Came across this excellent essay by Benjamin Kunkel of n+1 on the London Review of Books blog, reviewing Marxist scholar David Harvey's two most recent books, The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism and A Companion to Marx's 'Capital.' I haven't read any Harvey, though I'm certainly going to check him out after reading this essay. Harvey, formally trained in geography, has become a leading scholar of "crisis theory," which examines turbulence, instability, and ultimately, well, crisis in the global economy through the prism of Marx's critique of capitalism as laid out in Das Kapital and the Grundrisse.
My familiarity with Das Kapital is basic, but Kunkel's main point -- that mainstream and even "progressive" accounts of the economic crisis of the last three years rarely cross the left boundary demarcated by economic Keynesianism and political left liberalism -- is trenchant and telling. Now it seems to me that there are any number of reasons for this -- in the American media, at least, the rightward shift of media and politics in general occasioned by corporate monopoly over the main media channels -- but the question is relevant. We hear the crisis framed in technocratic terms, according to which regulations were lax, oversight dysfunctional when present, individual incentives misaligned with corporate/social incentives, etc. But we rarely hear any question of whether or not the crisis was not a dysfunction of capitalism, but rather a feature. I'm skeptical as to whether that conversation can take place in the United States outside of explicitly socialist channels on the fringe, but perhaps it's time to ask those questions again.
1.27.2011
Nabokov right after all
This is pretty rad -- Nabokov is one of my favorite writers in any language, and his passion for butterflies is well-documented... but who knew that he developed a theory to explain the evolution of an entire class of butterfly species, and that more than 30 years after his death, contemporary genetics has vindicated him? Nazdarovya, Vladimir.
1.25.2011
SOTU
And... whiff. On the whole, Obama's rhetoric is good as always. He's invariably eloquent, but this entire frame of "winning" and "losing" misses the point. It's not a matter of beating a 22-year-old Beijing University with the hammer of a 22-year-old Columbia University student. When he talks about bringing electricity to rural areas and creating jobs that didn't exist before... those were active government programs. Anything like the TVA that would be proposed today would give the entire right a collective heart attack... not that it didn't then, but at least FDR had the cojones to point out that the collective good benefits by the arbiter of the collective good -- yeah, the G-word.
The broader point though, is that you can't talk up high-speed rail in terms of "competitiveness" when you have governors in major states responding to extremists to veto such projects. You can't credibly discuss lowering corporate tax rates when you've kept the top rate solid and whine about the deficit. It's just not credible.
Then again, that would require rationality in these here United States, and we know that's not happening any time soon.
The broader point though, is that you can't talk up high-speed rail in terms of "competitiveness" when you have governors in major states responding to extremists to veto such projects. You can't credibly discuss lowering corporate tax rates when you've kept the top rate solid and whine about the deficit. It's just not credible.
Then again, that would require rationality in these here United States, and we know that's not happening any time soon.
SOTU
here comes the immigration thang, good shot for a relevant, non-centrist, non-boilerplate point. just say it, barack -- building a fence is stupid and a waste of money. just say it, pleeeeease.
K Hill's
who doesn't love a dictator in his 80s? go ahead and legitimate that regime. http://bit.ly/ihObtX
New Green Revolution?
Mobarak going down to dispossessed Egyptians would be the world's headline. This is worth watching.
And now Egypt
Holy shit, this might just be a transformational moment in the Middle East -- not one engineered by Condi, mind you, but based on genuine populist outrage. I tweeted this earlier, but that's at least 3 regimes that have been threatened/brought to their knees by new technology. Not to fellate social media -- it is and remains a matter of profit -- but wow. This would not have happened 15 years ago in a different era.
Great Interview with Feingold
Plenty of folks more eloquent than I have discussed the fact -- and frankly, it's a fact -- that we're living in the second Gilded Age. This great interview from ThinkProgress highlights an interview with former Wisconsin Senator and progressive hero Russ Feingold. Check it out.
11.08.2010
Your Moment of Zen
Erie, PA; on a billboard advertising a fireworks store:
"Pepper spray & stun guns
Sugar-free fudge."
"Pepper spray & stun guns
Sugar-free fudge."
10.29.2010
So
It goes without saying that my most recent post (since deleted) was beyond the pale. Your dear blogger is in an interesting bind at the moment; updates will at some point ensue.
10.13.2010
So...
At what point do people find things to enjoy? Like, is there a switch to turn on where you wake up and look forward to anything? If so, please let me know.
10.06.2010
Notes from Inside III
The second thing you notice on the psych ward is the alteration in the passage of time. This is hardly my insight -- Thomas Mann explored the strange slipping of time in an institution to perfection in The Magic Mountain (which I definitely will need to read again in light of recent circumstances). The hours drag on, and every time you check the clock you find that only half the minutes you thought had passed actually did. Your life breaks down into hour-long increments, punctuated by mealtimes and medication. Breakfast is served at 7:30, and you wake up and stagger groggily toward the common room. You grab your tray from the metal box on wheels and try to find a seat near the people you know are somewhat sane. You fill your menu out at breakfast for the next day, and while the food isn't as bad as you might have expected, it's hardly fantastic. You learn quickly that you can add items and change quantities, so that my tray each morning comes laden with three covered plastic cups of extraordinarily weak coffee.
It's pretty much a given that there will be an incident at breakfast. It's more or less inevitable, mealtime being the only times during the day when the entire population is gathered in one space. This morning, it was Stephanie, she of the suspected wet brain, who set off this sweet elderly African-American woman who rightfully had had enough of poorly-coded racism. See, one of the schizophrenics had an outburst yesterday in which she repeatedly yelled "nigger" at the staff, which is about 70% African-American. I believe she also called them "gorillas," at least before the sedation hit in. In any case, Cassandra -- the elderly woman -- was really on edge wrt overt racism, and so when Stephanie started ranting about "the blacks" and how you can't trust them, a deeply-buried rage in Cassandra roared to life, and she threw her fully-laden breakfast tray at Stephanie, and when she missed, she picked up the tray and tried again. Naturally, both parties were separated and ushered in to different rooms, yet the incident was fairly typical of the increased pressure and tension that accompany a full house. More typically Carolyn (about whom more later) will start on a rant and at some point her scattershot will touch someone's exposed nerve, and then shit goes down. You learn to tune most of this out.
Carolyn is pretty much the queen crazy, bipolar with psychosis and delusions. She's by far the least-liked person on the ward, and this holds true for patients and staff. Carolyn is 38, and has spent most of her adult life in and out of psych wards, mental hospitals, and group homes. In many cases, such a life trajectory owes in large part to poverty and the appalling fraying of the American social safety net. Individuals who express mental illness at a young age often are victims of inadequate living situations, abusive parents, parents who abuse drugs and alcohol, neglect, and left to the mercy of Departments of Mental Health that are woefully underfunded, inadequately staffed, and a part of no politician's stump speech. The mentally ill remain largely invisible in America.
Carolyn, on the other hand, comes from a well-off family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Her father is a well-respected psychiatrist (ironically enough) in New Jersey, and she was raised in suburban comfort, educated at good schools, has a college degree. Not that her relative luck in the family lottery makes her case any more tragic than the hundreds of thousands of less fortunate individuals who fall into the black hole of the mental health system, but it does add an interesting wrinkle. From what I could gather, Carolyn grew up in suburban New Jersey before moving to Boston in her late adolescence. She graduated from Lesley University with a degree in human services, and apparently that's when things began to fall apart.
Before getting into her story -- or at least what of it I could piece together -- it's really important to explain the sort of psychosocial milieu in which Carolyn spends her days, and will in all likelihood spend the remainder of her days. It's important to preface all of this with the fact that Carolyn is an extremely kind person, and has an extremely kind heart; the circumstances of her illness conspire to mask that kindness and to isolate her when she craves human contact. It requires, first of all, a staggering amount of patience to hold a conversation with her. She sits forward in her chair when she speaks and gesticulates wildly, all while emitting a garbled logorrheic stream of consciousness. It doesn't take more than a minute or so to realize the obvious paranoid and delusional ideation underpinning most of what she says. She'll tell you that she's putting together an operation, and that the nurses and counselors are bad people who need to be taken down. She's going to send in the black belts and they'll bleed so, but the FBI and CIA are watching her every move, and have put her in here to prevent her from carrying out her global mission. When I came back here for my second stint, she was certain that I was FBI because I was back. They've assaulted her with chemical weapons, so she won't take her medication, because the nurses work for Dick Cheney, who is the real president and who has been offended highly by her protestation against his regime in Harvard Square, and by her calling George Bush "George Tush." Similarly the chemical weapons have invaded her group home, and her face and lips burned and the skin on her feet rotted. She has access to special software, which, if you choose not to be on her team, will monitor your every move and can immolate you instantaneously should you act unethically. She's in love with a man named Dan Crowley, who, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist, but apparently is the most gorgeous man in the world as well as a legendary musician who can change his face to look like anyone. He's secretly written every hit pop song of the last 20 years, and is the shadowy figure behind the entire operation. But she also refers to pretty much every male under 40 (yours truly included) as "gorgeous" and makes vaguely sexual overtures that become quickly uncomfortable. She wouldn't believe that I'm gay because "someone so gorgeous just couldn't be. It's not fair" (lawlz). She suffers from tremendous delusions of grandeur. She believes herself to be a virtuoso piano player and composer, but when she sits down at the piano, the sound that results is best described as aleatory. She believes that she is a gifted designer, even though her "designs" amount to random blotches of paint on t-shirts under a thick coat of glitter. The other day her room had to be steam cleaned because she had managed to cover half the floor in paint and glitter. Similiarly she thinks of herself as a fashionista and model, though her style amounts to one of her paint-splattered t-shirts over zebra print leggings with flip flops, and her body type is best described as spherical. If she gets agitated, she'll tell you that you're headed to an internment camp where you'll eat carcasses until your carcass is eaten, and that they'll test new chemical weapons on you and zap you. But there are flying cars and flying houses ready for you if you play, and it's all about playing. She at times mouths bits and pieces of Christianity, but one doubts that faith plays much of a role in her life, or that she has the cognitive equipment to understand faith. Which is not to say that she's dumb, because that's very much not the case -- she has an impressive vocabulary and a wide body of knowledge. I imagine she was once a very intelligent person with a bright future.
And that's part of what makes Carolyn's story so tragic in an almost Shakespearean way -- there's a great deal there beneath the surface that her illness, the drugs used to treat it, and other drugs more recreational in nature have so mangled and garbled that only this manically paranoid word salad remains. From what I could gather, her illness began to present in her adolescence. She received treatment, which was apparently inadequate, and was medicated through her early 20s and college. I guess her condition seemed to worsen in her mid-20s, because she was incapable of providing any semblance of chronology for the last decade or so. She's used crystal meth on and off. She's been a prostitute and has slept in Harvard Square for weeks at a time. She's been in and out of psych wards like this one, has amassed over $30,000 in credit card debt, and lived in section VIII housing on disability payments, because her illness precluded the possibility of working. She has worked, however -- in a kitchen remodeling store, in a shoe store, as a waitress. One gets the sense that her Dan Crowley was a boyfriend sometime in her early-mid-20s, maybe the first time she fell in love. Maybe it was a brief and tumultuous affair, maybe the one stable long-term relationship she's had, but the impression is that his memory has winnowed its way so deeply into her psyche as to color many aspects of her psychoses. Her group home situation is terrifying to her -- the housemaster is cruel and uncaring, several of her other housemates sociopathic. Her parents have cut her off entirely. They won't return her calls or help her financially, and she can't get her own apartment. If she can't recover here and return to her group home, she'll be headed to one of the state mental hospitals to be institutionalized. During our conversation, she repeated over and over that she just wants to have a life, she wants to fall in love, she wants a life like anyone else.
It's pretty much a given that there will be an incident at breakfast. It's more or less inevitable, mealtime being the only times during the day when the entire population is gathered in one space. This morning, it was Stephanie, she of the suspected wet brain, who set off this sweet elderly African-American woman who rightfully had had enough of poorly-coded racism. See, one of the schizophrenics had an outburst yesterday in which she repeatedly yelled "nigger" at the staff, which is about 70% African-American. I believe she also called them "gorillas," at least before the sedation hit in. In any case, Cassandra -- the elderly woman -- was really on edge wrt overt racism, and so when Stephanie started ranting about "the blacks" and how you can't trust them, a deeply-buried rage in Cassandra roared to life, and she threw her fully-laden breakfast tray at Stephanie, and when she missed, she picked up the tray and tried again. Naturally, both parties were separated and ushered in to different rooms, yet the incident was fairly typical of the increased pressure and tension that accompany a full house. More typically Carolyn (about whom more later) will start on a rant and at some point her scattershot will touch someone's exposed nerve, and then shit goes down. You learn to tune most of this out.
Carolyn is pretty much the queen crazy, bipolar with psychosis and delusions. She's by far the least-liked person on the ward, and this holds true for patients and staff. Carolyn is 38, and has spent most of her adult life in and out of psych wards, mental hospitals, and group homes. In many cases, such a life trajectory owes in large part to poverty and the appalling fraying of the American social safety net. Individuals who express mental illness at a young age often are victims of inadequate living situations, abusive parents, parents who abuse drugs and alcohol, neglect, and left to the mercy of Departments of Mental Health that are woefully underfunded, inadequately staffed, and a part of no politician's stump speech. The mentally ill remain largely invisible in America.
