I haven't written anything substantive in awhile (and I am not exactly promising that now), instead leaning on fun and interesting videos in order to entertain or expand your mind. I hope you were entertained and/or expanded. A great deal of stuff has gone on in this world (the general world and that more internal one which takes place inside the boundaries of this country's wet Northwest and my own mind) and I can say things about that stuff. Let's go through some things.
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Libya is a goddamned mess and so are we. Gaddafi (or Qaddafi) is still alive and NATO's concerted efforts to cease his heartbeat have resulted in many other stopped pulses. I think they should go after him, personally, but for a coalition of futuristic military forces the attempt seems rather sloppy and dangerous (like all those special secret wars of the Clinton era). Now, don't get me wrong, I'd rather we all, worldwide, dumped our collective weapons caches into some well-contained blackhole to be effectively dismantled, molecule by molecule, but we don't live in such a world where this could be the case. We are a rather unevolved species for all of our loud celebration of technological supremacy. Give up your cell phone and be a bonobo. Yet, to live in the world we do, we must think about the world we live in and work at things from what's there. This isn't to say that we can't aid our own evolution by fostering progressive ideas and tossing those which obviously lead to dead ends. We can. Certainly. I won't get into what those dead ends are as I hope they are obvious.
We are a mess, as was said before. Here the "we" I unfortunately automatically use is to mean the United States of America. This is a large country with wildly divergent and polarized political beliefs (which I think are a result of a mostly worthless though otherwise motivated news media and an incredibly dumbed-down electorate). Political wins from these polarized points are more prized than the enactment of legislation which will help the people as a whole. This is a country where a politician's sex life is more damaging to them than the awful things they do in the name of their constituents. I know that the temptation of writing a Weiner headline is tremendous, but we are adults here. Can we not get over the fact that men have penises and women have vaginas? A good politician was brought down by some silly personal thing which the public shouldn't know or care about. Shame on us all.
Debt ceiling? Yeah, really stupid. China is even telling us to raise it. How ignorant can the GOP be on this front (let alone all the other fronts)? I will leave it there.
At least we saw American progression recently in New York. Men are welcome to join in matrimony with men, and women with women, in that state's legal eye. This is wonderful. Another stepping stone towards real equality in a world somehow mystified into thinking they are already free and equal. I am sure Pat Robertson will soon be shaking violently in prayer for some natural disaster to befall that small state. What a small and ridiculous old man. Anyway, congratulations to the many gay of New York.
More personally, I have been recently enthralled with Neil deGrasse Tyson, poetic astrophysicist. This is to say that recently I have been becoming a science nerd, and as a result, there was Tyson.
I volunteer at the Space Travel Supply Store in Seattle and we carry many science books which are fairly digestible by the not-so-astrophysicist. We carry two of Tyson's books, the last of which is called Death by Black Hole, and I am super excited to read them both. I am now reading Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality, which deals with the field of quantum physics and the insane implications of these theories. It is thoroughly blowing my mind. That is all I can say semi-intelligently about the subject. In keeping with my earlier hope that people would take responsibility for our species' evolution (and that said evolution must first take place in the realm of ideas), I am doing my damnedest to flood my gray matter with the particulars of our physical universe, domestic, extra-terrestrial and intra-cellular. This education of self must also take into account all that came before us and thus I am itching to better inform myself on the science of evolution. I am tasking myself with reading On the Origin of Species in the next year if all goes well and accompanying that with a side of Richard Dawkins. OK, enough science nerd stuff.
Notice the fancy new wheels
Bike nerd stuff. In the past few months I have been riding my bike to work and going on occasional "big" rides just outside of the city (the quotes around big meaning that twenty to forty miles isn't anywhere near a big ride for some particular readers). My bike is thoroughly vintage, and though this has an allure for a certain type of rider, it means to me that my bike is old. In fact, the whole thing looks to be from the mid-seventies, perhaps 1976 if you are to believe the internet. I have begun to augment my ride, starting with new wheels. All that should remain of the seventies by the end of this will be the old steel frame, a beautiful maroon ordeal that calls itself "Shogun". It is exciting for me. I can understand if it isn't for you.
