Things That Will Not Happen

By in imponderabilia No Comments

President Obama Must Free Leonard Peltier

Oh-ho! Must he, now? (Or what? You won’t vote for him again?) Yes, I’m sure he’ll get right on that, given his appetite for confrontation and his steadfast refusal to be bullied by people who think anyone to the left of Mussolini is a communist (though, goodness me, wouldn’t it be fun to see the apoplectic reaction from the right wing if he did.)

I remember people being optimistic that another charismatic young Democratic president would free Peltier. I was at a concert/rally back in 1994, where the excellent band Red Thunder performed. I didn’t really believe anything would come of the trip up to D.C. the following day, but at least one cool thing occurred: a kindly, elderly man came up to my table, shook my hand and thanked me for coming, asked me my name, where I was from, and so on, before introducing himself as Dennis Banks. (I believe I responded with something brilliant like, “Ah gur duh hoouh…”)

Ho-lee shit.

Haven’t washed that hand since!

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret

By in prying eyes, work, writing No Comments

For secrets are edged tools
And must be kept from children and from fools

— John Dryden

I am — yet what I am, none cares or knows

— John Clare

The gauntlet has been thrown down!

Some bloggers who post under their real names say that those who write under pseudonyms have something to hide or don’t want to be held accountable to their audiences.

Heather B. Armstrong, who was fired from her job after her employer discovered her blog, Dooce, where she posted under her real name, said there are few valid reasons a blogger should veil his or her identity.

“I think if you’re doing something anonymously you’ve got some issues going on,” she said. “There’s a reason that you’re hiding.”

“If you’re not doing anything wrong, what are you so afraid of?” It really is a stupid argument no matter what the context, no? I would say that if you’re more obsessed with a writer’s name, address, or place of employment than whatever’s being written, you’re the one with the issues. How interesting that she doesn’t seem to feel that anyone, including herself, apparently, should be able to write anything unless they’re willing to lose their job over it. Hey, I wish we did live in a society where controversial opinions were accepted as a banal fact of life, and not something one should act ashamed of, only to be discussed with close friends behind closed doors lest they cause a fatal attack of the vapors in people unwittingly exposed to them, but given recent events, I’m not holding my breath.

I happen to be self-employed and a member of no particular standing in the community, so it’s no skin off my back if anyone knows who I am or not. No money or reputation on the line. Yet, I write pseudonymously for several reasons, not least of which being that it just doesn’t matter who I am or what I look like. Go gawk at celebrities if that’s your thing; but if you’re reading what I write, I would hope it’s because it somehow resonates with you or makes the time pass a little easier, not because you’re desperate to know where my house is or what I had for breakfast.

Largely, I wanted to have a space where I could focus on writing just for the fun of it, and possibly to even improve at it. A space where the words and ideas are everything, and the person behind them next to nothing. I’ve got the whole rest of the day to deal with my personal life; this is a place to escape all that for a while.

And also, to some extent, pseudonymity is my little protest against a fishbowl world where everything about everybody is a topic for discussion or a plot for a reality TV show. I’ve come to appreciate the value of sometimes seeing people as characters in an artistic sense, not specimens in a laboratory to be closely studied, poked and prodded under harsh lights. An element of mystery or surprise is important, too; knowing where not to look, what to leave unsaid. So, yes, this blog is somewhat of a project of that sort, a way to develop what’s interesting about me and leave the rest in the shadows.

Mozart

By in music, the big sleep No Comments

Apparently Mozart died of strep throat

Even as a kid, Mozart was always appealing to me. My gateway drug into the world of classical music. I’ve always thought it was odd, because if I had never heard a note of any composer and had to rely on written descriptions and impressions, I would think “Yeah, Beethoven sounds like the guy for me.” And I do like a lot of his work, but I always found Mozart a little more compelling, and could never understand why some people didn’t hear more depth to his music.

