaning of the trees, the horizon, the
silhouetted mountain ridges, which suddenly awake full of meaning because they
have placed us in their midst. The landscape transports us into their midst, the
trembling treetops assail us with questions, the valleys envelop us with mist,
incomprehensible houses oppress us with their shapes. We, their midpoint,
impinge on them. But from all the time when we stand there quivering, one
question remains: Are we Time? Arrogance tempts us to answer yes -- and then the
landscape would vanish. We would be citizens. But the spell of the book bids us
to be silent. The only answer is that we set out on a path. As we advance, the
same surroundings sanctify us. Knowing no answers but forming the center, we
define things with the movement of our bodies. By drawing nigh and distancing
ourselves once again on our wanderings, we single out trees and fields from
their like and flood them with the time of our existence. We give firm
definition to fields and mountains in their arbitrariness: they are our past
existence -- that was the prophecy of childhood. We are their future. Naked in
this futurity, the landscape welcomes us, the grownups. Exposed, it responds to
the shudder of temporality with which we assault the landscape. Here we wake up
and partake of the morning repast of youth. Things perceive us; their gaze
propels us into the future, since we do not respond to them but instead step
among them. Around us is the landscape where we rejected their appeal.
Spirituality's thousand cries of glee storm around the landscape -- so with a
smile the diary sends a single thought in their direction. Permeated by time,
the landscape breathes before us, deeply stirred. We are safe in each other's
care, the landscape and I. We plunge from nakedness to nakedness. Gathered
together, we come to ourselves."
-Walter Benjamin, from "The Metaphysics of Youth", Part II. Wednesday - August 02, 2006I consider it a sign.
FYI: Awful picture, apologies; but, this is the fortune I got at dinner tonight in Chinatown. It reads: "Be prepared to modify your plan." Mm. Indeed. Tuesday - August 01, 2006Introduction.What follows is the introduction to a longer
formulation of my critique of the state of contemporary American art. While I
may not be the most well-exposed critic or writer as far as my subject matter
goes, I feel that a revolution needs to occur, as I have hinted at in previous
posts on this site.
Art has always had a revolutionary spirit; its aim, in my opinion, has been to elucidate the human condition. The status of the human condition is fundamentally at a crossroads right now, which may explain the utter incoherence of art in our time; but. Even the last sentence of assertions, not to mention my thoughts below deserve definition and expounder, to follow in coming days. Thence, to the introduction, in its most nascent, rough form. ~~~~~~~~
The price of living in the Age of Irony, of the era of the egocast, the absurd cognitive dissonance of these times in which truth does not exist -- God was Dead one hundred years ago in Europe -- and Truth, that great Enlightenment principle for which revolutionaries sought (and whose passion and zeal so inspired the founders of this country) -- the moral, intellectual, existential, even Puritanical Truth, and its fraternal companions Liberty & Happiness ---- Freedom and Truth, American Principles, and, thusly, Gods -- they are now dead. While on the very practical, micro levels of experience and reality they may have never truly existed, they were nonetheless present on a national mental horizon, as guiding philosophies, illuminating beacons -- part of the national ethos, simple, straightforward, and evermore looking towards the future, in a regenerate ablution, a la "the promise of a better tomorrow." No longer. Obfuscating fog quickly crept into the crevices of our hills, swarming over the national mentality and enveloping it, a protracted trompe l'oeil bait-and-switch of the highest -- and lowest -- order, a complete eclipse. Recalling eras past for a sense of context, indeed America born witness to times of fierce partisanship and hackery, slander, corruption, as in the 1800's; perennial public apathy, vis a vis participation in voting and substantive intellectual engagement; government and corporate propaganda campaigns and their collusion with entertainment industries; deceptive practices, gerrymandering, and blatant undisclosed swathes of critical information; and inaccurate and biased media. The unique and definitive element of the contemporary situation, however, is the global infrastructure of knowledge that we now have in place; it is an organism equal to God in its scope, molecular, cellular, but inhuman -- the Internet. It offers Revelations; shows us its omniscience, the structure of the world; and represents and displays the sum of human achievements, or rather encompasses them. It is human's nature (in so far as it mimics the systemtic order of the natural world.) This has enabled us to become enlightened to a reality that few before could only glimpse, or hope to realize -- namely, that there is no one Truth, and that Liberty doesn't really exist for the Individual, unless it is in the will of the beholder. It reveals and demonstrates to us (the what and how) that the fog was always there; but it also shows us just how much more densely that fog has developed around each one of us. Saturday - July 29, 2006si."These are the warm-west-wing, dream-fog,
leafing-out, willowy, haze
days."
-Thoreau. Sunday - July 23, 2006Tonight...was on the verge of human perfection. An
exquisite day, by my accounts, and in edenic environs, of course -- read the
local paper at 8, broke my fast of sorts, then read the Sunday Times -- first
time in what seems like months -- then had a lovely shower, lunch in the park,
wrote letters and finished reading a novel; chatted with a friend I've missed
for awhile; and then embarked on a fabulous dinner of lamb and roasted
vegetables and some of the most delicious potatoes I've ever eaten, with a Pinot
Noir that was reservedly elegant, and a Syrah for desert that was sensuous --
and, of course, all accompanied by the best of dates, Susan Sontag. The only
thing, though -- I could barely hear her above the din of the crowd next to me,
an anomaly at this restaurant -- I believe they were all Red Bull
representatives. Yes, Red Bull. It doesn't give you wings -- it gives you
loudness and rude, profane vulgarity, and paltry excuses like "hey, so the town
hates us, but this is an Italian joint! We're supposed to be loud!" (A
French-Italian provencal cuisine place, actually, but.)
Sigh. (Do I sound like a snob? I just wanted a good, quiet dinner with a brainy woman...) Going back to my soul's home tomorrow -- Big Sur -- to sit in the beam of some godly omniscience. It will eradicate such unholiness, of this I am sure. Also, a business note: I finished writing my post on Mexico; scroll down a few entries or read its entirety here. Sunday - July 23, 2006Listening to the ocean.I've decided. (Someone please hold me to
this.)
I've got a novel in me. I've been thinking about it really intensely, but quietly, these last few months. It needs to be written before I can move on. So. I want to move somewhere in the world for 2 months and write it. Quit everything, and write it. This is the first time I have publicly announced this desire -- and need. Someone hold me to it. Don't let me fall into complacency and NashMolasses. Suggestions? Wednesday - July 19, 2006A new year.It was a quiet birthday, too much wine without
enough dinner beforehand, but it was charming. Why are birthdays getting quieter
these last three years? Hm. I sort of like it.
I'm feeling more optimistic about 24. Or at least I'm excited by the trends I started on in the last parts of 23. Yeah. Going to take myself out to a nice dinner somewhere along the ocean in the next few days, and muse, maybe finish writing all the things I've started... go for a long swim in the sea.. all that stuff. Yeah, 24. I dig. Sunday - July 16, 2006Note to selfNext time, don't be so cavalier about "not using
A/C" in order to "save gas" while "driving across the Mojave Desert in the
middle of the summer."
The morning after, I'm still trying to get that 120 degrees out of my core. But, Los Angeles. To the beach today (hooray!) to balance out the worst case of driver's tan you've ever seen. Maybe I'll take a picture of the discrepancy, for posterity's sake. [...saved this entry, started to publish it, then I realized:] WAIT! I'm in Los Angeles! I made it to the other side!! WOOOOOO HOOOOOO! And I wasn't shot on the freeway, or in Texas! Funny how that didn't occur to me at first... the sprawl of this city is such that I won't believe I made it to the Pacific until I've actually seen it... well. Patting myself on the back, and wishing yall were out here having fun in the warm California sun. Friday - July 14, 2006Stood on a corner...... down the street from a gas station called
"Freedom Fuels".
Oh, America.  Thursday - July 13, 2006Monday - July 10, 2006Mexico.It's been a surreal 48 hours. These mountains here
in Monterrey are omniscient. They are the shoulders of this city; beautiful,
elegant shoulder blades cradling a strong backbone. They hushed me -- in a good,
words-are-unnecessary sort of way.
Anyway, let me backtrack and explain how I got here. After you get through the traffic of San Antonio, you very quickly find yourself in lonely, arid country. There is the occasional town or exit, but not much else. I was cruising along quite happily -- singing along to the music turned way up -- but all of a sudden, the weather turned sour, and I rolled up my windows. That's when I started looking, for real -- and the further south I got, the eerier I felt. I passed an immigration check point, and this cold, hard steely feeling crept into the air, and it made me shiver. It was really strange -- I started to get a bit scared. The seedy, cruel, inhumane side of America -- one you don't see often, even in rough neighborhoods, because this side is the side of unyielding authority -- was coming into view. It's the shoot to kill, don't see your targets as people mentality. It terrified me. Driving into Laredo from this context wasn't exactly the best introduction to the town, as I'm sure it colored my impressions, but it did feel pretty shady nonetheless. The city appears like a ghost out of nowhere; all of a sudden there are 5 highways and bridges weaving over and under the main drag. You come around a corner, and looming in front of you is a huge, light-house sized American flag, waving almost straight back. Normally, I would consider it like the statue of Liberty, a beacon of hope, but from the mindset I was in it seemed more like a colonial, imperial symbol, a manifestation of "the steel resolve of American power." And then you round another bend in the road and see not much further off in the distance a similarly large Mexican flag, also waving perfectly, and all of a sudden the whole thing seemed absurd. (See Eddie Izzard, "No flag, no country! These are the rules... that I've just made up.") I zoomed out and saw the world from a world-map-view, like I was playing the game "Civilization", and the flags just seemed like posturing. I found out after the fact that Mexico's flag was there first, and it wasn't until a few years later that the Americans constructed one -- albeit 5 or 10 feet higher. I was tickled to hear this, and wholly unsurprised to learn that the US built theirs second. Typical. I spent a night in Laredo (didn't leave my hotel) and crossed the border the next morning. I picked up a bus from Nuevo Laredo and got to Monterrey in about 3 hours. I'm sure if I had I been the one driving, it would have been a two hour trip, but. It was an interesting drive -- Nuevo Laredo is really an awful introduction to Mexico. The land was flat and sparse, but the further south we drove the mountains began to appear. I love being drawn into mountains this way. It's like a long slow seduction. The kept building up layers and layers, and more cacti began to appear (my first for the trip!) and then you are driving through the low passes and there is more vegetation... anyway. Saturday afternoon was spent eating delicious "fancy tacos" and driving around the city. I had the pleasure of being hosted and shown around by a good old friend who I hadn't seen in what seemed like years -- and his wonderful parents. We started out with the view of the whole city from his friend's apartment balcony (what a breathtaking view, I long for a place like that.) Pictures of that view are posted on the pictures site. It's a great way to get oriented, and I'm glad we started there first. From there we proceeded to the mountains slightly west of the city, and drove up into them for a bit -- the striations in the rock are so visually fascinating, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. And the mountains... seemed to bring out a rush of memories, a rush of blood to the head if you will, and silenced me all at the same time. It made for a few awkward moments, when I would get lost in my head and lose track of what was going on around me, but. There is something so grounding about them; you can just wander and get lost, but then you look up towards them, and they murmur, "let it be." We drove back to my friend's house and picked up his dad, proceeding to the home and studio of a well-known local artist who also teaches painting. He showed us his work -- he had some very haunting, moving paintings, in a style that fluctuated quite dramatically between realistic representation and abstraction -- and then we sat in his garden, in the back of his studio, discussing art, the art world, and what not. I had asked him a question about the style of his work while he was showing it to us, and he launched into his motivations, his stylistic references, what he is intrigued by -- and my friend, who had been previously translating the back-and-forth, stopped, realizing that I understood exactly what the artist was saying. It's funny how art is somehow a universal language. I couldn't necessarily respond in Spanish -- my brain kept turning towards French, Italian, Arabic -- but I understood everything he was saying. I really need to learn that language; it is beautiful to hear, quite lyrical -- and if only to be able to read Neruda in his native tongue! After a wonderful time at his studio, we wandered around the artsy district and stopped off at a cafe for some coffee before returning home to get ready for dinner. Alonso's parents were celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary, and they had postponed the celebratory dinner until Saturday so that they could include me -- it was incredibly generous. And what a meal.. haute Mexican cuisine... the most memorable bit of which was sauteed cactus layered with a local cheese. Mmm. After dinner, Zo and I went out to a local rock music club and sat around talking about music, life -- mostly music, though, as that is our mutual shared passion. It was a great day. Sunday, of course, was game day -- but Zo was gracious enough to take me to marco, the fabulous contemporary art museum in Monterrey, before the game started. I was out of it most of Sunday, which didn't help things. After the game, we drove around town some more, near the technical university and then east towards Santiago. What a memorable little town... As I was nervous about getting back to Nuevo Laredo and crossing the border at dark, Alonso's parents graciously allowed me to spend an extra night, which also meant that I had the chance to accompany them to their weekly Sunday night extended family dinner. Wow. It was unfortunate that I was so out of it, but it was so enlightening to witness, as it really gave me a true sense and context for my friend -- I feel that I have a much better sense of who he is now, for which I am glad. His grandparents are wonderful -- his grandfather is eminently charming and a gentleman, he reminds me of my own Granddad, actually -- and his grandmother is hilarious, as well as an accomplished artist. His aunt and uncle, although I didn't get much of a chance to talk to them, seem lovely, and his cousins are great, one very gregarious, the other quiet but kind. They kept forgetting to speak in English, which made it a bit awkward for me, because I sort of knew what they were talking about but couldn't respond, and I was so tired that I struggled to keep up, at best. But it was great of them to include me. I left the next morning still with many things that I wanted to say to my friend, observations to make, topics to discuss (beside AMLO's wreaking havoc and being incredibly irresponsible) but hadn't because I had been so consumed by the experience of being in Mexico; in retrospect, I should have tried harder to snap out of it on Sunday afternoon and spoken up. But, I guess there are letters for that. So, I walked back across the border, still slightly overwhelmed by everything I had just experienced, and slightly dissatisfied with myself that I hadn't spoken my piece, but in general quite happy. I answered the few questions the border folks asked me, took a cab to my hotel, got in the car and headed North. Monday - July 10, 2006Thoughts while driving around an outlet shopping center in TexasAmerica, as it stands right now, is a monoculture.
(Think re: Pollan and also contemporary immigration debates.) Hm. Will flesh this out soon, hopefully tomorrow (by the time this has gotten published, it will be Tuesday.) I'm trying to make tomorrow my down time day. I've got a long entry, 2/3 of the way done, on my trip to Mexico this weekend, as well as other various musings on my time in both New Orleans and Austin. Coming soon, prometo. This is being published (its first incarnation, at least) from Alpine, Texas -- a fantastic town. I think I'm going to stay here two nights, that's how much I like it. (Of course, none of this is going on the proper site, ie the roadtrip site, but honestly, it's so kitschy I can't bring myself to write on it. I should just take it down.) Anyway. Wednesday - July 05, 2006Texas really is its own country.
Greetings from Austin, Texas. What a beautiful drive from New Orleans. More to come. I didn't go to West Memphis or Slidell, but I thought I'd include the above picture for posterity's sake. Sunday - July 02, 2006Day 1has been wonderful, in its quirky, American way
(more on this Americanness later; I was pondering in the car. Note to self: get
a tape recorder.) The perfect blend of anticipation, disappointment, unexpected
pleasures, and quiet, honest, moderately profound talks with semi-strangers.
