Yup, I’m still here
Gotta talk to the admin about fixing some problems–i.e. comments, etc…, and making a few changes, but there’ll be more here soon enough.
“…confused and inclined to supinedness”
Apparently the CIA has been declassifying a bunch of old documents. Not only that, they’ve scanned them and put them up on-line, which you can access here. I have just found my personal favorite, on a quick monday afternoon search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Seriously, spend an hour or so searching for whatever floats your boat in that little text window–I guarantee, you’ll love what our government has done with the place.
Die as hard as we can
I guess it’s newsworthy that there’s a new Die Hard movie on the way.
Yeah, okay…it’s VERY newsworthy. And yeah, I’ll probably see it in the theaters. And yeah, I totally giggled with joy when I watched this:
Death trips, freedom, and redemption
Everyone has heard about this.
There’s a line of argument in radical circles (which I unfortunately can’t find the reference to right now) that says that the rights enshrined in the constitution are fought over so vehemently because they are actually a drop in the bucket compared to the rights that people want (freedom from debt, guaranteed health care, peace in local and foreign affairs, freedom from want and destitution, etc…) I was not surprised to see so many people defend Don Imus especially on digg, and on the internet, where freedom of speech provides so much empowerment (and why so many people are against the blogger code of conduct.) If the major source of your social relations comes through unregulated communication, and not through other kinds of solidarity (labor, kinship, or the state), you’re going to fight damn hard to prevent them from being diminished.
So too with the second amendment. Although some have claimed that the second amendment is specifically designed to ensure that states have the rights to create and maintain militias, and that the second amendment was never intended to allow individuals to possess guns, I find myself not caring so much about whether this is the founders intent or not. This is especially true since, as Charles Beard pointed out three quarters of a century ago, the “intent” of the founders was about creating conditions for producing profit. “Rights” under this framework, were about enshrining those conditions into immutable law, and secondarily about buying off the populace in order to gain their support. Maybe the founders really believed that everyone should own guns, and maybe they just wanted to give states the power to corral a populace hungry for more than what they saw fit to give them.
But it’s moments like this, when I hear about the deaths of 32 people from one man, and from one gun (which of course, pales in comparison to the over 70,000 Iraqi, US, and other international soldiers and civilians who have died in Iraq, and the millions who died from sanctions , and the thousands who died in Afghanistan, and the thousands who died on 9/11, etc… on and on, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries), that I just get tired of the “guns=freedom” argument, and the fetishism of the constitution. I don’t want to hear about “our rights” or how important it is to defend the constitution in the face of this kind of blood and fire.
Get rid of all the guns. Now. Not tomorrow, not in a year. Now. Put them on a spaceship with James Doohan and shoot them toward the sun. Bury them “deeper than did plummet sound”. Melt them down and use them to build homes and cheap, clean public transportation throughout the world. I don’t care. And while you’re at it, illegalize profit. Give everyone a house, and food, and health care–not one human being excluded, as Bill Hicks used to say.
Here’s my soundtrack for today, with half the songs about destruction, nihilism, and murder, and the other half about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of suffering and fear:
Side 1: Death trip
1 .)”Sister Ray” by the Velvets–violence, drugs, and suicide. I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like to hear this in the 1960s, though, in reality, it was probably the perfect soundtrack.
2.)”Pretty Polly” performed by Dock Boggs. When he played this for Mike Seeger in the 1960s, his voice was old, and his fingers had lost some of their metallic tenacity. But as he tells the tale of a young girl going off into the forest with a mysterious man, he begins to speed up. By the inevitably end, he stops short of describing her death, claiming that “she soon fell asleep”. The whole thing may be a dream, or a nightmare.
3.)”The Curse of Milhaven” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. As I’ve said many times, this will be the polka playing in the waiting room in hell. A fictional story about a young girl who murders and kills 23 people indiscriminately, and without remorse, because in the end, “everything is groovy”.
4.)”Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues” by McLusky. Shrieking, maniacal, and somehow kind of tongue-in-cheek, which makes it far worse. Are you cumming?
5.) “Jerk Off” by Tool. In a society based on punishment of the individual for transgression, rather than healing and treatment of people for their shared conditions, consequences dictate the course of action, and I should play God and shoot you myself.
Side two: Redemption
1.)”Jesus” by the Velvet Underground. Mirroring the first side, asking for forgiveness, taking refuge in the hope of one of histories greatest radical pacifists. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to hear this after “Sister Ray”.
2.) “I’m gonna cross that river of Jordan” performed by Jaybird Coleman. Old time for old time, a journey for a journey, with freedom at the end, instead of torture and death. One guy, shouting and singing, missing verses, and accompanying himself on a bleating, fiery harmonica. One of these days, hallelujah.
3.)”World Turned Upside Down” by Billy Bragg. Against a fictional story of senseless violence, I’d set the true story of the diggers rebellion , about peasants in England in the 17th century who returned to lands from which they had been forcibly removed. They reclaimed the lands, believing that common people should own all things in common. They were crushed by the landlords and the government, but what they represent continues today, and gives us hope that a better world is possible.
