Around here this fall the business to be in is grain storage bins. There was a LOT of wheat and barley because the early summer was so wet, but a LOT of it will be somewhat compromised because the late summer was so wet. Grain that is slightly compromised but still not degraded to the level of feedlots -- just a little less protein and the other stuff that makes it good for baking -- that stuff takes a long time to sell. The best sells first. The rest takes negotiation and a little searching around for buyers, maybe looking for bargains or for uses other than the usual. So the new storage bins are going up around town and in the country, even though the shuttle railroad spur has been busy hooting in the night.
The population near Valier is only a few generations away from Belgium so they tend to revert to the old European pattern of living in town and driving out to their farmlands in the daytime. In winter the grain farmers don’t even have to do that and the beef ranchers have grown used to shipping their cattle south for the winter, maybe contracting with someone to feed them down there if necessary. The Homestead Act forced settlement on lands as a condition of “proving up” for ownership (curious since the government that handed out the ownership had just driven off the people who had lived there for millenia). But the dispersed people were often lonesome, like the widow lady out on prairie proving up all by herself. Thinking she might need some meat, a cowboy brought her a live chicken (no refrigeration for dead ones, so you just hung the poor disheveled fowl upside down from your saddle). Months later he stopped back through to see how she was doing and was surprised to see the chicken walking around. She hadn’t killed it because it was such good company.
The oldest grain storage around here is little wooden “houses” with peaked roofs and often the framing on the outside of the board walls. In fact, more than a few ranch houses are several of these grain bins clustered and enclosed with one roof, proper siding. On a wet day they can smell a little mousy. The newer grain bins are corrugated metal, the ripples going sideways, with a conical roof and a little door towards the bottom like the door on a coal furnace where you take the ashes out. Grain acts like a liquid: you pour it in the top through a long pipe with a screw inside it -- its fins all the same size all the way up -- that works with a PTO. That’s a power take-off. It was an acronym that long precedes texting. Used in classified ads when buying or selling tractors. What the grain farmers do all winter is watch the commodities market on their computers. Maybe from a warmer place than Valier.
The optimists are building onto their houses right now, taking advantage of the same long sweet weeks of Indian summer that have saved the water main replacement project. (The meters that were required by the government as a condition of subsidy will be installed later, at least the ones that go under the houses. Some will be in vaults at the curb.) Now that the little shack behind my neighbor’s house that she called “Pinky’s dog house” (his man-cave in contempo-talk) has joined Pinky in oblivion, I can see out my window a house that just added a protected porch in front (otherwise when you open the door the winter comes sweeping in with a whirlwind of snow) and more rooms in back. When I was delivering papers, an old woman lived there but then one morning she came to the door at 4AM, incoherently telling me her dreams. Soon after, younger people moved in. Relatives, I think. Houses transfer here partly through purchase and partly through inheritance. That’s the way the politics work as well.
I should rake leaves today since all the poplars have thrown theirs down. I cut a lot of withy growth from the green ash stump that refuses to die, so now I have to decide whether to strip and save them for some mysterious future use or just cram them into the pickup and cart them to the rolloff. If the photo feature of blogspot is working (it hasn’t been for a while), I’ll put up a photo of the roll-off, mighty dumpsters in a cage so that the wind won’t drive the trash across the fields. A little like the cage around the home plate on a softball field. When the wind is up, it howls and moans more than a humpback whale.
Lately someone reminded me of the writing of Gaston Bachelard, a French philosopher who kept trying to get at the basics of human experience and how we organize them in our minds. So much of it has to do with dwellings. The NYTimes had an article today about trying to build satisfying places for poor people -- not just poor people but people like the Haitians who have nothing, not even a flat place in the mud. The newer idea is to provide a concrete and steel framework and let the people fill up the spaces to suit themselves, maybe with provided materials, the way they do anyway with the immense fragile complex mazes of slum in megacities around the planet. There is a lot more use of glass, like the architect who built a house of old used auto windshields, or recycling, like that well-known house made of bermed used tires.
But Valier rejects all that. They don’t like innovation. I have to say that the most innovative and “green” new building -- on the next block -- is built of styrofoam units piled up and filled with cement. Not many windows -- another neighbor used to resent that as though she lived there. There is no lawn, just gravel. One drives right up to the door, French style. The strange thing is that this man’s friend is the one who built a house with a glass front looking out at an elaborate garden. Both are compulsive maintainers, chasing weeds. Newcomers.
Me, I’m mixed media. Withy stumps and alfalfa clumps and fallen leaves. Yesterday the cats were sitting in the leaves among the aisles of laundry on the clothesline and gazing around in satisfaction. Today there is wind and I may not have to rake leaves after all. They might be outta town by sundown.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
THE SMELL OF MONEY
One of the few times I miss money is when my new Vanity Fair comes and I tear out all the perfume samples to carry around in my pockets. They tell me the plastic sack the mag comes in is to protect innocent people from those perfume samples. When I was a parishioner years back I once tried to go into my home church’s office and was prevented by a sign saying that people wearing perfume couldn’t come in because someone might be allergic. They say that this phenomenon has led to diluting perfumes so much that they don’t last on skin the way they used to.
When I find a really delectable scent in the samples (more often the designated “male” smells than the flowery “female” smells -- I like savories better than sweets) I would like to buy some but they are usually $100 an ounce. I used to love various scents, but they go off the market unless they’re Chanel. I can’t find “Halston” anymore. The first time I wore “Aliage”, Frank Krska in the Glacier Park Trading Post almost climbed over the counter to kiss me but it was a “sports perfume” and he was a golfer. Dannie, a kid in my English class, said it made me smell like a mushroom.
I loved Carven’s “Vert y Blanc” and then (was it Lanvin?) “Spanish Geranium.” Right now what’s in my pockets (an old yellow knit jacket) is Calvin Klein’s “Beauty,” two-gendered “L’Eau D’Issey,” Estee Lauder “Sensuous Noir” and Ralph Lauren’s “Polo Blue.” So, my pockets are a pot pourri. I love reading about smells, too. And there’s a terrific website called http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/ that even discusses the “cultural genocide” of classic perfumes due to allergies.
Since I can’t afford proper perfume, I buy scented deodorant for $4.95. But I’m not really writing about perfume. This is a sniff and switch.
They say money has a smell. I’ve lost track since I do almost everything with checks. But something stinks about checks. Something is rotten in banking and the government hasn’t come close to figuring it out yet.
Recently a series of overdrafts I wasn’t notified about incurred several hundreds of dollars in fines. (I live on Social Security.) When I objected, most of that was reversed. (Hours of phone calls, days of worry.) But last week Point West Credit Union, when I sent a payment check on a loan I have with them, posted it as usual, but then, unaccountably, someone else put the debit amount back into my checking account. Weekly I print out my current statement from the website and then strike off the debited checks with a highlighter as they show up. This check had been highlighted in my checkbook register, but was no longer showing on my electronic statement. On Friday I saw something was goofy. It was a three day weekend. Early Tuesday someone from the Credit Union called to see why I hadn’t made payment on my loan.
Then, as we talked, she suddenly declared that someone on her end had made a mistake. “It was a simple mistake,” she insisted loudly. “I can fix it.” I heard the keys click. She wanted to know whether I was using my coupons properly. I am. I have to beg for a new batch -- make a phone call, plus an email, plus a paper request. They are simply printed out on a computer. I would tell this lady something and she would say, “NO!” I said there had been an increase in mistakes in the last few months. NO. I said that I thought the Credit Union had gotten too big. NO. She wanted me to go to automatic deposit. I told her absolutely not since there were so many mistakes. She said, “NO!”
What do people do about mistakes if they have no telephone or computer?
I have set up a “line of credit” to protect me from overdraft charges. I told my local merchant this and we chatted a bit. She told me that the village bank here (Wells Fargo) charges her ten cents per check when she makes a deposit for the day! I asked the second business I went into if this were true and he said yes, that there was even a fee for a deposit of cash. But it was a fee imposed by the main corporate office and the bank manager (a relative) simply credits the fees back to him after the corporate office has reviewed the books.
In Montana (and Oregon where I previously lived) there is no sales tax because the people consistently vote it down and yet here is a private “tax” (called a fee) on every check a small business deposits. There is only one bank in town. It is thirty miles to the next town with a bank. The small businesses either find a workaround or they simply pass on the fee to their customers: ten cents or twenty-five cents a check. Around here we mostly pay for everything with checks, at least I do. I rarely have paper or silver money on me, and I closed out all my credit cards. I do one major shopping buy in a big city once a month and write maybe twenty local checks a month, so that means a two dollar a month tax TO THE BANK. In this town there is ONE grocery store, ONE bank, ONE gas station. The others went broke.
Since Wells Fargo took over this local bank, which I do not patronize, the fees have gotten higher and the rules have gotten more strict. They will not cash a check for a person who doesn’t have an account there. They will not cash a check on Canadian funds, though we are close to the border. On the Canadian side it is no better. A friend of mine wrote a check to her son for doing some painting. He took it to HER Canadian bank to cash it and was charged a twenty dollar fee.
I once read about a clever computer hacker who re-set all the electronic ATM tellers in his city to round off every amount deposited to the nearest lower dime and then deposit the difference to his account. Each transaction could not have been more than nine cents -- more likely a nickel or less -- to his own account. He managed to accumulate millions of dollars before he was caught. It was the March of Pennies.
The bank itself doesn’t even have to hack the machine. Computers make it possible to jigger the books this way, adding tiny fees behind-the-scenes so that no one really notices. It also gives the NO woman the attitude that nothing is serious because it’s only a matter of changing the database. “Just call us and we’ll FIX it!” she said. Written on water. An economy for a frog getting warmer and warmer. How does a cooked frog smell to you? Time for more than deodorant.
When I find a really delectable scent in the samples (more often the designated “male” smells than the flowery “female” smells -- I like savories better than sweets) I would like to buy some but they are usually $100 an ounce. I used to love various scents, but they go off the market unless they’re Chanel. I can’t find “Halston” anymore. The first time I wore “Aliage”, Frank Krska in the Glacier Park Trading Post almost climbed over the counter to kiss me but it was a “sports perfume” and he was a golfer. Dannie, a kid in my English class, said it made me smell like a mushroom.
I loved Carven’s “Vert y Blanc” and then (was it Lanvin?) “Spanish Geranium.” Right now what’s in my pockets (an old yellow knit jacket) is Calvin Klein’s “Beauty,” two-gendered “L’Eau D’Issey,” Estee Lauder “Sensuous Noir” and Ralph Lauren’s “Polo Blue.” So, my pockets are a pot pourri. I love reading about smells, too. And there’s a terrific website called http://1000fragrances.blogspot.com/ that even discusses the “cultural genocide” of classic perfumes due to allergies.
Since I can’t afford proper perfume, I buy scented deodorant for $4.95. But I’m not really writing about perfume. This is a sniff and switch.
They say money has a smell. I’ve lost track since I do almost everything with checks. But something stinks about checks. Something is rotten in banking and the government hasn’t come close to figuring it out yet.
Recently a series of overdrafts I wasn’t notified about incurred several hundreds of dollars in fines. (I live on Social Security.) When I objected, most of that was reversed. (Hours of phone calls, days of worry.) But last week Point West Credit Union, when I sent a payment check on a loan I have with them, posted it as usual, but then, unaccountably, someone else put the debit amount back into my checking account. Weekly I print out my current statement from the website and then strike off the debited checks with a highlighter as they show up. This check had been highlighted in my checkbook register, but was no longer showing on my electronic statement. On Friday I saw something was goofy. It was a three day weekend. Early Tuesday someone from the Credit Union called to see why I hadn’t made payment on my loan.
Then, as we talked, she suddenly declared that someone on her end had made a mistake. “It was a simple mistake,” she insisted loudly. “I can fix it.” I heard the keys click. She wanted to know whether I was using my coupons properly. I am. I have to beg for a new batch -- make a phone call, plus an email, plus a paper request. They are simply printed out on a computer. I would tell this lady something and she would say, “NO!” I said there had been an increase in mistakes in the last few months. NO. I said that I thought the Credit Union had gotten too big. NO. She wanted me to go to automatic deposit. I told her absolutely not since there were so many mistakes. She said, “NO!”
What do people do about mistakes if they have no telephone or computer?
I have set up a “line of credit” to protect me from overdraft charges. I told my local merchant this and we chatted a bit. She told me that the village bank here (Wells Fargo) charges her ten cents per check when she makes a deposit for the day! I asked the second business I went into if this were true and he said yes, that there was even a fee for a deposit of cash. But it was a fee imposed by the main corporate office and the bank manager (a relative) simply credits the fees back to him after the corporate office has reviewed the books.
In Montana (and Oregon where I previously lived) there is no sales tax because the people consistently vote it down and yet here is a private “tax” (called a fee) on every check a small business deposits. There is only one bank in town. It is thirty miles to the next town with a bank. The small businesses either find a workaround or they simply pass on the fee to their customers: ten cents or twenty-five cents a check. Around here we mostly pay for everything with checks, at least I do. I rarely have paper or silver money on me, and I closed out all my credit cards. I do one major shopping buy in a big city once a month and write maybe twenty local checks a month, so that means a two dollar a month tax TO THE BANK. In this town there is ONE grocery store, ONE bank, ONE gas station. The others went broke.
Since Wells Fargo took over this local bank, which I do not patronize, the fees have gotten higher and the rules have gotten more strict. They will not cash a check for a person who doesn’t have an account there. They will not cash a check on Canadian funds, though we are close to the border. On the Canadian side it is no better. A friend of mine wrote a check to her son for doing some painting. He took it to HER Canadian bank to cash it and was charged a twenty dollar fee.
I once read about a clever computer hacker who re-set all the electronic ATM tellers in his city to round off every amount deposited to the nearest lower dime and then deposit the difference to his account. Each transaction could not have been more than nine cents -- more likely a nickel or less -- to his own account. He managed to accumulate millions of dollars before he was caught. It was the March of Pennies.
The bank itself doesn’t even have to hack the machine. Computers make it possible to jigger the books this way, adding tiny fees behind-the-scenes so that no one really notices. It also gives the NO woman the attitude that nothing is serious because it’s only a matter of changing the database. “Just call us and we’ll FIX it!” she said. Written on water. An economy for a frog getting warmer and warmer. How does a cooked frog smell to you? Time for more than deodorant.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
VIRTUE IS NO SHIELD
This morning I’m bouncing off a video posted at:
http://www.thebody.com/content/art58780.html?ic=700100 If you are able to open it, you will see a sweetly hefty black woman who belongs to herself, her family, and what she would call “God.” The following is from the spoken text, edited:
Archbishop Joyce Turner Keller, 60, never thought that HIV would ever happen to her -- she was a "good Christian" woman who devoted her life to her family, community and church. But then everything changed for the Baton Rouge resident when she was raped . . .'