All in all, a good balance to strike, as far as setting a tone goes. From here on out, all traveling roadshow thoughts pictures will be posted here [updated 7/17]. At least that's the plan. It's been a long, long day/night; thus, goodnight from a farm in North Canton, Yazoo County, Mississippi. Wednesday - June 28, 2006Westward, ho.Leaving in a few days for my cross-country road
trip.
It's funny, I was feeling icky about coming back down here and starting off this trip, because things have been going so well for me in NY, but I'm not regretting it as much anymore, now that I have a map in front of me. I landed (finally) last night, got back to my apartment, and had the urge, out of nowhere, to listen to a song of Lucinda Williams', called 'Joy'. I'm posting the lyrics below, although you should really listen to it yourself, as it makes more sense when heard, especially her 'Live at the Fillmore' version. As it were, she decided to play this song during a show she did in Nashville a few years ago after she was informed that Al and Tipper were in the audience -- and dedicated it to them. Hell of a show, that was. Anyway. Lyrics below the jump. (Oh, and her song 'Righteously'... yeah. Amen.) More, I promise, later. Friday - June 23, 2006Trotting globallyOr, as it seems,
galloping.
Indeed, I was in Italy last week. !! As I said in the office Tuesday morning... "36 hours ago I was floating in the Adriatic Sea. Now I am in Midtown in an office." Anyway. My slight snippet of a point tonight.. I am the worst kind of closet romantic you will ever meet. Also, slightly relatedly, I frequently tell myself I was born in the wrong era. I wanted to go to Venice, but part of my not going was motivated by the fact that there are so many flipping tourists, and not elegant tourists but ugly loud ill dressed obnoxious ones teeming through the canals (or so my imagination believes...) that I almost don't want to go, as it would spoil in my mind the last and greatest place of romance alive in the world. OK, admittedly I've watched too many period pieces, like Wings of the Dove, but. I believe in that elegance. I have this sensibility of Europe; when I lived in Paris, I only spoke in French, even with my roommate, so that no one could peg us as American. As Henry James wrote, "I am too American myself, and lack juices." So when I'm in Europe, everyone thinks I'm German and that is alright. I dress not in US attire; I observe. I speak in hushed tones if I'm speaking at all in English, and it's lovely. (Except if the people I'm with don't speak great ____. ) I made this resolution many years ago to never travel to a European or South American country without having at least a passable knowledge of the language. (Not to discriminate, but it's a lot easier to learn Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese vs. Mandarin. Although Arabic is fairly easy..) Anyway. I'm still digesting my trip; I haven't had time to really reflect, though, as I've had to hit the ground running. I'm really happy, however, and enjoying the pace of things, and what is happening in my life. I feel like a lot of burdens have been eased, and I'm finally growing into myself... Also, Happy 60th birthday to my wonderful of all wonders, my father. His selflessness and generosity of spirit ground me every day, and make me proud to know him. But, bedtime for me, more to come (will be in Nashville next week before going to California, so will have time to write and reflect..) Arrivederci, ciao -- Wednesday - June 07, 2006An Epicurean with profoundly Stoic tendencies.Fundamentally, I love people, I think -- ideas
might be second -- or, rather, it's the combination of the two -- ideas of
people and people as ideas. It's amazing how one can come up with so many
narratives based on such limited sets of information. (note, note
note.)
But my question now is: what do you do with a person or an idea of a person that you are in love with -- down to the tiniest physical details, like a flash of a tongue behind the teeth during a smiling pause of a phrase -- when you know, so strongly, the end of the story line, and know that it's not going to work? [I mean, my gut instinct tells me that it's not going to work, but being that Wildean aesthete that I am, I want to savor it nonetheless, just to at least know.. and taste..] Is this what getting older is about? Once you learn more about who you are, on the most fundamental level, and how you work.. does that process of self-awarness automatically instigate the invisible hand crossing off people on your list of those to spend your most intimate life with? Of course, I'm coming at this whole thing from a very specific point of view, ie marriage. It's really not on my brain except for intellectual reasons; and, admittedly, perhaps, the climate in which I find myself these days. And indeed, the climate in and of itself pressures you into that system of thinking, that heterosexual marriage is the only choice. (I'm reminded of how easy it is to slip into the system and forget about the many other wonderful worlds I've experienced, and am a part of..) There is something very sexy about it, though, and so appealing... but it's an opt-in kind of system. (Pause: Kate, will you ever actively opt-in to anything, or just sit outside commentating?? (are you spending too much time in midtown?) Wait.. when I fall in love, I forget about this third person commentary.. ) .. I don't know. Sleep time. .. It's a tricky business. And I don't think I'm ready for it, any of it, any time soon. IE: I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now. And, a reminder.. "It was to have service of the intellect, certainly; yet, it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be. Of the ascetism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. But it was to teach Man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is in itself but a moment."
-
Oscar Wilde
Tuesday - June 06, 2006An imbalance of powerI've been getting this inexplicable thrill from
walking through, and, more importantly, being a part (although mis-placed, as
far as our neighbors go) of the Park Avenue Midtown Financial District. It's
one of the largest open spaces of unrestricted ego grazing, IB posturing,
superficial Darwinistic Capitalism bastion places ever. Perhaps that's why I
enjoy it -- I like to watch how everyone interacts, according to all the
intellectual, social, socio-political-economic-anthropologica-sexual models.
(Because, indeed, it's quite fun.)
But, secretly, I feel as though this part of me that never existed before, it's like my inner investment banker (oh god, what a horrendous thought!!!) comes out when I'm pounding that pavement in my heels. And even without heels, it's such a striptease runway, especially for women. If you are a woman in a suit walking down that mile, well, shit. More on this later. I need to sit out and watch a bit more to put this statement in its proper context, but. It's so ridiculously palpable. Friday - June 02, 2006CredoI intend to confuse
things,
to
unite them, make them new-born,
intermingle them, undress them, until the light of the world has the unity of the ocean, a generous wholeness, a fragrance alive and crackling. ------------------- Yo pienso confundir las cosas, unirlas y recien nacerlas, entreverarlas, desvestirlas, hasta que la luz del mundo tenga la unidad del oceano, una integridad generosa, una fragancia crepitante. -neruda. Friday - June 02, 2006As of late..I've been thriving, of a sort. And tonight, for the
first time in what seems like ages, I am truly, happily, blissfully exhausted
and worn out. It's quite a lovely feeling actually; I had forgotten.
Thursday - May 11, 2006My kind of humor..I immediately thought of the following Shouts and
Murmurs piece from the New Yorker a few years back when I heard about Ahmadinejad's letter (full version)... which
was only reinforced by the Daily Show's similar parody this evening. I had the
following pieceposted on the wall of my office for 4 years. It still cracks me
up. "Read more" to check it.
Laura Bush is speaking here in the morning. Yeah, don't think I'm going to make that one. Also -- first it was Iran, now Afghanistan? Rap may indeed be the new Jazz. Or Rock n' Roll. Voila, the Rapper of Kabul. Monday - May 08, 2006'08I truly believe that if Al Gore can get some good,
honest, outside-the-beltway maverick thinkers behind his campaign strategy, he
can win it in '08.
He was right 7 years ago, and he's even more right now. Perhaps I might have a new passion.. Sunday - May 07, 2006Falling in love with the Paris Review DNA project..."INTERVIEWER
Do you feel you're in command when you're writing? GINSBERG Sometimes I feel in command when I'm writing. When I'm in the heat of some truthful tears, yes. Then, complete command. Other times—most of the time not. Just diddling away, woodcarving, getting a pretty shape; like most of my poetry. There's only a few times when I reach a state of complete command. Probably a piece of Howl, a piece of Kaddish, and a piece of The Change. And one or two moments of other poems. INTERVIEWER By command do you mean a sense of the whole poem as it's going, rather than parts? GINSBERG No—a sense of being self-prophetic master of the universe. " Game, set, match. Brilliant, Allen, hysterically, characteristically you, and simply brilliant. Also, this interview with Saul Bellow is amazing. I wish I could excerpt from it. Sunday - May 07, 2006Reading descriptions of interior brain decorationsYes! Yes!
Interviewer: What misapprehensions, illusions and so forth have you had to struggle against in your life? In a commmencement address you once said there were many. Joan Didion: All kinds. I was one of those children who tended to perceive the world in terms of things read about it. I began with a literary idea of experience, and I still don't know where all the lies are. For example, it may not be true that people who try to fly always burst into flames and fall. That may not be true at all. In fact people do fly, and land safely. But I don't really believe that. I still see Icarus. I don't seem to have a set of physical facts at my disposal, don't seem to understand how things really work. I just have an idea of how they work, which is always trouble. Friday - May 05, 2006SpeechlessThe absolute absurdity of the following statement
is sheerly stunning.
"I base a lot of my foreign policy decisions on some things that I think are true. One, I believe there's an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody's soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free." - George Bush, last week. Our foreign policy is not based on facts, realities, or verifiable information. ??!!!!!!!$Rf#$GFGJIJG#IQUJ$E(I@#QU(#F$#WKQO$T@*(*%&*#(@)(@)!!!! .... Ahem. ..... Mr. Packer said it best, I think: "It seems that unless God himself gains entry to the West Wing and informs the President that the Iraqis' desire to be free is not the issue, a grandiose theology will continue to doom America and Iraq to a bloody stalemate." Hell in a handbasket, hell in a handbasket. A handbasket made out of corn sprayed by petrol fertilizer.* (Everyone immediately read this book. One of the most important books to read, as it lays out many of the truisms behind issues that are eminently pressing, relevent, and fundamental in our contemporary culture.) *See page 10, here, then buy and read the book. Friday - May 05, 2006Surveying myself UNTITLED
She undressed looking into my eyes like someone about to go swimming at dawn alone quiet heart attack Thirst is my water Some say the more you stray the more you’re saved, I wouldn’t be surprised Snow falling on my bedclothes Set the mind before the mirror of eternity and everything will work - Franz Wright. Monday - May 01, 2006Another Giant Passes.RIP-AiA, to Jane Jacobs. Rest in Peace, And in
Action.
Sustainability and biodiversity, (even in vast metropoli) -- are happening, (albeit slower than you and I would hope for) and your words, observations, and strongly-held principles are an inspiration and motivation to change the American landscape. It was, and is, your belief in the power of integration and of neighborhood socio-political-economic-occupational diversity that has, in turn, informed and validated my own belief system, and constitutes a large chunk of what I am currently thinking about, ie, the contemporary American landscape, with all its psycho-social, etc. etc. implications. Indeed, your writings changed me, and propelled me into new thoughtscapes about the zeitgeist and also questions about nationhood, and my identity as an American... oh, so much to say, and I'm forgetting much of it. But, To A Giant, thank you for your life, for making your brain accessible, and for fighting for what, I believe, you and I both conceive of as the true American spirit and soul. Monday - May 01, 2006Heh. Heh.Was just reading this Jane's Security News Brief that I get in my
inbox every week, and found the following bit quite amusing, as far as
contemporary Islamist Politics go:
MILF internal strains
surface
A military confrontation
between radicals and moderates from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in
early-March has raised the possibility of a violent fragmentation of the
organisation in the coming months. The confrontation was fuelled by the MILF
hardliners' dissatisfaction over the ongoing peace talks with the Philippines
government and the negotiating tactics of the group's moderate leadership. The
internal power struggle has alarmed Philippine and Malaysian authorities, who
fear that MILF radicals could disrupt the peace process, breakaway to form
splinter movements, or join forces with the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) or Jemaah
Islamiyya (JI).
Dudes, your acronym is MILF. Think about that, then think about the inspiration for your "Islamic values" (as informed by the last, and most conservative legal school of sharia's version of sharia, which eschews the foundations of the faith as the Prophet intended; and, not to mention, is a legal theory that was crafted in erm, say, the 12th century...) And then come back to the MILF thing. Absent the "T", but honestly. Let's get serious. (Giggle.) Oh, institutional religion. You are, indeed, ridiculous. Your absurdity has been canonized, but even that, in and of itself, makes me laugh so hard. So, for that hard-won elicitation, cheers. Monday - April 24, 2006ZeitgeistOh, what a perfect encapsulation of the era in which we
live.
Monday - April 24, 2006Am tentatively beginning musings on what's next If I wasn't so tired, I would spend all night thinking intensely about what I've been sketchily, peripherally thinking about all afternoon... Am I an artist? Could that be my profession? Can I keep doing this? What do I do next? Do I go to grad school? They may sound like simple questions, but they are resonating profoundly, these echoes in my brain, and, to borrow, in my heart. As I said before, flashes of fins above the water. But, am too tired to really delve. Will be taking it up in the coming weeks, if not with myself than with el blogorandomandslightlytipsyqueries. Goodnight.. Monday - April 24, 2006Vokeation, indeed.A link to published pictures, both from empty and
full gallery space. Some from Friday, some from other times. Will be posting
more in coming days, I'm going to make a whole website about the project and its
process (as documented by photographs and random commentary.) But, I haven't
truly, deeply slept in over a month, and I'm headed to New York for a few days,
so it might take me longer to update than I would hope. Also, need some serious
downtime. Even though the paintings aren't really done, according to me.
So, cheers for now. Thursday - April 20, 2006I think I'm finished. I'm not sure, though.I can't really stay away, though. It's like some
variation of Stockholm Syndrome. Or a reversal of it. The more time I spend with
the paintings, the more I hate them. That didn't happen when I painted
landscapes. Damnit. Oh well.
Show opens in 36 hours. I've been running on adrenaline all day. I literally cannot stay away from the studio. This is ridiculous. Someone stop me. Anyway. This will serve as the last defacto post mentioning media snippets. All updates will be linked to this one. Expect a serious time out (or maybe I will come back, who knows?) from me, as I have the tendency to go through a post-partum type thing. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing with myself once this is over. Oh, right. Driving across the country. But still, I am already feeling like once again I am leaving Nashville with no closure. Although I'm not technically leaving. (Oh shush, Kate, finish your drink, and go to bed. Big day tomorrow.) Okay. Cheers for now. Shout out from The Tennessean. Piece on NPR. (jump down fo mo rambles) Thursday - April 13, 2006Artistry...is to be found in late nights at Cohen. Elegance
sans florescence, pristine moonlight, the company of like
souls.
.... I'm going to sincerely miss working in Cohen -- for me, three years now -- when all of this is over. ... Anyway, that said, David Maddox's article about the project appeared today in the Nashville Scene. Here's a link. More media (we hope!) to follow. Bedtime for bonzo. Got to "get r done," as they say, in the next four days. I know I'm a deadline-lastminutecrunch kind of gal, but seriously... yikes. Fingers crossed!! Friday - April 07, 2006I knowthat no one can come, of course not, but honestly,
my soul is begging someone to come for it. Please. I need someone there to let
me bow my head on his or her shoulder and let out a long wail, just once. Yes,
me.