Carolyn, on the other hand, comes from a well-off family of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Her father is a well-respected psychiatrist (ironically enough) in New Jersey, and she was raised in suburban comfort, educated at good schools, has a college degree. Not that her relative luck in the family lottery makes her case any more tragic than the hundreds of thousands of less fortunate individuals who fall into the black hole of the mental health system, but it does add an interesting wrinkle. From what I could gather, Carolyn grew up in suburban New Jersey before moving to Boston in her late adolescence. She graduated from Lesley University with a degree in human services, and apparently that's when things began to fall apart.
Before getting into her story -- or at least what of it I could piece together -- it's really important to explain the sort of psychosocial milieu in which Carolyn spends her days, and will in all likelihood spend the remainder of her days. It's important to preface all of this with the fact that Carolyn is an extremely kind person, and has an extremely kind heart; the circumstances of her illness conspire to mask that kindness and to isolate her when she craves human contact. It requires, first of all, a staggering amount of patience to hold a conversation with her. She sits forward in her chair when she speaks and gesticulates wildly, all while emitting a garbled logorrheic stream of consciousness. It doesn't take more than a minute or so to realize the obvious paranoid and delusional ideation underpinning most of what she says. She'll tell you that she's putting together an operation, and that the nurses and counselors are bad people who need to be taken down. She's going to send in the black belts and they'll bleed so, but the FBI and CIA are watching her every move, and have put her in here to prevent her from carrying out her global mission. When I came back here for my second stint, she was certain that I was FBI because I was back. They've assaulted her with chemical weapons, so she won't take her medication, because the nurses work for Dick Cheney, who is the real president and who has been offended highly by her protestation against his regime in Harvard Square, and by her calling George Bush "George Tush." Similarly the chemical weapons have invaded her group home, and her face and lips burned and the skin on her feet rotted. She has access to special software, which, if you choose not to be on her team, will monitor your every move and can immolate you instantaneously should you act unethically. She's in love with a man named Dan Crowley, who, as far as I can tell, doesn't exist, but apparently is the most gorgeous man in the world as well as a legendary musician who can change his face to look like anyone. He's secretly written every hit pop song of the last 20 years, and is the shadowy figure behind the entire operation. But she also refers to pretty much every male under 40 (yours truly included) as "gorgeous" and makes vaguely sexual overtures that become quickly uncomfortable. She wouldn't believe that I'm gay because "someone so gorgeous just couldn't be. It's not fair" (lawlz). She suffers from tremendous delusions of grandeur. She believes herself to be a virtuoso piano player and composer, but when she sits down at the piano, the sound that results is best described as aleatory. She believes that she is a gifted designer, even though her "designs" amount to random blotches of paint on t-shirts under a thick coat of glitter. The other day her room had to be steam cleaned because she had managed to cover half the floor in paint and glitter. Similiarly she thinks of herself as a fashionista and model, though her style amounts to one of her paint-splattered t-shirts over zebra print leggings with flip flops, and her body type is best described as spherical. If she gets agitated, she'll tell you that you're headed to an internment camp where you'll eat carcasses until your carcass is eaten, and that they'll test new chemical weapons on you and zap you. But there are flying cars and flying houses ready for you if you play, and it's all about playing. She at times mouths bits and pieces of Christianity, but one doubts that faith plays much of a role in her life, or that she has the cognitive equipment to understand faith. Which is not to say that she's dumb, because that's very much not the case -- she has an impressive vocabulary and a wide body of knowledge. I imagine she was once a very intelligent person with a bright future.
And that's part of what makes Carolyn's story so tragic in an almost Shakespearean way -- there's a great deal there beneath the surface that her illness, the drugs used to treat it, and other drugs more recreational in nature have so mangled and garbled that only this manically paranoid word salad remains. From what I could gather, her illness began to present in her adolescence. She received treatment, which was apparently inadequate, and was medicated through her early 20s and college. I guess her condition seemed to worsen in her mid-20s, because she was incapable of providing any semblance of chronology for the last decade or so. She's used crystal meth on and off. She's been a prostitute and has slept in Harvard Square for weeks at a time. She's been in and out of psych wards like this one, has amassed over $30,000 in credit card debt, and lived in section VIII housing on disability payments, because her illness precluded the possibility of working. She has worked, however -- in a kitchen remodeling store, in a shoe store, as a waitress. One gets the sense that her Dan Crowley was a boyfriend sometime in her early-mid-20s, maybe the first time she fell in love. Maybe it was a brief and tumultuous affair, maybe the one stable long-term relationship she's had, but the impression is that his memory has winnowed its way so deeply into her psyche as to color many aspects of her psychoses. Her group home situation is terrifying to her -- the housemaster is cruel and uncaring, several of her other housemates sociopathic. Her parents have cut her off entirely. They won't return her calls or help her financially, and she can't get her own apartment. If she can't recover here and return to her group home, she'll be headed to one of the state mental hospitals to be institutionalized. During our conversation, she repeated over and over that she just wants to have a life, she wants to fall in love, she wants a life like anyone else.
10.05.2010
Freedom!
I will be discharged tomorrow! Headed into an outpatient program tailored to LGBTs and looking forward to an excellent weekend.
10.04.2010
Notes from Inside, II
So a very important thing with the bipolar/schizophrenic/drug-addled crowd is that they are mostly harmless. This could be because their meds render their bodies sluggish and oils their brains with glue. It could also be because, despite even their most violent-sounding outbursts, the Pavlovian reflex to four-point restraints and additional sedation keeps them one step shy of actual violence. The outbursts, however, can be quite disturbing, frightening even if you're new to the ward. Once you've encountered a few psychotic rants, you begin to pick up the general rhythms and frayed webs of association that can lead from doctors to the CIA to chemical weapons to omnipresent software. Yep. A schizophrenic outburst from R. would be typical -- a situation in which he staggers into the common room and announces to anyone who will listen that the voice of God speaks through him and that the world is ending soon. Eschatology seems a major theme in many such outbursts. As are conspiracies involving various covert agencies and operatives, not to mention violence, often horrific, often involving necrophagy and other unsavory practices.
An example (which may be disturbing to some) from a particularly troubled woman in her early 30s (this from earlier today; sedation with haloperidol was required to shut her up): "I fuck children in the river of blood. Because I'm a pedophile? Because I like having sex with children? Stay away from me! Stay away from me!" Granted, I have no idea whether or not the above is true, and I highly doubt it, but it's a pretty good example of the sort of utterance to which one quickly becomes accustomed here.
But a little research will turn up countless examples of the particular phobias, obsessions, and stomach-turning imagery that turn up in schizophrenic thinking and verbalization. Elyn Saks' memoir The Center Cannot Hold is a powerful look at the manner in which schizophrenia tears and twists even the most brilliant minds into menacing and unfamiliar shapes, and I highly recommend it. John Wray's recent novel Lowboy, though fictional, is an arresting detective story centered around a schizophrenic 16-year old who's escaped from his hospital in New York City.
I had intended to write more on this subject, but the day went by more quickly than I had expected. I'm in much higher spirits; the new medication is helping immensely, and I've been fortunate enough to spend time with some really wonderful individuals here, some of whom I will definitely be seeing on the outside.
An example (which may be disturbing to some) from a particularly troubled woman in her early 30s (this from earlier today; sedation with haloperidol was required to shut her up): "I fuck children in the river of blood. Because I'm a pedophile? Because I like having sex with children? Stay away from me! Stay away from me!" Granted, I have no idea whether or not the above is true, and I highly doubt it, but it's a pretty good example of the sort of utterance to which one quickly becomes accustomed here.
But a little research will turn up countless examples of the particular phobias, obsessions, and stomach-turning imagery that turn up in schizophrenic thinking and verbalization. Elyn Saks' memoir The Center Cannot Hold is a powerful look at the manner in which schizophrenia tears and twists even the most brilliant minds into menacing and unfamiliar shapes, and I highly recommend it. John Wray's recent novel Lowboy, though fictional, is an arresting detective story centered around a schizophrenic 16-year old who's escaped from his hospital in New York City.
I had intended to write more on this subject, but the day went by more quickly than I had expected. I'm in much higher spirits; the new medication is helping immensely, and I've been fortunate enough to spend time with some really wonderful individuals here, some of whom I will definitely be seeing on the outside.
10.03.2010
Notes from Inside
Probably the first thing you notice on a psych ward is that the category of "crazy" spans an entire continuum from severely-depressed-but-otherwise-rational-and-somewhat-functional to suffering-from-irreversible-dementia. It seems that this continuum presents as a bell curve, with a small number of basically "okay" individuals at the far left end, a few of those tragically lost and gone forever at the far right end, and the majority distributed in between. In general, the "okay" individuals tend to stick together for obvious reasons, but probably also to validate their own sanity to themselves. They talk, joke, laugh, play games, and try hard to conceal whatever emotional greyness led them here in the first place. They're no more or less damaged than anyone else, but can either mask their pain or have had a genuine reappraisal of their whole scene. They (or I should say "we," since I rightly or wrongly count myself as a member of this group) congregate for the most part in the common room, where meals are eaten, meetings are held, and staggering quantities of TV are consumed. (I watched eight episodes of House on Friday, for instance). This room serves a double purpose for these folks. Of course it provides the basic and still functioning need for socialization, and this group seems genuinely to be interested in the lives and woes of the others, their laughter never forced, their affection and camaraderie never feigned. On the other hand, however, I think that we use the common room as a sort of safety net. It's easy when you're a generally affable person to surround yourself with similar people in a common place where you can tune out your brain to the Kardashians or Monday Night Football. It's far more difficult to confront yourself nakedly in the harsh light of long-ignored truths.
The folks in the middle part of the curve tend to come and go as befits their mental and emotional state; at times they sleep through the entire day without encountering another person on the ward except their "team" (more on this in a bit). Or they just can't handle being around others. For some, this is due to physical difficulty -- complications with new medication or drug withdrawal. Others are too mired in their own hurt, and require a sort of tortured solitude in which to sort through their scattered emotions and understand their battered psyches. When they shuffle through the halls, faces tight and drawn, they radiate the depth of their ache. Their silence is chilling really, and no matter how badly you want to crack them open and show them some light tucked away in a forgotten place, there are just some people you know better than to approach. Others in the middle flutter around the margins, drawn like moths to what they perceive as light. They'll come into the common room and sit to the side, laughing nervously or venturing a comment on a joke or a discussion about whether or not you'd let Tom Brady have his way with you (this was an actual conversation). They're visible but withdrawn, "around," but not really there.
Often the individuals in the middle part of the curve are older -- seasoned veterans when it comes to institutions and psychotropic drugs. To a younger observer, their situations are both heartbreakingly tragic and troubling. What to make of the gentleman in his 60s who hasn't said a word the entire time you've been here? He's like a ghost, a bearded ghost who sort of haunts the hallway, and you can tell he's been through some shit in his time, but what happened to him at this point in his life to bring him back here? (You've learned this is hardly his first time). What kind of infinite sadness causes life to break down so many times at a point where identity has been negotiated, decisions made, major life experiences conquered and celebrated? But then there's the woman in her 40s who does nothing but laugh, whose ataxic staggerings and stumblings into your chair has already caused two coffee burns, and whose slurred queries re: AA meetings make you wonder if maybe she isn't here because of an acute emotional crisis, but rather a solid case of Wernicke-Korsakoff.
The third subset is without question the most tragic. These guys are the ones who aren't coming back. They're entirely enclosed within their illness or the ravaged remnants of a decades-long addiction. You generally try to steer clear of these folks, or at the very least, interact with them while exercising extreme caution with the awareness that there's a pretty good chance that the conversation will veer off into a succession of disturbing non sequiturs. For which reason, this crowd tends to function as entertainment-cum-antagonist-in-chief. The one exception I've come across here is a 19-year old kid whom we shall call R. R. is one of the most gentle and kind individuals I think I've ever met. R., however, suffers from advanced schizophrenia, and has been put in four-point restraints three times since I've been here. The meds he's taking to keep him from flying apart keep him heavy-lidded and sedated. He plods through the unit and speaks slowly when he speaks at all. He sleeps 16 hours a day. This is unspeakably sad.
The others that comprise this group consist pretty much of your garden variety schizophrenics, bipolar individuals, and addled former drug addicts. There is naturally some blurring of these boundaries. We'll pick it up there tomorrow.
The folks in the middle part of the curve tend to come and go as befits their mental and emotional state; at times they sleep through the entire day without encountering another person on the ward except their "team" (more on this in a bit). Or they just can't handle being around others. For some, this is due to physical difficulty -- complications with new medication or drug withdrawal. Others are too mired in their own hurt, and require a sort of tortured solitude in which to sort through their scattered emotions and understand their battered psyches. When they shuffle through the halls, faces tight and drawn, they radiate the depth of their ache. Their silence is chilling really, and no matter how badly you want to crack them open and show them some light tucked away in a forgotten place, there are just some people you know better than to approach. Others in the middle flutter around the margins, drawn like moths to what they perceive as light. They'll come into the common room and sit to the side, laughing nervously or venturing a comment on a joke or a discussion about whether or not you'd let Tom Brady have his way with you (this was an actual conversation). They're visible but withdrawn, "around," but not really there.
Often the individuals in the middle part of the curve are older -- seasoned veterans when it comes to institutions and psychotropic drugs. To a younger observer, their situations are both heartbreakingly tragic and troubling. What to make of the gentleman in his 60s who hasn't said a word the entire time you've been here? He's like a ghost, a bearded ghost who sort of haunts the hallway, and you can tell he's been through some shit in his time, but what happened to him at this point in his life to bring him back here? (You've learned this is hardly his first time). What kind of infinite sadness causes life to break down so many times at a point where identity has been negotiated, decisions made, major life experiences conquered and celebrated? But then there's the woman in her 40s who does nothing but laugh, whose ataxic staggerings and stumblings into your chair has already caused two coffee burns, and whose slurred queries re: AA meetings make you wonder if maybe she isn't here because of an acute emotional crisis, but rather a solid case of Wernicke-Korsakoff.