Can you describe how you found out you were HIV positive?
I got in a car accident en route to a black caucus event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2001. Leg became infected. Did not have insurance. Could not afford to see a doctor. . . After sitting at the Earl K Long public hospital for 72 hours, my name was finally called. I was offered an HIV/AIDS test and I was told that my immune system might be compromised. I didn't know what in the world that meant. "Compromised? Immune system? Me? How dare they?" And I was like, "OK, just want to know what's wrong." This was October the 29th, 2001. I turned 52, November the 9th, 2001. And for my birthday, I received a positive diagnosis for HIV, November the 14th, 2001.
Were you shocked?
Actually, no. I was relieved because I knew something was wrong. Finally, I knew what it is. Since I know what it is, I now know there will be steps that I can take to fix it. The shame of it is that I knew nothing about HIV and AIDS. HIV and AIDS had nothing to do with me. I mean I'm a praying woman. I'm in the ministry and one of the things I've realized [is] that all the prayers didn't protect me against HIV and AIDS and I knew that's when I had to take another step.
On April 24, I'm in the hospital. While I'm in the hospital I was only asked what I did for a living, how old I was -- that was it. I was not given an HIV/AIDS test then, even though we know that blood clotting is a precursor to being diagnosed HIV positive. The doctors assumed that I'm over 50, I'm not really having sex, so why bother? . .
What were some other symptoms that you had?
I was having fever and night sweats. But here I just turned 52, so I'm thinking I'm menopausal. I began to accept the diagnosis. I was tired. I was beginning to lose weight. But all this was attributed to my busy lifestyle. I was a full-time student at Southern University, raising my grandchildren, getting them off to school every morning. I was involved in community activities. I'm a minister. I'm a grandmother. I'm just doing so many things. I just attributed all that to just my being overactive instead of saying I might need to see a doctor.
I had a doctor's appointment for 4 o'clock on a Wednesday. My doctor said, "You know you're HIV positive?" I said, "No." She said, "Well you are." I said, "OK." And she sat there and I sat there. I guess she was waiting for a reaction and I didn't have one. So I asked if there was anything else I needed to know. She said, "Well, from now on you don't come here anymore. You go to the EIC." I said, "What is EIC?" She said, "The Early Intervention Clinic.". . .
So about six months later, I finally had a conversation with her. And I ask her, "Why were you sitting there so disconnected from me?" She said, "Because I was waiting for your reaction." And for me, I'm thinking that this woman doesn't care. . .
And then I realized that "look at how I have disconnected myself from the community." Because I was thinking, "I'm a minister. I should know about this. I'm someone who's supposed to be saving souls. And I've missed so many opportunities to save lives. I've got to do better."
____
This disconnection issue is a sharp-edged one for me. In my ministry years I sometimes felt as though blood-suckers were draining me dry with their neediness, particularly when one of their strongest needs was to know all about my private life. In Saskatoon the “church” was an old theatrical hall with a stage at one end which had been walled off to make my office. One woman told me she constantly dreamt that the wall had fallen down so she could see what I was up to. When I put a lock on the door, people were upset. What was I hiding? As it turned out, they had had experience with ministers who were hiding things but more likely at home than at church. And they themselves hid quite a bit. I had a hard time handling some of the things that finally came out. In the end I bolted back here, where I am now.
I am connected rather intensely to a lot of people who aren’t within a thousand miles, but I have put up walls to keep out some -- not all -- needy former connections. I don’t have HIV-AIDS or cancer or anything else but old age and the very mild beginnings of Diabetes II and cataracts. But I NEED time and enough space to spread out my papers and books while I work my way through them. I’ve put it all off for entirely too long. It’s NOW or NEVER. I got the Bob Scriver book written and even published. (“Bronze Inside and Out”) Working with Tim has given me an enormous boost at a time when publishing is in collapse. But others want to pry into that, pass judgment on it, decide for themselves whether I should stay connected, esp since Tim’s main issue is HIV-AIDS.
I will make my own decisions. I will preserve connection where I choose to. It’s not really about HIV-AIDS anyway, as Archbishop Joyce knew. It’s about ignorance, callousness, habituation, hysteria, stigmatizing, avoidance, denial. And yet under all the defensive stuff, an obsessive, craving, need-to-know. That is, a need to know about others, because it’s too scary to know about ourselves.
Recently I forwarded to my cousins an email about a woman writer our age who had just moved to a provided-care home. In it the woman said that though she was comfortable and happy, she carried a “cold little sliver of ice” in herself. My cousin asked if I felt I had that, confessing that she did. We agreed that caregivers need it: a sharp defensive dagger to protect ourselves from being overwhelmed. Very useful for writers.
Yesterday a couple of Tim’s boys formed a panel at the invitation of the University of North Carolina for medical students and doctors. It was a large enough group for an auditorium but the boys are experienced at public speaking and feel strongly about the subject: human sexuality and HIV-AIDS. It went well until the Q & A when the doctors and doctors-to-be set about putting as much distance between themselves and the boys as they could, using hostility as their shield. They do not handle “tragedy,” they said. They are doctors. And they hate wearing those moon suits when they do surgery on people with HIV. They reduced one of the boys to tears. Tim let him hold the check for their fee on the way home. They had been paid for being f . . . again.
I suspect that these people were terrified of the real possibility that being doctors might cause them to be infected. Others in that audience were likely already infected themselves, given the statistics. Those who were gay or infected did not defend the boys because it would endanger THEM, wouldn’t it?
Medical care and counseling are both relationships of enormous intimacy that our culture pretends are no such thing. Like Freud, we pretend that doctors and so on are “unmoved movers” who are guided by infallible protocols and clinical tests. But they are not. The more they are distanced that way, the less helpful they are and they more they are likely to interpret distance as privilege, a sign of being valuable. Archbishop Joyce knew differently. She and I feel such distanced doctors are cripples.
Above, I defended my distance from people I had formerly served as a minister. I do not make a distance from my students because it is already there, in the situation of being a white person on a reservation. I feel uncomfortable and dissatisfied about BOTH. Now that my writing has taken me into a world where intimate disclosure is valued and welcomed, I’m not entirely comfortable either. I’m getting a lot of mileage out of a former roommate’s sex life (long ago and far away) because mine is too boring to share.
Being a counselor means being discrete, but too many people take advantage of the intimacy to take their counselees into their private domestic lives. Breaking the rules like that means that they have dropped the shield of professionalism. They are fair game for writers.
Tim has thoroughly conflated his issues with his passionate intimacies, but on top of that is his writing. He went for transparency and he has achieved it. There is no distance. It terrifies some people. In me, it triggers an unseemly desire to fix things, while often making them worse. I confess. I don’t exactly repent because I can’t tell what will happen next. If it causes a hard-hearted, deeply defended person to thaw, I’ll just claim I knew what I was doing. A lie.
I do think that counselors can worry about contagion, the way medical doctors worry. But writers do not. Whatever Tim’s mental/emotional diagnosis might be, whatever state the boys might be in, I share it. I will understand it from the inside-out. Knock out that wall on my office.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
THE EDUCATION TICK LIST
Okay, so you’re a Native American kid sitting in the gymnasium in Poplar, Montana, on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation wondering who’s mad about what now, because there’s no assembly geek doing a set-up on the floor and that’s the only other explanation. You’re happy to be out of class where you never get what’s going on anyway. The new principal takes the mike and begins to read out names. When your name is called, you’re supposed to go out on the floor even though it will scuff up the basketball surface, a big no-no. She calls YOUR name! wtf. When you get out there, she begins to berate you all for flunking!
What do you do? Walk out? Lead the group on a march around and around the gym, chanting: “Don’t you dare! You don’t care! Watch us glare!” Or just freeze. You just freeze. Then you go home, depressed, eventually tell the tale, and the fun begins.
The old mission school mentality is not dead yet. Quite aside from the issue of whether the priests molested kids or the nuns beat the kids, some schools have never given up the idea of being a sort of reformatory intent on making conforming citizens out of rural kids who have lives of their own. Actually, it’s the basic assumption of a lot of publicly governed education these days: that the purpose of school is to meet government standards, a check list enforced by exams that are keyed to the money, honey. (Assembly lines mean profits.) Ironically, one way to escape is into charter schools, often religiously based, but the kind of religion that values enlightenment, individual dignity, and personal growth. Even more ironically, the children who go to the charter schools belong to the families with those values, which means they don’t NEED to be pushed, confined, graded by the government. If they can’t learn from school, they have other ways. They WANT to know things, do things, acquire real skill.
A “mission” sort of school at its best puts the point of focus up on a wall somewhere (a major fad a few years ago) and then aims for it. At its best this “mission statement” gets everyone on the same page and is an advantage. But it ought to be generated from within, not imposed from outside. Creating curriculum by state or federal legislation doesn’t work. Segregated schools, we are told, in spite of Supreme Court intervention are now back to being segregated again.
But if you take the kid as your point of focus, you come all UNfocused because there are as many goals as there are kids. Phil Ward, my first superintendent (1961-66) used to say that his father (also a rez teacher/superintendent) said a teacher needs as many methods of teaching as there are kids in the room, plus an extra spare just in case. I did my student teaching at Evanston Township High School in 1960-61, then considered one of the best schools in the nation. The idea was to provide space to learn. We thought the content was obvious.
I taught dramatics and my supervisor shared his heartbreak that the best actress we had was black and therefore would never find a place in the theatre. HA! I don’t know where that young woman went, but there are places for blacks everywhere now. Not enough, but there. That supervisor was gay and closeted. Today there would be less need to hide his relationships. The point is that times change. Times change. (More, more, more !!!) School has the least to do with it. Public schools are always conservative forces trying to preserve the past. Charter schools can either be throwbacks or the point of the arrow, piercing into the future. As though anyone really knows what the future will be. We can’t even agree about the past. So why isn’t multiplicity good?
I subscribe to a blog called “Moving at the Speed of Creativity,” http://www.speedofcreativity.org/ which is about using computers in the classroom. It’s pretty lively, esp. when the eight-year-olds get hold of a videocam. Today’s post was a reaction to the new buzz movie “Waiting for Superman.” It won’t get to Valier until it’s on DVD because we don’t have a movie house, but I gather that it’s about charter schools. Wes Fryer’s review is lengthy and worthy. His bottom line is “This is a movie we need to watch as citizens, and discuss as taxpayers.” Which is just a polite way of saying “wtf are we doing with our money and our lives and our children anyway???”
He says, “One of the biggest FUNDAMENTAL [his emphasis] ideas the movie "gets wrong" is the idea that education is no more than filling a pail. Paulo Freire and John Dewey are likely rolling over in their graves in response to the animation included about halfway through the film, where the producers literally show a teacher "pouring" metaphorical knowledge into the heads of students.” I suspect this is indeed the FUNDAMENTAL [my emphasis] problem of both the Poplar school and the nation. If filling a head with facts is all that education is about, then we don’t need schools. Computers can do it better.
We’re missing several basic things. One is that a school is a community that includes even the people at home with no kids and an administrator or teacher who doesn’t know or participate in the community is crippled. A reservation is a community under constant pressure both from outside and from within. When the community is struggling with poverty and crime, the school will try to be an oasis, a way to tomorrow, but it can’t make much headway unless the community does the same. The kids, not knowing where punishment will come from next, simply freeze. The parents look around for someone least attached to the community and tie the tin can onto the tail of the dog that’s leaving town in a hail of stones.
The Browning Public Schools and Heart Butte Public Schools are more and more taught and supervised by members of their own home-grown community. But meanwhile some charter schools manage to quietly succeed. It’s a both/and deal. This is a place with room to do both.
Father Ed Kohler in Browning has just been given the Lumen Christi Award award of $25,000 for his work in founding and supporting the De La Salle School with the help of the Christian Brothers. Mary DesRosier, M.D. and enrolled Blackfeet, just won the George Saari Humanitarian Award for her work with WWAMI, a collaboration of Northwest states to prepare students for medical school. The newspaper reporter used the cliche of “first in her family to be a college graduate” which was soon refuted by a DesRosier who supplied a list of all the other college grads. One of them teaches at De La Salle. Others have been closely involved in the Piegan Institute’s “Cuts Wood” Blackfeet Immersion School, becoming new Blackfeet speakers. When I ask the successful kids I taught fifty years ago what their secret was, they always say: “There was someone who took time for me and believed in me.”
Kid suicide is a major problem on reservations. Gripped in the vice of high expectations and low support, they choose the ultimate “freeze” with an eternal wait. Father Ed once mourned that he came here to spark spiritual renewal but all he did was bury young people. But he’s wrong. He DID spark the renewal. Things change. Communities change and that means schools change. If they’re smart -- and why wouldn’t they be smart? After all, the Montana superintendent of schools is an enrolled Blackfeet.
What do you do? Walk out? Lead the group on a march around and around the gym, chanting: “Don’t you dare! You don’t care! Watch us glare!” Or just freeze. You just freeze. Then you go home, depressed, eventually tell the tale, and the fun begins.
The old mission school mentality is not dead yet. Quite aside from the issue of whether the priests molested kids or the nuns beat the kids, some schools have never given up the idea of being a sort of reformatory intent on making conforming citizens out of rural kids who have lives of their own. Actually, it’s the basic assumption of a lot of publicly governed education these days: that the purpose of school is to meet government standards, a check list enforced by exams that are keyed to the money, honey. (Assembly lines mean profits.) Ironically, one way to escape is into charter schools, often religiously based, but the kind of religion that values enlightenment, individual dignity, and personal growth. Even more ironically, the children who go to the charter schools belong to the families with those values, which means they don’t NEED to be pushed, confined, graded by the government. If they can’t learn from school, they have other ways. They WANT to know things, do things, acquire real skill.
A “mission” sort of school at its best puts the point of focus up on a wall somewhere (a major fad a few years ago) and then aims for it. At its best this “mission statement” gets everyone on the same page and is an advantage. But it ought to be generated from within, not imposed from outside. Creating curriculum by state or federal legislation doesn’t work. Segregated schools, we are told, in spite of Supreme Court intervention are now back to being segregated again.
But if you take the kid as your point of focus, you come all UNfocused because there are as many goals as there are kids. Phil Ward, my first superintendent (1961-66) used to say that his father (also a rez teacher/superintendent) said a teacher needs as many methods of teaching as there are kids in the room, plus an extra spare just in case. I did my student teaching at Evanston Township High School in 1960-61, then considered one of the best schools in the nation. The idea was to provide space to learn. We thought the content was obvious.
