The leaves that is... and other things, but the leaves... if you live in New York City, they just go straight from green to brown and come down. You wake up one morning and it's cold. Then if you're lucky you wake up one cold morning a couple weeks later and the radiators are pissing, and the leaves are coming down and you decide maybe you should draw the curtains, not because it's cold but because your neighbors can see in once the leaves are gone. Or not. Some people never draw their curtains. That's annoying and I don't know if it's because I really don't want to see them or that I can't help but look in. This is a town of and for and by voyeurs. It's funny (not haha funny alway) that a city full of people so enrapt with their own reflections (myself included) that there is always time to peek in a few windows.
A thought on reflection: If you really want to grow weary of looking at yourself, write a memoir. You run the process first; you start at narcissism and run through fascination, discovery, revelation, mortification, Sartre-esque revulsion, weariness and finally on to stultifying tedium.
"And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire."
Is hell other people? Try looking too closely at yourself for too long and see whom you think hell is or isn't Perhaps those unshaded windows are there for a damn good reason. If you see a person on the street with the thousand yard stare, who is most certainly too young to be a Viet Nam vet, there's a good chance they've written a memoir. They've just seen too much. If you recognize it in yourself, break the gaze with the image in the mirror and get out there and start looking into other peoples' windows. Those windows are God's gift to battle-weary narcissists, navel-gazers, and assorted misfits of introspective natures.
I'm not recommending you desist entirely from self-examination. Just balance it, or most assuredly you will fuck yourself up big time.
It's easy, neighbors' open curtains notwithstanding, to fall into long spells laser sharp self-examination, self-dissection and emotional seppaku in the fall. You're more apt to find yourself alone and inside, or alone and outside and in the dark, for that matter. The season lends itself to solitude, and all the gin mills, facebook pages and cell phones can't stave off the eventual moment when you find yourself at home alone thinking. I can offer no advice for those moments, except that if you are not relatively certain of what you'll find, don't mine your past and write a memoir. Or maybe just do it a bit at a time, a child with a soup spoon digging to China, rather than the gargantuan hedgehog tunnel blaster. Take it slowly, or you may find yourself in a spot you are ill equipped to deal with.
My own memoir... I shelved it, not so much out of horror, but because I found what I needed to find, or at least enough. I've moved from the role of miner forty-niner to archivist or librarian, tagging and sorting and stowing it all away in it's proper order, where I can pull it up on demand. It's still rather chaotic at the moment but we're getting there.
There were others to consider also. The greenery turned brown and fallen, it didn't seem my place to decide whether or not their curtains were drawn or open.
But with that, the radiators are pissing, the coffee on and the forecast is dire. I've got things to do.
Selah
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Do you know what today is...
I've thought a lot about this--I suppose everybody has--of how the day should be best commemorated. It's hard not to internalize it on a personal level, and then on a national level, and so on.
I was standing on the 7th Avenue overpass of the Prospect Expressway in Brooklyn when the second plane hit and the realization with it, like a huge wind, that this was in fact a terrorist attack. A woman standing next to me, never taking her eyes off the scene said, "Huh! America just joined a much larger world community," and she gathered her children and headed for home. I had no response but felt instantly that this would be the most poignant statement I heard that day, and it was. I collected my own children from school and brought them home, no idea what was next.
So here we are, eight years later and there is no way I'm going to recap the events that have ensued since then. I was reading a petition online though, that if successful, would mark September 11th as a national holiday. I've mixed feelings on that. It's very complex really but my gut tells me that to commemorate the day as such almost trivializes it. The event stands quite apart from what I've always perceived as the nature of Independence Day, or Memorial Day, or other national holidays. It doesn't seem connected in the same way to our national identity but it's hard for me to explain.
I keep going back to what the woman on the bridge said and my instinct is that any commemoration of September 11th should be taken beyond our borders, and perhaps tied into our identity with the rest of the population of the world. In the greater scheme of horrible events--and not to demean the loss of human life by any event as it would have been horrible if there had been only one victim--the day does not make us special. We did actually become part of something bigger that day.
Perhaps we should all, everywhere, petition our leaders for a real world peace day. Maybe Worldwide Memorial for Victims of Really Pointless Horrible Shit... No seriously. I'm not making fun. Maybe International Memorial Day...
I don't really know. I'm just thinking aloud, so to speak.