The third subset is without question the most tragic. These guys are the ones who aren't coming back. They're entirely enclosed within their illness or the ravaged remnants of a decades-long addiction. You generally try to steer clear of these folks, or at the very least, interact with them while exercising extreme caution with the awareness that there's a pretty good chance that the conversation will veer off into a succession of disturbing non sequiturs. For which reason, this crowd tends to function as entertainment-cum-antagonist-in-chief. The one exception I've come across here is a 19-year old kid whom we shall call R. R. is one of the most gentle and kind individuals I think I've ever met. R., however, suffers from advanced schizophrenia, and has been put in four-point restraints three times since I've been here. The meds he's taking to keep him from flying apart keep him heavy-lidded and sedated. He plods through the unit and speaks slowly when he speaks at all. He sleeps 16 hours a day. This is unspeakably sad.
The others that comprise this group consist pretty much of your garden variety schizophrenics, bipolar individuals, and addled former drug addicts. There is naturally some blurring of these boundaries. We'll pick it up there tomorrow.
10.02.2010
Update
So for the time being, let's just say that I'm okay and fully appreciate the outpouring of love and support. You guys are awesome.
The past ten years have been dark times for me, the past year darker, recent months darkest, and the past few weeks the absolute nadir of my existence. Without going into details, I can tell you that I'm safe, and that I think things will get better from here. What I've realized during this, my most recent hospitalization, is that the impetus to change oneself radically cannot come externally. Medications, therapy, hospitalization, overdoses, withdrawal (which thankfully isn't something I've had to deal with) -- no matter how shocking to the psyche or body, none are enough to push oneself forward unless one wants to move. Without some internal spark that demands life, you're just not going to be able to do it.
So for now, I'm working on that spark.
The past ten years have been dark times for me, the past year darker, recent months darkest, and the past few weeks the absolute nadir of my existence. Without going into details, I can tell you that I'm safe, and that I think things will get better from here. What I've realized during this, my most recent hospitalization, is that the impetus to change oneself radically cannot come externally. Medications, therapy, hospitalization, overdoses, withdrawal (which thankfully isn't something I've had to deal with) -- no matter how shocking to the psyche or body, none are enough to push oneself forward unless one wants to move. Without some internal spark that demands life, you're just not going to be able to do it.
So for now, I'm working on that spark.
9.06.2010
New Things
Out of a 4 1/2 year long relationship, out of the closet, freshly inked, and moved into a new place as of Wednesday. New things abound. I find myself in the sort of nostalgic introspective mood which washed over my late teen years and early twenties, but which has been largely absent for the past few years. You know, that sense that time is ebbing away and that things in your life about which you feel like you should care deeply but can't quite keep moving in cardinalish directions away from whatever sense of self you've salvaged?
So yeah, new beginnings and what not. It's strange being in this place. I feel the clock starting to count down on my youth, and I can't say I've really ever allowed myself to experience it. The careless vulnerability, impulsivity, hope. I lack these things in my life, and yet they're what I'm told defines "youth."
I really can't quantify or qualify anything at this point. I find myself aching for something real with the concomitant knowledge that real emotion is probably beyond anything I'm capable of at the moment. It's funny and yet profoundly sad, as I watch friends and lovers find their mates and fall in love, that I can't even conceive of an emotional connection to another human being. It seems so naive and unreachable. The idea almost seems laughable, and the reality something which I dare not even consider. Emo? Perhaps. It's never fun to find oneself in the familiar position of feeling unconnected to everything.
So yeah, new beginnings and what not. It's strange being in this place. I feel the clock starting to count down on my youth, and I can't say I've really ever allowed myself to experience it. The careless vulnerability, impulsivity, hope. I lack these things in my life, and yet they're what I'm told defines "youth."
I really can't quantify or qualify anything at this point. I find myself aching for something real with the concomitant knowledge that real emotion is probably beyond anything I'm capable of at the moment. It's funny and yet profoundly sad, as I watch friends and lovers find their mates and fall in love, that I can't even conceive of an emotional connection to another human being. It seems so naive and unreachable. The idea almost seems laughable, and the reality something which I dare not even consider. Emo? Perhaps. It's never fun to find oneself in the familiar position of feeling unconnected to everything.
8.26.2010
8.20.2010
Digging the Suburbs
In the interest of resurrecting this site (for the nth time, I guess), let me just say that I am completely addicted to Arcade Fire's new album The Suburbs. So much so that I find myself agreeing with Pitchfork... which doesn't exactly happen every day. I don't really have the tools to do like a full review/critique, so let's just say that it hits all the right places without a single throwaway track. I'm in love.
4.06.2010
3.12.2010
12.04.2009
12.03.2009
Yes, that.
Personal sorrow is a trite thing. Let us think of our brothers and sisters whose lives just became forfeit. Let us think of our LGBT brothers and sisters, the equality of whom our president and the New York state legislature continue to deny. Let us think of the innocent Afghans and Pakistanis and young Americans who will pay for our imperial ambitions.
Let us consider a world without American war. Let us consider that world and let us act upon its promise. We will fight for peace, equality, and justice. If we can't fight for that, then this generation is bankrupt and hopeless. The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.12.02.2009
Escalation Fail
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that Obama escalating in Afghanistan is teh stoopid. I mean if you're all about alienating your base and repeating the mistakes of a certain Democratic president who pushed sweeping social change but whose mandate was undermined by a certain unwinnable war...
Anyway, see my take on the whole failure at the Kos.
But really, if Obama wants our support, he should really sorta figure out that that Iraq thing was sort of a mess. And killed 4k of our little cohort. I understand that the defense dept. & co. need to make their profit, but erm... we don't really want to send more of our friends and loved ones to die without cause. That's so Bush Admin.
Anyway, see my take on the whole failure at the Kos.
But really, if Obama wants our support, he should really sorta figure out that that Iraq thing was sort of a mess. And killed 4k of our little cohort. I understand that the defense dept. & co. need to make their profit, but erm... we don't really want to send more of our friends and loved ones to die without cause. That's so Bush Admin.
11.22.2009
11.21.2009
Velvet Underground Reunion... sort of...
Okay so John Cale won't be there and Sterling Morrison is dead, but Lou Reed, Maureen Tucker, and Doug Yule will sit down for a chat at the New York Public Library on Dec. 8. Should be interesting, to say the least.
It Must be Tough Being Rich
You know, with all those kindergarten admissions tests and all...
Meanwhile, unemployment in Michigan is 15.1%.
Glad the Times has its priorities straight.
Meanwhile, unemployment in Michigan is 15.1%.
Glad the Times has its priorities straight.
What Happened to Innocent Until Proven Guilty?
I understand the need to prove to the media that you have a Big Swingin Dick, but erm... what's the point of trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court if the president and attorney general declare him guilty before the trial? I don't think there's a whole lot of doubt on that issue, but in this country, you're not guilty until a jury convicts you. And if Obama and Holder aren't willing to stand by that, this is nothing more than a show trial.
11.17.2009
Ada Annotated
This is really cool -- a fully-annotated text of Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor (my favorite of his works!). It's stunning to find out on how many levels that man was operating. It's one thing to know that an author is making allusions you don't get -- with him, it makes one feel remarkably underread to discover just how many allusions are being made that you don't even realize.
11.05.2009
LRB Again
Just noticed that, in celebration of the big three-oh, the current issue is fully free and available at their site. But you should subscribe anyway.
11.04.2009
Fair and Balanced
Two gubernatorial losses in an off-year mean the END of the Obama Presidency and the dismantling of the fascist-communist-socialist-nudist-Maoist-Nazi state.
Two gubernatorial losses in an off-year mean nothing at all -- provided we're talking about G Dubs. (9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11...)
Two gubernatorial losses in an off-year mean nothing at all -- provided we're talking about G Dubs. (9/11, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11...)
The LRB Turns 30
The Financial Times has a really good history/celebration of the London Review of Books, on occasion of its 30th anniversary.
On a lighter note, I just discovered that this book -- a greatest hits of the lewd, bizarre, and hilarious personal ads at the back of the LRB -- exists, and am most pleased.
On a lighter note, I just discovered that this book -- a greatest hits of the lewd, bizarre, and hilarious personal ads at the back of the LRB -- exists, and am most pleased.
Instant Classic Smackdown
Check out Jessica Crispin (whom I adore) on Jonathan Safran Foer's new nonfiction book Eating Animals. Any post that begins with "I am trying so hard to be nice to ___," is sure to be a winner.
To be fair, I actually have never read anything by Jonathan Safran Foer and don't necessarily share her opinion. It was just too funny not to share.
To be fair, I actually have never read anything by Jonathan Safran Foer and don't necessarily share her opinion. It was just too funny not to share.
IMPAC Dublin Award
So the long list for the IMPAC/Dublin literary award was released yesterday, and no, I'm not going to list all 153 titles. But my local public library made three good selections: Sebastian Barry's The Secret Scripture, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, and Richard Price's Lush Life.
The list by nominating library is pretty interesting too -- like the St. John's Library in Newfoundland nominating Blackstrap Hawco: said to be about a Newfoundland family. No parochialism there.
The list by nominating library is pretty interesting too -- like the St. John's Library in Newfoundland nominating Blackstrap Hawco: said to be about a Newfoundland family. No parochialism there.
Queen of the Right
Despite the stumble by Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in NY-23 yesterday, the poewr of Palin doesn't seem to be diminished in the least. Check out this leaked memo from Mark Kirk, a downstate Illinois Republican who's running for the Senate seat currently occupied by Roland Burris, and who has some work to do with the hard right that currently runs what's left of the Republican Party. From the Washington Post:
As depressing as yesterday was, at least we have a year of Republican all-out Civil War to look forward to. That's worth some popcorn, at least.
After noting that Palin will be in Chicago later this month to appear on "Oprah", Kirk writes that "the Chicago media will focus on one key issue: Does Gov[ernor] Palin oppose Congressman Mark Kirk's bid to take the Obama Senate seat for the Republicans?"
Kirk goes on to write that he is hoping for something "quick and decisive" from Palin about the race, perhaps to the effect of: "Voters in Illinois have a key opportunity to take Barack Obama's Senate seat. Congressman Kirk is the lead candidate to do that."
As depressing as yesterday was, at least we have a year of Republican all-out Civil War to look forward to. That's worth some popcorn, at least.
11.03.2009
Too Close to Call
Apparently it's too close to call tonight in Maine. Open Left has an updated live blog -- looks like we're down between 0.5 and 1.5% with no absentee ballots counted. This might be a long process, and I'm trying not to be too dejected about it.
At least Bill Owens has a fighting chance in NY-23, it seems.
At least Bill Owens has a fighting chance in NY-23, it seems.
Election Night
Fuck, McDonell AND Christie.
If No in Maine fails, I'm not sure how I'm possibly going to get up tomorrow morning. At least there's the incipient civil war in the Republican party to get some chuckles out of, but it's scant comfort tonight.
If No in Maine fails, I'm not sure how I'm possibly going to get up tomorrow morning. At least there's the incipient civil war in the Republican party to get some chuckles out of, but it's scant comfort tonight.
10.28.2009
Publishing & E-Publishing
Barnes & Noble recently released the Nook -- its new e-reader -- as a direct competitor to Amazon's Kindle. The folks at Wired are pretty excited about it and its shiny new features, which you can read all about in their review. I'm one of those cranky young men who will never be caught dead with an e-reader so long as I live (and have the option of dead tree). My opposition to them is mostly personal -- I enjoy the sensual experience of holding a physical book, turning its pages, feeling the grain of the paper, scribbling notes in the margins, underlining here and there. For the books I love best (or which came with a paper assignment), you can trace the dialogue I had with the author, characters, and/or ideas through those marginalia and exclamations of approval or puzzlement. I like having a desk cluttered with books in various states of completion. I love having bookshelves stocked with color and inviting leisurely perusal. For me, an e-book is anathema to the experience of reading, which encompasses far more than the text.
Which is not to say that I think e-readers are the end of the world. I think it's likely that e-literature (or whatever you want to call it) is going to become much more popular, but I highly doubt that it will eliminate the dead tree model. E-readers and bookstores will probably end up in some sort of uneasy coexistence. I just think it's too early (as a book "traditionalist") to freak out about the end of print, just as it's too early for the futurists (for lack of a better term) to gloat about the inevitablity of virtual print.
I bring this up in response to a really thoughtful and fascinating post by Two Dollar Radio's publisher Eric Obenauf over at The Rumpus about the difference between the two models. As good as Obenauf's essay is, the comment section opens up a wide-ranging discussion about the role of the artist in contemporary society, the monetary value of art versus its personal and aesthetic value, and what the future of publishing will signify for writers' art and wallets. Stephen Elliott, Brian Spears, Andrew Altschul and other writers and Rumpus editors join the fray. Definitely worth a full read!
Which is not to say that I think e-readers are the end of the world. I think it's likely that e-literature (or whatever you want to call it) is going to become much more popular, but I highly doubt that it will eliminate the dead tree model. E-readers and bookstores will probably end up in some sort of uneasy coexistence. I just think it's too early (as a book "traditionalist") to freak out about the end of print, just as it's too early for the futurists (for lack of a better term) to gloat about the inevitablity of virtual print.