I taught dramatics and my supervisor shared his heartbreak that the best actress we had was black and therefore would never find a place in the theatre. HA! I don’t know where that young woman went, but there are places for blacks everywhere now. Not enough, but there. That supervisor was gay and closeted. Today there would be less need to hide his relationships. The point is that times change. Times change. (More, more, more !!!) School has the least to do with it. Public schools are always conservative forces trying to preserve the past. Charter schools can either be throwbacks or the point of the arrow, piercing into the future. As though anyone really knows what the future will be. We can’t even agree about the past. So why isn’t multiplicity good?
I subscribe to a blog called “Moving at the Speed of Creativity,” http://www.speedofcreativity.org/ which is about using computers in the classroom. It’s pretty lively, esp. when the eight-year-olds get hold of a videocam. Today’s post was a reaction to the new buzz movie “Waiting for Superman.” It won’t get to Valier until it’s on DVD because we don’t have a movie house, but I gather that it’s about charter schools. Wes Fryer’s review is lengthy and worthy. His bottom line is “This is a movie we need to watch as citizens, and discuss as taxpayers.” Which is just a polite way of saying “wtf are we doing with our money and our lives and our children anyway???”
He says, “One of the biggest FUNDAMENTAL [his emphasis] ideas the movie "gets wrong" is the idea that education is no more than filling a pail. Paulo Freire and John Dewey are likely rolling over in their graves in response to the animation included about halfway through the film, where the producers literally show a teacher "pouring" metaphorical knowledge into the heads of students.” I suspect this is indeed the FUNDAMENTAL [my emphasis] problem of both the Poplar school and the nation. If filling a head with facts is all that education is about, then we don’t need schools. Computers can do it better.
We’re missing several basic things. One is that a school is a community that includes even the people at home with no kids and an administrator or teacher who doesn’t know or participate in the community is crippled. A reservation is a community under constant pressure both from outside and from within. When the community is struggling with poverty and crime, the school will try to be an oasis, a way to tomorrow, but it can’t make much headway unless the community does the same. The kids, not knowing where punishment will come from next, simply freeze. The parents look around for someone least attached to the community and tie the tin can onto the tail of the dog that’s leaving town in a hail of stones.
The Browning Public Schools and Heart Butte Public Schools are more and more taught and supervised by members of their own home-grown community. But meanwhile some charter schools manage to quietly succeed. It’s a both/and deal. This is a place with room to do both.
Father Ed Kohler in Browning has just been given the Lumen Christi Award award of $25,000 for his work in founding and supporting the De La Salle School with the help of the Christian Brothers. Mary DesRosier, M.D. and enrolled Blackfeet, just won the George Saari Humanitarian Award for her work with WWAMI, a collaboration of Northwest states to prepare students for medical school. The newspaper reporter used the cliche of “first in her family to be a college graduate” which was soon refuted by a DesRosier who supplied a list of all the other college grads. One of them teaches at De La Salle. Others have been closely involved in the Piegan Institute’s “Cuts Wood” Blackfeet Immersion School, becoming new Blackfeet speakers. When I ask the successful kids I taught fifty years ago what their secret was, they always say: “There was someone who took time for me and believed in me.”
Kid suicide is a major problem on reservations. Gripped in the vice of high expectations and low support, they choose the ultimate “freeze” with an eternal wait. Father Ed once mourned that he came here to spark spiritual renewal but all he did was bury young people. But he’s wrong. He DID spark the renewal. Things change. Communities change and that means schools change. If they’re smart -- and why wouldn’t they be smart? After all, the Montana superintendent of schools is an enrolled Blackfeet.
Monday, October 11, 2010
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: GRANNY'S MAIL ORDER SEX TOYS
This is mainstream media and serious sociological comment. I have a license. I’ve put in the class time and counseling in preparation for ten years in the ministry. This is not trivial.
The eighth episode of the BBC series “Trial and Retribution,” the one with the lady who fell out of the sky, also featured as evidence a collection of dildos, which the police pretended to find shocking, even as the CSI person, impersonated by Gemma Jones (my fav forensic pathologist), a small gray matter-of-fact woman, was collecting semen and pubic hairs off them for DNA analysis in hopes of finding the murderer. She discovered that the woman was being f*cked by her father and both of them knew it, though they had only found each other rather recently. Don’t blame me -- blame Lynda LaPlante, the screenwriter. Gemma’s character found it “unsavory.”
One of the dildos was big, black and included balls. For an Englishman, I suppose that’s the ultimate. The ones that Gemma’s character considered old-fashioned were smallish and crayon colors. None seemed to be motorized unless they were battery-operated.
So what’s the modern American ultimate? Maybe not what you think at all.
Since I’m seventy, I’m on the catalog mailing lists for “old people.” I get endless offers about orthopedic shoes, folding canes, denture repair, adult diapers and arthritis-pain ointments. Most of them have a few pages of dildos. They are not what one would expect. In fact, I made a little montage of them which I had intended to include here, before I thought about the potential disruption. So I think I’ll just describe them enough to make my point. You can raid your granny’s catalogue stash to see for yourself.
First, they are battery-powered (batteries not included) and pretty colors with purple and pink as the most popular. A minority are orange. Only one ad showed metallic; the rest were plastic, often transparent. Some were said to be “soft,” or “velvety” and one, for the bolder person, was described as having “taffy-ticklers.” Some had pearly beads that were supposed to jump around. They were evidently mostly for females and included little plastic critters -- birds, bunnies and the notorious butterfly -- fastened where there is a normally a cluster of nerves, the cluster that is cut out of female children in some African countries to prevent women from having pleasure, because that would naturally cause them to be unfaithful.
If you remember “LA Law,” you might remember the “butterfly” as an invented sexual technique that supposedly made men irresistible. It was years before the writers confessed they had just made it up, and in the end they only told the truth because they were getting tired of explaining to people who were desperate to find out what it was. Even after they explained that it was mythical, people refused to believe them. Probably the same people who shelled out thirty or forty bucks for one of these little gizmos.
People will do anything ANYTHING to keep from settling down to create relationships -- even with themselves -- that would allow normal human mutual stimulation to happen -- but are evidently not impressed by the conservative command against self-stimulation.
But what I want to note is the candification, the Disneyizing, the infantalizing of sex. Did you know that one of the most popular sex-cruising clubs in Paris features pacifiers and baby bottles for the booze? The desirable “person” is supposed to be little more than a toddler -- in short -- and this is the ominous part -- little more than a doll. JonMarie Benet. An object. Someone who can’t have an opinion, can’t object, can’t fight back, and who would ordinarily (even in the animal world) be protected. This greeting card aesthetic protects the bigger, more aggressive -- if not predatory -- agent while making the vulnerable, the innocent, into victims, but seductive ones. Inflatable.
I’m not saying that anyone who uses sex toys will attack babies. I’m saying that this specific kind of sex toys (the others -- like the big black ones -- have their own problems) puts a baby face on an adult pursuit. It makes something quite serious and with potentially major consequences seem innocent and harmless. Hey, it’s gotta be good for business.
Sex toys that are cute as kittens legitimate the craving to "own" real babies and children to use as sex toys. It’s subtle but it’s real. It’s the flip side of dungeons and torture. One side says sex is cute and harmless; the other side says sex is so serious and dangerous that only the privileged can play. The serious/dangerous side can be pretty clearly something to avoid. But baby binkies and blankies -- where’s the harm?
The next question is about a culture where small children are so harassed and disciplined and scheduled -- or in another flip, so neglected, harmed and shut out -- that they end up with a nurturing deficit not that distinguishable from a craving for love -- easily exploited in sexual relationship. But the culture doesn’t want you to talk about this stuff. Well, unless we’re watching a BBC police procedural.
Now I’m going to turn the point-of-view a hundred and eighty degrees around. Who would buy a pink battery-operated dildo with a butterfly on it? A frustrated housefrau? Maybe not. How about a teenaged girl with a hormone buzz on who is looking for a discrete way to deal with it and idly flips through one of these household catalogs. (I don’t think a boy is likely to be searching among the hernia supports and shields for toilet seats for men who have to pee sitting down.) If she’s a college girl, she’s likely to have a credit card and her own mail delivery point. What’s wrong with a sex toy, if it keeps her from being urged into a too-early physical relationship? (“Too early” meaning before her emotional development catches up.) A way to avoid BOTH a pregnancy and the pill?
Can society become TOO accepting of self-stimulation? Right now these little implements are illegal in some southern states -- even medical vibrators for sore muscles are forbidden. I notice that these toys are advertised as being silent. But I have a feeling that they are eventually going to become like those battery-operated toothbrushes that play a cheery little tune. Just another personal thingy. But first experiences imprint deeply. Where will that girl eventually find a boyfriend with a transparent blue battery-operated vibrating penis that has a bunny sticking out of the top?
The eighth episode of the BBC series “Trial and Retribution,” the one with the lady who fell out of the sky, also featured as evidence a collection of dildos, which the police pretended to find shocking, even as the CSI person, impersonated by Gemma Jones (my fav forensic pathologist), a small gray matter-of-fact woman, was collecting semen and pubic hairs off them for DNA analysis in hopes of finding the murderer. She discovered that the woman was being f*cked by her father and both of them knew it, though they had only found each other rather recently. Don’t blame me -- blame Lynda LaPlante, the screenwriter. Gemma’s character found it “unsavory.”
One of the dildos was big, black and included balls. For an Englishman, I suppose that’s the ultimate. The ones that Gemma’s character considered old-fashioned were smallish and crayon colors. None seemed to be motorized unless they were battery-operated.
So what’s the modern American ultimate? Maybe not what you think at all.
Since I’m seventy, I’m on the catalog mailing lists for “old people.” I get endless offers about orthopedic shoes, folding canes, denture repair, adult diapers and arthritis-pain ointments. Most of them have a few pages of dildos. They are not what one would expect. In fact, I made a little montage of them which I had intended to include here, before I thought about the potential disruption. So I think I’ll just describe them enough to make my point. You can raid your granny’s catalogue stash to see for yourself.
First, they are battery-powered (batteries not included) and pretty colors with purple and pink as the most popular. A minority are orange. Only one ad showed metallic; the rest were plastic, often transparent. Some were said to be “soft,” or “velvety” and one, for the bolder person, was described as having “taffy-ticklers.” Some had pearly beads that were supposed to jump around. They were evidently mostly for females and included little plastic critters -- birds, bunnies and the notorious butterfly -- fastened where there is a normally a cluster of nerves, the cluster that is cut out of female children in some African countries to prevent women from having pleasure, because that would naturally cause them to be unfaithful.
If you remember “LA Law,” you might remember the “butterfly” as an invented sexual technique that supposedly made men irresistible. It was years before the writers confessed they had just made it up, and in the end they only told the truth because they were getting tired of explaining to people who were desperate to find out what it was. Even after they explained that it was mythical, people refused to believe them. Probably the same people who shelled out thirty or forty bucks for one of these little gizmos.
People will do anything ANYTHING to keep from settling down to create relationships -- even with themselves -- that would allow normal human mutual stimulation to happen -- but are evidently not impressed by the conservative command against self-stimulation.
But what I want to note is the candification, the Disneyizing, the infantalizing of sex. Did you know that one of the most popular sex-cruising clubs in Paris features pacifiers and baby bottles for the booze? The desirable “person” is supposed to be little more than a toddler -- in short -- and this is the ominous part -- little more than a doll. JonMarie Benet. An object. Someone who can’t have an opinion, can’t object, can’t fight back, and who would ordinarily (even in the animal world) be protected. This greeting card aesthetic protects the bigger, more aggressive -- if not predatory -- agent while making the vulnerable, the innocent, into victims, but seductive ones. Inflatable.
I’m not saying that anyone who uses sex toys will attack babies. I’m saying that this specific kind of sex toys (the others -- like the big black ones -- have their own problems) puts a baby face on an adult pursuit. It makes something quite serious and with potentially major consequences seem innocent and harmless. Hey, it’s gotta be good for business.
Sex toys that are cute as kittens legitimate the craving to "own" real babies and children to use as sex toys. It’s subtle but it’s real. It’s the flip side of dungeons and torture. One side says sex is cute and harmless; the other side says sex is so serious and dangerous that only the privileged can play. The serious/dangerous side can be pretty clearly something to avoid. But baby binkies and blankies -- where’s the harm?
The next question is about a culture where small children are so harassed and disciplined and scheduled -- or in another flip, so neglected, harmed and shut out -- that they end up with a nurturing deficit not that distinguishable from a craving for love -- easily exploited in sexual relationship. But the culture doesn’t want you to talk about this stuff. Well, unless we’re watching a BBC police procedural.
Now I’m going to turn the point-of-view a hundred and eighty degrees around. Who would buy a pink battery-operated dildo with a butterfly on it? A frustrated housefrau? Maybe not. How about a teenaged girl with a hormone buzz on who is looking for a discrete way to deal with it and idly flips through one of these household catalogs. (I don’t think a boy is likely to be searching among the hernia supports and shields for toilet seats for men who have to pee sitting down.) If she’s a college girl, she’s likely to have a credit card and her own mail delivery point. What’s wrong with a sex toy, if it keeps her from being urged into a too-early physical relationship? (“Too early” meaning before her emotional development catches up.) A way to avoid BOTH a pregnancy and the pill?
Can society become TOO accepting of self-stimulation? Right now these little implements are illegal in some southern states -- even medical vibrators for sore muscles are forbidden. I notice that these toys are advertised as being silent. But I have a feeling that they are eventually going to become like those battery-operated toothbrushes that play a cheery little tune. Just another personal thingy. But first experiences imprint deeply. Where will that girl eventually find a boyfriend with a transparent blue battery-operated vibrating penis that has a bunny sticking out of the top?
Sunday, October 10, 2010
WHAT BOOKS ARE NOW
Now that we are speaking to each other across continents, through sea cables, vaulting through space on satellites, we hear quite different voices. The strange thing is that we are often in deep sympathy.
This below is the voice of Aad de Gids in Amsterdam, a brilliant poet who is totally original. He speaks a creole I choose not to “correct” because correct is not relevant anymore. (I did tamper with the spaces a bit.) What we want is communication: real contact with the heart and mind of another person even -- or especially -- with someone who is totally different. I know him through a circle of poets who are often in contact on Tim Barrus’ Facebook page. Their words make arabesques, port de bras, glissandes. (Ballet words: French, romance.) For several, English is not their second language -- it is their third or fourth.