One week in, spicy and delicious
Food nerd stuff. Not too much on this front, though I am now an entirely free man in my vege-/pescatarian world, roaming the naked streets of Seattle in search of yeast-risen buns and cloudy dry-hopped grain fermentations. I will soon be biking to wine country in order to further indulge. Things are good, for the most part, in that way. My culinary pursuits, however interesting, have mostly been toward the simple function of pleasantly sating the hunger of me and mine. I have, though, started the lacto-fermentation of some jalapeno peppers to start the fermentation season in a real spicy way. This was easy and anyone with a mason jar can play. A pound of peppers, half an onion or less, 1-6 garlic cloves, a tablespoon of sea salt and a few tablespoons of whey (or the juice from some previously fermented concoction) will do the job. I added some carrot and sugar to the mix for a little sweetness. All things go into the jar, sprinkling salt as you go, and then some spring water (no tap water!) until about an inch from the top. I left it out with the lid screwed down just a little so that gas could escape. Then you just watch it over some days. Sniff it. Be a tactile creature. This is an ancient practice. Soon you will have pickled jalapenos, but not sooner than me.
That's the state of some stuff as I know it right now. Hope it was worth reading.
Currently, like as I type, I am watching the film The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. It is engrossing and disturbing and illuminating. To understand the past you have to have a relatively trusty barometer of the present. Turn this around and it is equally true. Daniel Ellsberg with his release of the Pentagon Papers illustrates the incredible importance of governmental leaks. It is proof of the enduring moral spirit of humanity. We are not yet robots, though it seems more and more that this is the goal. The government -- as it is, as it was, as it will continue to be -- functions as a business does and would benefit greatly from the demoralization of those in their employ and those which would be in the position to point the big finger (namely the media). We, as thinking and feeling humans with a sense of right and wrong, should be proud, existentially, of those who leak. This should never be criminalized.
The Pentagon Papers was a top-secret study on the history of U.S.-Vietnamese relations, prepared by the Department of Defense. It was commissioned by then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, seemingly in order to understand why it was that, opposite all public knowledge, things were going badly in Vietnam. The study was operated without the knowledge of President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Daniel Ellsberg photocopied the 7,000 pages and in the middle of 1971 the New York Times began to publish. This was swiftly met by resistance on the part of the Nixon administration, who had continued the failing war despite his campaign pledges to find a way to end it. Many Nixon tapes are evidence of his extreme anger at the release, with conversations between the foul-mouthed president and Henry Kissinger (who had dubbed Ellsberg at the time, "the most dangerous man in America") or Alexander Haig. The government went to work prohibiting the papers from printing and Daniel Ellsberg being indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917. A precedent was set when the Supreme Court ruled that the leak and its publication were not illegal in the case of The United States vs. Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo (Russo being his fellow RAND employee, researcher and accomplice). Papers resumed publication and Ellsberg and Russo were freed from their possible 30 and 115 year stay in prison, respectively.
There are many facets of this historical event that could be discussed which I won't here. The leak, among many other things, illustrated that the U.S. was involved in a wrongful war for reasons divergent from their public statements and that these lies spread across three decades, being spewed from the mouths of five presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon). Not even America's fallen golden boy, Kennedy, could be trusted on this front. That, in itself, should give pause to anyone who overly praises and trusts any politician or leader. This country was built on the idea of a questioning citizenry and that shouldn't be given over under any circumstance. The Supreme Court at that time set an important precedent for the exercise of the First Amendment. Yes, that one about free speech.
Now, 40 years later, that precedent must be respected. Wikileaks are in the frying pan now, just as was Ellsberg at that time. The U.S. government is as rabid as it was then, although they muffle it publicly just the same. They are again attempting to massage the Espionage Act into this issue. Beware. Our right to know and a leaker's right to bravely exercise his/her morality should be protected absolutely. The releases of the current leak, that of the diplomatic cables, are not being controlled by Wikileaks (i.e. redactions and editing) but rather by the publications they gave the responsibility. This is exactly the same as any type of leak, just on a much grander scale. Although many so-called "journalists" (a great deal of whom are from the American media and whose overlords gleefully collude with massive corporations and government) are happy to through Assange and Wikileaks under the bus on this, it says more about those journalists than it does about Wikileaks.
