Philosophy
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My impulse is to want to read the news, but then I hold back. I know how it’s coming down, how the world is. Reading the news brings this sharply into focus, right into my the television screen of my frontal cortex. I do not want news to be the focal point of my consciousness.
This brings to mind the latest political movie we watched, The Hunting Party. In the movie, a young aspiring journalist tells an older, successful news photographer that the journalist’s job is to be dispassionate when reporting wars. O contraire. This is the entire question of the movie. The photographer’s buddy, a kind of gonzo journalist, lost his job because of his passion and the movie is about his redemption via the quest of a Serbian war criminal.
I wonder if there are any journalists out there with passion, or if they get sorted out before they make corporate news.
So, I don’t want to focus on the news, but I don’t want to be dispassionate about the world. Traveling and having a good marriage makes me more enthusiastic about my stake in my fate. I’m starting to realize how very little power I’ve had all my life versus how empowered I am now. I have the ability to move anywhere in the world, at least for a little while. I have the ability to patronize myself in whatever endeavor I want. This stake intersects with politics because I want to be fully free. I do not want to be bound by political borders. I also want everyone else to be able to experience this freedom…
I find my tongue thick when I talk to people. I feel every word as it’s formed. When I try to speak my mind to people other than Smith, I hear myself as though there’s an echo in the room. I hear my precocity. I hear my doubt of people my age, of people any age. Having conversations requires a faith in the ability of conversation to fix things, to improve the world.
I don’t know what to do other than to have a kind of reasoned faith in myself and what I want to express. I usually feel like Wile E Coyote running over cliffs with my conversational constructs. Anything that could be said is irrelevant in the context of our creation and life in the face of the world’s total environmental destruction. Everything is said with consciousness of its existence in the shadow of terrible fact.
Lady
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Apr 18 2008 10:05 pm |
Being and
Philosophy |
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wall graffiti - foto by smithlord save me from academics.
i’m reading The Devil’s Book Of Culture - History, Mushrooms, And Caves In Southern Mexico by Benjamin Feinberg (2003 - a university of texas product).
chapter 3 begins with “In this chapter, we shall see how ‘history’ comes to be located in specific historical periods.” that’s bad writing, lazy thinking, nothing but academic double-talk.
if you can’t write without first explaining what you’re going to write, you have no business writing in the first place. it’s like voice-overs in movies - they’re signs of lack of thought, lack of talent, a bad confusing script, lack of artistic flow and control.
we’re back to that old saw: if you have talent, you do - if you have no talent, you become an academic.
i’m not running down teachers here - teachers have always been my heroes, they’re the ones that gave me hope when young, got me through this moral emptiness called society.
what worries me is these types of fuzzy thinkers and their barcode minds are teaching our young in universities. between the cheney-bush beast’s destruction of elementary education called “leave no child behind with a working brain” and this sort of stuff, we’re pretty much destroying clear independent thought in our young. of course, we may be doing them a favor - ignorance is bliss, and the world today is a vicious ugly greedy uncaring corporate place, so maybe the young are better off not thinking.
although there is a bright side to academics - reading their poetry is a great way to beat insomnia.
sometimes i feel i’m one of the few surviving minds in a world of intellectual zombies, stuck in a George Romero movie titled “Night of the Unliving Academics”.
braaaaaiiiiiinnnnnsssssss. i need brains.
“The only thing I ever get irritated about is elite intellectuals, the stuff they do I do find irritating.” - Noam Chomsky
reprise from my blog of august 29, 2007:
i’m reading The Intellectuals And The Masses - Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880-1939 by John Carey (1992). h.g. wells and d.h. lawrence wanted to kill off all brown, black and yellow people because they were spoiling the beauty of the intellectuals’ view and were causing commonism to creep into the culture. ezra pound and t.s. eliot agreed with hitler’s fascist master race ideas. intellectuals back then felt common folk should not be educated, in fact should be killed because they were diluting the intellectuals’ world and creating garbage with their suburban existence. they also felt intellectuals should rule, and be given free food and money to live.
it’s sad to see what folk i once respected actually thought.
bette davis from The Letter (1940) on tv screen - foto by smithFeb 01 2008 03:06 pm |
Philosophy |
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friend’s studio, photo by Lady
I haven’t read much about post structuralist thought but I was talking to someone who had. He said that everything is subjective - historical narratives, ideas of good and evil… something to think about.