You’ll have to look these words up. If you don’t have a relevant dictionary, use Google translate. But I suspect that you can get the meaning without literal word-by-word translation. I’ll give you a hint: “geology is next to theology.”
la tigresse, elle hante des mots et renforce le corps, elle porte sa mortalité avec de noblesse et un coup d'oeul gracieuse et alarmante.
this is a beautiful video which metaphores all our existences, sick with
aids, infected, otherwise troubled, anxious, caged in pain, this submerged
floating is what we all do, despite all rosters and grids we apply to this
dangerous and nightly world with a devious smile. pain is a strange red line interfering everything,constantly reminding us that we're born out of magma, that our particles or "corpuscules" someday again will take their place in the taklamakan, changtang, sahel, death valley, atacama, the streams in the ocean. pain seems the antichambre for becoming rock, chomolungma, kailash, kilimandjaro. in their solemnity they stand and wait, majectically, noble,nobles grisée, while the pain then is to such measure outstretched, that it vanishes in fissura, fumaroles, glacial patches, gleisfields, pume valleys, snowest snow. la tigresse, la lionesse, la jaguarina, all have lived it out in the, at the, savannas, jungles, bamboo
unendlessnesses, monotonie sibérien, everything outstretched now, we're all returning to becoming land, vegetation again, demolecularisation,
what first was feared became something longed for, naturality to naturality, floating in an oceanics of referencelessness, magnificently visualised in this video from tim, as we exchange shamanic or boddhisattvatic iones and globules and nodules. becoming land,this stone here on the floor of death valley travels and sings at night, becoming "the outback",or spinifex, or honeysuckle, or a hazel.
becoming world, encompassing world, already foreseen in lsd'd visions
or paintrance visions, standing before the wall, as the tigresse haunts
the words and the becomings, into blissfull and astral states.
Aad de Gide (with permission)
* * * * * * * *
This is what Aad was reacting to. It is written and spoken by Tim Barrus. If you can’t get the vid to open, let me tell you that it is a young Chinese boy in his school uniform -- short pants, white shirt, long tie -- dancing in a near-ballet manner but loosened, as are his shirt and tie. He appears to be dancing underwater.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=165295853483083&comments&il=0&ref=notif¬if_t=video_reply
dancing underwater (with thanks to aad) (for jacob)
from the night's blue and falling in/ which shapes already are these/ or measurable unshapes/ the casualness of death/ switching/ shifting/ dancing to cast the anchors of the drowning off/ drowning for a cure/ one day we will risk everything/ in pain's past tower of the guard; pain wins/ we malign the asphyxiation of our second selves all the while knowing that as consumers we've been drowning in our accumulated junk for years/ we are simply lifeless bodies floating/ lay groveling/ that were arms and shoulders in the waves/ out of what destruction did it bring/ and slept/ the tiger chest for tea/ the sounding shallow what cure/ and making love with the same animal/ bone' flesh/ family/ receives the same result/ passion for nobility/ now, there's the shifting cure of the abyss/
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is my reflection on this same thing, a diagnosis of HIV. I’m drawing on science. Do you know the island of Madasgascar? A huge island split off the east coast of Africa, separated far enough and long enough that the life there is even stranger than the life on Australia, because each has evolved in a different path. The separation is a result of “plate tectonics” which are under all the continents and make them drift apart, then together, so that the Pacific Ocean separates Montana from Siberia, but the people, the grizzly bears and the peonies are quite similar. They are responding to the land that sustains them, which is also quite similar -- long-horizoned grasslands.
Only recently has someone discovered that the Madagascar lemurs, the most early of the primates -- spooky ghost-eyed not-monkeys with long stiff forefingers -- had in their fluid systems the virus code that we call Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. Earlier (we know, because of the split in the land) than the same monkey and chimp virus in Africa. And now the same human virus in America. And Europe and Asia. It is an ecosyndemic, many forces converging.
The thought now is that the virus “jumped” from monkeys in Africa to humans in cities NOT because of eating bush meat or because of wanton gay behavior, but because of the invention of the syringe. Not the modern, slender, fine-needled disposable plastic instrument we know now, but because of the originals, which I happen to remember. They were glass, heavy, probably Pyrex, and the plunger came out, the needle came off, so that you could fill them with water and then they made fine squirt guns. The woman across the street needed constant injections for pain and her nurse companion gave us some spare syringes. The feel of them, cool/cold/hard is in my hands.
Once the hypodermic (below the skin) syringe was invented, it was possible to mainline drugs. No one would want to discard those early glass syringes -- it was clear they could simply be washed. But no one had dishwashers or autoclaves or thought of bleach, so they were reused while carrying residue. Especially in Africa. The snow leopard came down from the mountain peak and metamorphed our bones to igneous stone.
And this sharing of words and images, responding to the universal dance of survival, is what books are now.
This below is the voice of Aad de Gids in Amsterdam, a brilliant poet who is totally original. He speaks a creole I choose not to “correct” because correct is not relevant anymore. (I did tamper with the spaces a bit.) What we want is communication: real contact with the heart and mind of another person even -- or especially -- with someone who is totally different. I know him through a circle of poets who are often in contact on Tim Barrus’ Facebook page. Their words make arabesques, port de bras, glissandes. (Ballet words: French, romance.) For several, English is not their second language -- it is their third or fourth.
You’ll have to look these words up. If you don’t have a relevant dictionary, use Google translate. But I suspect that you can get the meaning without literal word-by-word translation. I’ll give you a hint: “geology is next to theology.”
la tigresse, elle hante des mots et renforce le corps, elle porte sa mortalité avec de noblesse et un coup d'oeul gracieuse et alarmante.
this is a beautiful video which metaphores all our existences, sick with
aids, infected, otherwise troubled, anxious, caged in pain, this submerged
floating is what we all do, despite all rosters and grids we apply to this
dangerous and nightly world with a devious smile. pain is a strange red line interfering everything,constantly reminding us that we're born out of magma, that our particles or "corpuscules" someday again will take their place in the taklamakan, changtang, sahel, death valley, atacama, the streams in the ocean. pain seems the antichambre for becoming rock, chomolungma, kailash, kilimandjaro. in their solemnity they stand and wait, majectically, noble,nobles grisée, while the pain then is to such measure outstretched, that it vanishes in fissura, fumaroles, glacial patches, gleisfields, pume valleys, snowest snow. la tigresse, la lionesse, la jaguarina, all have lived it out in the, at the, savannas, jungles, bamboo
unendlessnesses, monotonie sibérien, everything outstretched now, we're all returning to becoming land, vegetation again, demolecularisation,
what first was feared became something longed for, naturality to naturality, floating in an oceanics of referencelessness, magnificently visualised in this video from tim, as we exchange shamanic or boddhisattvatic iones and globules and nodules. becoming land,this stone here on the floor of death valley travels and sings at night, becoming "the outback",or spinifex, or honeysuckle, or a hazel.
becoming world, encompassing world, already foreseen in lsd'd visions
or paintrance visions, standing before the wall, as the tigresse haunts
the words and the becomings, into blissfull and astral states.
Aad de Gide (with permission)
* * * * * * * *
This is what Aad was reacting to. It is written and spoken by Tim Barrus. If you can’t get the vid to open, let me tell you that it is a young Chinese boy in his school uniform -- short pants, white shirt, long tie -- dancing in a near-ballet manner but loosened, as are his shirt and tie. He appears to be dancing underwater.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=165295853483083&comments&il=0&ref=notif¬if_t=video_reply
dancing underwater (with thanks to aad) (for jacob)
from the night's blue and falling in/ which shapes already are these/ or measurable unshapes/ the casualness of death/ switching/ shifting/ dancing to cast the anchors of the drowning off/ drowning for a cure/ one day we will risk everything/ in pain's past tower of the guard; pain wins/ we malign the asphyxiation of our second selves all the while knowing that as consumers we've been drowning in our accumulated junk for years/ we are simply lifeless bodies floating/ lay groveling/ that were arms and shoulders in the waves/ out of what destruction did it bring/ and slept/ the tiger chest for tea/ the sounding shallow what cure/ and making love with the same animal/ bone' flesh/ family/ receives the same result/ passion for nobility/ now, there's the shifting cure of the abyss/
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is my reflection on this same thing, a diagnosis of HIV. I’m drawing on science. Do you know the island of Madasgascar? A huge island split off the east coast of Africa, separated far enough and long enough that the life there is even stranger than the life on Australia, because each has evolved in a different path. The separation is a result of “plate tectonics” which are under all the continents and make them drift apart, then together, so that the Pacific Ocean separates Montana from Siberia, but the people, the grizzly bears and the peonies are quite similar. They are responding to the land that sustains them, which is also quite similar -- long-horizoned grasslands.
Only recently has someone discovered that the Madagascar lemurs, the most early of the primates -- spooky ghost-eyed not-monkeys with long stiff forefingers -- had in their fluid systems the virus code that we call Auto-Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. Earlier (we know, because of the split in the land) than the same monkey and chimp virus in Africa. And now the same human virus in America. And Europe and Asia. It is an ecosyndemic, many forces converging.
The thought now is that the virus “jumped” from monkeys in Africa to humans in cities NOT because of eating bush meat or because of wanton gay behavior, but because of the invention of the syringe. Not the modern, slender, fine-needled disposable plastic instrument we know now, but because of the originals, which I happen to remember. They were glass, heavy, probably Pyrex, and the plunger came out, the needle came off, so that you could fill them with water and then they made fine squirt guns. The woman across the street needed constant injections for pain and her nurse companion gave us some spare syringes. The feel of them, cool/cold/hard is in my hands.
Once the hypodermic (below the skin) syringe was invented, it was possible to mainline drugs. No one would want to discard those early glass syringes -- it was clear they could simply be washed. But no one had dishwashers or autoclaves or thought of bleach, so they were reused while carrying residue. Especially in Africa. The snow leopard came down from the mountain peak and metamorphed our bones to igneous stone.
And this sharing of words and images, responding to the universal dance of survival, is what books are now.
Saturday, October 09, 2010
IDAHO PANHANDLE TALES
(My friend Paul has a ton of these stories, which he's sharing with me. He took the photo as well.)
Cecil Hansen was an old-timer that lived in a trailer behind the State Line tavern. A fit old gent, in his 70's, he had quite a storied past and loved to tell what everyone thought were invented tales.
He was an avid prospector and had told me a fantastic story once of a high mountain lake in a cirque that he found color in and explained cirques were natural aggregators of gold because all the surrounding water drained into them. He went on to tell how he and a sidekick sawed a trail into the lake and hauled a bunch of piping in with the intent to try and drain the lake. Other than his failed attempt, he was secretive about any other details probably because he was still thinking of going back up and finishing the job.
Fast forward a number of years, I took that cruising contract and got a very good price on it because no one else wanted to bid on such a remote and difficult job. The picture above is the front face and north end of the mountain ridge where the job was, and continues about five miles south.
The first day I struggled up the front face which is heavily timbered and very brushy until you get to the top. From the road, it's about a 4500' elevation gain and a long haul for this fat guy. Spent the night and worked the next day, keeping an eye out for a water source and possible better access. About 2000' lower on the back side of the mountain I saw a little lake in a cirque. I made my way down and it being a hot July or August afternoon, shucked my clothes and made my way out into the shallow lake for a cooldown dip. I was about knee deep when I noticed a million little black streaks making for my legs. LEECHES!! I think I leapt all the way back to shore, sluicing the bloodsuckers off my legs. Poking around the edges of the lake, I came to the outlet which had evidence of prospecting and rolls of poly pipe. I knew right off I'd found Cecil's workings and knew he had a cut trail into it.
When I came back down I looked up Cecil and picked his memory, hoping for easier access to the job site. It was somewhat easier, still the same elevation gain, but in steps, instead of straight up, it became my chosen route, though the sawed in trail had overgrown considerably with brush, elk, moose and bear kept it somewhat open over the years and it beat trying to bull your way through the many brush fields.
I paid a lot closer attention to Cecil's tales after that experience.
Ellis Shenk was the notorious proprietor of the State Line House, which was appropriately located right on the State line, with the bar in Montana and the never finished dance hall supposedly in Idaho, until he hired me to survey his place and set him right.
When I first moved here, I avoided the place because of it's unsavory reputation and the storied grouchy bar owner. One day I was riding Red Cloud, my mule, along the highway across from the bar when the front door burst open and someone with an honest to god tommy gun shot it off into the hillside right behind us. Red Cloud did the sensible thing and left me in the dirt alongside the road and the bar door slammed shut with gales of laughter from inside. I was livid! Soon as I got my wind back I jumped up and charged across the highway and parking lot, through the door, and confronted the still chuckling Ellis who already had a beer on the bar for me. I still wasn't overly happy when he explained that they just wanted to meet me, as they frequently saw us riding by but never stopped in to say howdy.
He and the old-timers around there didn't have much truck with "hippies" of which I fit the bill, but the fact they generally saw me out with the mule or horse threw them off. One beer led to a bunch and before long, I was standing in the doorway shooting his tommy gun across into the bank across the highway. I was fascinated with that thing and had never even seen a real one, but Ellis had the proper Federal Firearms license to have a lot of interesting weapons.
Despite our rocky start, we ended up being great friends over the years. Might even say that he and his equally grouchy wife Jean were surrogate parents of sorts.
Ellis's son, Mark, was fresh back from Viet Nam and they'd always had a somewhat contentious relationship from what I gathered. Ellis was puzzled and perplexed because his own flesh and blood had come home from the war a homosexual queen! What?! He was wearing a purple silk shirt, polyester bellbottom pants and HE HAD AN EARRING IN HIS EAR!!!
Still going to college in Missoula, I assured Ellis that's how folks dressed in town and he probably didn't have anything to worry about.
A few months later, Ellis saved my bacon. A repo man from Missoula or Great Falls stopped in looking for me because I was a few months behind on my truck payment. Ellis sat him down, poured him a beer, went out back to tell Mark to head up my way to warn me and went back in to tell the guy all about me. He made up a tale of how I was a real bad ass hippie, living at a hippie compound with a bunch of wild, bad ass hippies, all armed to the teeth and waiting for Armageddon.
The guy must have believed him and never showed up. Later, Ellis loaned me enough money to catch up on my payments, holding some of my guns for security, because, as it turns out, he was also the local "pawn broker", which is how he amassed his rather impressive arsenal.