I bring this up in response to a really thoughtful and fascinating post by Two Dollar Radio's publisher Eric Obenauf over at The Rumpus about the difference between the two models. As good as Obenauf's essay is, the comment section opens up a wide-ranging discussion about the role of the artist in contemporary society, the monetary value of art versus its personal and aesthetic value, and what the future of publishing will signify for writers' art and wallets. Stephen Elliott, Brian Spears, Andrew Altschul and other writers and Rumpus editors join the fray. Definitely worth a full read!
Oh Dear Heavens
Politicians sometimes use naughty language!
I'm sure this deeply-researched analysis will help stave off print media's looming demise.
I'm sure this deeply-researched analysis will help stave off print media's looming demise.
Attn: Sens. Lieberman, Landrieu, Lincoln et al
There are, uh, real people who will be affected by your bought-and-paid-for wankery. DougJ's rant pretty much nails the sick world in which our oligarchy sips its martinis:
I realize that if you’re poor in this country, then everything is your fault. If you take out a loan you shouldn’t have taken out, it’s proof that you’re too much of an idiot to handle money, whereas when rich people are fleeced by Bernie Madoff it’s proof that Madoff is a super-genius monster. If you’re hit by a stray bullet, you were probably in a gang. If you’re sick, it’s because you smoke and you’re overweight. And whatever trouble you have getting a job, it’s all because of your genetically determined low IQ. And if you weren’t poor, overweight, genetically deficient and so on you wouldn’t have trouble getting disqualified because of preconditions and you’d never get scammed by bogus insurance outfits.
In Which the New York Times Book Section References Us...
Major slacking on my part around here apparently hasn't stopped someone from noticing us. I just about fell off my chair when I read this article in the New York Times about Electric Literature. Check out the second paragraph:
Guess that's some kind of sign I should take this more seriously. I'm pretty humbled and kind of stunned. Thanks Felicia Lee, whomever you are!
In its first two issues, this year, the magazine showcased some of the country’s best writers — Michael Cunningham, Colson Whitehead, Lydia Davis, Jim Shepard — and created the kind of buzz that is a marketer’s dream. With a debut issue in June and an autumn issue out last week, each consisting of five stories, the magazine has racked up complimentary reviews everywhere from The Washington Post to a blogger on Destructive Anachronism, who wrote, “High quality content + innovative marketing + multimedia could just equal the new model for literature, post-print.
Guess that's some kind of sign I should take this more seriously. I'm pretty humbled and kind of stunned. Thanks Felicia Lee, whomever you are!
9.06.2009
I Can't Live Without Hope, Can You?
One of the most powerful interviews I've come across, whether or not you agree with everything he has to say. The fact of the matter is that there are alternative approaches to living one's life. Utah Phillips might chuckle at me for that realization, but as a survivor of the data/consulting age, it's somewhat of a revelation.
Bad link, but go to the podcast site on iTunes for monday 09.07 and you can get the audio. i'll post it when it's up on the site.
Bad link, but go to the podcast site on iTunes for monday 09.07 and you can get the audio. i'll post it when it's up on the site.
8.27.2009
No One Could Have Predicted
"Conservatives warn of 'Wellstone Effect'" -- remind me again why anyone gives a shit what Congressional conservatives think. They're completely irrelevant.
Tip to Atrios, whose headline I have filched.
Tip to Atrios, whose headline I have filched.
Pelecanos, Price, Friedman, McCullough, and Haruf Step On Down
If you're lucky, maybe you'll even get the magical sticker of presidential wonder. (Ok, I searched for quite some time for the magical sticker of presidential wonder, but basically the newest printing of Netherland has a red sticker with a quote from Obama on it where the "A Novel" sticker is now.)
I Don't Get it Either
Re: John Cole: All I know about Leon Wieseltier is that he's done more disgrace to the English language and logical reasoning than just about anyone this side of Donald Rumsfeld.
8.26.2009
At Least They Didn't Bother With Bukowski
The Times Higher Education supplement submits literary giants to faculty review for department hires. Kek.
Can't Wait for the U.S. Tour
Jello Biafra -- pretty much the musician for whom I have the most respect -- is back with a new band (Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine) touring the U.K. this fall. The Quietus has a great interview with him about the new band, the old band (THE old band, that is), Obama's policies, Bush's legacy and more. Looking forward to hearing these guys live.
Shinies
I've been off the grid for a couple weeks/getting everything through Google Reader, so I had not noticed the lovely redesign of The Millions.
We Just Want Our Single Payer
Gotta agree with Atrios on this -- forcing my generation into the welcoming claws of the medical-industrial-insurance complex isn't a great way to cement our support of the good 'ol DP.
Slowing Down with Charles Baxter
Great Rumpus interview with Charles Baxter on the obsession with speed/acceleration and the consequent distrust of slow life and silence that characterizes so much of contemporary American social culture. I'm not all that familiar with Baxter's work, but this interview definitely makes me more inclined to pick up his collection of essays under discussion, Burning Down the House (any Talking Heads reference is also a major plus, in my book).
Does the Dream Still Live?
I'm really filled with sadness right now because of Teddy... I'm fortunate enough to have become a constituent in the last year of his life, and am grateful that I met him once briefly. He was one of the few who had the courage to stand for a vision of a different and better America, and as the reality of the dream drifts slowly out to sea, I wonder how we will ever replace him.
8.25.2009
8.18.2009
8.16.2009
8.09.2009
8.08.2009
The Unedited Sarah Palin
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."
The horror, the horror!!!
The horror, the horror!!!
Twitter Zombies
Apparently a full quarter of Twitter users lack a pulse... the zombie part applies to all of us, I'm pretty sure
8.07.2009
For an Interesting Holiday Season...
Put on that Bob Dylan Christmas album and bust out the cheese ball!
8.06.2009
The Pains of Being Completely Vapid
Ah New York Times Fashion and Style section, you never disappoint! Whether it's lamenting the psychological trauma of Manhattan parents who can't imagine living on $250,000 a year, the horror of giving up posh private schools for little rich brats, or fawning over the contemporary "standards of attractiveness" that demand outpourings of cash for ludicrous image improvements followed by a helpless shrug of the shoulders that "the culture requires it," you really do encapsulate all that is idiotic and risible about contemporary life inside the corporate media bubble. Your helpless fawning over the bronzed and plucked image with which your advertisers have infected us is a step beyond pathetic. Your exhortations to bodily perfection are pathological, your writers poor mockeries of "journalists." May the ghost of Bernie Madoff devour their trust funds and bless them with psoriasis. And may the death of print hit you first and hardest for fellating your sponsors with anti-feminist and anti-intellectual corporate garbage. You will not be missed.
Indie Rock and Spirituality
Judy Berman has a really intelligent and fascinating look at the treatment of ethereal and transcendent themes in contemporary indie pop over @ The Believer that's definitely worth a read.
I think, however, one has to be careful in limiting the phenomenon of "indie rock's current metaphysical fixation" to the last five or so years. Indie rock has definitely trod this ground before, even if it reached different conclusions. Hüsker Dü's seminal 1984 album Zen Arcade is part bildungsroman, part spiritual odyssey that directly deals with the place of transcendence in music and modern existence (the track Hare Krsna is little more than the prayer, repeated over and over, grinding atonality signifying the cognitive dissonance that results from attempted spirituality, perhaps?)
Or one of my favorite albums, Sonic Youth's 1988 masterpiece Daydream Nation. The transcendent may not appear explicitly in the album's lyrics, but who could listen to the haunting vastness of "The Sprawl" or the atmospheric desolation of "Providence" without considering the metaphysics of solitude or a sort of spiritual heat-death. It may be the reverse side of the hazy spirituality embodied by Yeasayer or Animal Collective, to use two of Berman's examples, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take up the question of spirituality in general.
I think that may be the bigger point -- not that contemporary indie rock has suddenly discovered religion (or something approximating what religion may once have meant somewhere...), but that today spirituality can be seen as something positive -- or at least worth striving toward, whereas during the Reagan era, spiritual desolation and muck were unavoidable. Non-mainstream culture was torn between nihilism and rock bottom depression, and it makes sense that the concept of spirituality was dealt with in a negative way, exploring the seeming absence of any sort of transcendent in the face of messianic Christianity and materialism. Nor does contemporary indie rock escape this sort of negative exploration of spirituality -- Berman mentions the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible as an example of an album that "may also make a grab for our souls by recalling the sounds or harmonic structures of devotional songs, thus reawakening our collective memory of what faith and worship feel like," but it's worth noting that Neon Bible is a profoundly anti-religious album, with the hypocrisies of contemporary Christianity in its direct crosshairs, just to note one example.
If anything, the prevalence of indie music that expresses an open or positive attitude toward spirituality may be seen as a response to the evil perpetrated under the banner of heaven during the Bush years, most likely rooted in contemporary America's multiculturalism and appropriation of positive psychology, meditation, Buddhism, etc. In other words, what's changed is the era's attitude toward spirituality in general -- the music continues to mirror changes in social attitude toward religion and transcendence. The emergence of alternative spirituality and the growing liberalization of some branches of Christianity are reflected in music more willing to engage spirituality and transcendence on its own ground.
I think, however, one has to be careful in limiting the phenomenon of "indie rock's current metaphysical fixation" to the last five or so years. Indie rock has definitely trod this ground before, even if it reached different conclusions. Hüsker Dü's seminal 1984 album Zen Arcade is part bildungsroman, part spiritual odyssey that directly deals with the place of transcendence in music and modern existence (the track Hare Krsna is little more than the prayer, repeated over and over, grinding atonality signifying the cognitive dissonance that results from attempted spirituality, perhaps?)
Or one of my favorite albums, Sonic Youth's 1988 masterpiece Daydream Nation. The transcendent may not appear explicitly in the album's lyrics, but who could listen to the haunting vastness of "The Sprawl" or the atmospheric desolation of "Providence" without considering the metaphysics of solitude or a sort of spiritual heat-death. It may be the reverse side of the hazy spirituality embodied by Yeasayer or Animal Collective, to use two of Berman's examples, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take up the question of spirituality in general.
I think that may be the bigger point -- not that contemporary indie rock has suddenly discovered religion (or something approximating what religion may once have meant somewhere...), but that today spirituality can be seen as something positive -- or at least worth striving toward, whereas during the Reagan era, spiritual desolation and muck were unavoidable. Non-mainstream culture was torn between nihilism and rock bottom depression, and it makes sense that the concept of spirituality was dealt with in a negative way, exploring the seeming absence of any sort of transcendent in the face of messianic Christianity and materialism. Nor does contemporary indie rock escape this sort of negative exploration of spirituality -- Berman mentions the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible as an example of an album that "may also make a grab for our souls by recalling the sounds or harmonic structures of devotional songs, thus reawakening our collective memory of what faith and worship feel like," but it's worth noting that Neon Bible is a profoundly anti-religious album, with the hypocrisies of contemporary Christianity in its direct crosshairs, just to note one example.
If anything, the prevalence of indie music that expresses an open or positive attitude toward spirituality may be seen as a response to the evil perpetrated under the banner of heaven during the Bush years, most likely rooted in contemporary America's multiculturalism and appropriation of positive psychology, meditation, Buddhism, etc. In other words, what's changed is the era's attitude toward spirituality in general -- the music continues to mirror changes in social attitude toward religion and transcendence. The emergence of alternative spirituality and the growing liberalization of some branches of Christianity are reflected in music more willing to engage spirituality and transcendence on its own ground.
Speaking of Apocalypse
Slate's fascinating and disturbing series on how America will end continues today with what, in my opinion, is the likeliest scenario: totalitarian rule.
Death to the Big Box!
The sooner Borders and B&N die, the better. Indies will endure, because we actually give a shit about the products we supposedly exist to sell -- books.
Why Evangelical Christianity is Dangerous
Courtesy of Andrew, this report from Secular Humanism is completely horrifying, if completely unsurprising.
And it's that closing to logic and clinging to antiquated modes of thought despite countervailing evidence that defines fanaticism, and what, dangerously, links the prevailing form of Protestant Christianity in America to insurgent Islam in the Middle East. The salient point is that there is no difference between Christian fanaticism and Islamic fanaticism -- both are contemptuous of modernity and terrified by it, both are willing to murder in the name of their fanaticism (see: Tiller, George, and the Iraq war), and both contort facts to fit their particular brand of eschatology.
The frightening thing is that Bush didn't even seem to be that much of a zealot -- just a fairly unintelligent, uncurious sort who was content to accept whatever ideology suited him best at the moment. Now that the evangelical movement controls all the levers of power within the Republican Party, the possibility of having a true fanatic (see: Palin, Sarah) is greater than ever. No one who views foreign policy through the lens of a 2,000-year old book of fairy tales is qualified to lead the free world.
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.It would almost be funny that a leader of one of the world's most culturally and technologically advanced nations would invade a foreign country and toss away the lives of over 4,000 soldiers based on a 2,000 year old document, but that, my friends, is what fanaticism does. Having been raised Baptist, I'm pretty familiar with this mindset -- I hear from relatives all the time how we've entered the "end times" and how Obama may be the antichrist. Because their medieval form of religion cannot possibly fit into a modern world order, and because that religion is what they cling to in order to bypass the disorientation and vertigo of contemporary life, the world becomes populated with symbols and dark intimations of apocalypse. Gog and Magog as the USSR and China is so 1980s. There's no need for internal consistency or logic -- somewhere the puppetmaster is pulling the strings in the foretold manner, and all you have to do to get your seat on the Golden Gate Express is shut up and trust what your elders interpret from a really old book.Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
And it's that closing to logic and clinging to antiquated modes of thought despite countervailing evidence that defines fanaticism, and what, dangerously, links the prevailing form of Protestant Christianity in America to insurgent Islam in the Middle East. The salient point is that there is no difference between Christian fanaticism and Islamic fanaticism -- both are contemptuous of modernity and terrified by it, both are willing to murder in the name of their fanaticism (see: Tiller, George, and the Iraq war), and both contort facts to fit their particular brand of eschatology.