I was standing on the 7th Avenue overpass of the Prospect Expressway in Brooklyn when the second plane hit and the realization with it, like a huge wind, that this was in fact a terrorist attack. A woman standing next to me, never taking her eyes off the scene said, "Huh! America just joined a much larger world community," and she gathered her children and headed for home. I had no response but felt instantly that this would be the most poignant statement I heard that day, and it was. I collected my own children from school and brought them home, no idea what was next.
So here we are, eight years later and there is no way I'm going to recap the events that have ensued since then. I was reading a petition online though, that if successful, would mark September 11th as a national holiday. I've mixed feelings on that. It's very complex really but my gut tells me that to commemorate the day as such almost trivializes it. The event stands quite apart from what I've always perceived as the nature of Independence Day, or Memorial Day, or other national holidays. It doesn't seem connected in the same way to our national identity but it's hard for me to explain.
I keep going back to what the woman on the bridge said and my instinct is that any commemoration of September 11th should be taken beyond our borders, and perhaps tied into our identity with the rest of the population of the world. In the greater scheme of horrible events--and not to demean the loss of human life by any event as it would have been horrible if there had been only one victim--the day does not make us special. We did actually become part of something bigger that day.
Perhaps we should all, everywhere, petition our leaders for a real world peace day. Maybe Worldwide Memorial for Victims of Really Pointless Horrible Shit... No seriously. I'm not making fun. Maybe International Memorial Day...
I don't really know. I'm just thinking aloud, so to speak.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Mercy, more than life
Reposted from a Facebook thread, simply because it makes sense in ways I have been unable to articulate:
"Mercy More Than Life"
Why is Universal Health Care "Un-American"?
By Rev. JIM RIGBY
Last week supporters of health-care reform gathered around the country, including in Austin, TX, where 2,000 people crowded into a downtown church to hear speakers talk about different aspects of the issue. Asked to speak about the ethical dimensions of health care, I tried to go beyond short-term political strategizing and ask more basic questions. This is an edited version of what I said.
September 02, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- Is anyone else here having trouble with the fact that we are even having this conversation? Is anyone else having trouble believing this topic is really controversial? I have been asked to talk about the ethical dimension of health care. Here’s one way to frame such a discussion:
If an infant is born to poor parents, would we be more ethical to give medicine to that child so he or she does not die prematurely of preventable diseases, or would we be more ethical if we let the child die screaming in his or her parent’s arms so we can keep more of our money?
Or, let’s say someone who worked for Enron, and now is penniless, contracted bone cancer. I’ve been asked to discuss whether we are more ethical if we provide such people medicine that lessens their pain. Or would we be more ethical to let them scream through the night in unbearable agony so we can pay lower taxes?”
I can’t believe I am standing today in a Christian church defending the proposition that we should lessen the suffering of those who cannot afford health care in an economic system that often treats the poor as prey for the rich. I cannot believe there are Christians around this nation who are shouting that message down and waving guns in the air because they don’t want to hear it. But I learned along time ago that churches are strange places; charity is fine, but speaking of justice is heresy in many churches. The late Brazilian bishop Dom Hélder Câmara said it well: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.” Too often today in the United States, if you talk about helping the poor, they call you Christian, but if you actually try to do something to help the poor, they call you a socialist.
Some of the other speakers today have been asked to address what is possible in the current political climate. I have been asked to speak of our dreams. Let me ask a question. How many of you get really excited about tweaking the insurance system so we just get robbed a little less? (silence) How many of you want universal health care? (sustained applause) I realize that insurance reform is all that’s on the table right now, and it can be important to choose the lesser of evils when that alone is within our power in the moment. But we also need to remember our dream. I believe the American dream is not about material success, not about being having the strongest military. The American dream is that every person might have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It’s amazing to hear Christians who talk about the right to life as though it ends at birth. They believe every egg has a right to hatch, but as soon as you’re born, it’s dog eat dog. We may disagree on when life begins, but if the right to life means anything it means that every person (anyone who has finished the gestation period) has a right to life. And if there is a right to life there must be a right to the necessities of life. Like health care.
I believe the American dream was not about property rights, but human rights. Consider the words of this national hymn:
“O beautiful for patriot’s dream that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.”
Doesn’t that sound like someone cared about the poor? There are those who consider paying taxes an affront, but listen to these words:
“O Beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life.”
“Mercy more than life” -- have you ever noticed those words before? Supporting universal health care does not make you socialist or even a liberal, it makes you a human being. And it makes you an ambassador for the American dream which, in the mind of Thomas Paine, was a dream for every human being, not just Americans. As we struggle to get health care to all people, we may have to settle for the lesser of two evils, but remember your dream -- the true American dream, a human dream. Whatever we win through reform is just first step toward a day when every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin. He can be reached at jrigby0000@aol.com.