I have to say, repeat, that this is important, so very important. We can't lose our morals and ethics to programmed autonomy or ambivalence. We need to support, as Ellsberg himself is now doing, the actions of organizations like Wikileaks and all the others that are beginning to pop up. Truth is a worthy goal.
So, watch the movie. Get a perspective. Don't get your news from a single source. Shop around. Assume everyone is biased and figure it out yourself. And, your politicians are most likely lying to you.
On April 14th, the infamously controversial and insanely entertaining animated show, South Park, aired their 200th episode in which the Prophet Muhammad is heard speaking from a U-Haul trailer and later comes out dressed in a bear costume. I have not seen this episode as it is not available to watch online as the episodes usually are. I am betting it was funny. Comedy Central, in responding to threats from a humorless group called Revolution Muslim, took the episode down and in the continuing storyline of this week's episode both the visual depiction (in a bear suit, nonetheless) and his name were blacked and bleeped out. A member of this group said that it was an insult to the Prophet and warned the creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, that they might end up like the filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker, was stabbed killed in 2004 by an Islamic militant for making a movie critical of abuse of women in some Islamic societies. Ridiculous. These incidents and threats are horrific and in no way represent the actions of people with 1) brains and 2) hearts. 1) If any religion has so affected one's mental faculties in such a way that they can justify murder (or for that matter, fleecing anyone else's rights), then maybe it isn't the best way to get to one's own personal heaven. 2) Anyone with a scrap of emotion (i.e. a heart, see "Tin Man") knows that they shouldn't kill other people who presumably have emotions and hearts. Heartless and brainless people aren't supposed to be the clergy, they are supposed to replace us in the work force and are fueled by old people's medicine (i.e. they are robots, see Saturday Night Live Season 21, Episode 6). Anyway, here is a link to the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/arts/television/23park.html. And if you'd rather, the British version of things: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/22/south-park-muhammad-episode-censored.
The Stranger is Seattle's local weekly. They often have cool/funny/relevant covers. This week the cover is all three.
If you can't see it, up in the corner it says "It's Wrong To Draw Muhammad! Don't Connect The Dots!" This is obviously a plea to connect the dots, vis-a-vis reverse psychology. So I did.
Truthfully, it looks more like a Santa to me. If no one was ever supposed to draw the Prophet Muhammad, then how would anyone know what he looked like? Mentioning that it "is" Muhammad inside that bear costume means that it is a valid depiction worth killing for? This religion stuff can be exhausting to understand sometimes, I think, because each person has a bit of their sacred book to back up any action they take. Next thing you know someone is going to religiously justify killing a doctor. I am glad that day has not yet come to pass.
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Addendum to post now considering a comment made concerning post -
There is apparently, in a certain old text, a description of what our old friend the Prophet looks like. The Shia do not forbid his depiction I have been told. The Sunni then must make up the radical perspective of "No Connecting The Dots or Pay With Death!" I think I may have found, based on the descriptions, a painting of Muhammad, or at least a likeness. Let's see:
Thanks to the beautiful artist, Anne Petty, for her rendition of this fellow, also known more casually as simply "Lucas."
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Further addendum:
The connected dots figure, after a long look, is actually the Burger King. It has a BK on the crown that is on its head. Hmmm... even better.
I will today share a couple of poems I wrote while taking a Prose Poetry course at the Richard Hugo House here in Seattle. The course was taught by a very talented prose poet, Andrew Michael Roberts, whose efforts have been rewarded by publication in various journals such as The Seattle Review, The Iowa Review, 42opus, Cue, and Sentence among others and the reception of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Here are a couple links to his work:
I sat on the windowsill to get a whiff of the neighbor’s papayas that were sleeping in their backyard pastures. The scent was intoxicating. I drowned for a moment in silent reverie, stared at the digital clock, it was sitting where the end table used to be, and wailed outward, toward window or floor I can’t be sure. But now the end table is gone and so is she, that wardrobe full of so much fine scented clothing, which I didn’t really smell until now, until the moment the papayas took hold, like last year, this time, a pale amber stole the room, female adornment all around. Still, the papayas make it better.