The frightening thing is that Bush didn't even seem to be that much of a zealot -- just a fairly unintelligent, uncurious sort who was content to accept whatever ideology suited him best at the moment. Now that the evangelical movement controls all the levers of power within the Republican Party, the possibility of having a true fanatic (see: Palin, Sarah) is greater than ever. No one who views foreign policy through the lens of a 2,000-year old book of fairy tales is qualified to lead the free world.
8.05.2009
Deep Thought
Watching people wander about with blinking Bluetooth devices in their ears still scares the shit out of me.
Tough Line to Walk on Ahmadi
Though Robert Gibbs' initial statement that Ahmedinejad is the "elected leader of Iran" was definitely a stupid and careless remark (and his correction and rephrasing necessary even if a bit late), I think it's careful to recognize just how little wiggle-room the Obama administration has on public pronouncements about Iran. It's easy to bemoan Obama's lack of a more assertive position as capitulation or the dreaded "a" word (appeasement) if you see the world in black and white and lack any sense of history (hi neocons!).
What Ahmedinejad and his thugs want more than anything is for the U.S. to take a stand on the side of the Green Wave. That would allow comparisons to 1953 -- however fallacious -- and could reduce support for the resistance among Iranians on the fence, dissatisfied with the illegitimacy of the current regime, but wary of anything tainted by Western involvement. The Obama Administration's response thus far has been impeccable -- express solidarity with the will of the Iranian people while refraining as much as possible from giving the regime anything to use as a marker of Western interference. Obama gets that any sort of change has to come from the Iranian people -- American influence, even if only rhetorical, will end up hurting the nascent resistence.
As icky as it may feel to express neutrality in the face of brutality, repression, and an illegitimate coup, tossing on the cowboy boots and brandishing our big swinging Amerkan dick will hurt a lot more than it helps. The challenge is to remain as neutral as possible, to couch every pronouncement in terms that refer to the will of the Iranian people. Hopefully the administration will continue to use the kind of language Gibbs employed when he corrected himself:
And, as Andrew notes, they have. Remember, the 1979 revolution took over a year to play out. This thing is not over, the regime has lost all credibility to a pretty good chunk of the population, and the rifts among clerics and between clerics and Ahmadi are still there. Let's cool down and let events play out while remaining noncommittal about the legitimacy of Ahmadi's reelection -- neutrality delivers the same message as heated rhetoric without the potential costs to the freedom of the Iranian people.
What Ahmedinejad and his thugs want more than anything is for the U.S. to take a stand on the side of the Green Wave. That would allow comparisons to 1953 -- however fallacious -- and could reduce support for the resistance among Iranians on the fence, dissatisfied with the illegitimacy of the current regime, but wary of anything tainted by Western involvement. The Obama Administration's response thus far has been impeccable -- express solidarity with the will of the Iranian people while refraining as much as possible from giving the regime anything to use as a marker of Western interference. Obama gets that any sort of change has to come from the Iranian people -- American influence, even if only rhetorical, will end up hurting the nascent resistence.
As icky as it may feel to express neutrality in the face of brutality, repression, and an illegitimate coup, tossing on the cowboy boots and brandishing our big swinging Amerkan dick will hurt a lot more than it helps. The challenge is to remain as neutral as possible, to couch every pronouncement in terms that refer to the will of the Iranian people. Hopefully the administration will continue to use the kind of language Gibbs employed when he corrected himself:
"I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran. I would say that’s not for me to pass judgment on,” Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One. “He’s been inaugurated. That’s a fact. Whether any election was fair, obviously the Iranian people still have questions about that, and we’ll let them decide about that.”
And, as Andrew notes, they have. Remember, the 1979 revolution took over a year to play out. This thing is not over, the regime has lost all credibility to a pretty good chunk of the population, and the rifts among clerics and between clerics and Ahmadi are still there. Let's cool down and let events play out while remaining noncommittal about the legitimacy of Ahmadi's reelection -- neutrality delivers the same message as heated rhetoric without the potential costs to the freedom of the Iranian people.
8.04.2009
Offworld Pulp
This is pretty cool: fictional magazine covers from Blade Runner that were used in the background of a magazine stand.
Thanks Bookninja!
Thanks Bookninja!
Schadenfreude!
Das heisst, a creationist theme park seized by the feds for half a million in back taxes! Oh, and the minister who runs the fun house? In jail for tax fraud: "Saying he was employed by God and his ministers were not subject to payroll taxes, he claimed no income or property."
It's nice when fraud begets fraud.
It's nice when fraud begets fraud.
Wrong Globe, Asshats
What is it about writing mock Shakespeare that makes reporters for second-rate newspapers chortle at their own cleverness? So you read Macbeth in your freshman English seminar thirty years ago and can spell "Alarum." Somehow reducing a complex incident that gets at the very heart of the ambiguities of racism to doggerel doesn't really raise the dialogue or impress much.
Although minor props for referring to Joe Biden as "Fool."
Although minor props for referring to Joe Biden as "Fool."
While we're on the topic of lit trailers...
Penguin has a trailer up for Inherent Vice, Pynchon's new novel which hits shelves today. The actual narrator may or may not be Thomas Pynchon. It may have happened before (the Simpsons), but there is nothing (else) to compare it to now.
I'm sort of torn about whether or not to take the plunge on this one -- Pynchon's pretty much my favorite author, and I'm going to read it eventually, but $28 seems pretty steep for an elegy to the promise of the 60s -- granted, a drugged-out, picaresque, paranoid elegy to the 60s, but still. I'm sure it'll be entertaining, but the evocation of that particular historical moment always makes me think of that one passage in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
Even wrapped up in shiny Pynchonian/noir paper, I think Inherent Vice will just end up being... depressing.
I'm sort of torn about whether or not to take the plunge on this one -- Pynchon's pretty much my favorite author, and I'm going to read it eventually, but $28 seems pretty steep for an elegy to the promise of the 60s -- granted, a drugged-out, picaresque, paranoid elegy to the 60s, but still. I'm sure it'll be entertaining, but the evocation of that particular historical moment always makes me think of that one passage in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...It's strange that even though I completely missed out on that era, I can't help but think of the end of the 60s with a sense of loss, maybe even more poignant because the loss is irretrievable. Considered forty years out by someone born in the 80s, it seems that the death of that energy signified a final death of any sort of broad-based challenge to prevailing social and economic norms. From the vantage point of 2009, even ripples seem unthinkable. When the wave crashed, it crashed.
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Even wrapped up in shiny Pynchonian/noir paper, I think Inherent Vice will just end up being... depressing.
8.03.2009
Panopticism for the working class
I understand that Britain is a de facto police state, but apparently the brilliant Mr. Balls (that doesn't get old, does it?) has decided to get rid of the artifice.
Somehow placing CCTV cameras in private homes to monitor compliance to social norms and right conduct seems a bit mm... nightmarish? Questions of legality aside, have we already reached the point where nonconformity to normative behavior warrants complete abnegation of privacy rights? Of course it was (and is) inevitable that improved satellite imagery, exponentially expanding data storage capacity, and the rapid proliferation of image-capture devices would (and will) lead to practically ubiquitous surveillance. Britain just got there first.
I would say that Labour richly deserves the bloodbath that awaits it in the next election, but then there's shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling of the Conservatives, who believes that the videoscreens are "too little, too late."
Somehow placing CCTV cameras in private homes to monitor compliance to social norms and right conduct seems a bit mm... nightmarish? Questions of legality aside, have we already reached the point where nonconformity to normative behavior warrants complete abnegation of privacy rights? Of course it was (and is) inevitable that improved satellite imagery, exponentially expanding data storage capacity, and the rapid proliferation of image-capture devices would (and will) lead to practically ubiquitous surveillance. Britain just got there first.
I would say that Labour richly deserves the bloodbath that awaits it in the next election, but then there's shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling of the Conservatives, who believes that the videoscreens are "too little, too late."
Electric Literature Gets it Right
A new promotional video for Jim Shepard's story "Your Fate Hurdles Down at You" from the inaugural issue of Electric Literature. High quality content + innovative marketing + multimedia could just equal the new model for literature, post-print.
5.22.2009
The table is too short for Keith's knees. It's unfortunate because the air is perfect and the bodies smell good for the most part. But whenever he tries to move, bone strikes gummy wood and it leads to discomfort. He and Rachel are out on the terrace smoking cigarettes in a city they'd prefer not to name.
He's a rakish fellow -- not the kind who'd steal bottles in the daylight. She has many piercings in her left ear, but they're uniform in their ascension. Steel ring upon steel ring. They glint pulsing blue when a police car races by. Her other ear is boring.
"What game would like you like to play?" she asks, leaning forward over a half-glass of cheap rioja and ignoring the protesters. Her cheek bones are quite remarkable. Keith is fascinated by them. He generally avoids Rachel because of Elena, but sometimes he thinks about those cheekbones in the bathroom and teems with envy. Elena has better breasts but those are easy to come by. A cheekbone is worth a king's ass or something like that.
Rachel mostly annoys him. She wants to be famous and probably will be. She once took a class on how to manipulate her eyes and earned a citation for excellence. Keith is too aware. He sips on a coke and Jack and tastes too much coke. Those cheekbones. They slope down in an arc to her wide mouth littered with teeth that can't be this white. It's all a lie, but that makes it intriguing -- so Keith thinks. He makes a show of swirling his mixed drink and drops a glowing butt into the glass ashtray.
"It's your turn."
She mocks a pout with purple lips. She doesn't realize it, sloppy bitch, he thinks pulling out another cigarette. He sucks his teeth and tries to ignore her bright face.
"You mentioned costumes."
"Feathers, darling, feathers," he answers looking toward the street.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you ever wonder about the Aztecs? Quetzlcoatl was a feathery wanker. I mean we all want to fly right? Did you ever dream about it?"
"About flying?"
"Do you want brandy? I think I need some brandy. I used to float a lot. Wriggle around the staircase and scrape my back on the ceiling stucco."
Does he want me to wear wings she thinks and pouts again. Keith thinks about shaving with her cheekbones and chuckles slowly -- a sign of infatuation.
Silence on the terrace. It is now exactly two in the morning, and the snakes wind their way up the dusty avenue to the cathedral. Tourists snap photos for right-wing blogs and cross themselves. Rachel watches the miracle and sighs. Her mother will want photos.
He's a rakish fellow -- not the kind who'd steal bottles in the daylight. She has many piercings in her left ear, but they're uniform in their ascension. Steel ring upon steel ring. They glint pulsing blue when a police car races by. Her other ear is boring.
"What game would like you like to play?" she asks, leaning forward over a half-glass of cheap rioja and ignoring the protesters. Her cheek bones are quite remarkable. Keith is fascinated by them. He generally avoids Rachel because of Elena, but sometimes he thinks about those cheekbones in the bathroom and teems with envy. Elena has better breasts but those are easy to come by. A cheekbone is worth a king's ass or something like that.
Rachel mostly annoys him. She wants to be famous and probably will be. She once took a class on how to manipulate her eyes and earned a citation for excellence. Keith is too aware. He sips on a coke and Jack and tastes too much coke. Those cheekbones. They slope down in an arc to her wide mouth littered with teeth that can't be this white. It's all a lie, but that makes it intriguing -- so Keith thinks. He makes a show of swirling his mixed drink and drops a glowing butt into the glass ashtray.
"It's your turn."
She mocks a pout with purple lips. She doesn't realize it, sloppy bitch, he thinks pulling out another cigarette. He sucks his teeth and tries to ignore her bright face.
"You mentioned costumes."
"Feathers, darling, feathers," he answers looking toward the street.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you ever wonder about the Aztecs? Quetzlcoatl was a feathery wanker. I mean we all want to fly right? Did you ever dream about it?"
"About flying?"
"Do you want brandy? I think I need some brandy. I used to float a lot. Wriggle around the staircase and scrape my back on the ceiling stucco."
Does he want me to wear wings she thinks and pouts again. Keith thinks about shaving with her cheekbones and chuckles slowly -- a sign of infatuation.
Silence on the terrace. It is now exactly two in the morning, and the snakes wind their way up the dusty avenue to the cathedral. Tourists snap photos for right-wing blogs and cross themselves. Rachel watches the miracle and sighs. Her mother will want photos.
4.09.2009
You stagger down the rows of buildings blinking cold in the half light. Life is but a colored reflection in a distant mirror cracked and frayed at the edges. Streetlights reel. What's out here on a Tuesday evening to be found? Time or no time, the abnegation of time. Time's a black machine spinning nowhere and you're stuck between spokes, falling empty in a rush of feathered silence.
Your liver hurts. You drop yourself on a stoop and reach for a cigarette, ignoring the slight tremor. Glassy-eyed, you take quick drags but hold the smoke back feeling heat feeling searing that never reaches a white peak. Snow behind your eyes, swimming in a clear fog that undulates like molten glass without the color.
They pass by on all sides and you don't look at them.
You turned your phone off because you don't want to be found. You can touch your ragged breath. The trains underneath quiver and shock your planted feet. You think about following them, chasing the fleeting red light into a maze of rusted pipe and concrete covered in orange and blue – Fick die Amerikaner, G. ist eine Hure, Ich bin der einzelne König... The last king of nowhere riding glass and scattered pebbles into something at the heart of it all. Speed moving in slow circles, recursive time.