Ellis always kept large amounts of cash around and was always happy to cash your check if he knew you, no matter the size, or extend credit if he thought you were good for it. When I was cruising timber, money was always an issue. We'd generally get started in the lower country about May, and completed jobs turned in for inspection and final payment, meant money might not start showing up until August! I thought I finally had Ellis, when I got my first payment, which covered months of work for both my partner and I. I told Ellis that I'd be happy to pay off what we owed him if he could cash our check. It was probably in the neighborhood of 10-20K. He said sure, took it, glanced at it and said he'd have to go over to the house to get enough to cash it, but was soon back and carefully counted it all out on the bar for us, minus what we owed him! Never underestimate some of these old-timers, they're likely to surprise you.
Cecil Hansen was an old-timer that lived in a trailer behind the State Line tavern. A fit old gent, in his 70's, he had quite a storied past and loved to tell what everyone thought were invented tales.
He was an avid prospector and had told me a fantastic story once of a high mountain lake in a cirque that he found color in and explained cirques were natural aggregators of gold because all the surrounding water drained into them. He went on to tell how he and a sidekick sawed a trail into the lake and hauled a bunch of piping in with the intent to try and drain the lake. Other than his failed attempt, he was secretive about any other details probably because he was still thinking of going back up and finishing the job.
Fast forward a number of years, I took that cruising contract and got a very good price on it because no one else wanted to bid on such a remote and difficult job. The picture above is the front face and north end of the mountain ridge where the job was, and continues about five miles south.
The first day I struggled up the front face which is heavily timbered and very brushy until you get to the top. From the road, it's about a 4500' elevation gain and a long haul for this fat guy. Spent the night and worked the next day, keeping an eye out for a water source and possible better access. About 2000' lower on the back side of the mountain I saw a little lake in a cirque. I made my way down and it being a hot July or August afternoon, shucked my clothes and made my way out into the shallow lake for a cooldown dip. I was about knee deep when I noticed a million little black streaks making for my legs. LEECHES!! I think I leapt all the way back to shore, sluicing the bloodsuckers off my legs. Poking around the edges of the lake, I came to the outlet which had evidence of prospecting and rolls of poly pipe. I knew right off I'd found Cecil's workings and knew he had a cut trail into it.
When I came back down I looked up Cecil and picked his memory, hoping for easier access to the job site. It was somewhat easier, still the same elevation gain, but in steps, instead of straight up, it became my chosen route, though the sawed in trail had overgrown considerably with brush, elk, moose and bear kept it somewhat open over the years and it beat trying to bull your way through the many brush fields.
I paid a lot closer attention to Cecil's tales after that experience.
Ellis Shenk was the notorious proprietor of the State Line House, which was appropriately located right on the State line, with the bar in Montana and the never finished dance hall supposedly in Idaho, until he hired me to survey his place and set him right.
When I first moved here, I avoided the place because of it's unsavory reputation and the storied grouchy bar owner. One day I was riding Red Cloud, my mule, along the highway across from the bar when the front door burst open and someone with an honest to god tommy gun shot it off into the hillside right behind us. Red Cloud did the sensible thing and left me in the dirt alongside the road and the bar door slammed shut with gales of laughter from inside. I was livid! Soon as I got my wind back I jumped up and charged across the highway and parking lot, through the door, and confronted the still chuckling Ellis who already had a beer on the bar for me. I still wasn't overly happy when he explained that they just wanted to meet me, as they frequently saw us riding by but never stopped in to say howdy.
He and the old-timers around there didn't have much truck with "hippies" of which I fit the bill, but the fact they generally saw me out with the mule or horse threw them off. One beer led to a bunch and before long, I was standing in the doorway shooting his tommy gun across into the bank across the highway. I was fascinated with that thing and had never even seen a real one, but Ellis had the proper Federal Firearms license to have a lot of interesting weapons.
Despite our rocky start, we ended up being great friends over the years. Might even say that he and his equally grouchy wife Jean were surrogate parents of sorts.
Ellis's son, Mark, was fresh back from Viet Nam and they'd always had a somewhat contentious relationship from what I gathered. Ellis was puzzled and perplexed because his own flesh and blood had come home from the war a homosexual queen! What?! He was wearing a purple silk shirt, polyester bellbottom pants and HE HAD AN EARRING IN HIS EAR!!!
Still going to college in Missoula, I assured Ellis that's how folks dressed in town and he probably didn't have anything to worry about.
A few months later, Ellis saved my bacon. A repo man from Missoula or Great Falls stopped in looking for me because I was a few months behind on my truck payment. Ellis sat him down, poured him a beer, went out back to tell Mark to head up my way to warn me and went back in to tell the guy all about me. He made up a tale of how I was a real bad ass hippie, living at a hippie compound with a bunch of wild, bad ass hippies, all armed to the teeth and waiting for Armageddon.
The guy must have believed him and never showed up. Later, Ellis loaned me enough money to catch up on my payments, holding some of my guns for security, because, as it turns out, he was also the local "pawn broker", which is how he amassed his rather impressive arsenal.
Ellis always kept large amounts of cash around and was always happy to cash your check if he knew you, no matter the size, or extend credit if he thought you were good for it. When I was cruising timber, money was always an issue. We'd generally get started in the lower country about May, and completed jobs turned in for inspection and final payment, meant money might not start showing up until August! I thought I finally had Ellis, when I got my first payment, which covered months of work for both my partner and I. I told Ellis that I'd be happy to pay off what we owed him if he could cash our check. It was probably in the neighborhood of 10-20K. He said sure, took it, glanced at it and said he'd have to go over to the house to get enough to cash it, but was soon back and carefully counted it all out on the bar for us, minus what we owed him! Never underestimate some of these old-timers, they're likely to surprise you.
Friday, October 08, 2010
HISTORY OF LITURGY
The first major cultural change to affect Christian liturgy was through the change in status of the religion from suppressed and persecuted to an officially accepted state religion. There was a great leap in the richness and mannerliness of the ceremony as it went from a simple devotion in a private home to a court-style event in a public basilica. More importantly, the distinction between the first half of the mass, which could only be attended by communicants, and the second half, once reserved for committed believers, disappeared: the distinction between the two sorts of worshippers had become too blurry to enforce. No longer was this a company of martyrs and saints. Society in general became Christian in its assumptions. Babies were baptized before they were old enough for instruction. Finally only the specifically excommunicated could be barred, but they didn’t try to come anyway.
Two other related developments changed the nature of the Eucharist. Those who attended the Eucharist had at first been “offerers” rather than “communicants;” they brought the bread and wine themselves. In the fifth or sixth centuries the clerical orders began to supply the bread, so that the people were demoted to being receivers only. Either partly as cause or partly as effect, the act of communion began to take on mysterious, even fearful, overtones. Especially in the East, Communion was regarded as something safe only for the truly sanctified, so that fewer people felt entitled to even receive, and the rest were demoted still more to merely watching others received. This was not in words, only a shift in the “felt concept.”
Another simple act with large consequences was the transfor of the Prayers of the People from the Synaxis to the last half of the Eucharistic Prayer. This left the whole Synaxis bereft of anything for the people to do after the reply to the greeting except to listen and watch. The congregation was getting to be an audience. Prayers became elaborate monologues of intercession by the celebrant, supported by belief in the special efficacy of prayer in the presence of the consecrated sacrament -- a drift towards magic.
Whether attitude changed practice or vice versa, the trend was toward a larger group of people, less distinguished from society at large, less personally committed to each other because of risk and friendship, more in awe of the believed efficacy of Christian rites, more passive than active, more divided from the clerical “order,” more subject to superstition and elaboration for its own sake. Christianity was becoming more closely related to culture so that when Eastern and Western cultures began to separate, so did their liturgies. Eastern worshippers, in awe of the power of the Elements (bread and wine), eventually walled off Communion from the congregation. Western worshipers shared the awe but were motivated to draw near to watch for the moment of Transsubstantiation. (A bell was rung to make sure no one missed it.) Westerners approached in fascination; Easterners withdrew trembling.
In the interval between the fifth century and the eighth century, society was in unheaval. Government decentralized, education and general prosperity declined, and much was lost. In those centuries the Mass persisted, but each geographical area was so separated from the others that the different places diverged. Three Eastern versions -- “Far East” (Syrian), Egyptian and Greek -- and at least five European versions -- Roman, Milanese, Spanish, Gallican, Celtic -- existed with sub-categories in each type.
The Mass structure is so sturdy that it survived all this. In fact, in historic times it has survived adoption and variation by several denominations: Church of England, Episcopalian (American Anglican), Lutheran, Methodist, for example. But also as the contemporary culture has changed from being progressive and “hip” (guitar mass and unscrewing the pews) to something like mainstream and then whiplashed back to traditional Latin mass with pews in rows.
Blackfeet “Bundle Opening” ceremonies have undergone a far more radical culture change but their structure has also held true. A different kind of person gathers in the circle, most of them cannot speak Blackfeet and don’t know the songs, much less the animals and land they refer to. The objects are the same (animal skins, a pipe stem or calumet) and the people are in lineal descent from early Blackfeet. The ceremony is not the same and yet it IS the same.
I have used the Unitarian symbol of the flame in the chalice (rather than wine) as a way of symbolizing the traditional structure of liturgy that contains the spiritual. I believe that liturgy is rooted in biology, the natural pattern of coming together and going apart.
I've also used a story from the Jewish tradition. In the first ceremony the rabbi goes to a special place in the forest, kindles a fire, prays, and is in contact with the sacred. In the next generation, the people are displaced, but the rabbi kindles a fire, prays, and the holy is there. In the next generation it is forbidden to kindle a fire or pray. But the rabbi tells the story and the holy is there.
Two other related developments changed the nature of the Eucharist. Those who attended the Eucharist had at first been “offerers” rather than “communicants;” they brought the bread and wine themselves. In the fifth or sixth centuries the clerical orders began to supply the bread, so that the people were demoted to being receivers only. Either partly as cause or partly as effect, the act of communion began to take on mysterious, even fearful, overtones. Especially in the East, Communion was regarded as something safe only for the truly sanctified, so that fewer people felt entitled to even receive, and the rest were demoted still more to merely watching others received. This was not in words, only a shift in the “felt concept.”
Another simple act with large consequences was the transfor of the Prayers of the People from the Synaxis to the last half of the Eucharistic Prayer. This left the whole Synaxis bereft of anything for the people to do after the reply to the greeting except to listen and watch. The congregation was getting to be an audience. Prayers became elaborate monologues of intercession by the celebrant, supported by belief in the special efficacy of prayer in the presence of the consecrated sacrament -- a drift towards magic.
Whether attitude changed practice or vice versa, the trend was toward a larger group of people, less distinguished from society at large, less personally committed to each other because of risk and friendship, more in awe of the believed efficacy of Christian rites, more passive than active, more divided from the clerical “order,” more subject to superstition and elaboration for its own sake. Christianity was becoming more closely related to culture so that when Eastern and Western cultures began to separate, so did their liturgies. Eastern worshippers, in awe of the power of the Elements (bread and wine), eventually walled off Communion from the congregation. Western worshipers shared the awe but were motivated to draw near to watch for the moment of Transsubstantiation. (A bell was rung to make sure no one missed it.) Westerners approached in fascination; Easterners withdrew trembling.
In the interval between the fifth century and the eighth century, society was in unheaval. Government decentralized, education and general prosperity declined, and much was lost. In those centuries the Mass persisted, but each geographical area was so separated from the others that the different places diverged. Three Eastern versions -- “Far East” (Syrian), Egyptian and Greek -- and at least five European versions -- Roman, Milanese, Spanish, Gallican, Celtic -- existed with sub-categories in each type.
The Mass structure is so sturdy that it survived all this. In fact, in historic times it has survived adoption and variation by several denominations: Church of England, Episcopalian (American Anglican), Lutheran, Methodist, for example. But also as the contemporary culture has changed from being progressive and “hip” (guitar mass and unscrewing the pews) to something like mainstream and then whiplashed back to traditional Latin mass with pews in rows.
Blackfeet “Bundle Opening” ceremonies have undergone a far more radical culture change but their structure has also held true. A different kind of person gathers in the circle, most of them cannot speak Blackfeet and don’t know the songs, much less the animals and land they refer to. The objects are the same (animal skins, a pipe stem or calumet) and the people are in lineal descent from early Blackfeet. The ceremony is not the same and yet it IS the same.
I have used the Unitarian symbol of the flame in the chalice (rather than wine) as a way of symbolizing the traditional structure of liturgy that contains the spiritual. I believe that liturgy is rooted in biology, the natural pattern of coming together and going apart.
I've also used a story from the Jewish tradition. In the first ceremony the rabbi goes to a special place in the forest, kindles a fire, prays, and is in contact with the sacred. In the next generation, the people are displaced, but the rabbi kindles a fire, prays, and the holy is there. In the next generation it is forbidden to kindle a fire or pray. But the rabbi tells the story and the holy is there.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
THE HOLD-UP DONKEY
My friend Paul, who is a real Montana character though he lives somewhere around Bonner’s Ferry now, has a few donkey stories to tell. He gave me permission to print these.
We happened to be at the weekly junk auction one day, which ran concurrently with the weekly livestock auction next door. Someone collared me and told me about a "bullet proof" donkey in the line up, so the kids and I went out to meet her. She was a staid old lady donkey and even in all the confusion of the stockyard, took right to the kids.
We didn't have to pay much for her, but afterwards had her out in the parking lot, looking for someone with a trailer to take her home for us. As soon as we got next to the truck, she jumped right in back and laid down. Somebody worked with her a lot, but we never got a history on her. Brought her home and turned her out with the cattle who she took to promptly, other than her daily visits to the garden area where the kids would feed her goodies and let them ride her around a bit. Bonnie was a fat old thing, or so I thought until one day we discovered her little bundle of joy waiting at the garden fence with her.
The colt, Bojangles, much preferred people to cattle and at an early age took to going through the wire to come visit at the house and pretty much just slept on the porch with mom and son keeping in touch with loud brays. It really was like a big ol' dog and eventually I gave up trying to keep it in a fence. His only drawback is that he got pretty demanding and would persist until he got what he wanted.
Folks were always stopping on the road to watch his antics and someone must have fed him something he really liked, because ever after, as soon as he heard someone coming down the county road, he'd run out and stand in the middle, waiting for his treat. If you tried to go around him he'd just dodge over and block folks until they'd stop. Then he'd stick his head right in if there was an open window, or press his face right up to the eyeballs against the glass.
Folks thought it was cute for awhile and some tired of the game, but he never did. If someone honked their horn, he'd bray back just as loudly, so it got noisy around here. People complained, but there wasn't a heck of a lot I could do about it, I figured someone would eventually just run him over. He got pretty famous as the "hold up donkey" and folks would bring their kids all the way out here just to see him do his thing.