I would try to say something worthy of the great man’s almost-incomprehensible talent, but luckily, my friend Arthur said something eloquent in an email exchange last year that beats anything I could come up with (in reference to his clarinet quintet in A major):

This is one of my favorites. Absolutely right about Mozart. It’s not Mozart who’s superficial, it’s people who think he is. There’s great sadness in this quintet (written, I think, in the last year of his life), but the complete absence of self-pity and emotional exaggeration makes it too subtle for many people to notice it’s there. There’s great consolation, too. This is someone who has suffered, but his devotion to his craft and his delight in his own inexhaustible inventiveness take precedence over self-dramatization. The more familiar you become with the milieu in which he composed — the cookie-cutter classicism of his day, with its bland, homophonic textures (studiously avoiding the complex counterpoint of Bach) and standardized orchestration, the clearer and more deeply gratifying Mozart’s subtle but consistent pushings of the envelope become. None of the bang-crash-boom of Beethoven (whom I of course also revere, but not as much as Mozart), just constant delight and surprise at his turns of thought, his remarkable ear for sonic textures, his limpid but always piquant use of counterpoint. Not to mention that he is one of the great melodists of all time. It goes on and on…

The homily on Mozart and Haydn is that Haydn dances and Mozart sings. Beethoven wanted to study with Mozart but “settled” for Haydn when Mozart died. This may explain in part why dynamic rhythm plays such an important role in his music. Who knows how he would have turned out if he’d had the chance to study with Mozart?

Another favorite piece here.

Babble Babble Bitch Bitch

By in antisocial media, fresh hell, language No Comments

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

— Thoreau

40% of Twitter messages ‘pointless babble’: study

That’s all? I suspect a generous allowance of wiggle room when it comes to defining “pointless”, given the amount of mind-numbing trivia that makes up most conversations. At any rate, I’m still amazed at how many people I know who initially rolled their eyes at Twitter only to shamefacedly admit to having joined shortly thereafter. I can barely find enough stuff I feel is interesting enough to comment on, leaving aside the immense problem of trying to find an interesting way to do it. I can’t imagine subjecting anyone to my random, passing thoughts and other assorted mental effluvia, and I shudder to think how desolate of a life one would have to have to even want the experience!

For some reason, I don’t get invited to many parties.

Don’t Get Sick

By in augean stables, jests japes jokes jollies, waiting for the barbarians No Comments

The Cajun Cryptkeeper says we should let Republicans win the fight over health care reform because —

g i a n t
 
l e a p
 
o f
 
l o g i c
— it will lead to Mo-Betta Democrats™, who will —
f r e e – f a l l
 
i n t o
t h e
c a n y o n
 
o f
w i s h f u l
t h i n k i n g

— be forced to come up with new ways to justify doing nothing, I suppose.

That’s assuming that the Bullshit Strategy doesn’t work, though.

Fuck Michael Vick

By in animals, ohferfucksake No Comments

Fuck Michael Vick. Fuck that slackjawed, retarded, beady-eyed bastard with a fucking chainsaw. How is getting paid millions to play football a chance to “prove he’s doing the right thing?” If you want to do the right thing, find a way to travel back in time and abort the motherfucker with a rusty coathanger; otherwise, let this useless piece of shit spend the rest of his life in anonymity, getting paid minimum wage to hose out kennels at the SPCA.

Ah, but he’s been “speaking across the country.” Well, I’m sure it’s enthralling to hear a subliterate fuckhead mumble about how much he’s suffered by spending a couple years away from the NFL enhancing his street cred, so don’t do what he did, kids, wink wink. I wonder if his entreaties to avoid torturing and killing dogs are as heartfelt and convincing as his lawyer-scripted “Durr, oh, uh, yeah, and, uh, I done found me some Jesus” lines from his press conference a couple years ago.

Oh well. With any luck, he’ll end up paralyzed from the eyes down from a crunching tackle on the first snap he takes, and he can spend many happy years being wheeled down to the dog park, where all the male dogs can walk by and lift their legs on him.

…adding, hell the fuck yeah.

You, Sir, Are a Gentleman and a Scholar

By in bread and circuses, waiting for the barbarians No Comments

Personally, I tend to skip the interview portion of the show.

I’m not one of those who complain that Stewart is some kind of soulless corporate lackey because he doesn’t preach a radical Green/Marxist/anarcho-syndicalist message with his airtime, or that his show serves as a safety valve to release frustrations that would otherwise find expression in confrontational political activism (uh, this is still the Yew-Nahted States, isn’t it?) He does his thing very well, and says a lot of things that you never hear anywhere outside of the blogosphere, and I just never saw the point of griping over the obvious limitations of someone working within the system, just like I don’t pay to go watch movies starring Keanu Reeves or Mark Wahlberg only to complain about the terrible acting. You should already know what you’re getting when you sit down.