Your cigarette's out and you pull yourself to the trees overhead. It's late spring and the air is still warm. You think about the things that have passed you by and take another drink from your pocket, a second of warmth dissolving in the mist. The voices come and go in clouds against the wind. Now it's hazy dark and everyone else is laughing and you're out of bitterness.
The city's on fire and there's no smoke but you're trapped. A slow burning withering up through your ankles and calcifying in your gut. You lean against the trunk and listen to the sap and the sway of the leaves. You smell like shit and haven't shaved. Another cigarette's an eye in cold flesh, an orange prophet crying words you can't hear and wouldn't want to. The man on the corner wants your change.
Soon you'll have to limp home wherever that is tonight. Take a train and hold a hood over your eyes but you're not Tiresias and you can see everything. The light hurts. Ren can wait another night. This was important, to see... to see... He's not important tonight. You don't want to think about it. You're full of cotton and parts of you are ripping away to the hurtling dark. There will be stairs to climb and water to drink and maybe it'll be okay. Smoke a little to take the edge off, it'll be fine.
Everything will be fine.
Your liver hurts. You drop yourself on a stoop and reach for a cigarette, ignoring the slight tremor. Glassy-eyed, you take quick drags but hold the smoke back feeling heat feeling searing that never reaches a white peak. Snow behind your eyes, swimming in a clear fog that undulates like molten glass without the color.
They pass by on all sides and you don't look at them.
You turned your phone off because you don't want to be found. You can touch your ragged breath. The trains underneath quiver and shock your planted feet. You think about following them, chasing the fleeting red light into a maze of rusted pipe and concrete covered in orange and blue – Fick die Amerikaner, G. ist eine Hure, Ich bin der einzelne König... The last king of nowhere riding glass and scattered pebbles into something at the heart of it all. Speed moving in slow circles, recursive time.
Your cigarette's out and you pull yourself to the trees overhead. It's late spring and the air is still warm. You think about the things that have passed you by and take another drink from your pocket, a second of warmth dissolving in the mist. The voices come and go in clouds against the wind. Now it's hazy dark and everyone else is laughing and you're out of bitterness.
The city's on fire and there's no smoke but you're trapped. A slow burning withering up through your ankles and calcifying in your gut. You lean against the trunk and listen to the sap and the sway of the leaves. You smell like shit and haven't shaved. Another cigarette's an eye in cold flesh, an orange prophet crying words you can't hear and wouldn't want to. The man on the corner wants your change.
Soon you'll have to limp home wherever that is tonight. Take a train and hold a hood over your eyes but you're not Tiresias and you can see everything. The light hurts. Ren can wait another night. This was important, to see... to see... He's not important tonight. You don't want to think about it. You're full of cotton and parts of you are ripping away to the hurtling dark. There will be stairs to climb and water to drink and maybe it'll be okay. Smoke a little to take the edge off, it'll be fine.
Everything will be fine.
4.08.2009
A Great Day for Equality
If you had told me this two or three years ago, I would have believed it to be fiction. But today, Vermont joined three other states in granting full equality in marriage to gays and lesbians. Vermont joins Massachusetts (so proud to live here), Connecticut, and Iowa (IOWA!!!) in allowing individuals to marry the person whom he or she loves. More importantly, the measure was approved by the Vermont legislature, representing the first instance of legislated equality on this issue (in MA, CT, and IA, state Supreme Courts struck down statutes limiting marriage to the union between a man and a woman). More importantly, the Vermont legislature mustered two-thirds majorities in both houses to override Gov. Jim Douglas's veto; the winning coalitions involved Democrats, Republicans, and Progressives.
This a huge moment for a number of reasons. One, the fact that both Iowa and Vermont recognized same-sex marriage within a week of each other gives some momentum to the equality movement -- as residents of these two states discover, as Massachusetts and Connecticut residents have, that LGBT people pose neither a threat to the institution of marriage nor to civilization, attitudes toward LGBT people will improve, and the "hot-button issue" of gay marriage will lose saliency as a political wedge tactic.
Moreover, the fact that Vermont legalized gay marriage entirely through the legislative process deprives the right-wing fearmongers and bigots of one of their primary talking points and faux justifications of maintaining inequality -- that "liberal activist" judges were responsible for overturning the will of the people. The fine senators and representatives of the Vermont state legislature represent the will of the people. You can almost hear the sound of exploding heads in the RedState/FreeRepublic crowd as they flail about for some justification to perpetuate discrimination that doesn't amount to their true reason: bigotry, ignorance, and selective readings of religious texts.
Finally, Iowa and Vermont show that hatred and discrimination against the LGBT community will die out year by year, as support for LGBT equality soars in the under 45 age bracket (I saw another poll elsewhere that had broader crosstabs, which really show strong support for gay marriage in the under 30 crowd, but despite about half an hour of searching, I couldn't find it, so we'll stick with the CBS poll). To my generation, this isn't an issue, and with each passing year, more of my generation votes and determines the course of the nation. To sum up what Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said to a Republican lawmaker seeking to start the process of amending the state consitution to reverse the court's ruling, "You've already lost."
This a huge moment for a number of reasons. One, the fact that both Iowa and Vermont recognized same-sex marriage within a week of each other gives some momentum to the equality movement -- as residents of these two states discover, as Massachusetts and Connecticut residents have, that LGBT people pose neither a threat to the institution of marriage nor to civilization, attitudes toward LGBT people will improve, and the "hot-button issue" of gay marriage will lose saliency as a political wedge tactic.
Moreover, the fact that Vermont legalized gay marriage entirely through the legislative process deprives the right-wing fearmongers and bigots of one of their primary talking points and faux justifications of maintaining inequality -- that "liberal activist" judges were responsible for overturning the will of the people. The fine senators and representatives of the Vermont state legislature represent the will of the people. You can almost hear the sound of exploding heads in the RedState/FreeRepublic crowd as they flail about for some justification to perpetuate discrimination that doesn't amount to their true reason: bigotry, ignorance, and selective readings of religious texts.
Finally, Iowa and Vermont show that hatred and discrimination against the LGBT community will die out year by year, as support for LGBT equality soars in the under 45 age bracket (I saw another poll elsewhere that had broader crosstabs, which really show strong support for gay marriage in the under 30 crowd, but despite about half an hour of searching, I couldn't find it, so we'll stick with the CBS poll). To my generation, this isn't an issue, and with each passing year, more of my generation votes and determines the course of the nation. To sum up what Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal said to a Republican lawmaker seeking to start the process of amending the state consitution to reverse the court's ruling, "You've already lost."
4.07.2009
Delays
Was out of town over the weekend, and have been working on a longer piece that's crowded out the smaller ones. Hope to post it tomorrow.
3.28.2009
Too many months of cold dark... there's water dripping but he can't see it. The chill is familiar, it hides in his bones. The smell of old water lingers and curls, threading down the hacked stone and collecting somewhere behind the shadow. This is the price you pay. This is the price you pay. The words ring hollow but not empty. The man in the suit said them so they must be true.
K. shivers and clutches at his threadbare blanket. Every muscle aches, every pore cries for something that isn't there. The tremors can't be ignored. His brain tells his limbs to move when there's no operant stimulus, no tangible goal, and he wonders if it will get worse. His belly's on fire and sleep seems so far away. What time is it out there he wonders, is there still a sun? What happened to everyone else. The man in the suit says they're dead, but he can't be telling the truth. It was never about the man in the suit or his fellow-travelers. What was it about K. wonders.
No voices for almost a week. At least it seems like it's been a week. Hard to tell. The meal tray comes and there's scant nourishment for another lightless day. The panic comes slowly and imperceptibly. Washington, 1789-1797, Adams I 1797-1801, Jefferson, 1801-1809, Madison, 1809-1817... As long as there are names and dates, they were real. The man in the suit said that names and dates are as fickle as the wind, but he has a name and a date somewhere, and even if they change it later, on his deathbed wheezing and small, he'll know the terminus.
He crouches down on the frozen stone and thinks about explosions and shattering, the stillborn dream of justice and the wasted blood. There should be anger, but it ebbed away long ago. Maybe all that remains is defiance for its own sake. I have no other weapons.
K. shivers and clutches at his threadbare blanket. Every muscle aches, every pore cries for something that isn't there. The tremors can't be ignored. His brain tells his limbs to move when there's no operant stimulus, no tangible goal, and he wonders if it will get worse. His belly's on fire and sleep seems so far away. What time is it out there he wonders, is there still a sun? What happened to everyone else. The man in the suit says they're dead, but he can't be telling the truth. It was never about the man in the suit or his fellow-travelers. What was it about K. wonders.
No voices for almost a week. At least it seems like it's been a week. Hard to tell. The meal tray comes and there's scant nourishment for another lightless day. The panic comes slowly and imperceptibly. Washington, 1789-1797, Adams I 1797-1801, Jefferson, 1801-1809, Madison, 1809-1817... As long as there are names and dates, they were real. The man in the suit said that names and dates are as fickle as the wind, but he has a name and a date somewhere, and even if they change it later, on his deathbed wheezing and small, he'll know the terminus.
He crouches down on the frozen stone and thinks about explosions and shattering, the stillborn dream of justice and the wasted blood. There should be anger, but it ebbed away long ago. Maybe all that remains is defiance for its own sake. I have no other weapons.
3.27.2009
Spitflare and lime-green exploding in mid-air, a shower of incandescence pouring out on the dark ground, the river punctuated by bursts of ephemeral light wisping away in the wounded sky. Summer days, saliva days, sunburned and truculent. Beer in the cooler and it's all right.
The crowds move down seventh street to get a better view. Kaleidoscope eyes and frantic calm waiting for the next big one. The rat man is here and he's got his doberman, mean motherfucker tore up that kid over on Church but the owner got out of the lawsuit. Says the kid provoked him and had a better lawyer. Smoking a cigar in a chain link fence, low house empty and dark. Got tons of shit in there to sell they say. The old neighborhood is shit and the clouds are moving in but tonight's a break, a time for wonder and exuberance. Finale's coming on strong and it's a hurricane in purple and gold, a sky for Persian kings and myrrh. July wind blowing hot breath lifting skirts and scattering paper and old newspapers.
Jen's on the hill with a Bud sketched in grey and silver watching the boats on the river, red lights burning in the deep. The rest of the group's waiting for the big shine, laughing at the men with moustaches and the old people. When's the bonfire a pale-faced girl asks feels the flush of beer and the suspension of time. We'll meet up at my place someone yells and the rockets bathe him in crimson light. There's no moon but no one minds.
The crowds move down seventh street to get a better view. Kaleidoscope eyes and frantic calm waiting for the next big one. The rat man is here and he's got his doberman, mean motherfucker tore up that kid over on Church but the owner got out of the lawsuit. Says the kid provoked him and had a better lawyer. Smoking a cigar in a chain link fence, low house empty and dark. Got tons of shit in there to sell they say. The old neighborhood is shit and the clouds are moving in but tonight's a break, a time for wonder and exuberance. Finale's coming on strong and it's a hurricane in purple and gold, a sky for Persian kings and myrrh. July wind blowing hot breath lifting skirts and scattering paper and old newspapers.
Jen's on the hill with a Bud sketched in grey and silver watching the boats on the river, red lights burning in the deep. The rest of the group's waiting for the big shine, laughing at the men with moustaches and the old people. When's the bonfire a pale-faced girl asks feels the flush of beer and the suspension of time. We'll meet up at my place someone yells and the rockets bathe him in crimson light. There's no moon but no one minds.
Checkmate
A beach on the northeast spire of Nantucket
“So we're here again. Same bleak coastline, jagged rocks, black surf and all, empty sky stretching out over a thousand nameless skulls - ”
“Millions, actually. Please don't shortchange me, I do take my work seriously and all,” Death interrupted.
“Millions, then. Hell, it's probably billions, but who's counting?” continued Postman undeterred.
“I am. My actuaries use the best and newest statistical methods. You fools think your representative samples can capture the germination of an idea or calculate the Zeitgeist to a reasonable degree of certainty, but in my line of work, we must have complete accuracy. None of this confidence interval garbage.”
“I'll grant you that for the time being. Just out of curiosity, say, what's, uh, the current tally? asked Postman.
“731,895,435, currently increasing at a rate of 712.3 per hour, and accelerating by 2.3% per 100 days, seasonally adjusted of course. Those, of course, represent the numbers just from your line of work, my friend, since the Sumerians, just for sake of organization. We have numbers for the preceding era as well.”
“Masterful.”
“Oh yes, we've got this business down. But let's get to the point, Postman.”
“Yes, please. I see you've brought the chessboard again. Carved ivory and onyx, and are those diamonds you've used for the eyes?”
“Yes, the finest quality, of course.”
“Of course.” Postman paused, brushing a stray hair from his face. The wind howled and swirled in icy intervals. “But why the artifice? We all know the drill, and I must confess, I'm a terrible dancer.”
“Oh you do yourself a disservice. I was speaking with Greta the other day – you remember her? college girlfriend, had that terrible car accident after you two split, and anyway, she had nothing but rave reviews for your moonwalk. The times have changed, you know, and salsa is just as good as break dancing, as far as I'm concerned.”
“Hmm, yes, that was some time ago. What's she uh, doing for you nowadays?”
“Well she always had a way with words – ”
“Very true.”
“—and we make every effort to accommodate the talent we receive. No point in wasting a gift when we need every disembodied soul we can use.”
“Efficiency, sir, I do admire it.”
“Well anyway, we've employed her as a speechwriter.”