My mind tends to reject complete subjectivity. I want to believe in an absolute reality. Yet the more I see, the more I realize how incomplete our understanding of basic human reality is. The academics, scientists and engineers all have their own very special blinders… I have an electrical engineering degree. I used to think I was hot stuff intellectually but now I realize how very blind I was. The “best” educated brains among us are those who are most brainwashed when it comes to humanitarian and historical issues. They are the ones who buy in, wholesale, to the narrative of globalization.
Our specialization is going to kill us.
I do believe in “underground” education - independent media, anti-academic works of thought. I believe in Bukowski.
State education is necessary but it’s been co-opted by authoritarians and “pragmatists.” It raises us to accept invisible chains.
Nov 29 2007 02:37 pm |
Philosophy and
Politics |
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friend’s studio - photo by lady
“Why do I feel guilty?”
You’re a good rat. Don’t worry. We’ve ordered a guilt-free brain for you.
“Hm.”
It hasn’t arrived. They’re like free range chickens. Free range brains.
“Hm. I like the idea of a guilt free brain. But people can rationalize anything, can’t they.”
One can if one is good. That’s one of my potential jobs, professions I could have. I can spin anything, no matter how ludicrous. But there’s a difference between spinning for humor and spinning for morality.
“Don’t you mean humor and exploiting something?”
I can only spin guilt-free in morality-free situations. I can’t spin right and wrong. But I can make fun of it. Especially wrong. If we all made fun of wrong, it’d go away.
“You really think so?”
Yes.
“Ah. So this is a defense for the rhetoric of ridicule…”
Not ridicule. More laughing in the *face* of. Evil don’t like to be laughed at. That’s why Dick Cheney has no sense of humor. Wait, you don’t need to write that down. We don’t need Dick Cheney.
“I like that. It’s relevant.”
I’m trying so hard not to be nasty.
“No, it’s OK to make fun of Dick Cheney. Really. He probably won’t find us and kill us…”
He did shoot his friend in the face.
“No really, I’m not afraid of Dick Cheney. Are you?”
I fear anything that moves…
“That moves?”
And even some that haven’t moved yet, like falling rocks.
“Ahhhh. I understand completely. If you’re heading for the border, you gotta cross the line. If you’re building ‘detention’ camps…”
Make the future ‘detainees’ pay for it.
“Wow. Yeah. I didn’t even think about that. You afraid to post this?”
Nope. Not. Besides, he’s a lousy shot.
(brought to you by Thin Ice Productions)
Photo by Lady
You endure and you endure and then you die. And then after you die, you either have an answer, or you don’t.
All my life I’ve tried to work things out, study the clues. Learn shit. Pay attention. Think. Analyze. Still ain’t got no answers. And I ain’t gonna get any answers. So what the pluck’s it all about?
If we’re supposed to be learning something, nobody seems to be giving us much information.
If we’re supposed to be DOING something, nobody’s giving us many clues.
Can’t just BE, because they took that away from us with advertising. We don’t even know what be IS anymore. So you gotta select one of those roles they offer you.
“Central casting?”
More or less. Good Mom. Good Provider, Good Rat, Good God. Although in this case, Good God would be Good Got, because it’s all about getting and got. That’s our gods, Getting and Got. I worship the Big ‘G.’
It’s kinda funny, the few folk on this planet know how to live are tribal islanders or northern eskimo tribes, aborigine dream timers. The only folk who have a sense of how to live, we’re killing off. We’re drowning the islanders, destroying the fertility rates of the eskimos, and just beating the aborigines to death.