On that note, it’s certainly true that this is a guy who admitted that he would have voted for McCain over Gore in 2000, and who displays an irritating habit of forced evenhandedness (the “extremists on both sides” bit, which really pissed me off when he used that in an interview discussing abortion with Ramesh Ponnuru). He’s really not terribly “liberal”; like so many, he seems to have been slightly radicalized by the Bush years, but he’ll always rush to take potshots at official enemies like Ahmadinejad and Chavez while assuring everyone that he didn’t really mean to call a U.S. president a war criminal. Boats and apple carts will remain upright and at rest, don’t you worry.

But the sliver of idealism in me leads me to hope that he might feel a little discomfort at having bullshit artists like John “Got Milk?” Bolton and Bill Kristol – who lies like most people breathe – singing his praises. That grinning sociopath Kristol especially should be pelted with garbage and rotten fruit anytime he shows his face in public, if not on trial at the Hague for his influence on recent foreign policy. It’s perfectly possible to be “fair” to your guests without acting like old high-school buddies, and the real-world consequences of their words and actions should carry far more weight than their savoir vivre and sense of humor.

And for fuck’s sake, Jon, enough with Doris Kearns Goodwin already, especially when you apparently can’t find time for much better guests.

Where Do I Sign?

By in non compos mentis, the big sleep No Comments

Just in case the rumors are true, and we will all be visited by Obama’s medical bureaucrat-assassins in order to inform them how we wish to die, I figure it can’t hurt to make a statement for the record, right here, right now. For all I know, maybe there are limited opportunities available for certain arrangements, and I don’t want to procrastinate on something so important. All y’all can be my witnesses, too. All right? Ready? Here it is:

I want to die by means of a lethal, heart-stopping orgasm (to be induced by a partner of my choosing, yet to be determined) while on a heroin high.

Is it official now?

Mr. Occam? Your Razor, Please

By in extraordinary popular delusions, foolosophy, the madness of crowds No Comments

A minor quibble: I can vouch that the “euthanizing old people” stuff isn’t believed exclusively by conservatives. About a week before this became news, I got one of those mass emails forwarded to me* from a professional acquaintance warning of this, and it took a few back-and forth exchanges before she finally either accepted that there was no government plan for euthanasia or just wrote me off as one of Them.

She’s not a doctrinaire conservative, although she is also a firm believer in La Reconquista being official policy of the Mexican government — for one thing, she can’t believe that the global warming denialists can be so stupid. She has no problem understanding that mega-corporations like ExxonMobil that make tens of millions in daily profits just might be tempted to lie and fudge data and generally be as obfuscatory as they can in order to keep those profits from being threatened by changes in our fossil fuel consumption (as opposed to the alternative of Al Gore being involved in a conspiracy with every reputable climatologist on Earth to destroy global capitalism and force us all to live in caves and forage for grubs and berries), but it doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that the for-profit health insurance industry might be similarly motivated (as opposed to the alternative that Obama really does have a Stalinist streak and sees a million premature old codger-deaths as just a statistic). It reminds me that Digby, some months ago, took issue with the conventional wisdom that says this country is too ideological and polarized. She suggested that often times, people aren’t ideological enough, meaning that in cases exactly like this, they haven’t even devoted a few minutes to establishing some ground rules, some basic pattern of principles underlying the rhetorical needlework of specific issues. They just go with their knee-jerk reactions. (For that matter, too often, this is also what passes for being an independent thinker, or – sigh – a “maverick”. Wild, superficial incoherence being mistaken for originality or independence.)

I believe the philosopher Forrest Gump’s maxim had it that “stupid is as stupid does,” and pace John Stuart Mill, I’m afraid I have to admit that conservatives don’t have a monopoly on stupid people (New Agers? Come on — they may be affably harmless, but have you ever met people with a worse case of reality-aversion syndrome?) Yes, different political philosophies seem to dispose one towards different types of conspiratorial thinking, but I think the underlying theme is one of being unable to think contextually, to be shockingly ignorant of current social and political realities, to think that certain events can happen like a bolt out of the blue simply because somebody wills them to happen.

*And while I’m thinking of it, how about you lazy fuckers delete the addresses of all those who received the email before forwarding it on to others? I don’t particularly care to know the last ten stops this piece of shit made before landing in my inbox. Thanks much.

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