4.)”Biomusicology” by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Our suffering and our world will not let us be complacent. We always act, even if we wish to withdraw. Therefore, we must act as our lives tell us, as our conscience dictates; to be, and love, what we know to be true.
5.)”New Day Rising” by Husker Du. Where Tool gives a reasoned argument, culminating in death, Husker Du only utter three words, sung louder and louder as the song progresses. An exaltation, and a cry for freedom.
Peace, and strength on your journey.
whenelvisdied on creepysleepy
This last weekend, I joined dhp and doq for a chat about politics, media, and popular culture on the creepysleepy show number 105. Of course, creepysleepy media hosts my site, so maybe that’s not too surprising, but it was a pretty good discussion, and I actually made some points in between what seemed like hours my stuttering. Check it out.
One Track Mind: “Wishbone” by Clutch
I once heard a story that Jerry Garcia used to close his eyes when he listened to Carlos Santana, and see what images were conjured in his mind. I can’t remember what images he talked about, but I’m sure rainbow colors were involved. The point is, the only time I ever tried that was while listening to Clutch. The image that I see in my head is a tank, rolling over piles of debris, crushing stone and steel and concrete, plowing ever-forward. Riding on top, is a mad priest, dressed in black, shouting and spitting at nothing in particular, speaking in tongues and making supplications.
It’s not religious fervor that makes me equate Clutch with a crazy old padre. It’s the idea of the mystical, that small, innocuous things may lead us to ask large and profound questions, maybe even questions that the original things have no part in creating. Like all great art, Clutch doesn’t provide us with easy roads to understanding. Nowhere is this truer than on “Wishbone”, a complex and mysterious song that also happens to rock my face off.
“In the morning the weathercock was heard
asking what he had learned of the Earth.
“Is it a round place with deserts and oceans,
housing as many winds as one might wish?”
We were standing by the gate.
He said, “Oh my, it’s getting late!”
Then he took off flying to the south
with a black snake in his mouth.”
I have no idea what that “means”. I think it might be about the end of the world, heralded by changing of the wind, or the flying of a mighty bird. I think it also might be about the perils and pitfalls of trying to predict or control the future, and the sorrow we feel when the future goes so opposite to what we want. I suppose it also could be about family, and the way in which our lives are always, in part, decided by our kin.
“For Thanksgiving we had ‘tatas,
succotash and rudebagas.
Then came turkey from the oven.
Broke the wishbone.
Covenants were sealed and set.”
Who knows? I don’t have an answer, and neither does Clutch. There’s a CD extra on “The Elephant Riders”, from which this track comes, where Neil Fallon explains his reasoning in writing every song on the album. But truthfully, I’ve had way more fun pondering over the lyrics, trying to find meaning in them, playing out the different stories they tell in my head. Add to that, that the song has one of the most pummeling rock riffs on the album, and a tasty groove breakdown to cut it all into nice pieces. It’s not preaching to me…it’s more like scripture, where meaning comes between and behind the words, and from the world you live in that you apply them to.
Actually, forget all that. Just go and buy “The Elephant Riders” and crank it up.
Animated Soviet Propaganda
If I had to pick a philosopher on whom I most closely rely for analysis of the world I live in, I’d probably pick Marx’s writings–does that make me a marxist? Can I just use the term for a shorthand and have everyone know what I mean, i.e. that I’m not handing out Chairman Mao’s sayings on the streetcorner, but that I find Marx’s insights into the modern world …. well, insightful?
Of course, any marxist (there, I did it) has to wrestle with the Soviet Union and what happened there. It was the first socialist revolution specifically inspired by Marx’s writings, and meant to be a shining beacon to inspire the workers of the world to throw off their chains. It was also perhaps one of the most awful places to live in the 20th century. My girl’s family escaped from the Ukraine after it was annexed, but some of them didn’t make it out. My family in the Czech Republic managed to escape most of the shittiness because they lived in rural areas that the Soviets didn’t much care for, but it also meant that we couldn’t contact them until the 1990s, nearly 80 years after my great grandfather left.
I won’t defend the Soviet Union, but it does hold a certain fascination to me and the following video really illuminates that. It’s a documentary about animated Soviet propaganda, and some of it is absolutely breathtaking. The critiques of racism and capitalism are powerful, despite the ominousness of it being a propaganda film.
Here ’tis Thanks to Warren Ellis
An Epistle
I’m cleaning up the house, in anticipation/ preparation/ exhaltation of my girl returning home. She’s been gone a year, a very lonely year, and I’m picking her up at the airport on wednesday.
However, I’ve taken a break, because I wanted to put up something that I acquired nearly 10 years ago, and recently rediscovered. What I’ve uploaded below was given to me by someone I once knew. It might be best to call it an evangelical letter, in the spirit of Paul writing to the Romans, though a better analogy might be C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I post it in the spirit of costantly revisiting my own spiritual life and the journey I’ve taken trying to be more human in an dehumanized (post-human? posthumous?) world.