“Oh that seems like a perfect fit. She was a fantastic columnist back in the day, you know, for the college paper. But uh, for whom exactly is she writing speeches? I can't imagine there's much in the way of politics... down there.”
“Quite right, but there certainly is plenty of politicking up here, and we do need to meet our quotas”
“Quotas? I'm afraid you've lost me.”
“Your move, Postman. Anyway, it's quite simple really. Our operation – like yours – depends on a certain rate of growth, which requires steadily increasing returns to maintain our margin. Now I'm really more of a neutral overseer. I don't deal with the division that Greta's been assigned to. I prefer to keep my hands dry and clean, if you follow me. But anyway, there's a segment of our operation whose responsibility is quite simply to ensure that we hit our target numbers. That's all.”
“I still don't quite follow. My firm's growth is based on sales, procuring government contracts, bribing politicians and the like, but we're still subject to the shareholders and still have to produce something,” Postman replied.
“Quite right. And – “ Death winked slyly at Postman – “We are after all in the same general industry. Greta's division is responsible for ensuring that we hit our numbers. Think of her as a PR person. Certainly you employ those too.”
“Oh hundreds of them, lobbyists too.”
“Naturally. Greta's one of our stars actually. She cut her teeth with that Milosevic fellow, did some fine work there, we were all quite impressed. Since then, she's been staffed with the old fart from Zimbabwe – what was his name?”
“Mugabe.”
“Ah yes, Mugabe. He's one of our top field reps. Now I, of course, don't explicitly condone any of this, you see, but the most important thing is to make sure we hit your numbers. As a man of industry, you must understand.”
“Yes, it makes more sense now. So why have you brought me here? Check, by the way.”
“Mm, yes, but you left your knight exposed. Well, we've been in business a while here now, and I'm thinking of taking you on as a sort of personal assistant.”
“I'm listening.”
“Well it's a good position. Excellent pay, the best benefits, plenty of deferred stock option – don't you think for a second that the underworld has experienced a real estate bubble. You want a villa on the banks of the Cocytus? Not cheap, my friend. You need connections and a good pile of oboloi.”
“What are the responsibilities?”
“Given your expertise, I was thinking of using you as a chief liaison to the U.S. Defense Department. Your contacts would be invaluable.” Death paused for a moment, focusing intently on the chessboard. With a flourish of his blanched wrist, he deftly knocked Postman's king off the board and to the ground. The piece and the board slowly ebbed to a pale mist and evaporated. “Checkmate!”
“It would seem so. Say, what about my wife and kids?”
“Oh they're not going anywhere for a time – think of it as providing for their future. You'll have a good –“ Death pulls out a weathered black notebook and flips nimbly through the yellowed pages “—a good twenty years before you have to worry about her, and the kids have much more time. And just think – you'll be working closely with Greta and the P.R. department, and there's no place like hell to strike up an old flame,” Death chuckles.
“Well said, well said! A scotch?”
“Please.”
Postman pulled a bottle of Laphroaig 18-year and two whiskey glasses out a brown leather satchel that had been resting behind his chair. He calmly poured out two doubles – neat – and handed one to Death. Taking long slow sips, Postman stared out across the grey sea. After a short time, Death stood up, reached out a bony hand, and asked, “So do we have a deal?”
“It certainly looks that way.”
“Brilliant. Welcome aboard. We'll take my private plane.”
“So we're here again. Same bleak coastline, jagged rocks, black surf and all, empty sky stretching out over a thousand nameless skulls - ”
“Millions, actually. Please don't shortchange me, I do take my work seriously and all,” Death interrupted.
“Millions, then. Hell, it's probably billions, but who's counting?” continued Postman undeterred.
“I am. My actuaries use the best and newest statistical methods. You fools think your representative samples can capture the germination of an idea or calculate the Zeitgeist to a reasonable degree of certainty, but in my line of work, we must have complete accuracy. None of this confidence interval garbage.”
“I'll grant you that for the time being. Just out of curiosity, say, what's, uh, the current tally? asked Postman.
“731,895,435, currently increasing at a rate of 712.3 per hour, and accelerating by 2.3% per 100 days, seasonally adjusted of course. Those, of course, represent the numbers just from your line of work, my friend, since the Sumerians, just for sake of organization. We have numbers for the preceding era as well.”
“Masterful.”
“Oh yes, we've got this business down. But let's get to the point, Postman.”
“Yes, please. I see you've brought the chessboard again. Carved ivory and onyx, and are those diamonds you've used for the eyes?”
“Yes, the finest quality, of course.”
“Of course.” Postman paused, brushing a stray hair from his face. The wind howled and swirled in icy intervals. “But why the artifice? We all know the drill, and I must confess, I'm a terrible dancer.”
“Oh you do yourself a disservice. I was speaking with Greta the other day – you remember her? college girlfriend, had that terrible car accident after you two split, and anyway, she had nothing but rave reviews for your moonwalk. The times have changed, you know, and salsa is just as good as break dancing, as far as I'm concerned.”
“Hmm, yes, that was some time ago. What's she uh, doing for you nowadays?”
“Well she always had a way with words – ”
“Very true.”
“—and we make every effort to accommodate the talent we receive. No point in wasting a gift when we need every disembodied soul we can use.”
“Efficiency, sir, I do admire it.”
“Well anyway, we've employed her as a speechwriter.”
“Oh that seems like a perfect fit. She was a fantastic columnist back in the day, you know, for the college paper. But uh, for whom exactly is she writing speeches? I can't imagine there's much in the way of politics... down there.”
“Quite right, but there certainly is plenty of politicking up here, and we do need to meet our quotas”
“Quotas? I'm afraid you've lost me.”
“Your move, Postman. Anyway, it's quite simple really. Our operation – like yours – depends on a certain rate of growth, which requires steadily increasing returns to maintain our margin. Now I'm really more of a neutral overseer. I don't deal with the division that Greta's been assigned to. I prefer to keep my hands dry and clean, if you follow me. But anyway, there's a segment of our operation whose responsibility is quite simply to ensure that we hit our target numbers. That's all.”
“I still don't quite follow. My firm's growth is based on sales, procuring government contracts, bribing politicians and the like, but we're still subject to the shareholders and still have to produce something,” Postman replied.
“Quite right. And – “ Death winked slyly at Postman – “We are after all in the same general industry. Greta's division is responsible for ensuring that we hit our numbers. Think of her as a PR person. Certainly you employ those too.”
“Oh hundreds of them, lobbyists too.”
“Naturally. Greta's one of our stars actually. She cut her teeth with that Milosevic fellow, did some fine work there, we were all quite impressed. Since then, she's been staffed with the old fart from Zimbabwe – what was his name?”
“Mugabe.”
“Ah yes, Mugabe. He's one of our top field reps. Now I, of course, don't explicitly condone any of this, you see, but the most important thing is to make sure we hit your numbers. As a man of industry, you must understand.”
“Yes, it makes more sense now. So why have you brought me here? Check, by the way.”
“Mm, yes, but you left your knight exposed. Well, we've been in business a while here now, and I'm thinking of taking you on as a sort of personal assistant.”
“I'm listening.”
“Well it's a good position. Excellent pay, the best benefits, plenty of deferred stock option – don't you think for a second that the underworld has experienced a real estate bubble. You want a villa on the banks of the Cocytus? Not cheap, my friend. You need connections and a good pile of oboloi.”
“What are the responsibilities?”
“Given your expertise, I was thinking of using you as a chief liaison to the U.S. Defense Department. Your contacts would be invaluable.” Death paused for a moment, focusing intently on the chessboard. With a flourish of his blanched wrist, he deftly knocked Postman's king off the board and to the ground. The piece and the board slowly ebbed to a pale mist and evaporated. “Checkmate!”
“It would seem so. Say, what about my wife and kids?”
“Oh they're not going anywhere for a time – think of it as providing for their future. You'll have a good –“ Death pulls out a weathered black notebook and flips nimbly through the yellowed pages “—a good twenty years before you have to worry about her, and the kids have much more time. And just think – you'll be working closely with Greta and the P.R. department, and there's no place like hell to strike up an old flame,” Death chuckles.
“Well said, well said! A scotch?”
“Please.”
Postman pulled a bottle of Laphroaig 18-year and two whiskey glasses out a brown leather satchel that had been resting behind his chair. He calmly poured out two doubles – neat – and handed one to Death. Taking long slow sips, Postman stared out across the grey sea. After a short time, Death stood up, reached out a bony hand, and asked, “So do we have a deal?”
“It certainly looks that way.”
“Brilliant. Welcome aboard. We'll take my private plane.”
3.26.2009
We shot up in your bathroom, the fluorescent light snaking around our shoulders and spilling onto the white tile floor. I caught your face in the mirror as we stepped out and your hair was a tangled mess but the eyes were on fire. We lay on the couch sucking on cigarettes in the half twilight. Outside the college girls floated by, covergirl masks grotesque in the dying light. I heard dogs barking and car horns and a rondo of angels on amphetamines. You were talking about the Gulf and the water, always the ocean with you. I feel the sand on your stomach and the salt on your skin and picture the clouds skating across the cutting azure.
I'm transported to the tall grass on Lake Michigan, ten years old, scrambling in the icy surf grabbing shells eyes closed in the red lidless glare of a summer sun. Alone for a moment while my parents took the dog to the other side, I hoard my bits of crab, the green bottle glass worn down to jade by the cold and the waves. The gulls cry, and I imagine myself on an island far out in the lake, where rusted ships rest their bony remains. A forgotten island of gulls sand crusted in white shit, a cacophony of feathers and silence. I'm the emperor of the birds.
Back to your place and it's nighttime now. We smoke before we leave and you're impressed by my rings, laughing as you cough and I laugh too. We bundle up and head out into the dark, counting block by block to make sure we haven't gone too far, trying not to sway and laughing at everything. For a moment the world is perfect, the halos around the streetlamps a blinding second of eternity, the shattered glass a curbside symphony.
When we get back, I ask if I can crash here and it's ok. We take off our coats and settle in, your hair scattered across my chest.
I'm transported to the tall grass on Lake Michigan, ten years old, scrambling in the icy surf grabbing shells eyes closed in the red lidless glare of a summer sun. Alone for a moment while my parents took the dog to the other side, I hoard my bits of crab, the green bottle glass worn down to jade by the cold and the waves. The gulls cry, and I imagine myself on an island far out in the lake, where rusted ships rest their bony remains. A forgotten island of gulls sand crusted in white shit, a cacophony of feathers and silence. I'm the emperor of the birds.
Back to your place and it's nighttime now. We smoke before we leave and you're impressed by my rings, laughing as you cough and I laugh too. We bundle up and head out into the dark, counting block by block to make sure we haven't gone too far, trying not to sway and laughing at everything. For a moment the world is perfect, the halos around the streetlamps a blinding second of eternity, the shattered glass a curbside symphony.
When we get back, I ask if I can crash here and it's ok. We take off our coats and settle in, your hair scattered across my chest.
3.24.2009
That was the tarragon summer – lying in open terror falling through empty sky. Sometimes we'd sneak out in the middle of the night to the bluff just to hear the churning silence, the waking leaves and broken stars. On our backs in the hazy blackness discussing Nixon and the war, and what turning eighteen would mean. I'd share a pack of cigarettes I stole from Allard's, and we'd smoke and cough, two orange eyes darting and weaving.
Your brother came back in July solitude to kick cans in dusty alleys and sell us cheap weed. The night before he shot himself we went down to the pond and passed a joint to the fireflies all radiant and dizzy. The moon reeled and pitched on the water, still bathwater warm. You showed me the scar – a grinning purplish thing snaking along your right shoulder, a gift from the old man.
You young thing, I was so much older than you even then. I knew your secrets. When the world cracked and splintered – when they found his drained shell on the bathroom floor and blamed you fair little thing, all wide luminous eyes, narrow shoulders, and high cheekbones – I knew you'd come to me. Knew we'd stall in breathless silence fumbling toward some kind of light, that your tears would burn my tongue, that the world was too small, a pinprick lost in this swelling thing billowing out suddenly within me.
When the dawn light touched the tarragon, we push south toward the sea, together.
Your brother came back in July solitude to kick cans in dusty alleys and sell us cheap weed. The night before he shot himself we went down to the pond and passed a joint to the fireflies all radiant and dizzy. The moon reeled and pitched on the water, still bathwater warm. You showed me the scar – a grinning purplish thing snaking along your right shoulder, a gift from the old man.
You young thing, I was so much older than you even then. I knew your secrets. When the world cracked and splintered – when they found his drained shell on the bathroom floor and blamed you fair little thing, all wide luminous eyes, narrow shoulders, and high cheekbones – I knew you'd come to me. Knew we'd stall in breathless silence fumbling toward some kind of light, that your tears would burn my tongue, that the world was too small, a pinprick lost in this swelling thing billowing out suddenly within me.
When the dawn light touched the tarragon, we push south toward the sea, together.
2.06.2009
An Elegy for Rockford, IL.
(cross-posted on DailyKos)
I grew up in Rockford, Ill. A smallish city, 160k in the city limits as of the last census, about 300k in the "metro area." I was lucky enough to get out of there -- went to public high school, a son of thoroughly middle-class parents who sacrificed a lot to pay for my education, probably more than I'll ever know, for which I'm eternally grateful. Rockford is a great place, or has been. About an hour from downtown Chicago, Rockford is the real Midwest, full of kind people with Midwestern accents, the children of Swedish, Norwegian, and German immigrants, long accustomed to hard work with little credit.
Intro
You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.