So all we got left to guide us along the path of life are CEOs, politicians, television evangelists, and PR guys. Those are our gurus. I just lucked out. None of them roles they offered me ever came close to fitting.
“What roles did they offer you?”
Sacrificial son, lawyer, believer, follower, shit head.
“Shit head?”
That’s what most roles they offer you are: shit head. Be a shit head. Get ahead.
Downtown Cleveland, Photo by Lady
PRAYER FOR CALIBRATION
May I be a good listener, and a
facilitator of easy conversation.
May I be curious.
May I be neither boastful nor submissive,
controlling or rude.
May I look others in the eye and be assured
of my own worth. May I be mature, neither
look for praise nor ingratiate.
May I be patient. May I bring others
into a relaxed Now.
May I fix broken situations without
stirring the pot.
May I daily do my dream.
Lady K
Nov 15 2007 04:01 pm |
Being and
Philosophy and
Poetry |
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Barcelona - Commissioned Graffiti (photo by Lady)
UNINTENDEND CONSEQUENCES DOWN AMONG THE SINNERS
“I feel like I’m cheating, taking photographs. I’m just shooting what I see.”
But it’s what YOU see. It’s what YOU selected out of everything else going on at the time. It’s your eye. It’s just detail in somebody else’s existence.
You’re the editor. You’re taking one detail and saying, ‘Hey, this is worth looking at.’ It could be a photograph, it could be a painting, just about anything. But you’re the selector. Conductor.
* * *
You’re an attractive woman.
“I am? I’m gonna go take a look at myself.”
What do you see?
“I don’t know. A girl-woman.”
Well, you are a girl-woman. Don’t you see yourself that way in your mind?
“I guess so. Yeah. And you’re raising me.”
No, not raisin. You’re more in the grape area.
“Ha ha.”
Well, there’s my grape joke. Trouble is, it’s not tellable. I’ve got a chicken joke, and a knock-knock joke. I’ve gotta get a tellable grape joke…
“You have many.”
…of my own. I got three grape jokes.
“Uh huh?”
What’s purple and lies on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean?
“Hm?”
Moby Grape.
What’s purple and lies in the North Atlantic Ocean?
“Huh?”
Grape Britain.
“That’s terrible.”
And what’s purple, and punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison?
“Hm?”
Statutory Grape.
“That one’s OK.”
I think my favorite bad taste joke of all time is the little boy comes walking into the kitchen, licking his fingers, saying, ‘Mom, remember that soft spot in Baby’s head?’
“Ugh.”
That goes along with my own line. Children belong — in cages, or soup cans.
“That’s terrible.”
It’s absurd.
* * *
“Anyways, I think we ought to talk more about ME, the girl-woman.”
Does that mean you’re going to grow up to be a woman-woman? If you had a sex change, you’d grow up to be a man-woman.
“What is a girl-woman?”
Don’t ask me. I don’t understand women of any age or size or genus.
* * *
My ten pounds I’ve gained have gone straight to my face. Gonna have to grow my hair long and straight down, so just this thin slice of face remains.
“Is that why they grow long hair? To look thinner?”
That, and to hide. And like Veronica Lake, to look mysterious. She hid one eye behind her falling hair, and seduced you with the other.
“I don’t know. My world is so far removed from that. World no longer seems mysterious.”
It *mystifies* me.
“I have found magic in revelation. Mystery uncovered. Horror revealed, tho, too.”
Your basic magical mystery tour.
“Well, no. Cuz there’s no more mystery.”
Ah… You’re wrong. How do you think we got together?
“I followed your clues.”
They weren’t left by me.
“Oh hoh yes they were. I saw your GO AWAY mat. I thought, ‘CHALLENGE!’ You left clues. Artwork. Poetry.”
I left a lot of clues along the wayside, then.
“That’s what art is. CLUE. It’s the CLUE to YOU.”
I dare say folk put my stuff together, they’re gonna have a hard time placing me.