My youngest at 20 helps date the donkey years. He's my only ready resource, but I asked him for more donkey tales when I got home last night and he was drawing a blank. He was only five or six when the donkeys were sold.
I'd think there would be more donkey tales than I recall, but most everything was mundane. Occasionally noisy, meddlesome but always friendly.
At one point I envisioned using them for packing my camp while cruising timber. I had a contract that had lousy access as it was on a ridge line, but the worst problem was no water. Even conserving, I go through a couple gallons in 24 hours in August, between drinking and cooking. I thought I could pack four five-gallon cans on Bojangles and work a five day stretch at a time. It took most of an entire day walk into the job site, but the problem for the donkey is that it was very brushy and he kept getting high-centered in the Menzessia and Rhododendron. I finally gave up trying to lead him and just left him to figure it out. He showed up in camp the first night about an hour after I arrived, but half the water was gone from being poked into tree staubs. (They were plastic water containers.)
It worked fairly well as far as it went. I didn't trust my gear pack with him because losing it would have made for an uncomfortable night. We'd split up in the morning and I'd just go about my work. He couldn't take the same direct routes I was forced to follow, but managed to always stay near, either by smell or by sound. When we came back through town I bought some metal water cans for the following week and adapted the packsaddle for our next venture, but when it was time to go back to work, he refused to load in the horse trailer. Prior to the first trip he'd always jumped right up, but now even with his favorite treats and pushing, pulling and shoving, he wasn't about to take another trip with me. I never could load him after that, and don't think he even much liked me anymore. I told the kids it was probably my snoring he didn't like.
After that I tried to hire a helicopter to drop a couple fifty-five gallon barrels up on top, and could have even gotten it done for free since there was a logging helicopter builder at the airport that had just completed a rebuild and thought it would be a dandy test. The forest service got wind of it and shut me down unless I agreed to haul the barrels back out. I ended up hiring high school kids to ferry five gallons at a time to the top and stage them, which was a pain-in-the-ass and expensive, but got the job done.
I learned to scout my potential remote jobs for access to water after that experience.
We happened to be at the weekly junk auction one day, which ran concurrently with the weekly livestock auction next door. Someone collared me and told me about a "bullet proof" donkey in the line up, so the kids and I went out to meet her. She was a staid old lady donkey and even in all the confusion of the stockyard, took right to the kids.
We didn't have to pay much for her, but afterwards had her out in the parking lot, looking for someone with a trailer to take her home for us. As soon as we got next to the truck, she jumped right in back and laid down. Somebody worked with her a lot, but we never got a history on her. Brought her home and turned her out with the cattle who she took to promptly, other than her daily visits to the garden area where the kids would feed her goodies and let them ride her around a bit. Bonnie was a fat old thing, or so I thought until one day we discovered her little bundle of joy waiting at the garden fence with her.
The colt, Bojangles, much preferred people to cattle and at an early age took to going through the wire to come visit at the house and pretty much just slept on the porch with mom and son keeping in touch with loud brays. It really was like a big ol' dog and eventually I gave up trying to keep it in a fence. His only drawback is that he got pretty demanding and would persist until he got what he wanted.
Folks were always stopping on the road to watch his antics and someone must have fed him something he really liked, because ever after, as soon as he heard someone coming down the county road, he'd run out and stand in the middle, waiting for his treat. If you tried to go around him he'd just dodge over and block folks until they'd stop. Then he'd stick his head right in if there was an open window, or press his face right up to the eyeballs against the glass.
Folks thought it was cute for awhile and some tired of the game, but he never did. If someone honked their horn, he'd bray back just as loudly, so it got noisy around here. People complained, but there wasn't a heck of a lot I could do about it, I figured someone would eventually just run him over. He got pretty famous as the "hold up donkey" and folks would bring their kids all the way out here just to see him do his thing.
My youngest at 20 helps date the donkey years. He's my only ready resource, but I asked him for more donkey tales when I got home last night and he was drawing a blank. He was only five or six when the donkeys were sold.
I'd think there would be more donkey tales than I recall, but most everything was mundane. Occasionally noisy, meddlesome but always friendly.
At one point I envisioned using them for packing my camp while cruising timber. I had a contract that had lousy access as it was on a ridge line, but the worst problem was no water. Even conserving, I go through a couple gallons in 24 hours in August, between drinking and cooking. I thought I could pack four five-gallon cans on Bojangles and work a five day stretch at a time. It took most of an entire day walk into the job site, but the problem for the donkey is that it was very brushy and he kept getting high-centered in the Menzessia and Rhododendron. I finally gave up trying to lead him and just left him to figure it out. He showed up in camp the first night about an hour after I arrived, but half the water was gone from being poked into tree staubs. (They were plastic water containers.)
It worked fairly well as far as it went. I didn't trust my gear pack with him because losing it would have made for an uncomfortable night. We'd split up in the morning and I'd just go about my work. He couldn't take the same direct routes I was forced to follow, but managed to always stay near, either by smell or by sound. When we came back through town I bought some metal water cans for the following week and adapted the packsaddle for our next venture, but when it was time to go back to work, he refused to load in the horse trailer. Prior to the first trip he'd always jumped right up, but now even with his favorite treats and pushing, pulling and shoving, he wasn't about to take another trip with me. I never could load him after that, and don't think he even much liked me anymore. I told the kids it was probably my snoring he didn't like.
After that I tried to hire a helicopter to drop a couple fifty-five gallon barrels up on top, and could have even gotten it done for free since there was a logging helicopter builder at the airport that had just completed a rebuild and thought it would be a dandy test. The forest service got wind of it and shut me down unless I agreed to haul the barrels back out. I ended up hiring high school kids to ferry five gallons at a time to the top and stage them, which was a pain-in-the-ass and expensive, but got the job done.
I learned to scout my potential remote jobs for access to water after that experience.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
THEY'RE AFTER US!
An old Blackfeet lady (my age), well-educated, once in religious orders, sophisticated, a mother, a person who has lived in major cities, called me late at night for a bit of reassurance. She said she thought I was the only one likely to be awake at that hour and she was right. She is feeling ill, broke, put-down and bereft. She’s right about that, too. She thought I might say something useful. I don’t think she was really right about that.
The next morning she called me early in the grip of full-blown paranoia. People had targeted her, people were trying to get into her room (they had a key), a friend had died with strange marks on her stomach. I tried to talk her out of it, but no go, so I lost patience, just told her she was paranoid. She said thanks a lot, I was the one who put her there. She might be right about that. But it’s not really paranoia if they’re really after you. And “whites” (which is a code word for powerful people who control your life) have been after Indians since Columbus landed. Mortality rates are high and the percentage of them that are unnecessary deaths is high.
1. Population growth (most people are Catholic) beyond the carrying capacity of the business structures (including the Tribal Corporation), the land itself, or federal willingness to provide goods and services. Most prominently there is never the will to fund proper law enforcement, which is partly a function of enough officers well-trained and equipped and partly a function of social expectations. (No one expects much or even expects that expectations can rise.) Indian justice presumes that for major crimes, federal officials will step in, but they have no motivation to do so. When it comes to “minor” crimes (which may have major consequences) the presumption that Indians have a separate (sovereign) culture traps them in a box. There is no Supreme Court appeal. In the end it’s a small world with political forces powerful enough to prevent justice. Murders go unsolved; suspicious deaths are not investigated; rumors about mysterious deaths constantly circulate.
The federal government, after admitting they embezzled the trust funds of NA people, refuses to give them the money. Time after time the expectation is raised, then dashed.
2. A serious split in the tribe began early when some people had the advantage of white fathers (literally) who were in business or owned land or otherwise were employed so that prosperity went disproportionally to those folks. Their early advantage expanded into a major class split within the tribe itself. Most outsiders are totally unconscious of this.
3. A genetic heritage once fitted the people to the land in ways that no longer exist in terms of diet, exercise and practices. They were meat and vegetable eaters, always on the move. There was no sugar or alcohol.
4. This makes them vulnerable to diabetes among other things. Genetic vulnerability to diabetes is exacerbated economically by the tendency to eat cheap food -- high sugar, high carb, high salt and high fat but low nutrition. Partly this comes from eating fast food and junk food, fat beef instead of lean game and buffalo; and partly from being dependent on commodities and food banks. The foods from those sources are also high carb, high sugar.
5. The boarding school approach to breaking the old culture (plus the impact of population decimation from smallpox, cholera, and massacre) broke families and their generational wisdom. At one point there were only about 500 Amskapi Pikuni -- Montana Blackfeet -- half of whom were children. Many became stranded between cultures.
6. This compares to modern AIDS devastation in Africa, though American tribal people will resent me saying so. They do not like comparison to low status groups. One of the strong suppressive forces left by missionaries is the flat denial of things like genetic vulnerability (which translates to their ears as being physically faulty though it was physically supreme under conditions two hundred years ago) or lack of parenting (which translates in their minds to being morally deficient) or any other comparison hinting that they are not “just as good” as middle-class white folks. They want to say, like those missionaries, that they are just as bourgeois and middle-class as anyone else -- ironically at a time when many folks are criticizing that paradigm as destructive, not just to the people but also to the planet, just when we are turning to the authochthonous people as examples of more “noble” ways of living. Many rez folks are now educated and employed well enough to BE middle-class and -- to them -- this is success. White visitors can’t even see middle-class Indians, though some -- despite white-type success -- have maintained or renewed their connections to old-time religious ceremonies and self-disciplines.
7. The people are in a “syndemic.” (This word comes from Merrill Singer.) An “epidemic” of major proportions is a “pandemic.” When that overlaps and converges epidemics of disease, economic need, family disfunction, drugs, trauma, it becomes a “syndemic.” When one adds extreme weather and drought, it is called an “ecosyndemic.” The good news is that if you have a name for it, you can think about it. But the feedback mechanisms are not adequate to let the tribal members and rez residents participate in the knowledge flow. It feels simply overwhelming.
8. Treaties require that the US government provide education and medical care. This meant one thing in the early days and another thing now, much as the US Constitution meant one thing when it was written and another thing now. Post-modern thought, poorly understood, has taught many kids that education is a white man’s imposition on them and that they should resist it as illegitimate. (I’m NOT kidding.) Discipline in schools, even simple classroom order, can be defined as political oppression, even with a Blackfeet superintendent, principals, teachers and school boards -- which the schools have. The response has been to lower standards to the point where rez kids can’t cope with college-level work. They have no concept of remediation to catch up, but simply conclude they are inferior and go home. But those who have family support and guidance can zoom up to the Ph.D. level and some are MD’s.
The need for conscientious support in a hospital -- accurate record-keeping, proper med dispensing, careful cleaning, preventative education -- are LIFE-SAVING but not seen that way. Insistence on high standards come across as just more oppression and withholding.
9. There is a glass wall around the reservation. The newspaper is owned and controlled off-rez, though the actual editor is a sympathetic white with anthropological training. There is no sense by the surrounding white community that rez probs are very much like their own and vice versa, so there is very little sharing or sympathy. When the state legislation required that all Montana schools teach Indian history (which happened right here!) an educated woman said to me, “I don’t see why WE should have to study THEIR history!”
10. Pop media do not “get” Indians. They INSIST that they are either doomed drunks or doomed heroes. Anything other than that is simply not defined as Indian so it becomes invisible. People tell me there are no US Indian actors but I could name twenty who are Indian -- just not seen that way. HEATHER LOCKLEAR??? My fav example.
So, in general, it is right for an old lady Indian to be paranoid. I’m paranoid myself even though I’m white. The forces ARE aligned against us. We are at least somewhat victims. But there is no intent to single us out for punishment as individuals. In fact, there is no intent at all. No one person or group to blame. It’s structural: ecopandemic. The way the cookie crumbles, the chips fall, and we daren’t even eat ‘em. It’s grandiose to think we are the target; narcissistic not to understand that others suffer. Right here.
The next morning she called me early in the grip of full-blown paranoia. People had targeted her, people were trying to get into her room (they had a key), a friend had died with strange marks on her stomach. I tried to talk her out of it, but no go, so I lost patience, just told her she was paranoid. She said thanks a lot, I was the one who put her there. She might be right about that. But it’s not really paranoia if they’re really after you. And “whites” (which is a code word for powerful people who control your life) have been after Indians since Columbus landed. Mortality rates are high and the percentage of them that are unnecessary deaths is high.
1. Population growth (most people are Catholic) beyond the carrying capacity of the business structures (including the Tribal Corporation), the land itself, or federal willingness to provide goods and services. Most prominently there is never the will to fund proper law enforcement, which is partly a function of enough officers well-trained and equipped and partly a function of social expectations. (No one expects much or even expects that expectations can rise.) Indian justice presumes that for major crimes, federal officials will step in, but they have no motivation to do so. When it comes to “minor” crimes (which may have major consequences) the presumption that Indians have a separate (sovereign) culture traps them in a box. There is no Supreme Court appeal. In the end it’s a small world with political forces powerful enough to prevent justice. Murders go unsolved; suspicious deaths are not investigated; rumors about mysterious deaths constantly circulate.
The federal government, after admitting they embezzled the trust funds of NA people, refuses to give them the money. Time after time the expectation is raised, then dashed.
2. A serious split in the tribe began early when some people had the advantage of white fathers (literally) who were in business or owned land or otherwise were employed so that prosperity went disproportionally to those folks. Their early advantage expanded into a major class split within the tribe itself. Most outsiders are totally unconscious of this.
3. A genetic heritage once fitted the people to the land in ways that no longer exist in terms of diet, exercise and practices. They were meat and vegetable eaters, always on the move. There was no sugar or alcohol.
4. This makes them vulnerable to diabetes among other things. Genetic vulnerability to diabetes is exacerbated economically by the tendency to eat cheap food -- high sugar, high carb, high salt and high fat but low nutrition. Partly this comes from eating fast food and junk food, fat beef instead of lean game and buffalo; and partly from being dependent on commodities and food banks. The foods from those sources are also high carb, high sugar.
5. The boarding school approach to breaking the old culture (plus the impact of population decimation from smallpox, cholera, and massacre) broke families and their generational wisdom. At one point there were only about 500 Amskapi Pikuni -- Montana Blackfeet -- half of whom were children. Many became stranded between cultures.