I’ve taken out all discernable biographical information (names, mostly), but I wanted to point out a couple of things. First, when the author refers to “the blasphemers”, he’s not speaking specifically of non-christians, but rather of the name that my friends and I had arrogantly given ourselves. It came from a quote by George Bernard Shaw, who said “All great truths begin as blasphemies”, and in our rebellious teenage years, we took this as our mantle. Secondly, at the end of the third page, there’s a note to turn over, but I couldn’t get that page to scan. Suffice to say, the four words that appear on it are “with bitterness and hatred.” Incidentally, the “P.S.” from which those words come refer to a t-shirt I used to wear that said “Love Sucks”, with a picture of a vampire biting the neck of a woman.
During the letter, the author asks me to destroy it if it means nothing. In reading it again, I found myself pondering why I hadn’t destroyed it. I think at the time, I probably would’ve told myself that it was a great laugh and worthy of keeping for the comedy file. Still, given my ever changing sense of humor, it would’ve hit the trash at some point if all I had seen in it was punchlines. No, I think something struck me about the depth of feeling, and the poetry of the language. It is quite a moving plea, and even now I feel somewhat overcome (overpowered?) by the strength of conviction in the words. I can’t say I’ve become an evangelical, or even a christian, but I’m infinitely more spiritually minded now than I ever was in High School, and I know I respect the author more now than I did then. So, thanks man, for having my back, even when I didn’t.
“… with bitterness and hatred.”
Smash Mouth A Capella
No, no….I’m not talking about University of Utah’s newest men’s choir album. I’m talking about pure rock fury.
I got this through Wolf Notes who got it from the blog of the band Grizzly Bear. It’s a solo vocal take from an unreleased Smash Mouth song. Ed Droste’s favorite line may be “Make the Holidays last”, but I have to go for “Just won a million so you drive a brand new benz”.
The box, or, Letters from my ex’s
I keep things. Even things I have absolutely no need of. I guess it comes from having antique dealer parents, but I think that’s an easy answer–they threw away as much trash as they did keep antiques. Maybe it’s because I’m an archaeologist, and I want to preserve a material record, even one as mundane and trivial as mine. But of course, I’ve been collecting for as long as I can remember, much longer than I ever considered archaeology as professional (ha!) activity.
Honestly, I have no idea why I am such a packrat–like anything in life, it’s tied into a whole series of personal and social processes that I’m only vaguely aware of. Peering into my brain a little bit, I’d probably say that it’s because I’m terrified, constantly, of the way the world changes indifferent of my desires, and that holding onto things is a way for me to defray that fear, and root hope in things that mean something to me beyond the moment of their arrival in my life. This idea may sound a little far-out, but everytime I meet people who show me their collections of things, whatever they may be, I believe it more and more, and begin to think that the one thing that most of us share is terror at the changing world.
I have a box. I made it for a class project in high school–a poetry project as I recall. Here it is:
Yeah yeah…it’s from high school. Black paint? check. Skull? check. Poetry? Check? Cliched teen angst? Check, check, and check.
After I got it back from my Language Arts teacher, it went onto my bookshelf and stayed there for the rest of my high school (and college) years. I guess I just kind of liked the damn thing, and as morbid and fucked up as high school is, it fit my temperament.
Gradually, I started putting things in it…well, not just things. Tokens really…mementos of relationships. Letters, pictures, drawings–basically anything that a girl gave me while we were dating/talking/hooking up/etc…. anything that had been part of any relationship of ours that had ended. This continued into college, and whenever I’d come home, I’d bring stuff with me and put it in the box.
Today, it looks like this:
I want it gone–out of my life, settling the past and living in the present moment. I’m in a healthy, stable relationship now, and I feel the need to commemorate that by jettisoning this collection of oddities from my life. These memories have made me who I am, but I want who I become to come from my life with my girl, and with all the humor and pathos in this box safely nestled in the past.
Plus, the last time I put something in it, the lid split open, and that seemed like a pretty good omen.
Thus, I get the eternal dilemma of all packrats–what to do with stuff that you’re getting rid of. I guess I could just throw it in the trash, but that seems too easy, and too cheap for the amount of emotion and growth that lives in that box. The archaeologist in me wants to bury it, and leave it for some enterprising grad student to write a thesis on the idiotic cliches of late 20th century adolescents. But then the question is where? Iowa? My house out here that I won’t be living in in five years (PhD gods be praised)? Somewhere else?
Perhaps I need a ritual…some procedure to grease the wheels of the cosmos. Usually fire is involved in rituals, so maybe cremation is the answer. But that seems too final for the lessons I’ve learned from all those years of crying and laughing over letters from people who’s hearts I’ve broken or who’ve broken mine.
Thus, in true Creative Commons fashion–I put these ideas out there for remixes. What do we do with memories, even tangible ones like these? How do we wrest them from all those moments that were and transform them into the present moment?
Any and all ideas are appreciated, and if I get any good ones, I’ll post pictures of whatever I end up doing.