Please. Please. Thursday - March 30, 2006FYI[UPDATED
4/3]
What I've been up to. More to follow. I promise. Further info here. And, here's a picture, I wish I had a bigger version of it, but.  When the newspaper and radio bits air, will link to them as well. All very exciting....but I really should be in the studio. And so, I'm off... Monday - March 27, 2006Truth in action
Spinster
Now this particular girl During a ceremonious april walk With her latest suitor Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck By the bird's irregular babel And the leaves' litter. By this tumult afflicted, she Observed her lover's gestures unbalance the air, His gait stray uneven Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower; She judged petals in disarray, The whole season, sloven. How she longed for winter then!- Scrupulously austere in its order Of white and black Ice and rock; each sentiment within border, And heart's frosty discipline Exact as a snowflake. But here - a burgeoning Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits Into vulgar motley- A treason not to be borne; let idiots Reel giddy in bedlam spring; She withdrew neatly. And round her house she set Such a barricade of barb and check Against mutinous weather As no mere insurgent man could hope to break With curse, fist, threat Or love, either. -Sylvia Plath Friday - March 24, 2006MIA....per usual. But, an explanation of sortsSo all I really do these days is paint, look at
what I painted, drink wine to see new things and get new ideas about the things
I'm painting, and sleep. I try to watch tivo'ed Daily Shows and Colbert Reports
when I get home from doing all these things, which usually happen at night, but
I'm normally too tired.
The show -- did I ever explain why I'm back in Nashville? oh well, later, but it's not for the Hamblet show -- opens in four weeks. The work has to be done a few days before that. And you know how I am with deadlines...... Anyway, below the fold is a shot from a typical latenight Cohen session. I'll be back to writing (and maybe posting all these entries I started but haven't finished -- the unpublished posts folder is starting to look like my 30-something-deep email draft box. Yikes.) But that's where I've been. So, cheers for now. Wednesday - March 08, 2006quelques mots"I still, in presence of life ... have reactions --
as many as possible. ... It's, I suppose, because I am that queer monster, the
artist, an obstinate finality, an inexhaustible sensibility. Hence the reactions
-- appearances, memories, many things, go on playing upon it with consequences
that I note and "enjoy" (grim word!) noting. It all takes doing -- and I
do. I
believe I shall do yet again -- it is still an act of
life."
-Henry James, to Henry Adams. Wednesday - March 01, 2006VivaDon't know if this should be filed under Actions,
Trends, Words, Ideas, or Queries, but I'm trying to steel my resolve, of sorts,
so I'm filing it under actions.
I'm thinking about fomenting a revolution. Ask Erika J. re:. She's quite brilliant herself. More to come. Monday - February 27, 2006I have decided......that a man, and a woman, needs a maid, (to
employ artistic license on neil's words.)
And in my particular case, a stenographer for the brain. So many things to write, to say, to link to... I am overwhelmed. {Random thought -- I really am bothered and I don't know why about the fact that in this town, WALK signs cuckoo at you to walk, I think the animalistic irony of it is what bothers me and simultaneously placates me with its dry humour -- that we are chickens, birds, sheep that respond to animal noises about what is good and bad etc etc (long train of thought continues in my interior monologue) Painting and the subject that I am working on have been consuming my life. Also, my email has been really screwy lately. Perhaps unrelated, but damn those hackers targeting we small but strong proud, and cheers to the person affording me free wireless, although it is insanely frustrating when you are on a deadline and your internet dies. I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY ARRRGH AND NO TIME Thursday - February 16, 2006Neil asks..."When you were young, and on your
own,
how did it feel to be alone?" It felt damn good. But -- and this is a but that demands qualification; I was walking tonight, walking, and thinking. This warm southern breeze reminded me of things. Things, specific things, perhaps tomorrow I will rewrite and elucidate. But, my revelation, in the most brief form -- college takes place at night. It is where you lay your head, or make your bed, and must or ought to lay in it... So, sorry to do this, but to depart on a breeze, because bed is calling, I will postpone with these two things: S/FJ: "and these posts are simply flashes of fins above the water," and, N/Y: "don't let it bring you down; it's only castles burning." Someone please demand me to rewrite this and explain myself. Cheers, then i guess, to shifty southern breezes. PS. "Driven from Distraction" -- new read, courtesy of mom -- I really ought heed its advice, huh.. Oh, and also..... Monday - February 06, 2006RIPBetty
Friedan.
I hope generations of Americans continue to draw strength and inspiration from your words, your activism, your life. I know I have. And I thank you for it. Update: F that. Rest, but not in peace. Rest in Activism. In living a life worth believing in. Monday - February 06, 2006A thoughtful reflectionAs usual, I'm backlogged by two weeks' worth of
things to say, but no time to write my commentary. Oh well. It's been a rough,
long, and hard week, and I'm looking forward to starting afresh tomorrow. I took
myself out to my favorite restaurant this evening for my
almost-one-month-back-in-NVegas reflection on life, love, work, passion,
thoughts -- musings, generally. And, for dessert, read through the Times Book
Review, where I came upon one of many interesting snippets -- but I thought
generally this was a good one to reflect upon. So....adieu, for
now.
"So welcome to the new age of impressionistic history. Like an Impressionist painting, it relies on dots of varying hues and intensity. Some come from leakers like those who spoke to Risen. Other dots come from the memoirs and comments of the players. Eventually, a picture emerges, slowly getting clearer. It's up to us to connect the dots and find our own meanings in this landscape. As long as we remember that the truth these days comes not as one pronouncement but as part of a process, we can properly value ''State of War'' for being not only colorful and fascinating, but also one of the ways that facts and historical narratives emerge in an information- age democracy. So let the process begin!" - Walter Isaacson, reviewing James Risen's State of War, Sunday
5th February, 2006.
Wednesday - February 01, 2006SOTUFiled, I should mention, under the WORDS category,
and not the ACTIONS category.
I so want to dissect it, bit by bit, and give you running commentary. But I'm swamped with work that I am really loving, so perhaps maybe some other time. I did think that Kaine did a hell of a job. That was the first Democratic response in 5 years that didn't elicit any of the following responses: ripping my hair out, booing, screaming, throwing my radio out the window, vociferously declaring my intention to start another party. So I guess, in relative terms, that is progress. Thursday - January 26, 2006Truism"Have patience with everything unresolved
in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked
rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some
day far in the future, you will gradually, without ever noticing it, live your
way into the answer."
- Ranier Maria Rilke Tuesday - January 17, 2006Tell Me Why,tell me why --
Is it hard to make arrangements with yourself when you're old enough to repay but young enough to sell? Monday - January 16, 2006Rock onCheers to Michelle
Bachelet!
The more I read about this woman, the more impressed I am by her. The title of the Times article -- "What is Missing in This Woman's Victory? Coattails" -- hints at a point I've brought up here before, about women only seemingly getting into politics after their husband's death, or riding in on their spouse's successful terms. Now if only such a thing were to happen in the US... Sunday - January 15, 2006I'm so fed up with you people slobbering onto your hankies, bloody fight alreadyRE: "Democrats See Wide Bush Stamp on Court System; A
Conservative Imprint -- Success of Alito Gives Opponents Little Hope for
Stemming the Tide"
An excerpt or two, although the whole article is maddening: "At the retreat, Democrats listened to a panel composed of Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Cass R. Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School and Marcia D. Greenberger, the co-president of the National Women's Law Center. The panelists told them that the court was at a historic juncture and that the Bush White House was prepared to fill the courts with conservatives who deserved particularly strong scrutiny, participants said. The panel also advised them, participants said, that Democratic senators could oppose even nominees with strong credentials on the grounds that the White House was trying to push the courts in a conservative direction, a strategy that now seems to have failed the party. Mr. Tribe said Friday that Democrats were increasingly discouraged in their efforts to mount opposition campaigns. "When it comes down to it, the numbers of Democrats means that it begins to feel to some like tilting at windmills," he said. ... Mr. Kennedy said that the nomination process, and particularly the hearings, had "turned into a political campaign," and that the White House had proved increasingly skilled in turning that to its advantage. "These issues are so sophisticated - half the Senate didn't know what the unitary presidency was, let alone the people of Boston," he said, referring to one of the legal theories that was a focus of the hearings. "I'm sure we could have done better." "But what has happened is that this has turned into a political campaign," he said. "The whole process has become so politicized that I think the American people walk away more confused about the way these people stand." Democratic aides said there had been even less strategy than usual in trying to coordinate the questioning by the eight Democratic senators. The situation was complicated because senators and staff were out of Washington before the hearing." !!!!!!!???!@#$#%$#^%$&%^*&&**&$#??###@&$!!!!!!!???!!!? You people are just IDIOTS. Note to self: when preparing for a major battle, don't go home and throwback a few bowls of eggnog. Bloody Hell. FIGHT ARGGGGGH That's it. I'm starting my own party. Our mascot is going to be an eagle with massive, massive needle-sharp claws. And a sword/talon-like beak. fight |fīt| |faɪt| |fʌɪt| verb ( past and past part. fought |fôt| |fɔt| |fɑt| |fɔːt|) [ intrans. ] take part in a violent struggle involving the exchange of physical blows or the use of weapons : the men were fighting | they fight with other children. • [ trans. ] engage in (a war or battle) : there was another war to fight • [ intrans. ] we fought and died for this country. • quarrel or argue : she didn't want to fight with her mother all the time | they were fighting over who pays the bill. • [ trans. ] struggle to put out (a fire, esp. a large one) : two fire trucks raced to the scene to fight the blaze. • [ trans. ] endeavor vigorously to win (an election or other contest). • campaign determinedly for or against something, esp. to put right what one considers unfair or unjust : I will fight for more equitable laws. • [ trans. ] struggle or campaign against (something) : the best way to fight fascism abroad and racism at home. • [ trans. ] attempt to repress (a feeling or an expression of a feeling) : she had to fight back tears of frustration. • [ trans. ] take part in a boxing match against (an opponent). • ( fight one's way) move forward with difficulty, esp. by pushing through a crowd or overcoming physical obstacles : she watched him fight his way across the room. • [ trans. ] archaic command, manage, or maneuver (troops, a ship, or military equipment) in battle : General Hill fights his troops well. noun a violent confrontation or struggle : we'll get into a fight and wind up with bloody noses. • a boxing match. • a battle or war : the country was not eager for a fight with the U.S. • a vigorous struggle or campaign for or against something : a long fight against cancer. • an argument or quarrel : she had a fight with her husband. • the inclination or ability to fight or struggle : Ginny felt the fight trickle out of her. Sunday - January 15, 2006The Price of IronyI found this article by Benjamin Barber through the NY Times
Week in Review Reading File. It's a great essay
on the times. Excerpts from Salmagundi of my favorite
bits.
"Irony is the postmodern form of conspicuous self-consciousness and suits our era’s puerility – its fey aestheticism and political cynicism — to a tee. It is complacency’s rationalization, disengagement’s excuse, the alienated spectator’s self-justification. The ironic bystander (the phrase is redundant) is the citizen’s jeering nemesis and the poet’s wily shadow trying to make sure that truth and beauty and goodness, those stalwarts of the world before it was disenchanted, do not re-infect the post-modern’s cool voice with hot earnestness. Or make us think too hard or feel too keenly. While intellectuals work – Stanley Fish making irony respectable, Richard Rorty wrapping it in the cloak of privatization to minimize its political impact, Jedediah Purdy laboring more recently to expose its costs to community – artists play, assuring that irony endures and spreads in sanitized screen violence (Kill Bill or Sin City), television news wryness (The Daily Show), knowing Broadway shows (The Pillowman) and teen consumer advertising (the beer commercials, for starters). For irony allows us to armor our self-consciousness, and make our moral puzzlement and anxiety seem almost virtuous – though we can only utter the v word ironically. As Claire Colebrook has noticed in Irony, irony is deeply implicated in “the huge problems of post-modernity; our very historical context is ironic because today nothing really means what it says. We live in a world of quotation, pastiche, simulation and cynicism: a general and all-encompassing irony.” We might even say that irony defines the postmodern sensibility and that to be anything but ironic is to be hopelessly old-fashioned, gauche, out of it – in a word, me. Yet irony is sometimes literally killing as in Brian McDonagh’s play. Irony plagues politics and the arts alike, and hence signals their ongoing intimacy with one another. Want to kill citizenship? Undermine what is earnest and engaged in the world of art, as McDonagh does with the subject of child abuse. When McDonagh is done, feeding Viagra to sex offenders seems quite normal, in an ironic kind of way, and children killing children is, well, a clever and costless game. Want to put an end to art’s ‘pretentious’ ambitions? Assail self-serious politics and civic responsibility. ... So yes, irony is bad for art — but then what’s art? asks the ironist artfully. It’s bad for audiences — but then who cares? asks the careless spectator. And it’s bad for civility in both the civilizational and civic senses – but then are not civilization and the civic sensibility two of the ironist’s more fetching targets? ask the complacent aesthetes who pass as artists in the age of irony. ... At Arthur Miller’s memorial service last May, Edward Albee said of him “some writers matter and some do not. Some of our most clever writers don’t matter. They teach us nothing and they do not render ourselves coherent.” But Albee was showing his age, and was obviously wrong. In the age of irony, teaching something, rendering ourselves coherent, doesn’t matter while cleverness does. ... Irony alienates us from alienation, depriving it of its critical purpose and leaving us and the artist free to be – well, more or less nothing at all, other than self-consciously voided of our self-consciousness. It is the ideology of the age of emptiness. It offers bearings on a sea with no ports, no longitude or latitude, and no destinations and hence (ironically) without need of bearings. ... Yeats wrote “after us, the Savage God.” Today we might say, “and after the Savage God, the ironist.” So that savagery is voided of the savage, and we need no longer suffer the loss of meaning associated with post-modernity because the ironist helps us lose the loss of meaning, so that the loss is not felt. ... The dirty little secret of the ironist is of course that irony is always parasitic and can exist only by virtue of the earnestness it takes such pleasure in annihilating. Like sentiment, which has been called unearned emotion, the new irony is a form of unearned skepticism. It creates nothing of its own but waits to ambush moral purpose, to play havoc with common sense, to deny reason its moment. It is true that we live in the age after Nietzsche, after the ‘death of God’ and the deconstruction of reason. But irony is not existentialism. It is not brave. It avoids a confrontation with God’s passing in favor of clever parsing of the sentences in which his passing is asserted. The only stand it takes is that there is no stand to be taken, so neither the author nor the audience has to take one. Irony asks nothing of us. In letting itself off the hook, it lets us off the hook. We don’t just laugh at the cruel and the bizarre – which might leave us feeling some culpability even as we laugh – we laugh at ourselves laughing. We do not merely distance ourselves from our terrors for reasons of psychic survival, we congratulate ourselves on our distancing. Audiences at Pillowman do not seem to be stunned by the cruelty of life; nor even transformed by the transfiguration of mere pain into something fabulist and imaginist. Rather they stand and cheer as if they’ve just enjoyed an aria from La Boheme by their favorite soprano, as if Jerry Springer had just taken the stage with a couple of pathetic misfits parading their deviance to spectators who are beyond not only compassion or pity, but beyond contempt and derision as well. Irony is liberation on the cheap; irresponsibility without regret. Puritanism may be too hard to bear; skepticism may be the price demanded by reason; but irony is all too easy. No wonder our infantilizing, attention-deficit, lazy, consumerist times are in love with it. No wonder that the less crafted, less crafty version of McDonagh is found at every studio script conference for the latest thriller or HBO movie. The Puritans make work of play, moderns make play of work, but ironists make nonsense of work and play, seriousness and fun. To be too serious may at times be a sin; and to laugh too much at seriousness may be a greater one. But the ironist laughs at those who laugh at seriousness, somehow thinking this will enable them to recover seriousness without embracing its vices as seen by those who mock it." Tuesday - January 10, 2006Nashville Skyline RagIt really feels almost like I never left.