"Mercy More Than Life"
Why is Universal Health Care "Un-American"?
By Rev. JIM RIGBY
Last week supporters of health-care reform gathered around the country, including in Austin, TX, where 2,000 people crowded into a downtown church to hear speakers talk about different aspects of the issue. Asked to speak about the ethical dimensions of health care, I tried to go beyond short-term political strategizing and ask more basic questions. This is an edited version of what I said.
September 02, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- Is anyone else here having trouble with the fact that we are even having this conversation? Is anyone else having trouble believing this topic is really controversial? I have been asked to talk about the ethical dimension of health care. Here’s one way to frame such a discussion:
If an infant is born to poor parents, would we be more ethical to give medicine to that child so he or she does not die prematurely of preventable diseases, or would we be more ethical if we let the child die screaming in his or her parent’s arms so we can keep more of our money?
Or, let’s say someone who worked for Enron, and now is penniless, contracted bone cancer. I’ve been asked to discuss whether we are more ethical if we provide such people medicine that lessens their pain. Or would we be more ethical to let them scream through the night in unbearable agony so we can pay lower taxes?”
I can’t believe I am standing today in a Christian church defending the proposition that we should lessen the suffering of those who cannot afford health care in an economic system that often treats the poor as prey for the rich. I cannot believe there are Christians around this nation who are shouting that message down and waving guns in the air because they don’t want to hear it. But I learned along time ago that churches are strange places; charity is fine, but speaking of justice is heresy in many churches. The late Brazilian bishop Dom Hélder Câmara said it well: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.” Too often today in the United States, if you talk about helping the poor, they call you Christian, but if you actually try to do something to help the poor, they call you a socialist.
Some of the other speakers today have been asked to address what is possible in the current political climate. I have been asked to speak of our dreams. Let me ask a question. How many of you get really excited about tweaking the insurance system so we just get robbed a little less? (silence) How many of you want universal health care? (sustained applause) I realize that insurance reform is all that’s on the table right now, and it can be important to choose the lesser of evils when that alone is within our power in the moment. But we also need to remember our dream. I believe the American dream is not about material success, not about being having the strongest military. The American dream is that every person might have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It’s amazing to hear Christians who talk about the right to life as though it ends at birth. They believe every egg has a right to hatch, but as soon as you’re born, it’s dog eat dog. We may disagree on when life begins, but if the right to life means anything it means that every person (anyone who has finished the gestation period) has a right to life. And if there is a right to life there must be a right to the necessities of life. Like health care.
I believe the American dream was not about property rights, but human rights. Consider the words of this national hymn:
“O beautiful for patriot’s dream that sees beyond the years. Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.”
Doesn’t that sound like someone cared about the poor? There are those who consider paying taxes an affront, but listen to these words:
“O Beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self their country loved and mercy more than life.”
“Mercy more than life” -- have you ever noticed those words before? Supporting universal health care does not make you socialist or even a liberal, it makes you a human being. And it makes you an ambassador for the American dream which, in the mind of Thomas Paine, was a dream for every human being, not just Americans. As we struggle to get health care to all people, we may have to settle for the lesser of two evils, but remember your dream -- the true American dream, a human dream. Whatever we win through reform is just first step toward a day when every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Rev. Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin. He can be reached at jrigby0000@aol.com.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Gowanus
Multi-culturalism is the subject of national debate (for whatever array of idiotic reasons that people feel the need to debate it), but it's hard to to argue the sheer wonder of hearing a Spanish ballad done to the tune of Loch Lomond.
I grew up listening to this song and hearing it flowing out of a storefront in Brooklyn in Spanish is a powerful trip--a nostalgic journey not at all at odds with the significance of hearing it transformed.
Wistful homesickness and longing is the same in every language.
I grew up listening to this song and hearing it flowing out of a storefront in Brooklyn in Spanish is a powerful trip--a nostalgic journey not at all at odds with the significance of hearing it transformed.
Wistful homesickness and longing is the same in every language.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
July 2009 Roundup, Part 2
July 2009, as it happens, will also go down in history as part of the summer when the nation declared open season on Hipsters.