6. This compares to modern AIDS devastation in Africa, though American tribal people will resent me saying so. They do not like comparison to low status groups. One of the strong suppressive forces left by missionaries is the flat denial of things like genetic vulnerability (which translates to their ears as being physically faulty though it was physically supreme under conditions two hundred years ago) or lack of parenting (which translates in their minds to being morally deficient) or any other comparison hinting that they are not “just as good” as middle-class white folks. They want to say, like those missionaries, that they are just as bourgeois and middle-class as anyone else -- ironically at a time when many folks are criticizing that paradigm as destructive, not just to the people but also to the planet, just when we are turning to the authochthonous people as examples of more “noble” ways of living. Many rez folks are now educated and employed well enough to BE middle-class and -- to them -- this is success. White visitors can’t even see middle-class Indians, though some -- despite white-type success -- have maintained or renewed their connections to old-time religious ceremonies and self-disciplines.
7. The people are in a “syndemic.” (This word comes from Merrill Singer.) An “epidemic” of major proportions is a “pandemic.” When that overlaps and converges epidemics of disease, economic need, family disfunction, drugs, trauma, it becomes a “syndemic.” When one adds extreme weather and drought, it is called an “ecosyndemic.” The good news is that if you have a name for it, you can think about it. But the feedback mechanisms are not adequate to let the tribal members and rez residents participate in the knowledge flow. It feels simply overwhelming.
8. Treaties require that the US government provide education and medical care. This meant one thing in the early days and another thing now, much as the US Constitution meant one thing when it was written and another thing now. Post-modern thought, poorly understood, has taught many kids that education is a white man’s imposition on them and that they should resist it as illegitimate. (I’m NOT kidding.) Discipline in schools, even simple classroom order, can be defined as political oppression, even with a Blackfeet superintendent, principals, teachers and school boards -- which the schools have. The response has been to lower standards to the point where rez kids can’t cope with college-level work. They have no concept of remediation to catch up, but simply conclude they are inferior and go home. But those who have family support and guidance can zoom up to the Ph.D. level and some are MD’s.
The need for conscientious support in a hospital -- accurate record-keeping, proper med dispensing, careful cleaning, preventative education -- are LIFE-SAVING but not seen that way. Insistence on high standards come across as just more oppression and withholding.
9. There is a glass wall around the reservation. The newspaper is owned and controlled off-rez, though the actual editor is a sympathetic white with anthropological training. There is no sense by the surrounding white community that rez probs are very much like their own and vice versa, so there is very little sharing or sympathy. When the state legislation required that all Montana schools teach Indian history (which happened right here!) an educated woman said to me, “I don’t see why WE should have to study THEIR history!”
10. Pop media do not “get” Indians. They INSIST that they are either doomed drunks or doomed heroes. Anything other than that is simply not defined as Indian so it becomes invisible. People tell me there are no US Indian actors but I could name twenty who are Indian -- just not seen that way. HEATHER LOCKLEAR??? My fav example.
So, in general, it is right for an old lady Indian to be paranoid. I’m paranoid myself even though I’m white. The forces ARE aligned against us. We are at least somewhat victims. But there is no intent to single us out for punishment as individuals. In fact, there is no intent at all. No one person or group to blame. It’s structural: ecopandemic. The way the cookie crumbles, the chips fall, and we daren’t even eat ‘em. It’s grandiose to think we are the target; narcissistic not to understand that others suffer. Right here.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
TAKE MY HAND!
Procrastination and preserving evidence are both strategies that work for me. Now I have time to work down through those piles of material that I showed earlier and I am not susceptible to the paranoia and despair of those who have no piles of paper to see again with more experienced eyes.
When I enrolled at Meadville/Lombard, I was in a program that ended in a Doctor of Ministry degree. (D. Min.) Most ministers earn Masters of Divinity degrees. The DMin program had a University of Chicago MA embedded in it, which is why I went to M/L. One of the requirements of an MA is beginning mastery of a foreign language and I chose French. (Which is the only reason I can stumble through some of Tim’s work, since French is a more universal language for his boys.) Subsequent students thought all this was just too difficult and campaigned until both the MA and the foreign language were dropped.
The D. Min. (which is technically a four-year program) ended in a thesis, but I could not get my thesis approved and eventually was awarded an M.Div. to get me off the books. I was not alone. The fault was both mine (I never quite got hold of what they required and rejected it as a dumb requirement anyway) and theirs (they used our work to “prove” their own ideas). It was the system’s fault. But I’m out of the system now.
I find that the rough notes and the literally scissored and taped raw text (no computers yet) are more interesting than the final copy I hold in a three-ring binder. My subject was a poetic or rhetoric or scaffold for interpreting and designing a worship experience. One of my exasperated advisors, Wendy Olmsted, a very much admired and accomplished professor of rhetoric at the U of C, said, “I do not think a 500 page justification of an alternative to Christian worship. . . was necessary. You sound to me so immersed in your new world that going back to 'gothic gray' does not seem quite the thing.”
She was quite right. But I needed several things and some of them had not developed yet, though some people were about to create the very stepping stones I needed because they were emerging from the culture at the end of the Eighties. I’m talking about anthropology, brain function, and rhetoric, both method and content. From now on I’ll be weaving those threads together, but I have been pulling them in all along.
This is the kind of thing I’m finding in raw notes, but I don’t know whether I thought them up or found them somewhere. A list entitled “The Task of the Worship Leader.”
1. Prescriptive or reconciliation.
2. Kindling of sacred space and time.
3. Articulation of symbol structures.
4. Compiling the raw experience.
5. Isolating the “invariant core.”
6. Using symbols efficaciously.
7. The ethics of authenticity.
Looking at them, I suspect they came out of me. I would add to number one, “creation and transformation” or maybe that’s number eight. These were “deduced” ideas that I drew out of worship experiences I had experienced in several contexts including the Catholic Mass, Blackfeet bundle-opening, and created Unitarian ceremonies like water-mingling. I included an article from a pastoral counseling journal in which a minister justified the invention of a marriage ceremony between a living bride and a groom who had been killed hours before the ceremony, and the grueling Andean survival described in the book, “Alive!” which a local priest interpreted cannibalism as a literal communion of blood and flesh. Tim’s sort of work is very relevant, particularly when he was in San Francisco with a partner doing what he thought was sex work, often specializing in soldiers or cops. I would interpret them as ceremonially relieving post-traumatic stress syndrome. When you think of it that way, S/M becomes highly relevant.
The key to it all is what fMRI’s can show on a screen now: that the brain is a complex of interactions, always transforming itself in response to senses and thought and therefore always transforming our inner mental and emotional state to suit the situation. The first task of the celebrant, whether using traditional material or innovation (not just word, but also movement, projections, music, enactments), is to create the safe space in which to shift into what we might call “worship mode” because while in that inner state, one is very much vulnerable both to oneself and to aggressors from outside the context. It is a little like being hypnotized, but I would maintain that hypnotism, acting, dreaming, therapy, and other creative states are subsets of the same thing that worship is. I find confirmation of this is the thought of others, like D.W. Winnicott.
Victor Turner and von Gennep called this crossing the limen, which is just a fancy word for threshold, as in the threshold of a door. One must be safe inside that place and one must emerge at the end; or the creative achievements made inside (possibly changes in identity) can not be added to one’s daily life. It is very serious stuff and that’s why number seven on my list is “the ethics of authenticity.” Abuse leads to cults and madness. It's often terrifying.
Part of my thinking came out of a paper I was assigned by a UU ministerial association study group: “Explain to us the difference between female worship and male worship.” There was a lot of resentment of prescriptive and patriarchal forces at the time. My analysis was in terms of women wanting to go “into” the liminal state and not come out. It was like making love or nursing a baby and they wanted to stay in that “ecstatic” state. But men found liminal space dangerous and it was hard for them to enter -- once in, they wanted out quickly. This idea came from observing our own vespers services, which varied between traditional and experimental. The women came early and sat meditating beforehand. They left reluctantly. The men hustled in at the last minute and leapt to their feet as soon as they thought it was the end. This is a kind of cultural anthropology and might not hold true outside that context of educated, driven, professional men. You might have to drug them, i.e. get them drunk or high! They want and need control.
See what Wendy means about a 500 page justification? I still might not be capable of it, but if not now, when? Take my hand -- I'm a little frighened!
Monday, October 04, 2010
"TRIAL & RETRIBUTION" NUMBER EIGHT
Last night I watched the eighth tale of “Trial and Retribution,” which is a Lynda LaPlante series. I ordered all of them that are on DVD so far. Shocking as “Prime Suspect” was, this series is up to it, though nothing comes up to Helen Mirren IMHO. I don’t know whether there’s another later series that’s “even worse.” This sequence turns out to be about halfway through a series that has lasted at least until 2009. It’s a “long-form” series, airing three hours on two nights in sequence. That’s roughly like a double-feature movie. Part of the success is LaPlante’s experience as an actual police officer and the contacts she made and part is several central heat-generating characters, so that the focus can switch from one to the other. And part of it is that the stories are located in the unending dissonance between justice and the law, as are most of these cop series. Modern versions almost always portray flawed cops to go over the various lines.
The central character is, as the actor puts it, a “mean little old-fashioned intolerant and isolated Scots bastard who is a sentimental marshmallow when it comes to his ex-wife, his kids and his mother.” All of whom richly deserve to be dumped IMHO. He represents conservative morality, the conviction that he should go after whomever he personally considers to be the “bad guys,” without much consideration for the law or reflection on whether he is becoming corrupted himself.
In the stories he is opposed to relatively sane -- except for driving ambition -- young blonde women who are presumably the new sort of cop, though I haven’t noticed that type around here very much. “Eight” (the cast and crew refer to the stories by their number in the series) has an interesting theme (they have themes). Each of these types is relatively impervious to true, intimate love. In fact, the blonde is frigid or so the men tell her. She wants to be irreproachable, impervious, a modern bureaucratic cop. But that means stuffing rage.
In between is “Satch,” who is just normal, though he has an interesting face, the guy who witnesses, buffers, and sometimes looks on astonished. He is the confidante of both main characters. The rest of the officers move in and out of the same roles. We often see the rather foolish men acting like frat boys (gloating over porn) while the resigned motherly women shake their heads and go on with the work. In the course of solving two murders, the two main characters come up against the workers in a bordello and each of them is cracked open. Painfully. Problematically. Delicately.
The lady who captures the flinty Scot heart is a shapeshifter: one moment a mother, the next a dominatrix; once an innocent immigrant au pair, now a murderer. Story on top of story on top of story. But the actor who is meant to thaw the lady cop is Colin Salmon. remarkable enough that he is a running character in the James Bond series and was even discussed to play the first Black Bond. He's an excellent foil for Helen Mirren when he plays opposite her. At six-three with a Black Velvet voice and a “trust me” manner, he's a jazz trumpeter and drummer, able to convey an entirely seductive menace. The clinical attempt to revive his "partner" in the hospital after her fall is echoed by his personal attempt to give the "kiss of life" to the near-drowned blonde heroine at the end. (This woman seems totally unable to defend herself -- she has no moves.) The “conceit” is that he strikes a nerve in the icy lady cop. He is a more benign than usual version of a LaPlante enthralling charismatic villain.
When a writer creates a character, that invention must have both a spine and a hook. The spine is the main driving force of the personality; the hook is what pulls it out of its path. (Money, love, fear, ambition.) It’s possible for a character to have many hooks, different ones for different plots. But one spine. LaPlante plots give her actors a lot of room to explore around these two components. We should be able to see the spine pretty easily (though there might a spine beneath or within the spine) but the hook is a different matter. It keeps us guessing and watching. How strong is it? Where does it come from? Are there hooks pulling in a different direction?
The little Scots actor (actually a skilled Shakepearean theatre actor and a director) tells us that LaPlante watches carefully to see what the actors do in one episode, then picks up on the details and inspirations and feeds them back into the next episode. These stories are organic in that way, unfolding from the previous motivations of the actors into the plot structure of the writer as we get closer and closer to the heart of the character, which I would propose are where the hook connects with the spine. If a person were doing psychotherapy, I presume this is what the therapist would note for case files, but in a theatrical production the process is done by a group, which means it will be much more influenced by the culture -- not necessarily the culture at large (surely by now we all realize how many competing “cultures” there are) but the culture around the production. For instance, there is a polarizing and paranoid conviction about social class. Interestingly the very high class people are connected to two environments: the grand old English mansions you can buy picture books about and the fabulously severe and glassy condos in skyscrapers. (In Hollywood they are cantilevered over canyons.) Looking at these places is part of the fun. The scripts love to smuggle in a bordello or a topless dance club. This one made me giggle over the resemblance to the one in the Japanese cartoon movie patronized by corrupt vegetables. I wonder whether one influenced the other.
LaPlante often begins with an innocent child, unconsciously going along, when something intercedes. In the case a woman falls out of the sky. The child this time is not a victim, though he’s echoed by an autistic child in the plot. The “figure” or image of the blue satin woman falling out of the sky is a tour d’force -- I have no idea how they managed it. Then that blue satin woman is echoed by a blue satin eiderdown that was wrapped around the body of the falling woman’s mother. These images are so compelling that the script lets them be unrealistic. The eiderdown shows up in an evidence box smelling of heavy perfume, even though the bodies (her dog was there, too) were found almost completely decomposed and stinking. The eiderdown is as pristine as the elegant gown on the falling woman. We are asked to believe (in the end) that a small but determined woman can get the victim, who is quite substantial, into her clothes and over a high wall around the upper-story patio from which she fell, throwing her far enough out to plummet down the middle of the road. It is so poetic, so vivid, that we ask no questions.
Should we? How seriously should we take such a series? Are they genuine and sincere comment on the world or are they just a spectacular distraction? In the end we are Satch, watching, half-confounded, trying to figure it all out.
The central character is, as the actor puts it, a “mean little old-fashioned intolerant and isolated Scots bastard who is a sentimental marshmallow when it comes to his ex-wife, his kids and his mother.” All of whom richly deserve to be dumped IMHO. He represents conservative morality, the conviction that he should go after whomever he personally considers to be the “bad guys,” without much consideration for the law or reflection on whether he is becoming corrupted himself.
In the stories he is opposed to relatively sane -- except for driving ambition -- young blonde women who are presumably the new sort of cop, though I haven’t noticed that type around here very much. “Eight” (the cast and crew refer to the stories by their number in the series) has an interesting theme (they have themes). Each of these types is relatively impervious to true, intimate love. In fact, the blonde is frigid or so the men tell her. She wants to be irreproachable, impervious, a modern bureaucratic cop. But that means stuffing rage.