(I don't know yet whether that is a good or bad thing.) Either way, it is comfortable because I know it. ... A paltry phonephoto below. More to come once I am truly truly settled. The last week has been nuts. The good, the bad, and the nuts. And the haulingassonhighways. Ugh. ..... We shall see, indeed.  Sunday - January 01, 2006CivilizationI've mentioned this before, and it's something I've
been thinking about for awhile. Other people have argued and written about it,
rightfully so, but there is something I'd like to say. Prepare yourself, this is
a bit long.
Earlier this afternoon, I walked with my dog, whose renewed license from the state of New York just arrived in the mail yesterday, and who is currently receiving medication from an animal hospital for an ear infection, down to the Starbucks a few blocks away, to pick up the Sunday paper and get some coffee. I walked down a street that was for the most part clean, minus some leftover silly string from last night's festivities. The street was paved. Cars -- themselves regulated for safety standards -- passed down the avenue in the direction they were meant to be going, stopping when there was a red light, staying mostly under 30 miles an hour. I passed mailboxes, trees, storefronts. I walked the three blocks in safety; not once did it occur to me that some violence or threat would befall me. I returned to my house safely, washed dishes with clean water that came out of a tap, and proceeded to sit on the couch and read the main news section of the Times. I turned on the lights as it got darker, and the lights, minus one bulb, were all working fine. The newspaper I held, purchased with certifiable currency, at a store that offers free health care to its employees, was not written by the government, or any other actors. So, I read the news section. And by the time I got to page A10, I had to stop to write this. What makes this country so remarkable is the longevity of its civilization. And of course, the order I described is, sadly, not uniform throughout the city, state, and country I inhabit; but nonetheless, there is an expectation in our culture that this should be the norm, and on average, it exists in this country. This is remarkable. If you look at the rest of the world, this sense of civility largely does not exist. ... So I turn to this article about Guatemalan gangs to make a point. "Even in peace, governments across Central America have said violence remains the principal threat to stability. Here, as in neighboring Honduras and El Salvador, the violence comes with many of the trademarks of the cold war: rape, torture and extrajudicial kidnappings and killings. And now, as they did then, human rights investigators have raised concerns about a clandestine "social cleansing campaign," led by rogue police officers and vigilante mobs. This latest cycle of violence began five years ago, when street gangs with roots in Los Angeles - especially the Mara 18 and the Mara Salvatruchas, known as MS-13 - began to spread across Central America and southern Mexico, creating the same kind of havoc in poor neighborhoods here as they once did in places like Compton and Watts. Then in the past year, men and boys suspected of being members of street gangs began to disappear in much the same way people suspected of being guerrillas did during the 1980's: abducted from busy streets or ambushed in their beds, and forced into unmarked cars with tinted windows and no license plates. Almost none of the kidnapped turn up alive. Some never turn up at all. When they do, they are often not found in one piece. Beyond the attacks against gang members and youths suspected of being gang members, international human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have expressed concern about a disproportionate increase in the killing of women. The Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman reported that from 2002 to 2004, killings of women increased by almost 57 percent, while the killings of men increased 21 percent. Adriana Beltran of the Washington Office on Latin America said many of the killings were committed with unusual cruelty, involving the kind of rape and mutilations that occurred during this country's armed conflict. "On June 16, they found a head in a bucket right there," said Elubia Velásquez, pointing toward a tortilla shop while walking along the main street of La Esperanza. "The hands were found near a light pole where you met me this morning. And farther down that way, under the bridge at Búcaro, they found the body." Ms. Velásquez, born and reared in La Esperanza, said the neighborhood was once terrorized by the Mara 18. She said the gang members demanded so-called war taxes from all the merchants, bus drivers and delivery crews and killed several people who refused to pay. The gang members, she said, had also raped dozens of girls, robbed countless homes and turned schoolchildren into drug addicts. ... In a crime-plagued neighborhood called El Mezquital, people said some of the killing had brought relief. Guadalupe del Carmen Alvarado, a resident there, said that after gang members had killed a couple of merchants and bus drivers who had refused to pay war taxes, the other merchants and bus drivers pooled their money to hire gunmen to "eliminate the gangs." "We don't like to see bad things happen, but to be sincere, when they started to kill the gang members, I gave thanks to God," Ms. Alvarado said. "The gangs are like living with a lion, and we know if we don't kill it, it is going to eat us." Ms. Velásquez acknowledged that "the gangs made a lot of enemies" in El Mezquital. But she said she worried that innocent youths had fallen victim in the fighting. "Now it's not only gang members who are disappearing," Ms. Velásquez said. "Now they are taking teenagers who don't have a single tattoo. Being young and poor in neighborhoods like this one has become a crime." On Oct. 13, three neighborhood teenagers, who residents said were not involved in gangs, were abducted by three men wearing ski masks as the youths played soccer in front of their houses. The victims' bodies were found the next day dumped along a small road about an hour away. The authorities said the youths appeared to have been strangled. All three were found with their hands and feet tied. Their relatives said the bodies showed signs of torture. Among them was Ms. Morales's 15-year-old grandson, José Arnoldo Arecis. "They say a tree that is no good should be cut down," Ms. Morales said, sobbing. "But only God has the right to cut down a man. What is happening here is a sin."" I have read, and, when I am able to not tangibly grasp the concept that others are being physically and mentally terrorized -- indeed, given the safety of the world I inhabit, it is difficult to imagine unless you're hit over the head with explicit descriptions, images, or whatnot -- I have found myself lapsing into sympathy for the arguments that torture is sometimes necessary to preserve the greater good. I could write that I am sympathetic to that idea from the comfort of my warm, clean, well-appointed living room, in my lovely home, on my safe, well-lit street, in my happy neighborhood, in my orderly (for the most part) city. I may have known emotional terror, but not anything of the sort experienced by, say, the women living in Darfur. Most people of this world look to America -- and actively try to come here -- here first, then Canada and Western Europe and Australia -- because we have been a beacon, nay the paramountcy of civility, opportunity, and, of course, the four freedoms: "In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world." When we as a nation perpetuate the violence, the propaganda, the torture, the economic enslavement, the pollution, the corruption, the terror -- either actively or through passive implicit condoning -- under the guise of the idea that it prevents that from happening here at home -- is the highest, most horrible evil ever committed. The hypocrisy is one thing. But the inevitably of erosion is the greater threat. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Forgive us our trespasses. Sunday - January 01, 2006Brain, come back!Things I would have written had my brain not been
MIA:
This post and this post by Digby. And this one, too. In fact, Digby is just so dead-on, so succinct, so witty, and so attuned, that it's making me consider stopping writing, and just starting to quote whole sections of that blog on this one. I read that blog and it's like someone is reading my mind, but only doing a supremely better job of articulating everything. Perhaps if I stopped being such a wino... Anyway. Also, in other news, if John Ashcroft had some hesitation..... yikes. Yikes. Sunday - January 01, 2006Nouveau Annee2005 was a great one for me personally. It wasn't a
good one for many of those that I love so deeply. So let's hope for a balancing
of fortunes in this aught sixieme.
Ok. well, that's not linguistically correct. But it looks and sounds pretty, so I'll let it stand. There is nothing more perfect of a nightcap -- after one of the most perfect New Year's Eve celebrations -- than to come home alone, pour a glass of red, put on Trane's "Spiritual" (immediate link to free downloadable song) and reflect. I love living. And to that, cheers. Tuesday - December 27, 2005The Arts of CongressSo. Not only is there a Congressional band -- The Second Amendments --
who are now on tour, but we also seem to have a poet in our legislative
branch.
Representative Dingell, if you would: Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House, no bills were passed 'bout which Fox News could grouse. Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer, so vacations in St. Barts soon should be near. Katrina kids were all nestled snug in motel beds, while visions of school and home danced in their heads. In Iraq, our soldiers need supplies and a plan, and nuclear weapons are being built in Iran. Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell. Americans feared we were in a fast track to ... well. Wait, we need a distraction, something divisive and wily, a fabrication straight from the mouth of O'Reilly. We will pretend Christmas is under attack, hold a vote to save it, then pat ourselves on the back. Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger, Wake up Congress, they're in no danger. This time of year, we see Christmas everywhere we go, From churches to homes to schools and, yes, even Costco. What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy when this is the season to unite us with joy. At Christmastime, we're taught to unite. We don't need a made-up reason to fight. So on O'Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter and those right-wing blogs. You should sit back and relax, have a few egg nogs. 'Tis the holiday season; enjoy it a pinch. With all our real problems, do we really need another Grinch? So to my friends and my colleagues, I say with delight, a Merry Christmas to all, and to Bill O'Reilly, happy holidays. Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas. Read on the House floor the other day. Perhaps I, too, could join Congress, and offer paintings about the political situation in this country, like the charts and posterboards I always see toted around by Representatives on C-SPAN. What a good idea. Monday - December 26, 2005Espionage for DummiesJesus. H. Christ.
Even I -- perpetually clumsy and tactless -- could do better than this. We're all gonna blow! Monday - December 26, 2005The Times, They are A Changin'Read another wonderful 200-plus-page chunk out of
what has quickly become my favorite political opus, Hendrik Hertzberg's
Politics: Observations and Arguments,
1966-2004. Pretty much every other
page is now annotated with my thoughts, comments, and notes of gorgeous bits of
his prose (my brain was on fire yesterday, it was
awesome.)
There is a lot to take in, mull over, and ponder, and I really hope that at some
point I'll have the time to share some (if not all) of my thoughts about what
I've read, but now is not that time. I will share this bit, though:
Pat Robertson, then candidate for the Republican Presidential Nomination debates, 1988: "The first thing we've got to do in America is get back to basics. And many of these things are not governmental solutions. We can't make through government husbands love their wives, or wives love their husbands, or families bring up their children as law-abiding, God-fearing citizens. That's got to be done in the private sector." Oh, really? Ahem, excuse me, Pat Robertson said what? (Hypocrite?) [Hertzberg wittily muses after referencing the above: "The 'private sector' is a curious way to evoke the security of the hearth. It sounds a bit like the plan is to contract out bedroom snooping to the business community. (Moralco, Inc.?)" So perhaps I'm taking it out of context, or conflating P.R.'s position (which I'm too lazy right now to look up his latest thoughts on) with George 43's ideas about legislation and programs that encourage marriage, etc. But essentially Robertson was making the point that the personal and private lives, not to mention the way people choose to raise their children, are none of the government's business. The whole "private sector" concept, is, as H.H. succinctly notes, troubling in a) its implications and/or b) a case of poor wording. But, anyway. Lost my other thought, so put in poor wording.] Moving on... Then-Vice-President George H.W. Bush: "One, I think it's a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who've been saving all their lives ... It may be a new idea, but it's a dumb one." Hm. Obviously this was 17 years ago, and numbers were different then, and the rapid speed of scientific progress since that time has altered the ability of people to live through more once-deadly diseases and operations, etc. -- and, not to forget the influx of immigrants -- but this "new idea" -- of altering Social Security -- if it was wacky then, is it still wacky now? Is it still a fringe conservative economic concept, that only seems to have more legitimacy because of the current Administration and its apparatchik drones that keep force feeding the same message into the machines broadcasting on loop, making the public think that this is a commonly accepted idea only because they've heard it repeated so many times? Interesting. Sunday - December 25, 2005Merry Chrismukkah, indeed.From Politics:
"The underlying purpose of the new crowd seems altogether different. Being inclusive is not what they have in mind. On the contrary. It looks to me like what they want to do is to slice off those of their fellow citizens who don't meet their standards for admission to the "Judeo-Christian Tradition" -- e.g., those who have an "aversion to religion," by which they presumably mean an aversion to organized religion and/or religious dogma -- and then to read these citizens out of American society. As a Judeo-Christian who has an aversion to religion, and who is an American as good as or better than any mousse-haired, Bible-touting, apartheid-promoting evangelist on any UHF television station you can name, I must protest. Where is it written that if you don't like religion you are somehow disqualified from being a legitimate American? What was Mark Twain, a Russian? When did it become un-American to have opinions about the origin and meaning of the universe that come from sources other than the body of dogma of organizations approved by the federal government as certifiably Judeo-Christian? If it is American to believe that God ordered Tribe X to abjure pork, or that he caused Leader Y to be born to a virgin, why is it suddenly un-American to doubt that the prime mover of this unimaginably vast universe of quintillions of solar systems would be likely to be obsessed with questions involving the dietary and biosexual behavior of a few thousand bipeds inhabiting a small part of a speck of dust orbiting a third-rate star in an obscure spiral arm of one of millions of more or less identical galaxies? What is so terrible about being averse to religion?!? (Diarist suddenly pitches violently backward in chair and disappears from view, a la John Belushi.)" Also, from the chapter introduction, quoting Robert Ingersoll: "We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans, and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass your hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stare miracles. We want this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years." Amen. Thursday - December 22, 2005Saturday - December 17, 2005AssinineBush: All of these. I put it on shuffle. Dwight Yoakam. I've got the Shuffle, the, what is it called? The little. Hume: Shuffle. Bush: It looks like. Hume: The Shuffle. That is the name of one of the models. Bush: Yes, the Shuffle. Hume: Called the Shuffle. Bush: Lightweight, and crank it on, and you shuffle the Shuffle. Hume: So you -- it plays . . . Bush: Put it in my pocket, got the ear things on. Hume: So it plays them in a random order. Bush: Yes. Hume: So you don't know what you're going to going to get. Bush: No. Hume: But you know -- Bush: And if you don't like it, you have got your little advance button. It's pretty high-tech stuff. Hume: . . . be good to have one of those at home, wouldn't it? Bush: Oh? Hume: Yes, hit the button and whatever it is that's in your head -- gone. Bush: . . . it's a bad day, just say, get out of here. Hume: Well, that probably is pretty . . . Bush: That works, too. ( Laughter ) Hume: Yes, right. Saturday - December 17, 2005Saturday - December 17, 2005My Blog Motto"Thinking "on
paper"
slowly and feebly about time and memory and these posts [words] are simply flashes of fins above the water." -sfj. Wednesday - December 14, 2005Perfect incisive omniscience."On further acquaintance with the modus operandi of
the Bush Administration, I've come to think that the attributions of a competent
criminal intelligence miss the point. They give credit where no credit is due,
and they fail to account for both the increasingly evident childishness of
American culture and the corollary attitudes of entitlement that over the last
thirty years have infected ever-larger sectors of the country's equestrian
class. President Bush and his friends bear comparison not to Jesse James or
Commodore Vanderbilt but to a clique of spoiled trust-fund kids. Certain of
their superiority by virtue of their wealth (whether derived from corporate
salary, family inheritance, or a sweetheart real estate investment), they fit
the profile of wised-up teenagers who don't want to hear it from anybody telling
them what to do -- which shoes to wear, how to behave in a dance club, when to
speak to the caddie or the French ambassador, why it might not be a good idea to
wreck the Social Security system, redirect the flow of the Missouri River, or
invade Iraq. Smug in their cynicism, proud of their selfishness, pre-Copernican
in the sense that they know it is the sun that revolves around them, not they
who revolve around the sun, fortune's children interpret corrections as insult,
amendments as impertinence -- old news,
uncool.