Thoughts While Rocking Back and Forth and Staring at the Sky
Place of sky, blue, and building, gray architectures of windows and steel howling at the moon from the diaphragm of their furnaces, those swollen fiery bellies of industry. The tips of the treetops, barely visible, but reaching, are competing … with this world of man, this world of progress, this world we left on the burner too long … competing with these stony, steely, glass and blood fixtures of springtime in civilization, stacked upon so rudely. The tides are turning ever more mechanical, rolling in with words and digits and dot coms galore – and this where the leaves fall on asphalt, on concrete, and cannot find a place wherein to plant a tree, a flower, a thought, a fancy, a romance, cannot build a monument to sun, cannot see past the smog flowering from rooftops for a glance to the mother, the father, those archaic old balloons, cannot. The halo has no face. Leave it be. The moon is no jellyfish. It’s not a squirrel. It’s a mirror for the earth, not you. How vain we are to look starward as looking into a pool of still water.
As the title suggests, I went to see art. It is also a careful nudge toward a blog that I also write on: GO SEE ART. Check it out. Now, the art show that I found myself attending lately I heard of through my girlfriend, the illustrious, beautiful and extremely talented artist, Anne Petty. It was her show. Here is her website: Anne Petty Dot Net. It was also the show of Hugo Shi.
Billy Collins is one of the great American poets of our time, born 1941, a product of this great steely machine of industry and war, this great conglomeration of states. He speaks to our biggest fear, forgetfulness. Without further ado, Billy Collins:
(If you would rather listen with playful animation, continue on to this:
Forgetfulness The name of the author is first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye, and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
I have been thinking a lot lately about one of my favorite quotes, which actually is a reference to a Gertrude Stein (Gertrude Stein, Rose) poem. It is in an essay by Aldous Huxley, one of the literary greats of England, called The Doors of Perception (from which Jim Morrison derived his band's name). This paragraph speaks to the idea of human perception and the sentence about the rose gets me every time. How effectively poetry can push at those vague buttons in our heads, engaging our innermost questions with the language of emotion, the ecstatic, the language which the world of paint can speak as well. Anyway, eat, drink, laugh, cry, give thanks, and tell as many people as you can that you truly love them. Here, here to the only expectation-less holiday!
From The Doors of Perception, 1954:
From this long but indispensable excursion into the realm of theory, we may now return to the miraculous facts - four bamboo chair legs in the middle of a room. Like Wordsworth's daffodils, they brought all manner of wealth - the gift, beyond price, of a new direct insight into the very Nature of Things, together with a more modest treasure of understanding in the field, especially, of the arts. A rose is a rose is a rose. But these chair legs were chair legs were St. Michael and all angels. Four or five hours after the event, when the effects of a cerebral sugar shortage were wearing off, I was taken for a little tour of the city, which included a visit, towards sundown, to what is modestly claimed to be the World's Biggest Drug Store. At the back of the W.B.D.S., among the toys, the greeting cards and the comics, stood a row, surprisingly enough, of art books. I picked up the first volume that came to hand. It was on Van Gogh, and the picture at which the book opened was "The Chair" - that astounding portrait of a Ding an Sich, which the mad painter saw, with a kind of adoring terror, and tried to render on his canvas. But it was a task to which the power even of genius proved wholly inadequate. The chair Van Gogh had seen was obviously the same in essence as the chair I had seen. But, though incomparably more real than the chairs of ordinary perception, the chair in his picture remained no more than an unusually expressive symbol of the fact. The fact had been manifested Suchness; this was only an emblem. Such emblems are sources of true knowledge about the Nature of Things, and this true knowledge may serve to prepare the mind which accepts it for immediate insights on its own account. But that is all. However expressive, symbols can never be the things they stand for.
