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October 31, 2005
Purged of Nuance
by JeremyHere are my eleventh hour poets (that's eleventh plus five on Norm's side of the pond).
Richard Wilbur
This is a poet who lives not far from us here in Western Massachusetts. He's a guy who can intellectualize and who can also just notice. And this bucolic valley of five colleges (or four colleges and one big-ticket rave of higher learning) is a nice location for both pursuits. The following poem paints a nice picture of a moment where he lets the one part of him get dragged down the street while the other watches:
A Fire-Truck
Right down the shocked street with a
siren-blast
That sends all else skittering to the
curb,
Redness, brass, ladders and hats hurl
past,
Blurring to sheer verb,
Shift at the corner into uproarious gear
And make it around the turn in a squall
of traction,
The headlong bell maintaining sure and
clear,
Thought is degraded action!
Beautiful, heavy, unweary, loud,
obvious thing!
I stand here purged of nuance, my
mind a blank.
All I was brooding upon has taken
wing,
And I have you to thank.
As you howl beyond hearing I carry you
into my mind,
Ladders and brass and all, there to
admire
Your phoenix-red simplicity, enshrined
In that not extinguished fire.
And then there's...
...and...
Robert Frost (who also lived for a while here in Western Massachusetts).
I'll let you in on a trick I devised that enabled me to lop off the outgrowths of superfluous geniuses from this thing so I could narrow it down to a measly three. How, I asked myself, did I think each would react to the following offer: "Promise to labor at or publish no art other than books of your poetry for the rest of your life and I will give you a chest of gold doubloons." Those who would say "Let me sleep on it" would have to take a hike. Only those who would respond "so what's the catch?" would be allowed to stay in the running. Ergo: Shakespeare? Sorry Sucka.
Posted by Jeremy at 08:55 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2005
Iran's Final Solution?
by JeremyLast night I heard Jonathan Schell on the radio saying two things about nuclear proliferation: 1) that the only way to control the worldwide nuclear threat would be for the U.S. to destroy its nukes (I'm pretty sure he meant destroy ALL of the bad boys, for what what he meant is worth, since I don't think he really means what he meant) and 2) that the U.S. needs to let Iran have its nuclear power industry.
The problem with this is this:
TEHRAN, Oct. 26 - Iran's new hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a group of students at an anti-Israel event today that Israel must be "wiped off the map"
Also, I question the right of that little thug to make pronouncements regarding Israel and Palestine as though he were the moral arbiter of this civil war between Semites. I'm guessing I share more of a blood link to Palestinians than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does, so I feel empowered to suggest that he trying shutting the fuck up.
And, I'm suggesting, let's not allow him to build nuclear reactors (i.e. weapons).
Posted by Jeremy at 07:37 PM | Comments (4)
October 24, 2005
Comments Fun
by JeremyHi Friends,
I think that perhaps one or two of the comments I've recently gotten may be from actual friends of this blog, so thanks for stopping by. At the moment though, I'm getting comment-spammed because I tried to loosen up the spam filtering a bit (I loosened too much).
So if you're a real person, I'll read your real comment as soon as my head stops spinning. And if anchoragesocketsswabbing is a real person, then I apologize for banning you forever just for having an exotic name.
Feel free to email me anyone and everyone at whoknew-AT-pixeltrip-DOT-com or whoknew-AT-whoknew-DOT-us.
Posted by Jeremy at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2005
Quagmire of Ballot Counting Begins in Iraq
by JeremyAnd...Iraqis Tell of Long Hard Slog to Polls in Massive Explosion of Democratic Participation. Indeed Omar walked 4 miles to vote.
And this man-on-the-street report by Omar speaks eloquently (via this excellent roundup by Norm):
I met one friend on the way and when I asked him what would his vote be he said that he hasn’t decided yet “if I voted yes I would be approving some articles that I don’t agree with and if I voted no we would go back to where we started from…” he said and that was really refreshing because this guy who used to believe in conspiracy theories and stuff like “what America wants is what’s going to happen” now feels that his vote can make a difference.
This man-on-the-street report, by contrast, shows the elegant simplicity with which the bloodsport of pointless naysaying can be played:
"This constitution is a sham and will not prevent a civil war"
Well, you can't blame a war-weary Iraqi for being fatalistic. But in fact this pithy analysis is credited thus: "John, Boise Idaho USA." And some editor at the BBC News website thought it deserved to be the sole pull-quote in an article about today's voting in Iraq. Curious choice.
Posted by Jeremy at 04:23 PM | Comments (4)
October 09, 2005
At a Loss
by JeremyI just wanted to drop a note to say that my failure to blog about the Bali bombing and the earthquake have been due to a feeling of the futility of any words I might put together. But I think that's a mistake. At times like these I find it helpful to see that my friends still exist and that they are seeing what I'm seeing. So that's reason enough to post. And sure enough, I do still exist and my hand has covered my mouth and my eyes have glazed the same as yours.
It seems relevant to note that today was John Lennon's birthday. I say this because one of the principles he exemplified for me is the importance of simply being present. By that I mean showing up every day, opening your eyes to what's going on around you -- or thousands of miles away from you -- and having the strength of character to face how uncertain you are of what anything means and to acknowlede how useless or scared or selfish you may be feeling. Because beyond that ugly stretch of road lies something you're meant to be a part of.
Finding a way to accept as real the deaths of 30,000 people is necessary simply because it has happened. If you want to be of any use to the world then you have to accept that those 30,000 people were also of use to the world and are now gone. If there were such a thing as consciousness after death, it would be of some comfort to me to know that my death caused a person in Sri Lanka to look inside himself for an answer. Whether he'd find a suitable answer strikes me as utterly irrelevant. I wouldn't be even mildly curious about that.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
POTUS FOCUS: BOGUS SCOTUS HOCUS POCUS
by JeremyI guess my headline speaks for itself. But just to beat the point to death, what I'm saying here is that I find it funny that Bush's nominations of uncrazy conservatives to the Supreme Court are being taken by many to mean (because we can rule out that Bush might not be a fascist) that all those afternoons spent reading the Daily Kos and filling out those little forms on Moveon.org and working through that stack of newsletters and personal correspondences signed in Process Blue soy-based ink by Edward Kennedy and Bill Moyers that have been piling up on top of the laundry basket in the bathroom have finally achieved their mission of defanging the fascist war machine.
Indeed, anything fascistic that fails to happen in the next two years of Bush's presidency must be down to those pages you dog-eared in Richard Clarke's book last year, and those bumper stickers you pursed your lips over at the revolutionary bookstore and some of which, you weren't afraid to remark out loud to anyone within earshot, were "devastatingly on target."
So thanks for all that.
Posted by Jeremy at 07:17 AM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2005
Suicide Plus
by JeremyI don't know whether this person was hoping to drag a few innocent people down with him or not, but one would have thought that a suicide bombing near a crowded sporting event would at least merit immediate news coverage:
NORMAN, Okla. -- A University of Oklahoma student with "emotional difficulties" was identified Sunday as the person who apparently committed suicide near a packed football stadium using an explosive attached to his body.
The major news companies delivered this story a day or more late, and then with a kind of incurious flick of the wrist.
But, always ready to kick the shit out of breaking news, the Chronicle of Higher Education was on it.
OK, I admit the Chronicle was just as slow as the other news outfits. But honestly, what gives with the lack of interest in this story?
Posted by Jeremy at 07:32 AM | Comments (0)