... It is with acts of vandalism that juvenile delinquents proclaim their manhood, and what else is the Bush Administration's record over the last five years if not a testimony to its talent for breaking things? ... ...the Bush Administration speaks for the kind of people who assign no value even to the idea of government, find no use for such a thing as an American res publica. Why should they? What's to learn? Everybody who is anybody in Houston or Palm Beach knows that government is a trailer park for deadbeats who can't afford to hire their own servants, furnish their own police protection, hire cheap Chinese labor, pay their taxes in Bermuda. Government is worth owning for the same reasons that one might own a gambling casino or a brothel, a financially rewarding enterprise staffed with quick-witted pimps and can-do waiters. If government is undeserving of respect, worthless except as a means of money-laundering, then why go to the trouble of hiring well-qualified people to collect the taxes and sit in the chairs? What needs to be done that can't be done by one's college roommate, tennis partner, brother-in-law, former secretary, personal lawyer, or golfing buddy? Adults spoil the fun. They remind the young heirs that government is a matter of long-term maintenance, a learning how to see, know, and care for other people. The lesson follows from the recognition that the national security doesn't consist in a handsome collection of military uniforms but in the heath, well-being, and intelligence of a democratic citizenry. The jeunesse dorre don't stoop to maintenance; they find it tedious and boring, not glamorous, apt to take time away from thinking about one's hair. Adults also give offense by not picking up on the importance of teenage loyalties (in the club or out, with us or against us); also by reason of their sometimes trying to tell the truth, which in the Bush Administration is a cause for summary dismissal... Understand "government" as a synonym for "adult," and what we have now in Washington is the sovereignty of the state in the careless and resentful grasp of teenage anarchists. The historical precedents are legion, among them the reign of the adolescent Roman Emperor Nero; more often than not the story doesn't lead to a happy or romantic ending, but maybe I'm unduly pessimistic, and possibly what we have before us is the dawn of a new golden age. If so, at least some of the credit is deserved by all the good people in the fashion, news, banking, and entertainment industries who have made America great. If Vice President Cheney and his business associates don't know how to think or read, they owe their peace of mind to an educational system that teaches by television clip and film montage; if President Bush and his companions in arms delight in all things shallow, derivative, and dumb, they take their sense of ease and comfort from the assurances of a consumer market and a popular culture that place a high value on those qualities." Excerpted from Lewis Lapham's "Editor's Notebook", Harper's Magazine, December 2005. Tuesday - December 13, 2005Offically reached loserdom.You know, I never really found George Clooney
attractive. I mean, he has nice facial features, he is conventionally handsome,
but I wasn't really attracted ever.
But, since he started talking
politics.....
Ahem, urr, ahh, achgh, gazuntite, hchehgh.
Am I a wonk or what.
Tuesday - December 13, 2005Ridiculous Statement of the WeekPresident Bush:
"There's an important debate going on in our
nation's capital about Iraq," he said last week at the Council on Foreign
Relations, "and the fact that we can debate these issues openly in the midst of
a dangerous war brings credit to our democracy."
Um, I'm sorry. Debate? I've been debating you and your
administration quite literally in my dreams for the last four years. Because
there was no chance of a debate in any other forum in our culture. Not the
media, not Congress, not your Administration, not ANYWHERE. The war was
pre-determined, and thus not subject to debate.
I think, personally, that MAYBE we should have had
this debate BEFORE we went to war, not after. Fundamentally, THAT is what
undermines our troops. Not having a post-war reconstruction plan, IE phase IV in
standard military war planning protocol? THAT undermines troops. Not Democratic
resistance. DON'T YOU DARE try and accuse critics of being sissies. Ignorance
and hubris are more sissy-like characters in my book. Great leaders, and great
military leaders, put their people and their soldiers first and take all
possible options into consideration. So screw you guys for attempting to imply
that I, like other liberal-leaning or war-critiquing people are to blame.
(Especially after my multiple earlier thoughts here.) If you were
such experts at the Middle East (ahem, Wolfowitz) and you had actually done a
proper analysis of Islamist politics and the ways in which terrorist groups have
operated and evolved, than MAYBE we wouldn't have bungled this so badly.
ARGGGGGHHHH
This, and I just watched the "Very Beazley Christmas
Story" on the White House website. I was almost starting to warm up to
you guys. And then you had to drop that disgusting -- not to mention doctored -- web
ad. Disgusting.
You know, I really try, I try so hard to accommodate.
But I really can't get anywhere when they act like such petulant 5-year-old
schoolyard bullies. In this situation, they are totally the the nasty fat kids
who pelt you with dodgeballs and wag their tongues at you.
Tuesday - December 13, 2005Wish list.As if I didn't have enough books to read and finish
already...
For the record, here is my current book Wish List (as noted by Bookpedia.) I can't say it's been updated to fully reflect the extent of my wishes -- there are a few books from the Times Notable 100 books of the year that I've been meaning to throw up here -- but I'll get around to that later. As it stands now, though: Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings Antonin Artaud, Susan Sontag Illuminations Walter Benjamin Reflections Walter Benjamin Ask the Dust John Fante A Woman Kneeling in the Big City Elizabeth Macklin Understanding Jihad David Cook The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global Fawaz A. Gerges Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus Rick Perlstein The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America George H. Nash Leo Strauss and the American Right Shadia B. Drury The Working Poor: Invisible in America David K. Shipler Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- and Cheat Everybody Else David Cay Johnston Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism Susan Jacoby Updates surely to come. Sunday - December 11, 2005Year in Ideas5th Annual Year in Ideas published today in the
NYT
Magazine. Here are my favorites, delineated between research/concepts
and actual
things.
Concepts: The Hypomanic American. What an interesting idea -- American Exceptionalism as explained by DNA. Subadolescent Queen Bees . Having gone to all-girls school for 12 years... I witnessed these folks first hand. "The Crawl" Makes You Stupid. Actually, if I'm forced to watch a 24 hour news channel like CNN, I only read the crawl and block out whatever the talking heads are yapping about. At least some international events, or important domestic news ones, seems to be covered on the tickertape. I really don't care about some crazy stunt a celebrity pulled or a single incidence of a man abducted. I care about what the hell is going on in the White House, in the Middle East, on the floor of the Senate, and on the floors of everyone else's Senates. I understand that sometimes all the press coverage can help solve crimes, but then why doesn't someone come up with a TV Network simply devoted to that kind of stuff. There are an insane amount of elections going on right now in Central/South America. The entire continent is basically gearing up to vote. COVER THAT. It's important. Venezuela offered to supply some American cities with heating oil this winter. So, even out of self-interest, the networks could cover these things. And why not talk about the 1.5 million women who die every year, or the 1 billion children who are denied a childhood from hunger, war and disease? That could get you ratings. Those numbers are attention-grabbers, and do more to advance awareness of the problems and thus sparking a dialogue on how to fix the systems that allow such things to happen. Because clearly, these "news" networks are biased anyway, so a more instructive problem-solving approach such as this would fulfill the network needed to spin stories as well as, you know, do that pesky "reporting actual news" thing. The Totally Religious, Absolutely Democratic Constitution . And Noah Feldman should know. He helped write it. I'm so interested to see how this actually works out in the court room. The Yoo Presidency . I'd love to read some critical reviews of Yoo's arguments (duly added to list of things to google). But if this thinking does get employed by other administrations, I have a feeling this country's going to hit a bit of a rough patch, as Americans clearly have some problems with common sense and electing people who have good judgment. Also, and I understand that ours is not a parliamentary system, but isn't a president supposed to govern, not dictate? And if the framers really wanted to avoid having a king-like figure, doesn't such concentrated executive power, uhm, negate that? Checks and balances, what? Pleistocene Rewilding. Cool. Making Global Warming Work for You. I'm glad some countries are thinking ahead. Really interesting experiments. I want to go inside that floating house... Stuff In Vitro Meat -- the implications, for food and environment and ethics and and and and .... are overwhelming, but fascinating to think about. The Zero-Emissions SUV -- well, the title's a bit misleading. The TerraPass System seems like a great idea. Sign me up. The anti-rape condom. Wow. This is awesome. I can't believe it's taken this long to create something like it. And while I agree with the criticism that its existence leads to some implication that women are held responsible for their security, I nonetheless am glad to see such a thing. Especially with something like the next item on the list coming to a marketplace near you... Trust Spray. Holy sh*t this scares me. The Suburban Loft . If it's in the middle of a gated community, doesn't it defeat the purpose? Or is it just a really clever reinvention of the meaning of the word "sub-urban" -- an urban aesthetic without the benefits of actually living in a city. (Culture, diversity, environmentally friendly, tolerance, etc.) (Note -- fantastic article on the cover of the Metro Section today about NYC's ever-greening status. Relates to article I mentioned a little over a year ago, I think, from the New Yorker, arguing this idea.) If it's not in the middle of a walkable multi-use neighborhood, it looks ridiculous and stupid, to me at least. ACH suburbia. Niet. Yuck. Zombie Dogs. WHOA. From life to death to life again. WHOA. So it is real. Saturday - December 10, 2005The Party of Sam's Club[Updated,
Twice]
I do try to check in with David Brooks sometimes, because I think he has occasionally good advice for the Democratic party. However, in his latest column he offered some stinging but honest critiques of the current Republican party agenda, which, as he notes, is incredibly out of touch with its own base. He pointed to a recent article that ought to serve as a wake-up call, in his opinion, for the party, and sang the praises of the two young others' suggestions, saying "these writers, 26 and 25 years old, are closer to the future than the party leaders." Big words, indeed. So, being the policy wonk that I am, I ventured over and read the article he mentioned by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam from The Weekly Standard (can you believe it??), entitled "The Party of Sam's Club" -- and I've got to say, while I don't agree with some of their ideas, or, more accurately, the justification for some of their ideas, some of them are certainly bold, innovative, and appealing -- and others actually sound as though they were born out of liberal think-tank. Democrats: WAKE UP!! Some of the suggestions I liked: - Easing the burdens on working mothers, or women who have children and then want to return to work, but struggle to re-enter the market; (I feel less comfortable with the idea of paying couples to have kids and increase the family size, because I don't think it's environmentally wise, and it sounds...frightening to me, at least the way they describe it.) But their larger point, about crafting a pro-family economic policy, seems to make sense, in terms of the numbers they offer, especially for the working poor and even middle-class families.) - their health care program. Entirely. - helping the very poor, in a new welform-reform way. (I do pause to recall some negative things I've read about the "welfare to work" program.) - some of the tax things were kind of crazy. But interesting. And if the EITC, as they note, has indeed help take a dent out of child poverty, than I'm all for it. I'll update this again later, when I've more time. Actually, if you take a black marker to a print-out of this article, and simply cross it out whenever they use the word "liberal" or "Democrat" or "Howard Dean" (usually as a subject of sneering lampooning or snarky bully-like comments), it could be, with perhaps some of their tax cut suggestions, (like abolishing all taxes for incomes under $100,000...!! sounds a bit crazy to me) a great, responsive national agenda that would appeal to most everyone in the country, wingnuts excluded. (They should be excluded anyway.) Hm... UPDATE, 12/11: I've been thinking about some of these things. Especially the tax cuts (after reading about the Worldwide Flat Taxes idea in the NYTMag.) I think there are benefits to the flat tax, fundamentally because it rewards people who pursue more education (and thus who are able to get better jobs and get paid higher.) My problem, though, is that it obviously hits the poorer classes much harder. BUT -- if you had a reasonable cut-off point -- say, people making under (ohh, I don't really want to speculate, I'm not an economist) a certain amount just don't have to pay taxes at all -- that would be cool. It's more equal. In my mind, though, there would have to be a few very firm caveats in place in order for this to happen. A) The education system would have to be so equally excellent, that everyone, everywhere were allowed the exact same possibilities to succeed and move forward. (Hence my support for affirmative action -- but I actually think it should start much, much earlier. Kindergarten, nursery school. That's when things start getting stacked against you.) B) And this is where it gets tricky -- it would also require that there exist enough high paying jobs to enable upward mobility to occur. I don't know any data about turnovers or whatnot, perhaps also something to google, but. .... at the same time, part of me does believe in progressive taxation. If you have more, contribute more. It doesn't really contribute to solving the problem's cause, but at the same time... is this possible that it's true, this economic Darwinian system of capitalism? Oh who knows. I think people should be empowered as individuals, but I think the state can help out too. I don't think that is a conservative idea, or even a compassionate conservative idea. I think it's pragmatic, and it's flexible. If you need the help, we're here for you, if you don't, that's awesome, rock on. Like training wheels. Basically, I think that government gets a really bad reputation. When it's too big, it's bad, and when you try to slash it and drown it so it fits in a bathtub, that's not very nice either. Government is responsible for a lot of important and good things. It propels scientific research, our national infrastructure, our currency, our relations with others (and our safety as citizens, at home and abroad..) etc, etc. And as we are a big nation, our government should reflect that, in an equal proportion. Similarly, I think it would be a great thing if the government pioneered efforts in a few directions: 1) Civics and Basic American Rights/Laws/Government. Everyone should know their rights and the laws of this country. They should be hammered with this until they know it cold. Thus, no one can claim ignorance, but it strengthens pride in the uniqueness of our experiment and enhances the respect for the institutions we have built and participate in. 2) Financial literacy, fiscal responsibility. This should be mandatory. In such a capitalistic society, where the free market is king, (and when so many people are dangerously relying on credit to get by) there seem few things more important than learning how these things work. 3) Public heath, through education and programs. For so many reasons.. 4) A renewed commitment to the arts. I've seen a lot of books and articles about "psy-ops" of all stripes lately, some good and some bad. It's something I've long been interested in, and had many great conversations about. For example -- during the Cold War, a huge part of our efforts to combat the Soviets were the touting of our painters, and the shift of the international art world to NYC; the State Department used to send Dizzie Gillespie all over the world to play whenever a conflict came up in a country; etc. Instead of planting false stories, why don't we actually highlight good things this country, and send them abroad? Stop killing NEA funding because you don't like some of the artists' content. It's the freedom of expression that ultimately is the most important -- think of all those painters who were forced to paint pictures of Saddam Hussein in order to not be executed. Or this Iraqi boy band who was forced to write a pop song for Saddam Hussein. (WSJ Article.) Anyway, more thoughts from me later. I'm hungry. UPDATE, 12/26: Apparently, I'm not the only left-leaning person who thinks the Sam's Club article reads like a torn-out chapter from a liberal playbook. Scroll down to the Cage aux Folles bit. Sunday - December 04, 2005Will.Can you ever, fundamentally, quantify your life?
Your relationships? Your beliefs? Your values? Your
loves.
One, of numerous things, I'm pondering tonight. Thursday - December 01, 2005Mmm.There is a vitality, a life force, a
quickening
That is translated through you into action And because there is only one of you in all time This expression is unique. If you block it It will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not hear it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; Nor how valuable it is; Nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, To keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, A blessed unrest that keeps us marching And makes us more alive than the others. --Martha Graham to Agnes De Mille Monday - November 28, 2005Damning.From the Economist . The whole article deserves
to be displayed in bold, and in massively large letters, in the middle of Times
Square and echoing in every town square all over the world, until people start
giving a shit and doing something about this.