I grew up in Rockford, Ill. A smallish city, 160k in the city limits as of the last census, about 300k in the "metro area." I was lucky enough to get out of there -- went to public high school, a son of thoroughly middle-class parents who sacrificed a lot to pay for my education, probably more than I'll ever know, for which I'm eternally grateful. Rockford is a great place, or has been. About an hour from downtown Chicago, Rockford is the real Midwest, full of kind people with Midwestern accents, the children of Swedish, Norwegian, and German immigrants, long accustomed to hard work with little credit.
I spent the first eighteen years of my life in Rockford, grew up on the relatively prosperous northeast side, but worked in high school at the town paper in the heart of downtown. I'd take my girlfriends in high school down to the quai off Market St. to sit and watch the lights glimmering on the Jefferson St. bridge -- a bit of transcendent wonder in an otherwise thoroughly middle America kind of place, where churches are rampant and "morality" means something. I was raised Baptist here and attended a Lutheran church before losing religion for good. My immediate family remains evangelical, and are not bad people merely by that fact. Deeply-held Christianity is like anything else -- it can be cruel and it can be kind. My mother believes that homosexuality is a mortal sin, but would welcome anyone in need into her home. Faith is never simple.
Rockford is a strange sort of town. About ten miles out is a Chrysler plant, where my uncle worked for about 35 years before retiring with a pension. His wife -- my aunt -- and he both have cancer, and receive their care through the company's health benefits. Were it not for his long years on the line, he wouldn't have care right now when he most needs it. My father has worked on the managerial side of manufacturing his whole life -- he currently works for a family-owned business in Elgin, Ill., a distant suburb of Chicago, and a 50-or-so minute commute from Rockford. He had a kidney stone last summer, was between jobs, couldn't afford COBRA, and paid about $5k out of pocket to get treatment for a simple procedure.
Rockford used to be prosperous. A long time ago, we manufactured screws and fasteners -- the Sundstrand plant supplied NASA. The Swedish immigrants developed one of the nation's best and most prosperous furniture industries. When America made goods, Rockford did well. The West side of Rockford used to boom, full of churning factories employing earnest workers paid well for their labor. When I was born in 1985, Rockford was a thriving community, a middle class haven, where hard workers could earn a solid wage with good benefits. Parents needn't worry then -- a strong work ethic and a high school diploma was enough to ensure the next generation's prosperity. As American labor became superfluous and too expensive, Rockford suffered. The plants closed, the jobs went elsewhere, and the Walmarts and box retailers took over State St. to the east, offering the spoils of the consumer economy to those fortunate enough to still have well-paying jobs.
Downtown stagnated. Shops closed. The West side became a haven for crime and drug-dealing as desperation set in. The downtown is beautiful and desolate. Rockford sits on the Rock River (hence its name) and is plsnning on inviting a waterfront casino and building a riverwalk to staunch the bleeding, but no one believes that that will save this city. Once a year, we host a music festival -- On the Waterfront -- which draws large crowds from the greater Illinois area, and momentarily revives an otherwise moribund series of 1890s buildings, where farmers once bartered for seed. Rockford is a quintessential Midwest manufacturing town that bears some responsibility for not adapting to the times, but accepts the fate of neglect by those in power, whose agenda did not include skills training or investment in flagging communities. The well-paid Rockfordians earn their wages in the Chicago suburbs; the bright graduates of Rockford's public schools move on to the University of Illinois -- if they can afford it -- and quickly move into the Chicago sphere of influence, finding what jobs they can in marketing, sales, consulting, et al. No one who can avoid staying in Rockford does, myself included.
Meanwhile, Rockford suffers. My high school friends find themselves working low-paying jobs in town, unable to leave and unable to stay, lacking health care or a sustainable future. My first real girlfriend works as a special ed teacher in a horrendously underfunded school district, where she can only pray for tenure and hope that the beleaguered state budget will find room to keep her in work. Winnebago County, of which Rockford is the seat, has the highest unemployment rate in the state: http://lmi.ides.state.il.us/... (county maps on the top right, pdf.) 12% unemployment in Winnebago county.
Rockford is not yet Muskegon, and I dare not steal Muskegon Critic's thunder. I've read his diaries and sympathized, because our communities have a lot in common, but things in Rockford aren't that bad yet, but they're headed there. I recently became aware of a Wall Street Journal series documenting Rockford's pain, and I share it not because Rockford is unique, but because it's becoming all too typical -- a formerly prosperous community left to fend for itself. http://online.wsj.com/...
These are real hardworking people. Midwesterners are stoic, they don't complain about long hours, and they work as hard as they can. I only hope that the president keeps such communities in mind; they are the repositories and graveyards of the American dream.
I grew up in Rockford, Ill. A smallish city, 160k in the city limits as of the last census, about 300k in the "metro area." I was lucky enough to get out of there -- went to public high school, a son of thoroughly middle-class parents who sacrificed a lot to pay for my education, probably more than I'll ever know, for which I'm eternally grateful. Rockford is a great place, or has been. About an hour from downtown Chicago, Rockford is the real Midwest, full of kind people with Midwestern accents, the children of Swedish, Norwegian, and German immigrants, long accustomed to hard work with little credit.
Intro
You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.
I grew up in Rockford, Ill. A smallish city, 160k in the city limits as of the last census, about 300k in the "metro area." I was lucky enough to get out of there -- went to public high school, a son of thoroughly middle-class parents who sacrificed a lot to pay for my education, probably more than I'll ever know, for which I'm eternally grateful. Rockford is a great place, or has been. About an hour from downtown Chicago, Rockford is the real Midwest, full of kind people with Midwestern accents, the children of Swedish, Norwegian, and German immigrants, long accustomed to hard work with little credit.
I spent the first eighteen years of my life in Rockford, grew up on the relatively prosperous northeast side, but worked in high school at the town paper in the heart of downtown. I'd take my girlfriends in high school down to the quai off Market St. to sit and watch the lights glimmering on the Jefferson St. bridge -- a bit of transcendent wonder in an otherwise thoroughly middle America kind of place, where churches are rampant and "morality" means something. I was raised Baptist here and attended a Lutheran church before losing religion for good. My immediate family remains evangelical, and are not bad people merely by that fact. Deeply-held Christianity is like anything else -- it can be cruel and it can be kind. My mother believes that homosexuality is a mortal sin, but would welcome anyone in need into her home. Faith is never simple.
Rockford is a strange sort of town. About ten miles out is a Chrysler plant, where my uncle worked for about 35 years before retiring with a pension. His wife -- my aunt -- and he both have cancer, and receive their care through the company's health benefits. Were it not for his long years on the line, he wouldn't have care right now when he most needs it. My father has worked on the managerial side of manufacturing his whole life -- he currently works for a family-owned business in Elgin, Ill., a distant suburb of Chicago, and a 50-or-so minute commute from Rockford. He had a kidney stone last summer, was between jobs, couldn't afford COBRA, and paid about $5k out of pocket to get treatment for a simple procedure.
Rockford used to be prosperous. A long time ago, we manufactured screws and fasteners -- the Sundstrand plant supplied NASA. The Swedish immigrants developed one of the nation's best and most prosperous furniture industries. When America made goods, Rockford did well. The West side of Rockford used to boom, full of churning factories employing earnest workers paid well for their labor. When I was born in 1985, Rockford was a thriving community, a middle class haven, where hard workers could earn a solid wage with good benefits. Parents needn't worry then -- a strong work ethic and a high school diploma was enough to ensure the next generation's prosperity. As American labor became superfluous and too expensive, Rockford suffered. The plants closed, the jobs went elsewhere, and the Walmarts and box retailers took over State St. to the east, offering the spoils of the consumer economy to those fortunate enough to still have well-paying jobs.
Downtown stagnated. Shops closed. The West side became a haven for crime and drug-dealing as desperation set in. The downtown is beautiful and desolate. Rockford sits on the Rock River (hence its name) and is plsnning on inviting a waterfront casino and building a riverwalk to staunch the bleeding, but no one believes that that will save this city. Once a year, we host a music festival -- On the Waterfront -- which draws large crowds from the greater Illinois area, and momentarily revives an otherwise moribund series of 1890s buildings, where farmers once bartered for seed. Rockford is a quintessential Midwest manufacturing town that bears some responsibility for not adapting to the times, but accepts the fate of neglect by those in power, whose agenda did not include skills training or investment in flagging communities. The well-paid Rockfordians earn their wages in the Chicago suburbs; the bright graduates of Rockford's public schools move on to the University of Illinois -- if they can afford it -- and quickly move into the Chicago sphere of influence, finding what jobs they can in marketing, sales, consulting, et al. No one who can avoid staying in Rockford does, myself included.
Meanwhile, Rockford suffers. My high school friends find themselves working low-paying jobs in town, unable to leave and unable to stay, lacking health care or a sustainable future. My first real girlfriend works as a special ed teacher in a horrendously underfunded school district, where she can only pray for tenure and hope that the beleaguered state budget will find room to keep her in work. Winnebago County, of which Rockford is the seat, has the highest unemployment rate in the state: http://lmi.ides.state.il.us/... (county maps on the top right, pdf.) 12% unemployment in Winnebago county.
Rockford is not yet Muskegon, and I dare not steal Muskegon Critic's thunder. I've read his diaries and sympathized, because our communities have a lot in common, but things in Rockford aren't that bad yet, but they're headed there. I recently became aware of a Wall Street Journal series documenting Rockford's pain, and I share it not because Rockford is unique, but because it's becoming all too typical -- a formerly prosperous community left to fend for itself. http://online.wsj.com/...
These are real hardworking people. Midwesterners are stoic, they don't complain about long hours, and they work as hard as they can. I only hope that the president keeps such communities in mind; they are the repositories and graveyards of the American dream.
2.03.2009
On Writing, I
Writing creatively is difficult. Doing it well requires an extraordinary mixture of self-control and insanity, substance abuse and abstinence, structure and inspiration. It's like walking a tight rope on ice skates. It's a maddening industry, too. On the one hand, you have to say something new in an innovative idiom, while on the other, you have to be conventional enough not to be laughed at by the MFA industry that runs the journals. And you can't get an agent without the journals, unless you're a completely unfettered genius, which I am not.
I do think that the most important thing for an aspiring author to do is to develop a unique voice, one instantly recognizable and distinguished from all the other gaunt ramen-fed faces in the literary crowd. I think I have that step down. I lack confidence in most areas of life, from putting air in my tires to writing my congressman's most junior aide, who probably doesn't read my pleas anyway. I do, however, think that my style is fairly unique, which isn't to say it's good. Just germane to my own ghost-inhabited brain.
It's the next steps that foil me, that lead me into the valley of the shadow of impotence. Dialogue, plot construction, symbols, et al. I read Pynchon and wish that I could write a sentence with as much manic verve and straitjacket flair. I am good at creating images, because images besiege me in my waking hours and restless dreams, images of past experience, future loss, present despair and desperate hope. Sick and comic images, because humanity is ultimately a pornographic joke perhaps perpetuated by a chuckling deity, but more likely by a universe that doesn't know what to do with sentience. La Comédie humaine -- that's the real story, but how to tell it?
I require a certain tableau to do my best work. It happens between the hours of midnight and five in a darkened room with only candlelight and the unsleeping glow of my laptop, Thomas Tallis or Hildegard von Bingen at loud volumes, cheap red wine, and some sort of smoke, legal or otherwise. I read an interview with Philip Roth the other day. A page a day is his goal, which is admirable and worth imitating. I have set a goal of 2000 words a day, blogging excepted. Yet the man works in the morning post-workout, and can write ten pages in a day when the spirit takes him. This I do not understand. I feel only the Dionysian, the flushed exhilaration of sudden inspiration, the tongues of flame that descend at their appointed time. But I know that this will to creation is ultimately a call to a sort of self-immolation. The lasting drive to surrender oneself to some sort of inspiration, be it from the angels or from Mephistopheles. The latter worked for Leverküsen at least.
I do think that the most important thing for an aspiring author to do is to develop a unique voice, one instantly recognizable and distinguished from all the other gaunt ramen-fed faces in the literary crowd. I think I have that step down. I lack confidence in most areas of life, from putting air in my tires to writing my congressman's most junior aide, who probably doesn't read my pleas anyway. I do, however, think that my style is fairly unique, which isn't to say it's good. Just germane to my own ghost-inhabited brain.
It's the next steps that foil me, that lead me into the valley of the shadow of impotence. Dialogue, plot construction, symbols, et al. I read Pynchon and wish that I could write a sentence with as much manic verve and straitjacket flair. I am good at creating images, because images besiege me in my waking hours and restless dreams, images of past experience, future loss, present despair and desperate hope. Sick and comic images, because humanity is ultimately a pornographic joke perhaps perpetuated by a chuckling deity, but more likely by a universe that doesn't know what to do with sentience. La Comédie humaine -- that's the real story, but how to tell it?
I require a certain tableau to do my best work. It happens between the hours of midnight and five in a darkened room with only candlelight and the unsleeping glow of my laptop, Thomas Tallis or Hildegard von Bingen at loud volumes, cheap red wine, and some sort of smoke, legal or otherwise. I read an interview with Philip Roth the other day. A page a day is his goal, which is admirable and worth imitating. I have set a goal of 2000 words a day, blogging excepted. Yet the man works in the morning post-workout, and can write ten pages in a day when the spirit takes him. This I do not understand. I feel only the Dionysian, the flushed exhilaration of sudden inspiration, the tongues of flame that descend at their appointed time. But I know that this will to creation is ultimately a call to a sort of self-immolation. The lasting drive to surrender oneself to some sort of inspiration, be it from the angels or from Mephistopheles. The latter worked for Leverküsen at least.
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