Nobody seems to have come up with a definitive description of what exactly a hipster is or isn't. It seems rather like what the GOP used to say about pornography, "We know it when we see it." The term itself has gathered a rather broad, catch-all, meaning, becoming the most overused (and mis-used) word since Yuppie." I have, over the years, been inaccurately called a yuppie, presumably because I am white, middle-class, and work in an office. Whatever...
Everybody seems to know what a hipster is though, and rarely has any word describing a fairly innocuous idea been thrown about with such a degree of derision. Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, is now world-famous as the hipster equivalent of the Borg Collective headquarters. I was speaking with a client on the west coast, who when she found out I live in Brooklyn (a place she has admittedly never been), asked if I were a Williamsburg hipster. No, I replied with a laugh. I am a nerdy, middle-class salesman and a dad.
It wouldn't be honest to say though that I haven't had a few laughs of my own at the expense of shaggy-bearded, tattooed, pierced, mutilated and otherwise affectedly freaky looking people. Don't get me wrong! I have a fondness for freaky people. I'd prefer that they are more than freaky looking, but who am I to judge. Self-expression is a sacred entity and let those who wish to, go at it wholeheartedly. Every so often though, I allow myself some cruel fun.
And in that vein, here is a site that I've had a great deal of fun with lately, which was first sent to me from my dear friend in Pakistan (yes, it's gotten all the way out there too!):
LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTER
Ah well, it is what it is. Enjoy.
Nobody seems to have come up with a definitive description of what exactly a hipster is or isn't. It seems rather like what the GOP used to say about pornography, "We know it when we see it." The term itself has gathered a rather broad, catch-all, meaning, becoming the most overused (and mis-used) word since Yuppie." I have, over the years, been inaccurately called a yuppie, presumably because I am white, middle-class, and work in an office. Whatever...
Everybody seems to know what a hipster is though, and rarely has any word describing a fairly innocuous idea been thrown about with such a degree of derision. Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, is now world-famous as the hipster equivalent of the Borg Collective headquarters. I was speaking with a client on the west coast, who when she found out I live in Brooklyn (a place she has admittedly never been), asked if I were a Williamsburg hipster. No, I replied with a laugh. I am a nerdy, middle-class salesman and a dad.
It wouldn't be honest to say though that I haven't had a few laughs of my own at the expense of shaggy-bearded, tattooed, pierced, mutilated and otherwise affectedly freaky looking people. Don't get me wrong! I have a fondness for freaky people. I'd prefer that they are more than freaky looking, but who am I to judge. Self-expression is a sacred entity and let those who wish to, go at it wholeheartedly. Every so often though, I allow myself some cruel fun.
And in that vein, here is a site that I've had a great deal of fun with lately, which was first sent to me from my dear friend in Pakistan (yes, it's gotten all the way out there too!):
LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTER
Ah well, it is what it is. Enjoy.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
July 2009 Roundup, Part 1, Appendix B
"I'm not going to spend my life being a color."
Yep, I'm going there...
"It don't matter if you're black or white."
Here are two lines that have been quoted out of context as often as most popular excerpts from the Bible.
We are going on more than two decades now of discussion on Michael Jackson's supposed race and gender dysphoria. I won't speak for the latter, but the business about race sticks in my craw.
Consider this: Michael Jackson, like most people born black in a Eurocentric world, never once experienced the luxury of NOT being judged as a black man. I don't buy that he tried to escape it with plastic surgery, skin dying and hair straightening. Millions of other people go to great lengths to alter their appearances and rarely does anybody accuse them of being ashamed of their race... unless of course they happen to be black and famous. It's not like the accusations didn't come from all corners, and all races. There seemed to be a universal condemnation and throngs rising up to say, "Michael Jackson is ashamed to be black."
Was he?
An aside: There have been an awful lot of people over the years involved in the discourse of "what it means to be black." Conversely, there has been an awful lot of discourse in recent decades, when North American demographics are changing, on what it means to be white. Pat Buchanan is really big on that. Rush Limbaugh is really big on that. Think about it...
I will say right here that I have no business whatsoever discussing what it means to be black. You know why? Look at my picture. More white people might want to consider that. There is little more irritating than a roomful of white people discussing race and racism. It is not uncommon that if a non-white person amongst them challenges them on any aspect of the discussion, they take great offense.
Yet I'm also uncomfortable hearing black people accusing other black people of not being "black enough." Think about that for a moment and those whom you've heard lumped into this group--Bill Cosby, Bryant Gumbel, Colin Powell, Michael Jackson, and perhaps many of your friends. (****plug here for the documentary Afro-Punk**** which you should see) White people get in on this humor too. I will slap the next white person I hear call someone Uncle Tom. Seriously...