"Yet measured in a different way, from the
point of view of the half of the world's population that is female, argues the
Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces, the world is an
awfully violent place, and not just in its war zones. Men still fill most of the
bodybags in wartime, including in civil wars, even on DCAF's figures,
but their sisters, mothers, wives
and daughters, it argues in a new report entitled “Women in an Insecure
World”, face nothing short of a “hidden
gendercide”.
Violence against women is nothing new.
DCAF's contribution is to collate the many figures and estimates—not all
of them easily verifiable, it has to be said—on everything from
infanticide to rape (in both war
and peace), dowry deaths, sex trafficking and domestic violence (in richer
countries as well as poorer
ones).
According to one UN estimate cited by DCAF,
between 113m and 200m
women are now demographically
“missing”. This gender gap
is a result of the aborting of
girl foetuses and infanticide in countries where boys are preferred; lack of
food and medical attention that goes instead to brothers, fathers, husbands and
sons; so-called “honour killings” and dowry deaths; and other sorts
of domestic violence.
It implies that each year
between 1.5m and 3m women and girls are lost to gender-based violence. In other
words, every two to four years the world looks away from a victim count on the
scale of Hitler's Holocaust.
Women between the ages of 15 and 44 are more
likely to be maimed or die from violence inflicted one way or another by their
menfolk than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined. Poor
health care means that 600,000 women are lost each year to childbirth (a toll
roughly equal annually to that of the Rwandan genocide). The World Health
Organisation estimates that 6,000 girls a day (more than 2m a year), mostly in
the poor world, undergo genital mutilation. Other WHO figures suggest that,
around the world, one woman in five is likely to be a victim of rape or
attempted rape in her lifetime."
Some rage from me after the jump.
Monday - November 28, 2005Getting it Done.Of course, Republicans have their own
brand of pragmatic-minded governors with crossover appeal, among them Mike
Huckabee of Arkansas, and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, both of whom may run for
president as well. "The key seems to be effective governing and problem solving
instead of party," said Mr. Huckabee. (NYT article.)
Yeah, because I like to put people in office who ride into office on crap innuendo and pay them to do nothing except spout propaganda and be a puppet demagogue. I won't go on about Huckabee now. But why is pragmatism so scorned by politicians? I really think that is what America needs -- leadership, down middle of the road. To fix this divide, and to fix the problems in this country. Somebody please turn off the microphones of the extremists, on both sides. Mr. Bush, I'd even think of looking to you, if I had any indication that your judgement was sound, and open to new ideas. Unfortunately, he still seems to inhabit (scroll down towards bottom) an entirely mystical, fanciful world, as he has for some time now (article from over a year ago.) Sunday - November 27, 2005re: Truth"That is the radical way. For the
troubles of the press, like the troubles of representative government, be it
territorial or functional, like the troubles of industry, be it capitalist,
cooperative, or communist, go back to a common source: to the failure of
self-governing people to transcend their casual experience and their prejudice,
by inventing, creating, and organizing a machinery of knowledge. It is because
they are compelled to act without a reliable picture of the world, that
governments, schools, newspapers and churches make such small headway against
the more obvious failings of democracy, against violent prejudice, apathy,
preference for the curious trivial as against the dull important, and the hunger
for sideshows and three legged calves. This is the primary defect of popular
government, a defect inherent in its traditions, and all its other defects can,
I believe, be traced to this one."
Indeed, Mr. Lippmann, indeed. Sunday - November 27, 2005Overwhelmed by the MagnitudeDiscussion in my
head:
Re: James Bamford's article on The Rendon Group: So, how the hell are we supposed to know what is the truth and what is opinion? Truth must then be a fluid thing. "Simply one's last mood," as Oscar says. Yes, Kate, it always has been like this. And it will be like this in the future -- information is power over everything. It's just becoming more pervasive, because things have been sped up so drastically. [Update, 11/30: The Rendon group is apparently not an isolated case. See LATimes frontpager on the Lincoln Group.] [jesus. h. christ. -ed. amen, brother. -k. ] [Update 12/1: This shit is bananas. Even "fiction" is serving political purposes. Although this time it's big pharma who is behind it.] "The hypothesis, which seems to me the most
fertile, is that news and truth are not the same thing, and must be clearly
distinguished.The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of
truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each
other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act. Only at those points,
where social conditions take recognizable and measurable shape, do the body of
truth and the body of news coincide. That is a comparatively small part of the
whole field of human interest."
- From Chapter 24, "News, Truth, and a
Conclusion."
Note to self: re-read Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion. That book is true. (Internet readers can find it here.) "The bewildering variety of our impressions, even after they have been censored in all kinds of ways, tends to force us to adopt the greater economy of the allegory. So great is the multitude of things that we cannot keep them vividly in mind. Usually, then, we name them, and let the name stand for the whole impression. But a name is porous. Old meanings slip out and new ones slip in, and the attempt to retain the full meaning of the name is almost as fatiguing as trying to recall the original impressions. Yet names are a poor currency for thought. They are too empty, too abstract, too inhuman. And so we begin to see the name through some personal stereotype, to read into it, finally to see in it the incarnation of some human quality. ...When public affairs are popularized in speeches, headlines, plays, moving pictures, cartoons, novels, statues or paintings, their transformation into a human interest requires first abstraction from the original, and then animation of what has been abstracted. We cannot be much interested in, or much moved by, the things we do not see. Of public affairs each of us sees very little, and therefore, they remain dull and unappetizing, until somebody, with the makings of an artist, has translated them into a moving picture. Thus the abstraction, imposed upon our knowledge of reality by all the limitations of our access and of our prejudices, is compensated. Not being omnipresent and omniscient we cannot see much of what we have to think and talk about. Being flesh and blood we will not feed on words and names and gray theory. Being artists of a sort we paint pictures, stage dramas and draw cartoons out of the abstractions. Or, if possible, we find gifted men who can
visualize for us. For people are not all endowed to the same degree with the
pictorial faculty."
-From Chapter 11, "The Enlisting of Interest", 1922.
1922!!
Friday - November 25, 2005FaithI started to write something stupid and snarky
about a Bush/Cheney turkey pardoning photo op the other day, but I deleted it.
Instead, two things: 1) I finished The Assassins' Gate. I've spent most of this afternoon looking for non-military ways for me to get to Iraq to volunteer, for anything that could put me to good use. (I desperately wanted to go during the buildup and first year of the war. That faded for a little over a year; now it's back again.) I haven't found anything. Although the UN is looking for political affairs people, I don't have the experience, apparently. (After reading through The Assassins' Gate, though, it seems like most of the CPA staff didn't have any experience, either, so why the hell can't I go? I've got good common sense and know how to get things done. And I speak some Arabic.) (Yeah, like the family would really let you go. -ed.) 2) I started reading Sam Harris' The End of Faith a while ago; I'm picking up where I left off and going to stay focused on it until it's done. (I want to read it concurrently with Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism, though, which I started the other night. I've got to get this contemporary theory out of my system somehow...) (Oh, also, I've got Montaigne's complete essays next to my bed. I like to read one piece a night before bed, as I used to do with the New Yorker anthologies -- fantastic story collections, by the way. But I like rounding out the evening with some of his reflections; they are intriguing, and pull me back into history a bit, so I can catch a breather.) After that, I really want to dig into some research about how Straussian theory became co-opted by neo-cons. Packer definitely whetted my appetite for current intellectual trends/theories... I'd like to look into Russian history, more, too. I started reading a doublefeature of Animal Farm and 1984 the other night, (yes, it is shameful that I've never read either...) and I feel like I'm missing some serious pieces because of my limited knowledge of the Revolution and Stalin's rule. Wikipedia wasn't as helpful as I had hoped. I was wondering where 2 + 2 = 5 actually came from; Hitchens' introduction, although brief, was somewhat useful. (A bit self-congratulatory, in my memory; perhaps that is unfair, but more later when I re-read it.) Anyway, why I started writing all of this -- something Harris noted in his introduction struck me as: "Our situation is this: most of the people in this world believe that the Creator of this universe has written a book. We have the misfortune of having many such books on hand, each making a claim as to is own infallibility." Is this why writers are so self-involved? In some sense, we feel like we are playing God? (Chuckle.) Monday - November 21, 2005Four words: Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group.So, I've been reading about this office for a few
years now. This is the missing link that the MSM hasn't picked up on yet. And
I'm so tired of hearing all this nonsense, and listening to good people get
trashed. Look, I believe in spreading freedom and democracy everywhere too. I
believe in its power so essentially, intrinsically, in the core of my gut; it's
my religion, this chapel of democracy. My ambivalence about this war is
well-documented on this blog, going back two years now. But the eminence and
righteous glory of such a mission, of spreading freedom and liberal governance
in the world, becomes tarnished and scarred, all good intentions squandered,
when your premise and justification are half-truths and lies.
Those lies, although fundamentally unjustifiable in any context, might have had some slight chance of redemption if this mission had demonstrated some success. That success, however, was predicated upon there being a cogent, thoughtful, extensive, and intact post-war reconstruction plan. Alas, as is now being realized by the American public, all those plans were entirely disbanded, because of different people's personal agendas, inter-agency warfare, and political hackery. So, here we are. Now, about this: this is the missing link in the intel-bungling. Mr. Packer, if you would: "... It isn't such a long step from this insight to the creation of an office that conceals its work behind a deliberately obscure name like "Special Plans." There's a mirror-imaging of a different kind going on here -- not the mistake of seeing your enemy as a reflection of yourself, but the mistake of trying to see your enemy as he sees himself until you begin to reflect him. "When you look long into an abyss," wrote Nietzsche, the bête-noire of the Straussians, "the abyss also looks into you." Something like this had already happened in Feith's office before Special Plans was set up, in a predecessor unit, the Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group. The idea of the unit was Wolfowitz's, and it went all the way back to 1976 and Team B, the group of CIA-appointed outside experts, including Wolfowitz, that had come to much more alarmist conclusions about the Soviets than the intelligence agencies. This time, the purpose was to gather intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and their possible nexus in Iraq. The operation was lead by David Wurmser, author of Tyranny's Ally and the "Clean Break" strategy paper from which it emerged. Together with his partner, F. Michael Maloof, who had served under Perle in the Reagan Defense Department (all roads from Special Plans led back to Perle), Wurmser collected raw data, much of it from defectors provided by the Iraqi National Congress, in order to prove an assumption: that Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda and was likely to hand off WMD to terrorists. Wurmser and Maloof were working deductively, not inductively: The premise was true; facts would be found to confirm it. All the better that much of the data was doubted or even dismissed by the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the Energy Department. In the eyes of the Pentagon civilians, the methods of the intelligence agencies were deeply suspect, and mainstream analysts had a long record of failure in the Middle East. A new method was urgently needed, starting with the higher insights of political philosophy [a distortion of Strassian thought -ed.] rather than evidence from the fallen world of social science. By the time Feith and Luti set up the Office of Special Plans, Wurmser had already moved on to work for John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security ... Maloof would eventually have his security clearance revoked. But the work of their disbanded intelligence unit was absorbed into Special Plans, as bullet points on policy papers and PowerPoint slides, and then piped by Luti and Shulsky directly to the White House, where the neoconservatives had allies in Cheney's chielf of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Rice's NSC director for the Middle East, Elliott Abrams. Just as the new methods of analyzing intelligence evaded the cumbersome old requirements of vetting, this configuration of like-minded officials dispersed on key islands across the national-security archipelago allowed the intelligence "product" and its effect on policy to circumvent the normal interagency process, in which the unconverted would have been among the participants and might have raised objections. It was an efficient way of working if you knew what you wanted to achieve." From The Assassins' Gate, by George Packer, pages 106-7. My emphasis added. On a related note, see also: Chain of Command, by Seymour Hersh. UPDATE, 11/26: Note the following unclassified document on Pre-war planning for Post-War Iraq -- scroll to the bottom. If you take a look at what is said about The Directorate of Special Plans versus CTEG -- wow. Also, here is a great compilation of all the facts known about the CTEG. On a related note, Kevin Drum has compiled a list of all manipulated claims made to date. Monday - November 21, 2005Nuf said.I just check in with Talking Points Memo for the
first time in 9 months. Josh is on it.
Check out this post; much more coherent than my own mumblings lately about the SOTU and the Administration. Scroll down to really hit the good points. I'll excerpt maybe tomorrow. But this is true, too. Saw Walk the Line tonight. (wore my Cash tshirt and everything...) It's three AM, I've got to be up in 4 hours, but I can't stop listening and thumping my foot. (Turn it off, dingo! -ed. But I can't...it will just play in my head, and I'll start singing along, and then the house will wake up. Let's just hope the boots don't get pulled out of the closet...-ed.) Yes, yes. Alright. The cotton was down to a quarter a pound..... Friday - November 18, 2005IdiocyThis totally blows "Have You Forgotten?" out of the
water.
I don't even know what to do with this, except feel ashamed that these people are living in Nashville, because it casts a bad light on the city. Clemons thinks it's funny, and I guess it is, but. I'm more concerned with the gravity of the situation in this country -- and in Iraq -- than the superficiality of partisan hackery, which seems to me the only thing coming out of the White House this week. (For a good, funny round-up of that, I'd refer you to this.) The latest Harris Poll of the WSJ noted that everybody's -- not just the BA's, but all of Congress, Dems and GOP's, and Cabinet members' approval ratings have tanked; people have, basically, zero faith in anyone's ability to govern the country. This is not good news. Whither the next great leader... Anyway, I digress. The utter idiocy of some people in this country astounds and disgusts me. Friday - November 18, 2005Leave No Agenda BehindIn yet another continuation of my thoughts from the
other night, spurred on by Reading The Assassins'
Gate, which I can't recommend strongly
enough, barring my buying the book and forcing you to read it yourself -- what
follows is some more stream-of-consciousness musings that really deserve better
editing and more thoughtful
consideration.
The more I read (and I read a lot of different things, from a lot of different perspectives and peoples) I am more convinced by the followinh assertion: that really, Bush is a figurehead. If you look at the intellectual/experiential pre-Bush Administration resumes and thinking of his major players and supporters the following is true -- That every single agenda that a group or a single individual had for their position of was achieved. Everyone came into this administration wanting to achieve something personally; they weren't thinking in terms of the best interests of the country -- well, perhaps they thought they were, but they refused to listen to differing opinions, which is what democratic governance is about -- as Packer rightly points out, this is the distinction between totalitarianism/revolutionary zeal and democracy. The hypocrisy and utter chaos that is the state of this country -- and might I add this administration -- are owing to an extraordinary confluence of people and factors. It was infested by economic lobbyists, like the Club for Growth or any of Norquist's ilk; ideological wonks/hacks, like the old-guard DPG/Standard/PNAC, Straussian disciples; various religious lobbyists, like FOTF or CWFA. Not only has the presidency been outsourced; but every aspect of it was bought and paid for. This is not democracy. I found it interesting the other day that The Hill was bashing Pelosi for not paying attention to K Street anymore; apparently, she's stopped taking meetings or listening to most all of them. I was pleased and proud to read this. Lobbyists distort democracy; it makes people complacent, because they don't have to be proactive in their interaction with their government; they can simply pay an organization to do it for them, because they can't be bothered. I think that probably has to do something to do with why people are apathetic -- they can't make time, because so many things in this culture have been simplified, lost meaning, and there has been focused on effortlessness. Democracy is not complacent. It requires vigor and participation. People don't understand that anymore; as much as some might object to the idea, it's as though people want to outsource their task of voting to someone else. And yet, while people might be inclined to vote, they recall this residual notion of disillusionment and corruption of politicians, and so they don't vote. But they give money, which in turn perpetuates corruption.... (train of thought...over now.) You know, I'm a liberal libertarian, hawkish, fiscally conservative. I'm becoming more and more moderate politically (and my starting point wasn't that extreme, either.) But I really honestly believe that history will prove these assertions to be true, about Bush, at least. I wish I was in editor-mode more often. I really need to explain myself, but my brain is moving too quickly so I don't want to lose the thoughts. Damnit. Thursday - November 17, 2005Man the Sublimely Subliminal Hero.This has got to be one of my top 5 favorite
paintings in the whole world. I went to visit it today, again. My heart leaps
when I see it.