“You’re a scientific primitive.”
Darned right.
* * *
Ah, your fingers are cool, but not cold.
“That’s because I warm them up in my crotch.”
Aha. Finger warmers.
Barcelona (photo by Lady)
It’s hard to be a person on this planet. One of the biggest problems is that the people you love are the ones who have conceptions of who you are.
One of the biggest things Smith has taught me is that I can only be me. I can try to be completely agreeable to everyone around, but it still won’t eliminate all friction.
Smith is the Anti-hero, Anti-PC. It’s odd, because normally such folk lie right rather than left.
When we shacked up, Smith told me he’s gonna say what he’s gonna say, and I might not like it. For example, he might think a girl’s purty, so he’ll say it. And if I try to control him, tell him to not say such things, he’ll start clamming up around me, and we won’t have fluid communication.
Most people filter what they say so as to not offend. But for someone who’s trying to be honest and creatively fertile with their writing, someone who’s trying to uncork expressiveness, gloves come off.
There are drawbacks to this philosophy but there’s also a remarkable freedom.
Tremont Love Shack, Cleveland (photo by Lady K)
I’m under stress because of the ambiguity of my situation. Extremes of joy and dread. I don’t know exactly where next WHERE is or next WHAT. I would like a vacation away from the planet for a while. I want aliens to abduct us and transport us to a safe place.
I read a Hopi prophesy which comforted me, something about us all being in the river, and it’s a matter of keeping one’s head above water and celebrating with the others we meet on the ride. If I think about the river when I’m stressed I feel some relief.
Calmness is a way of dealing with events. Calm can be a decision rather than a symptom. I am me no matter where I be. Might as well enjoy it.
Here’s the Hopi Prophesy. I found it in the Green Panda Press 2007 Anthology. (Order the anthology here: http://www.myspace.com/verysharp.) The anthology also has some photos by me, and many many very good poems and stories and art. It’s a pleasant way to spend an evening, smoking and reading and thinking.
HOPI INDIAN PROPHESY
“You have been telling the people
that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell
the people that this is The Hour.
And there are things to be considered -
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create Your community.
Be good to eachother.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we must do now must be in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
- The Elders
Double cross:
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
To get revenge for the road crossing him.
West Side Market, Cleveland (photo by Lady K)
So, we going to Mexico, or Guatemala?
“Who knows? It’d be nice to see Guatemala after Mexico.”
We’re going to Guatemala, have some guacamole. Guatemalan guacamole.
I used to have a radio show at the institution, and between visits with the psychiatrists, they’d get me a microphone, and I got to be everybody.
“You never told me about the institution.”
I’m telling you now. You know why Freud said there’re no jokes?
“No, why?”
Because he was the joke.
“That’s a good reduction.”
Yes, ma’am.
“But you’ve never been in an institution. You’re lying.”
I have been in an institution.
“Yeah, penal.”
Yeah, also in the cubicle farm institution with the suits.
“Are the suits like straight jackets?”
Oh yes. So’s the desk, the briefcase, sniffing the boss’s ass. Good beta behavior to the alpha dog. Sniff sniff.
“How do you get out of the institution?”
With a passkey. Yes, I knew how to pass as sane. I walked out the door. They weren’t even sure I was there. Maybe I’m not… completely. You can just call me Some of Smith.
“You think you’re incomplete?”
Oh yes. We’re all incomplete since the Big Bang blew us apart. It was all Oneness and hunki-dory-ness before. Until the Big Bang blew us into life units. I’ve been trying to reunite with the Universe ever since. And we can’t until sub system collapse at the End, when the Universe sucks itself back Up, into One Big Pre-Puddle.
“How do you know you’re incomplete?”
I have this aching inside, this not-rightness, this lack of inner peace and satisfaction.
“I think it’s The Planetary Scream.”
That could well be. We’ve all been painted by Edvard Munch.
Essaouira, Morocco
Why did the chicken cross the road?
“To make chicken pot hole pie.”
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