A thought from Thurgood Marshall which may lend perspective. Upon his retirement in 1991 he was asked about progress in race relations in the United States, and how he felt now traveling in the South. His response was that there was no single place in the United States, North or South, then or now, that he ever had to look at the back of his own hand first to be reminded what color he is.
I can't speak for Michael Jackson and his views on race. I know one thing: There came a point in his career when his videos were supporting MTV and he found it necessary to go before them and threaten to ex-communicate them if they continued to refuse to play other African-American artists. Being a supporting musician in the Power Station and the Thompson Twins was about as far as they had ever gone. I figure he didn't have to do that.
This isn't even really about Michael Jackson though. It's about us. Michael Jackson was only ever judged as a black man, no matter what he did cosmetically. I can't, despite any misgivings I may have about him, believe that for one instant he didn't recognize that. I don't believe there was shame... at least not about that. We all, white, black, brown and yellow, judged him as a black man. Let's be honest about that.
Yep, I'm going there...
"It don't matter if you're black or white."
Here are two lines that have been quoted out of context as often as most popular excerpts from the Bible.
We are going on more than two decades now of discussion on Michael Jackson's supposed race and gender dysphoria. I won't speak for the latter, but the business about race sticks in my craw.
Consider this: Michael Jackson, like most people born black in a Eurocentric world, never once experienced the luxury of NOT being judged as a black man. I don't buy that he tried to escape it with plastic surgery, skin dying and hair straightening. Millions of other people go to great lengths to alter their appearances and rarely does anybody accuse them of being ashamed of their race... unless of course they happen to be black and famous. It's not like the accusations didn't come from all corners, and all races. There seemed to be a universal condemnation and throngs rising up to say, "Michael Jackson is ashamed to be black."
Was he?
An aside: There have been an awful lot of people over the years involved in the discourse of "what it means to be black." Conversely, there has been an awful lot of discourse in recent decades, when North American demographics are changing, on what it means to be white. Pat Buchanan is really big on that. Rush Limbaugh is really big on that. Think about it...
I will say right here that I have no business whatsoever discussing what it means to be black. You know why? Look at my picture. More white people might want to consider that. There is little more irritating than a roomful of white people discussing race and racism. It is not uncommon that if a non-white person amongst them challenges them on any aspect of the discussion, they take great offense.
Yet I'm also uncomfortable hearing black people accusing other black people of not being "black enough." Think about that for a moment and those whom you've heard lumped into this group--Bill Cosby, Bryant Gumbel, Colin Powell, Michael Jackson, and perhaps many of your friends. (****plug here for the documentary Afro-Punk**** which you should see) White people get in on this humor too. I will slap the next white person I hear call someone Uncle Tom. Seriously...
A thought from Thurgood Marshall which may lend perspective. Upon his retirement in 1991 he was asked about progress in race relations in the United States, and how he felt now traveling in the South. His response was that there was no single place in the United States, North or South, then or now, that he ever had to look at the back of his own hand first to be reminded what color he is.
I can't speak for Michael Jackson and his views on race. I know one thing: There came a point in his career when his videos were supporting MTV and he found it necessary to go before them and threaten to ex-communicate them if they continued to refuse to play other African-American artists. Being a supporting musician in the Power Station and the Thompson Twins was about as far as they had ever gone. I figure he didn't have to do that.
This isn't even really about Michael Jackson though. It's about us. Michael Jackson was only ever judged as a black man, no matter what he did cosmetically. I can't, despite any misgivings I may have about him, believe that for one instant he didn't recognize that. I don't believe there was shame... at least not about that. We all, white, black, brown and yellow, judged him as a black man. Let's be honest about that.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
July 2009 Roundup, Part 1, Appendix A
A placeholder--my last missive came across as far more angry and embittered than I had intended. Just wanted to say quickly that I have no ill will towards Michael Jackson nor his fans. None whatsoever...
It's really just a question of frustration at the celebrity death phenomenon and media-driven cult phenomena in general. I was laughing when I wrote the last business but there is much to say related to the public discourse of the last several weeks.
But that requires time, and that is a limited commodity at the moment. Watch this space.
It's really just a question of frustration at the celebrity death phenomenon and media-driven cult phenomena in general. I was laughing when I wrote the last business but there is much to say related to the public discourse of the last several weeks.
But that requires time, and that is a limited commodity at the moment. Watch this space.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