It reverberates and slowly pulses "wwwwwWWWHOOMMMmmmmm.....wwwwwWWWWHOOMMMmmmmmm" Pictures don't even come even close. You have to live it so you can hear it. But...  Ach, Vir Heroicus Sublimus. Indeed. Eight by almost 18 feet. Another picture, still not capturing it though, can be found below the fold. This Artnet image taken from an older, pre-renov MOMA captures the intensity, but not the true color or the experience of being there. Some background: "A few years back David Sylvester wrote a short
piece in
Artforum
about a Barnett Newman print that had hung over his desk for decades, a black,
grey and white zip piece. One day, Sylvester remarked, the zip hit him and all
at once, he understood its meaning, yet (typically for
Artforum)
Silver Syl neglected to tell us exactly what that was!
Now, the truth can be told -- the zip is you;
your life and mine is that thin line, between the vast rectangle of time before
one’s birth and the infinite sea beyond our
demise. (emphasis mine)
What’s abstract suddenly becomes very
concrete, in the viewing, as it did to Mr. Sylvester.And you, too, can get it if
you whisk over to the Museum of Modern Art’s rigorous and challenging
"Modern Starts" exhibition, where two classic Newmans stride the show like a
ghostly colossus.Time has been good to Newman’s work. What was once
derided by Robert Motherwell as "reductio ad absurdum," now emanates
elegance.
Newman, the anti-esthetician, would be appalled
and pleased at the burnished beauty of Vir
Heroicus Sublimis, beckoning us at one
gallery entrance, happily separated from its normal Ab-Ex partners in
MoMA’s permanent collection.The great painting now extends a strange
autumnal comfort to one who first revered it 30 years ago. The God of Jacob,
David and Jesus seems to have a refuge here.
....
Barnett Newman was a querulous fellow, quick to
defend himself over minor matters in the art mags of his day (such as his use of
"sublimis," not "sublimus"; his influence on Clyfford Still, not vice versa; his
dislike of Motherwell’s work; his condemnation of Mondrian’s
utopianism, etc.).The petulant, irascible Newman had to let off steam, surely,
from the strict demands of his own creation. It’s poignant to see photos
of a last painting, to be continued, in his White Street studio at the time of
his death in 1970.
Yet Newman was clearly misunderstood by both
detractors and admirers like Tom Hess, who bound him in the amorphous Ab-Ex
matrix of Rothko, Still and Gorky. It’s not what Newman is
about.
Newman’s work is pure, and impure, realism,
the mortal dilemma, dark and raw."
Friday - November 11, 2005I'd take the time to write about it......but Professor Drezner already did it for
me.
"What do you do about al-Qaeda's new base of operations?" Excellent commentary (although I don't care for his PR public relation/political ramifcation suggestions), and seriously important stories. Links to the stories: WaPo editorial, CSM article. I'm reading through the coverage of Jordan bombings, so I'll probably stop to revise once I've read Helena and Juan. I followed some links around and found myself a new Middle East analysis blog to add to the reading list: Marc Lynch's "Abu Aardvark." He's a prof at Williams. I'm a fan. Check great posts on al-Q and Zarqawi, and the problem with using theory to explain al-Q, something I was trying to get at last year. Anyway, thanks, Drez. I wish you had gotten tenure... The U of C's loss, indeed. Friday - November 11, 2005Feminine and Other IsmsWritten 11/5/05...slightly edited today.
[You should probably finish your thoughts
before posting... -ed.]
I’m reading The Feminine Mystique. I should have read it awhile ago, but I was busy, and that Phyllis Schlafly bit in the New Yorker last week outraged me sufficiently to make me run to the bookstore and begin reading. I’ve a lot to say, but to start, I wanted to point out this little snippet from Chapter 1, because it’s something I’ve seen surfacing in recent years in cultural critiques about our Millennial Generation and the quality of contemporary life; it reverberates in a very eerie way. “On the contrary, new neuroses are
being seen among women--and problems as yet unnamed as neuroses--which Freud and
his followers did not predict, with physical symptoms, anxieties, and defense
mechanisms equal to those caused by sexual repression. And strange new problems
are being reported in the growing generations of children whose mothers were
always there, driving them around, helping them with their homework--an
inability to endure pain or discipline or pursue any self-sustained goal of any
sort, a devastating boredom with life. Educators are increasingly uneasy about
the dependence, the lack of self-reliance, of the boys and girls who are
entering college today. "We fight a continual battle to make our students assume
manhood," said a Columbia dean.
A White House conference was held on the physical and muscular deterioration of American children: were they being over-nurtured? Sociologists noted the astounding organization of suburban children's lives: the lessons, parties, entertainments, play and study groups organized for them. A suburban housewife in Portland, Oregon, wondered why the children "need" Brownies and Boy Scouts out here. "This is not the slums. The kids out here have the great outdoors. I think people are so bored. they organize the children, and then try to hook ever' one else on it. And the poor kids have no time left just to lie on their beds and daydream." [Friedan's arguments about feminism -- and my concurrence with her -- led me to think about this, next: - the editor.] This seems intrinsically related to my belief in affirmative action; the idea that you can only get ahead and make money as a black man by pursuing athletics or a rap career or drug dealer; well, if everyone was given the same access and opportunities from the get go, if everyone was nurtured and encouraged and were allowed to discover themselves and for themselves what they believed in and were passionate about, and could exist in a community that supported and reinforced such self-knowledge; then society as a whole would benefit. Women were told that they weren’t interested in anything outside the home; this mystique became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Black men today (although, happily, I think things are changing – increasingly I’ve been seeing much more media coverage depicting a strong upper-middle class of college-educated black men; note movies Guess Who?, Beauty Shop, the success of Everybody Hates Chris (which, as Nancy Franklin pointed out the other week, ""Chris” is seen as a potential crossover hit—meaning that it would be UPN’s first black-oriented show to draw a significant number of white viewers.”), and numerous TV commercials (always a good sign that the times are changing, because ad agencies have some pretty sophisticated market analysis at their disposal – they wouldn’t run ads for a fictional market share; and hasn’t this been rapped about, as well?) are told the only way to make a buck is through athletics… Anyway, back to the point, sort of... Elle Woods as post modernist third waver? Gwen Stefani? I think all this media has always been self-perpetuating, in a way – MoDo’s new book cites statistics which reflect this, that despite all evidence to the contrary, women are still perceived to be aggressors, etc. This will never change, in any culture, in any time. There will always be something in these fundamental views, be they liberal, conservative, “Man Show” or “Femme-nazi” that appeals to certain types or groups of people. It is in direct relation to people’s upbringing, emotional experience, their nurture and their nature. If you think about it, humans only experience life in three positions, with some slight variation (including yoga); thus, the choices will continue to be sit, lay down, or stand up. The triumvirate of the modern experience, ne c’est pas? Friday - November 11, 2005What ever happened to the third wave?[Note: Originally written 10/31...just got around
to finishing and posting.]
Is this really the face of the third wave of feminism? Personally, I find the second wave much more appealing... Ok, I know I've cited MoDo on this before, but to recap: "John Schwartz of The New York Times made
the trend official in 2004 when he reported: "Men would rather marry their
secretaries than their bosses, and evolution may be to blame." A study by
psychology researchers at the University of Michigan, using college
undergraduates, suggested that men going for long-term relationships would
rather marry women in subordinate jobs than women who are supervisors. Men think
that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them. There it is,
right in the DNA: women get penalized by insecure men for being too
independent.
"The hypothesis," Dr. Stephanie Brown, the
lead author of the study, theorized, "is that there are evolutionary pressures
on males to take steps to minimize the risk of raising offspring that are not
their own." Women, by contrast, did not show a marked difference between their
attraction to men who might work above them and their attraction to men who
might work below them."
...
Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and the
author of "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children," a
book published in 2002, conducted a survey and found that 55 percent of
35-year-old career women were childless. And among corporate executives who earn
$100,000 or more, she said, 49 percent of the women did not have children,
compared with only 19 percent of the men.
Hewlett quantified, yet again, that men have
an unfair advantage. "Nowadays," she said, "the rule of thumb seems to be that
the more successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or
bear a child. For men, the reverse is true."
A 2005 report by researchers at four
British universities indicated that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to
marry, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35
percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40
percent drop for each 16-point
rise.
On a "60 Minutes" report on the Hewlett
book, Lesley Stahl talked to two young women who went to Harvard Business
School. They agreed that while they were the perfect age to start families, they
didn't find it easy to meet the right mates.
Men, apparently, learn early to protect
their eggshell egos from high-achieving women. The girls said they hid the fact
that they went to Harvard from guys they met because it was the kiss of death.
"The H-bomb," they dubbed it. "As soon as you say Harvard Business School . . .
that's the end of the conversation," Ani Vartanian said. "As soon as the guys
say, 'Oh, I go to Harvard Business School,' all the girls start falling into
them."
Hewlett thinks that the 2005 American
workplace is more macho than ever. "It's actually much more difficult now than
10 years ago to have a career and raise a family," she told me. "The trend lines
continue that highly educated women in many countries are increasingly dealing
with this creeping nonchoice and end up on this path of delaying finding a mate
and delaying childbearing. Whether you're looking at Italy, Russia or the U.S.,
all of that is true." Many women continue to fear that the more they accomplish,
the more they may have to sacrifice. They worry that men still veer away from
"challenging" women because of a male atavistic desire to be the superior force
in a relationship."
I'm reading The Feminine Mystique. I'd encourage you to do the same. It's really fascinating. After that I'll finish Manifesta (check the site) which I read half of 5 years ago and never got back to. I met Amy and Jennifer my freshman year of college; really, really impressive women, and very cool to boot. On a related note, (and yes, I've said this before here too), Woman of the Year is awesome, probably would be my favorite movie if I didn't dislike Spencer Tracy so much. Friday - November 11, 2005RE: SuggestionOh, McCain, I was wondering when you would join in the calls
for a reformed approach to our Iraq
strategy.
"A growing number of U.S. lawmakers and defense experts are urging a shift in U.S. military strategy in Iraq that would focus less on trying to secure the whole country and more on shoring up protection of major population centers. The arguments for change arise from concern
that U.S. and Iraqi forces lack the numbers still to combat insurgents
everywhere and that enemy fighters have continued to show a disturbing ability
to cause significant casualties in major Iraqi cities that by now should have
become safe zones.
In the aftermath of fresh bombings yesterday
in Baghdad and Tikrit, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) added his voice to those
calling for a new focus. He said the emphasis up to now on rooting out insurgent
strongholds through widespread, short-duration raids -- what he termed "sweeping
and leaving" -- is not working.
"Rather than focusing on killing and
capturing insurgents, we should emphasize protecting the local population,
creating secure areas where insurgents find it difficult to operate," the
senator said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative
think tank. He added that such an approach would require more troops and
resources, arguing against the idea of reducing U.S. forces in Iraq next
year."
And it only took you a month or three! Bravo to you guys for making this voice heard (WaPo article link). Now let's see if the top brass and Rummy pay attention... My thoughts: (mostly in line with Krepinevich's) I understand the desire to reduce the size of our forces there; I'd love to bring them home too, as I don't really think they should have been sent there in the first place. Similarly, there is a fair amount of truth in the idea that our mere presence there is only bolstering the insurgency. However, the long-term solution is not to pull out and create a power void; that will just allow the crazy Taliban-like groups to swarm in and re-establish the capital of the caliphate in Baghdad (roughly 800 years later...) What we need to do, what should have been done from the get-go, is to build the infrastructure. Less people will join the insurgency -- and the population will have observable proof, enabling them to defend the US presence -- if we actually do some constructive things, like ensuring electricity, clean water, etc. It's a good, wise, offensive strategy, versus our current defensive search and destroy Modus Operandi. If you break it, you own it -- so instead of getting all pissy and breaking more things, let's find some glue so we can get out of there more quickly and safely. (Well, quickly, maybe not...) The central thesis of Andrew Krepinevich's article from the September/October Foreign Affairs is posted after the 'read more' jump. Check it. Monday - November 07, 2005On BushTrain of thought. I'm too tired to edit it. Perhaps
later I will.
"Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) had this to say to "This Week's" George Stephanopoulos: "The President should be, in my opinion, reviewing and analyzing and putting some deep perspective into who's around him at the White House. And if I was the President, I think I'd want to enlarge and widen that group, and start making some serious review and inventory of what has happened in the last five years that's gotten him into so much trouble."" From ABC News' The Note; and here is the related NYT article. Why W won't take a step back and clean house: He's scared shitless. The reason why people felt assured -- inlcuding some moderate republicans, who were reluctant about George's intellectual ability -- was they consoled themselves with, "well, look at the cabinet he put together." And indeed, given past records of those he nominated and surrounded himself with, they were a pretty impressive bunch. He needed those people to supplant his utter lack of knowledge and ability in matters both foreign and domestic. They were a collective outsourcing of the presidency; all he had to do was show up and read off the teleprompter. (And we all know how well he does with that, much less having to improvise on his own...) And now, his brain, lobe by lobe, is failing him. He can't clean house -- he doesn't know what to do without these people; he won't be able to make decisions. He nominates cronies hacks, friends, shuffling them around, because he is so dependent on that core team, that led him through "the good years", when everything was tight and together. Perhaps, somewhere, deep inside of him, he realizes that he doesn't want anyone else to see how petrified and vapid he is. That's what you get for electing a frat boy to the highest office in the land. But, at least Bush is watching re-runs of "The West Wing" -- maybe he'll get some good ideas from that. Unless he is using that show as a vehicle to escape.... Aaron Sorkin's USA is the country I pretend I'm living in, too, George. Isn't it such a nice place? --- Also, Also.. remind of this: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0403.reed.html" target="NewWindow">this is apropos. On Hacks and Wonks...check it. Thursday - October 27, 2005Two brief hiccups...... of much-needed fresh
air:
Washington Post op-ed "Will Anyone Pay the Bills?" Revolving Door Working Group report "A Matter of Trust: How the Revolving Door Undermines Public Confidence in Government -- and What to Do About It" full report and executive summary. Indeed. I, too, have been sucked into the "Don't get Mierd, Plame Judy!" refresh the rss nonsense. It appeals to my giddy-at-GOP-failure instinct as well as the ADD. But there are grave issues running amok in this great country, and no one -- elephants, donkeys, and the birds who sit on their backs (the media) -- seems to be doing anything about it. Get over yourselves, already! Or, S-T-F-U! in the words of Dave Chappelle. I wish I could run this country sometimes. Thursday - October 20, 2005To pass the buck or to not pass the buckFrom
the
Hill:
"Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said of the 2006 elections, “It’s OK if the Republicans lose control, for our country in the long run, because one cycle won’t make a difference, two cycles won’t make a difference.” But Coburn...didn’t stop there. Of the current debate over spending and the budget, he said, “Republican politicians are the same as Democratic politicians in that they like to spend money. Democrats want to raise taxes to pay for it, and Republicans allow the next generation to pay for it.”" So, who's up for a balanced budget? THAT seems to make the most sense, if you ask me. It's pay now or pay later. Chances are we're going to have to pay quite a bit more later, seeing as Bush has gone about screwing up so many, many things. So let's chip in a little now! This is what civil society is all about -- everyone contributing for the good of the whole. Plus, it'll save us all in the long run -- both in terms of finances as well as the general stability, cohesion, and institutional strength of our communities, cities, states, country. Come on! Thursday - October 20, 2005SchadenfreudeThis conjured up the deepest, most gleefully
wicked, gut-trembling laugh I've experienced in quite some time. Hit read more
to check it.
Wednesday - October 19, 2005Torture.No wonder Republicans are trying to kill PBS. Its
reporters are the only ones who are actually decent journalists anymore! (Well,
besides the folks at the New
Yorker.) I watched yet another brilliant
Frontline piece last night called "The Torture Question". It is terrifying, but
well worth the time -- you can watch it online. Do so. It essentially uncovers,
with cold hard evidence, that the trail for the use of torture in interrogations
by the military does indeed lead straight up the chain of command to the top. I
can't believe more people aren't absolutely outraged.
Tuesday - October 18, 2005Poor original witticism of the dayForget getting borked -- she's getting
Mierd!
Ha! [HA! Update, 10/27 : Copycats.] This gave me a nice chuckle. "The split seems to be evolving into one of the
most profound schisms in years within a conservative movement whose unity has
buoyed Bush through his most difficult moments and earned the envy of the
political left. While conservative groups have disagreed over policies in the
past, rarely have they turned against a president so normally aligned with them
on such a central, legacy-building priority. ...
The broader nature of the split becomes clearer
with each conservative declaration of independence from the Bush White House.
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, wrote yesterday that
many of his friends "swallowed policies" they opposed out of loyalty to
Bush."
But seriously, though. I know loyalty is supposedly a thing revered in politics -- but it should be loyalty to your constituents, to their best interests -- that's how you got to Washington in the first place, you jerks. Obviously, sometimes you need to be able to build political coalitions, but there is a line you have to draw. This is what is wrong with the American political system. I also want to note this bit of a discussion I heard on Ed Gordon's News and Notes -- it was a great roundtable, as always, listen to all of it if you get the chance -- but this bit is so true and apropos. This segment comes in around the 5 minute mark. Question: Ed Gordon -- "When you talk politics with [people], there are a number of people who are suggesting that "Look, I don't like either side." Is that an even bigger concern than the lack of effort, if you will, by Republicans, or the attempt to reach out, the idea that there are so many people who are apathetic in relation to politics in both parties?" Response -- Jeff Obafemi Carr --"It's kind of like a shopper in a mall, who can't find something they are looking for. They are frustrated because they have a lack of choices, and I think many people in America right now are frustrated for the same reason. When we hear the talk of making a pitch, or having to sell something, that frightens me because I think back to something that Elijah Mohammed told Malcolm years ago... he said, "you walk into a restaurant, and a guy's got a dirty glass of water. You sit down next to him; you don't have to tell him that his glass is dirty, you just put a clean glass of water down next to it, and sooner or later he'll see which glass is clean and which glass is dirty." What's happening right now is that there are so many dirty glasses around, to varying degrees, that people are having a hard time just trying to get a good clean glass of water, and so you don't really have to sell yourself if you're out doing something, and that's on both sides of the spectrum. So I think that people are definitely frustrated. When I'm out talking to people, I hear that frustration...I think that apathy is still out there, and people are still looking for somebody to lead the way." Amen. Tuesday - October 18, 2005She was so much cooler than her boyfriendYeah, dig it.
Am chewing on this, for the rest of the evening: "To exist genuinely is not to deny this spontaneous movement of my transcendence, but only to refuse to lose myself in it. Existentialist conversion should rather be compared to Husserlian reduction: let man put his will to be “in parentheses” and he will thereby be brought to the consciousness of his true condition. And just as phenomenological reduction prevents the errors of dogmatism by suspending all affirmation concerning the mode of reality of the external world, whose flesh and bone presence the reduction does not, however, contest, so existentialist conversion does not suppress my instincts, desires, plans, and passions. It merely prevents any possibility of failure by refusing to set up as absolutes the ends toward which my transcendence thrusts itself, and by considering them in their connection with the freedom which projects them." Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Chewable, indeed, when one thinks through one's own history. More after jump. Monday - October 17, 2005Nightmarish predictions realized.From the Wall Street Journal, the other week. Click the
read more to get the article.
I knew this would happen. I don't know if I ever wrote this point out explicitly, so my claims to omniscience can't be proven, but. Bloody idiots. Monday - October 17, 2005SuggestionDear DoD heads, subordinates, staffers, janitors --
anyone who might get this to
happen,
There is this publication, entitled Foreign Affairs; some pretty smart people write for it. And they come up with some pretty neat ideas, sometimes, too! Well, this one guy, in the most recent edition, has some suggestions that might help you guys out with that whole Iraq problem. It seems like a pretty good strategy! Though anything, really, would seem like a better M.O. than the stuff yall are currently practicing. Thanks! Oh, and, remind people that they should maybe hold their tongues until all the ballots have been counted. You guys wouldn't want to look like you jumped the gun or misunderestimated anything! Kate. And, a PS footnote -- I'll CC: the AEI, Hitchens, and UCNeoConAlumns@TheoryOnlyWorksInVaccums.com on this, too, just in case you haven't gotten the hint yet -- think twice, perhaps, next time you feel like drastically overhauling the foreign policy of an empire. Wednesday - October 05, 2005The silliest train of thoughts todayI think my big problem with philosophy is that
every time I read philosophical texts, the arguments just seem obvious. Is that
presumptuous of me? I mean, I can't get into Kant, but. Is it more about the
love for structuring an argument -- the objectivity, the science, the individual
building blocks of the foundation? It's also what I find irritating about the
law sometimes. There is no place for passion. It is cold and dry and hard, and
generally anathema to adjectives. And it is often so contradictory to my own
sense of values -- but I appreciate its neutrality (well, when a law itself is
neutral. (Thinking of constitutional amendments against gay marriage...)And a
passionless law is, ultimately, better; and I guess you can get passionate and
subjective precisely because it is so objective.
Bloody idiot, this is what has made
America America, the rule of law above everything else. And this is the
fundamental point of everything con law. Are you actually going to post this?
-ed.) It seems similar to standards for grading
these new SAT essays -- how can you objectively define what is good and bad?
(Isn't that one of the central questions
of philosophy? -ed.) Because someone follows the
structure of what an essay is meant to look like? Topic sentence, body
paragraphs, supporting points? That is so dry and banal! Maybe that is, in and
of itself, why some people like it -- because it is not messy. Hm. True.
(This whole schpiel stems from this summary of
The Ethics of
Fiction, by the
way.)
Perhaps it all comes down to the left brain/right brain divide; or, Science and Art. (Digression...It's also the difference between ethics and morals. I've always believed myself to be an ethical, and not a moral person -- I find morality too subject to religion -- but I'm thinking now that in fact it's quite different from that. I am prone to passion; perhaps I hold up ethics as my ideal, my more balanced version of myself (that is not prone to -pulsiveness, im and com) when in practice I rely on my own version of morality to define things.) (Oh, qualify that, you silly quack. -ed. Yes, yes, later. Maybe.) Anyway, philosophy, generally -- it is either so obvious or so abstract that it loses its value. Same thing with a lot of theories I've read recently; I also feel this way about the NYT op-ed page. (The two are not related.) It's like, uhm....duhh. Some of the things I read (when was this, a few months ago maybe? What the hell topic was it -- it all seemed like this, even the highest forms --- ohhh I know what it was! It was the consulting industry and organizational management. Ah ha.) seemed to me just out there to explain it to the idiots; it is a self-sustaining concept/industry. Everyone creates their own hierarchies, the insiders and pundits and whatnot, as though they were on top of the most extraordinary breakthrough about, say, how to eat a cheeseburger -- and then they can get paid an exorbitantly large amount of money and then laugh and skip as they run to the bank. Also like human resources. It's trying to make a science out of what should be blatantly obvious. (Am I becoming a liberal libertarian?) It's like when you are on an airplane and they tell you how to fasten a seatbelt -- the airlines have to do it to be inclusive and cover their asses, but come on! If you can't figure it out on your own, you should get your head smacked against the seatback in front of you. You know, I've never read Wittgenstein, but I think I might agree with his later conclusions. (Thank you Wikipedia.) I was listening to stories about the new Nobel laureates for...was it physics yesterday? And the reporter was describing their theories and research, which is pretty abstract (well at least this one guy's is -- the other two's experiments with atoms seemed incredibly...pertinent? That's not the right word, but.) And so much of science is specific, little tiny nano things; I guess one can differentiate between one's work and one's life -- philosophically speaking. But that intense focusing on the minutia! For lifetimes! On these tiny little differentiations of particles! Like linguistics! I mean, it's all fundamentally language! Stop running yourself crazy into the ground with this stuff! Interact with the world! Go dance around to jungle boogie or something! (Is that completely antithetical to my reverence for intellectualism and seriousness? Am I saying "I mean, study, yes, but you've got to give it a break sometime, dudes" -- well, whatever. To each his or her own -- study what you will, who am I to assign values to others' work.) Point was, when do you draw the line of relevance? Again, science and art. When does life begin. Oh, circles, circles. (Chuckle.) The Venn Diagram comes round and round again. Wednesday - October 05, 2005Invading demeanor.My one point of departure with S/FJ thus far finds
its seedling in his recent critique of Fiona Apple -- not with regards to
her latest album, which, having heard the leaked version a few months ago, I
thought quite brilliant, but as it stood, lacked finishing touches (which have
now been achieved, to perfection {do you
comma too much? -ed} )-- but, point being
--
He wrote: "'Tidal' was uneven. Apple was nineteen when she recorded it and had a teen-ager’s sense of drama, which sees the world ending whenever a relationship does; she did not yet know that “invade your demeanor” is a phrase that God never intended anyone to say out loud." "Invade your demeanor..." -- SFJ finds this sophomoric, phrase-wise. I disagree. Or, perhaps, I am simply sophomoric in my own conceptions of my experience in life, etc. Which is entirely possible, I will admit; but I think Ms. Apple approaches -- and the song reflects this, to boot -- a precise wisdom and self-knowledge that a) is beyond her years, and b) speaks, exactingly, to this kind of particular relationship-interaction. I have often felt this way in my life, even recently. Perhaps too often. Does that mean I am emotionally immature? Ungodly I can stomach, (although after reading Letter Six (among others, more on that later) of Rilke, with much digestion this evening, I am loath to agree with that admission) -- so what? I think it's an emotive reaction; thus. let it stand. For poetry's sake! Just a thought. Give her new album, Extraordinary Machine, a listen. It's gorgeous, in its language in and of itself. I wish I had the ability to translate my experience in such a sonorous fashion -- alas, I am condemned (it seems these days, I hate that feeling) to paint. Or charcoal. Or the pen. Ahh, the pen. I've been writing. Am thinking I may end up writing more than painting in this coming year. Hm. Rilke and Exley today. Both are brilliant; totally different, but I am now appreciating Exley's nuance, and it is hysterical and gorgeous. What elegant placement of words, what cadence in speech. A Fan's Notes lyrically seems to play out exactly as dialogue generally does in my head; how refreshing, and fantasmagorical. (Is that a word?) I love works that send me to my dictionary for reassurance of what I thought I knew, and did, but then gives me the etymology. MM. "Words, mere words!" Ah, Oscar. I wish I had known him whilst he was living. Saturday - October 01, 2005Mr. Price and my immediate future.Damn you, sir, for confirming my fears!
"A novel is, alas-- for better or worse, a function of
experience and maturity. Why are there almost no good novels written by
people in their early twenties or in their teens? There are almost none.
It's one of the great problems of teaching writing to young people-- you find
talented young people, eighteen or nineteen years old; you try to teach them
some skills; you try to teach them some awareness, some craft and discipline.
But you are also aware that you're getting them all dressed up with no place to
go for about ten years, because they've got to wait until they've settled into
their own characters and into their own lives, until they know something in
their lives; and then their good fiction, their good narrative, will begin to
come out of them in their middle and late twenties-- I believe often not until
their late thirties." - Reynolds Price.
At least I'm getting closer to the middle of my
twenties...
Ah, to hurry time, and then to frantically slam on the
breaks to deflect its onward march. Is 37 the top of the hill then? I wonder.
Hm. (Pause, reflect.) How Sisyphean.
Saturday - October 01, 2005I's is jus' sayin, is allThough I've been listening to NPR most of the week,
with my lips curling up and out at the edges of my mouth more and more as the
days go by -- waiting to break into full cheshire cat-like grin post midterm
elections -- I finally got around to reading the NYT this morning.
And I thought I would offer this little roundup, no coincidences intended whatsoever. (Right.) Headlines here (and/or first sentences included when needed for clarification) , and the entirety of the first story is posted below. "Buying of News by Bush's Aides is Ruled Illegal" (I can't WAIT for the Daily Show Monday night, to see what they do with this, although it pretty much stands alone, I would think) "Delay is Indicted in Texas Case and Forfeits G.O.P. House Post" (Oh, rapturous glee! Be still, my heart!) "For Republicans, a Swelling Sea of Trouble" Investigations into Frist's stock dealings... on top of everything else Anything to do with Scooter (aka I. Lewis Libby) -- try this one from NPR "With Delay Exiled and GOP Split, Speaker Faces Stiff Test" Why does Dennis Hastert always look like a disgruntled fat kid whose hand has just been slapped hard for taking one too many cookies out of a cookie jar -- but who is going to continue to keep sticking his hand in the pot because he is too dense and greedy to figure it out? Or is that just me? "Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions" Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La. ... More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, government records show, provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse. Already, questions have been raised about the political connections of two major contractors - the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton - that have been represented by the lobbyist Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former leader of FEMA. "When you do something like this, you do
increase the vulnerability for fraud, plain waste, abuse and mismanagement,"
said Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland
Security, who said 60 members of his staff were examining Hurricane Katrina
contracts. "We are very apprehensive about what we are
seeing."
"White House Criticizes Bennett for Remarks" The White House distanced itself today from the comments of a prominent Republican who said on a recent radio program that the national crime rate could potentially be reduced by aborting blacks. Well, dangnabbit if this don't sound like a whole bunch of really great folks, the kind of folks I'd really love to have a beer with, real, upstanding, moral folks. (Right.) |