In between is “Satch,” who is just normal, though he has an interesting face, the guy who witnesses, buffers, and sometimes looks on astonished. He is the confidante of both main characters. The rest of the officers move in and out of the same roles. We often see the rather foolish men acting like frat boys (gloating over porn) while the resigned motherly women shake their heads and go on with the work. In the course of solving two murders, the two main characters come up against the workers in a bordello and each of them is cracked open. Painfully. Problematically. Delicately.
The lady who captures the flinty Scot heart is a shapeshifter: one moment a mother, the next a dominatrix; once an innocent immigrant au pair, now a murderer. Story on top of story on top of story. But the actor who is meant to thaw the lady cop is Colin Salmon. remarkable enough that he is a running character in the James Bond series and was even discussed to play the first Black Bond. He's an excellent foil for Helen Mirren when he plays opposite her. At six-three with a Black Velvet voice and a “trust me” manner, he's a jazz trumpeter and drummer, able to convey an entirely seductive menace. The clinical attempt to revive his "partner" in the hospital after her fall is echoed by his personal attempt to give the "kiss of life" to the near-drowned blonde heroine at the end. (This woman seems totally unable to defend herself -- she has no moves.) The “conceit” is that he strikes a nerve in the icy lady cop. He is a more benign than usual version of a LaPlante enthralling charismatic villain.
When a writer creates a character, that invention must have both a spine and a hook. The spine is the main driving force of the personality; the hook is what pulls it out of its path. (Money, love, fear, ambition.) It’s possible for a character to have many hooks, different ones for different plots. But one spine. LaPlante plots give her actors a lot of room to explore around these two components. We should be able to see the spine pretty easily (though there might a spine beneath or within the spine) but the hook is a different matter. It keeps us guessing and watching. How strong is it? Where does it come from? Are there hooks pulling in a different direction?
The little Scots actor (actually a skilled Shakepearean theatre actor and a director) tells us that LaPlante watches carefully to see what the actors do in one episode, then picks up on the details and inspirations and feeds them back into the next episode. These stories are organic in that way, unfolding from the previous motivations of the actors into the plot structure of the writer as we get closer and closer to the heart of the character, which I would propose are where the hook connects with the spine. If a person were doing psychotherapy, I presume this is what the therapist would note for case files, but in a theatrical production the process is done by a group, which means it will be much more influenced by the culture -- not necessarily the culture at large (surely by now we all realize how many competing “cultures” there are) but the culture around the production. For instance, there is a polarizing and paranoid conviction about social class. Interestingly the very high class people are connected to two environments: the grand old English mansions you can buy picture books about and the fabulously severe and glassy condos in skyscrapers. (In Hollywood they are cantilevered over canyons.) Looking at these places is part of the fun. The scripts love to smuggle in a bordello or a topless dance club. This one made me giggle over the resemblance to the one in the Japanese cartoon movie patronized by corrupt vegetables. I wonder whether one influenced the other.
LaPlante often begins with an innocent child, unconsciously going along, when something intercedes. In the case a woman falls out of the sky. The child this time is not a victim, though he’s echoed by an autistic child in the plot. The “figure” or image of the blue satin woman falling out of the sky is a tour d’force -- I have no idea how they managed it. Then that blue satin woman is echoed by a blue satin eiderdown that was wrapped around the body of the falling woman’s mother. These images are so compelling that the script lets them be unrealistic. The eiderdown shows up in an evidence box smelling of heavy perfume, even though the bodies (her dog was there, too) were found almost completely decomposed and stinking. The eiderdown is as pristine as the elegant gown on the falling woman. We are asked to believe (in the end) that a small but determined woman can get the victim, who is quite substantial, into her clothes and over a high wall around the upper-story patio from which she fell, throwing her far enough out to plummet down the middle of the road. It is so poetic, so vivid, that we ask no questions.
Should we? How seriously should we take such a series? Are they genuine and sincere comment on the world or are they just a spectacular distraction? In the end we are Satch, watching, half-confounded, trying to figure it all out.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
INDIAN SUMMER IN SANDBURG COUNTRY
This summer has been tough for Tim Barrus: more broken bones, more surgery, more morphine, and a major boy-death, nearly unbearable for the whole group. There has been a regrouping, a creative shift. Now there’s a bit of respite.
some god's arms
some god's arms/ two male children sit with me this morning as the sun has risen to touch this blue ridge mountain with the geese are moving south/ south/ vast flocks of them and their whispers to the still open sky that will be slaughtered by the darkness of tonight soon enough/ the boys are writing poetry/ actually pounding it out in a great plowing of the veins and longing that pierces them to roots/ i call this my bathing with the gods/ all the gods have voices, too/ i listen to their poetic languages weave and spill through the thistles down by the lake where the wind trout are jumping/ the wind trout are jumping/ i do not return them when i catch them but we have great feasts even as our half-dead fall into the sea/ two male children are writing poetry/ jaws clenched tight/ eyes intense/ they have far, far too much to say/ too much childhood has been lost to meatgrinders with their wheels and gears moving backwards but not through time/ time moves in an arch like electrons do/ riding this horse through the uncut wheat bruised and blue/ we are sitting here on the front porch (i am drinking coffee and reading carolyn) and they are pounding, pounding/ i cannot leave them out as if they did not exist/ because they do/ and today we will run these dogs who are bugging me for food/ this is my church/ they are my sacrament of blood (infected as it is) in a chalice and the bread is made from corn by the witch who lives at the bottom of crow hollow/ we call them hollows here/ sandburg lived three houses down/ carl left a highball crystal glass for whiskey beside his chair and a copy of lolita next to the bed he died in/ i have walked through that house a thousand times/ write poetry i tell these boys/ and the gods just might speak to you, too/ it is really all i know to do/ as i am lost and man is lost and the poets inform us of our missing pieces and harvest of languages that roll like thunder and the rain i am told will hit by noon/ my flatrock tomatoes are big as daddy's fists/ he would have eaten his with salt/ i can hear the sandburg goats bleating in the distance/ it must be time to feed them/ feed them/ i am feeding them these boys words like the shafts of grass that run not unlike the horses that will carry us in the rain today down to the lake where we will fish because the trout will take the flies we tied on the flight to flatrock where we would pound our words out to the gods whether they are listening or not/ exist or not/ bellowing or not/ fresh from hell or not/ looking back or not/ soaking wet with us as we will be laughing/ or not/ our poetry finished/ or not/ fixed to the abstractions we find in those languages i would say or not but it's the poetry that fixes us even as we search for the sleeping we might find in some god's arms/
(You can see the accompanying photo at Tim’s Facebook page.)
Is this worship or Sunday School? Is there a difference if both are done well? They merge and emerge.
“In Jewish tradition, the Psalms were actually sung in front of the Tabernacle, and then later during the reign of King Solomon, when the Temple was completed, they were sung from the steps of the Temple.” The boys are singing from the porch in Carolina. Silently, in their hearts. “Some bear the Hebrew designation shir (Greek ode, a song). Thirteen have this title. It means the flow of speech, as it were, in a straight line or in a regular strain. This title includes secular as well as sacred song.”
Sandburg is so seemingly pastoral and idyllic. His words seem too familiar to be wise. But he’s a helluva lot cagier than Polonius. And easier to put to music as well.
Prairie Mary
HERE'S A SANDBURG POEM, IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN WHAT HE'S LIKE or given the state of our schools, never knew.
A Father To His Son
A father sees his son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
'Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.'
And this might stand him for the storms
and serve him for humdrum monotony
and guide him among sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
'Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy.'
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
and left them dead years before burial:
the quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
has twisted good enough men
sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.
Tell him to be alone often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use against other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is born natural.
Then he may understand Shakespeare
and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
He will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
he knows as his own.
some god's arms
some god's arms/ two male children sit with me this morning as the sun has risen to touch this blue ridge mountain with the geese are moving south/ south/ vast flocks of them and their whispers to the still open sky that will be slaughtered by the darkness of tonight soon enough/ the boys are writing poetry/ actually pounding it out in a great plowing of the veins and longing that pierces them to roots/ i call this my bathing with the gods/ all the gods have voices, too/ i listen to their poetic languages weave and spill through the thistles down by the lake where the wind trout are jumping/ the wind trout are jumping/ i do not return them when i catch them but we have great feasts even as our half-dead fall into the sea/ two male children are writing poetry/ jaws clenched tight/ eyes intense/ they have far, far too much to say/ too much childhood has been lost to meatgrinders with their wheels and gears moving backwards but not through time/ time moves in an arch like electrons do/ riding this horse through the uncut wheat bruised and blue/ we are sitting here on the front porch (i am drinking coffee and reading carolyn) and they are pounding, pounding/ i cannot leave them out as if they did not exist/ because they do/ and today we will run these dogs who are bugging me for food/ this is my church/ they are my sacrament of blood (infected as it is) in a chalice and the bread is made from corn by the witch who lives at the bottom of crow hollow/ we call them hollows here/ sandburg lived three houses down/ carl left a highball crystal glass for whiskey beside his chair and a copy of lolita next to the bed he died in/ i have walked through that house a thousand times/ write poetry i tell these boys/ and the gods just might speak to you, too/ it is really all i know to do/ as i am lost and man is lost and the poets inform us of our missing pieces and harvest of languages that roll like thunder and the rain i am told will hit by noon/ my flatrock tomatoes are big as daddy's fists/ he would have eaten his with salt/ i can hear the sandburg goats bleating in the distance/ it must be time to feed them/ feed them/ i am feeding them these boys words like the shafts of grass that run not unlike the horses that will carry us in the rain today down to the lake where we will fish because the trout will take the flies we tied on the flight to flatrock where we would pound our words out to the gods whether they are listening or not/ exist or not/ bellowing or not/ fresh from hell or not/ looking back or not/ soaking wet with us as we will be laughing/ or not/ our poetry finished/ or not/ fixed to the abstractions we find in those languages i would say or not but it's the poetry that fixes us even as we search for the sleeping we might find in some god's arms/
(You can see the accompanying photo at Tim’s Facebook page.)
Is this worship or Sunday School? Is there a difference if both are done well? They merge and emerge.
“In Jewish tradition, the Psalms were actually sung in front of the Tabernacle, and then later during the reign of King Solomon, when the Temple was completed, they were sung from the steps of the Temple.” The boys are singing from the porch in Carolina. Silently, in their hearts. “Some bear the Hebrew designation shir (Greek ode, a song). Thirteen have this title. It means the flow of speech, as it were, in a straight line or in a regular strain. This title includes secular as well as sacred song.”
Sandburg is so seemingly pastoral and idyllic. His words seem too familiar to be wise. But he’s a helluva lot cagier than Polonius. And easier to put to music as well.
Prairie Mary
HERE'S A SANDBURG POEM, IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN WHAT HE'S LIKE or given the state of our schools, never knew.
A Father To His Son
A father sees his son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
'Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.'
And this might stand him for the storms
and serve him for humdrum monotony
and guide him among sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
'Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy.'
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
and left them dead years before burial:
the quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
has twisted good enough men
sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.
Tell him to be alone often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use against other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is born natural.
Then he may understand Shakespeare
and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
He will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
he knows as his own.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
OCTOBER IN LOW DENSITY COUNTRY
This morning I woke up to the double-boom of double-barreled shotguns. Boom-pause-boom. It’s duck season. Some flew over my house, discussing indignantly where they should hide out. I think there are at least three shooters. I will not go to see, even though I have a pretty clear idea they are shooting along the lakeside close enough to the Lighthouse for access to “fortification.” The Lighthouse is a very hospitable place.
October begins. Our postmaster retired yesterday. My fav metis UPS man retired. His time will be almost totally occupied by the necessity of defending his mother’s land against public condemnation for the purpose of building a high tension electrical transmission line up to Canada, so all these local wind farms can make a profit. (They’re owned by an Irish conglomerate.)
The cats, who are aging (they are eight now, past the average lifespan of a cat at large but surely middle-aged for fat cats overindulged) go to sleep early and rise late, skipping the early AM prowl though I, who am past middle-age, get up to pee at the usual time -- 3AM or so. They open one eye. When I come back to bed, they make barely enough room for me and only because I’m body temperature. I’m stubborn about the windows so they are open. The main bugs are gone but there is a fruit fly or gnat who wants to fly up my nose while I type. I try to smash him in mid-air, but the wind of my hand pushes him to safety. I need a double-barreled something. So far I’ve brought my fleece shirts back inside because I use them for jackets at the beginnings and ends of the day. But I’m still wearing jeans instead of sweatpants. Socks.
The water main replacement has about finished the first phase and they are collecting the yellow by-pass pipes that kept us in water while they changed the original masonry conduits into pretty sky-blue plastic pipes. Now they are replacing the mains that go out to the south edge of town where one of the four wells is located. It’s easy for them because it goes down the alley and there are no houses along most of the way. Either that’s the part of town where one man bought up lots as an investment and then left an estate too complicated to unravel or it’s the part where no septic tanks or hookups can be installed. Anyway, they are working “ten fours” so they can take Fridays off to return to their permanent homes, which means three days with no dawn clanking and grinding. The good weather is a blessing in many ways, not least of which is allowing enough time to get this project finished. In Conrad a few years ago the weather caught them too soon and the by-pass pipes laid out all winter, making all sorts of trouble.
I’m in the middle of the block, but on the corner is the bright blue porta-potty. Yesterday I noticed a couple of parents lingering self-consciously while their small offspring tested it out. It’s not locked but no one has stolen the TP. I looked. It doesn’t smell half-bad, but then it’s pumped out daily. The honey truck’s pump makes a ghastly grinding noise, which by now I recognize, so I’m familiar with their schedule.
That corner, which is by the very neat and well-kept cement block Lutheran church, has been dug up over and over and over since I’ve been here. I have no idea what makes it so problematic except that it is a major T in the system. (T stands for trouble!!) There’s a hydrant that often leaks, which means a puddle in summer and a sheet of ice in winter. I wonder why there isn’t some invention so they can just roll back a lid, but the backhoes are so efficient that the dirt comes up and goes back easily. The street isn't paved anyway. It’s the place where they thought they had nicked a gas main, but now they’re saying that the “sniffer” was mistaken. I’m not sure I believe them. We have a big credibility problem in this town.
I was reading something yesterday that suggested that the main difference between a low-density population (small rural town) and a high-density population is that the latter can work as a political system with parties and interacting forces that are relatively impersonal though individuals may “front” them. In a low density population things work in the old-fashioned way: family knots and tribal histories. This is surely true here. Now that the Internet has us crossing from one context to another, there’s often a dissonance that has to be solved by the UPS and USPO. Solutions originating in high-density places -- corporate headquarters, Washington DC -- have no meaning in low-density places. UPS says deliver only to people with street addresses. USPO says deliver only to people with PO boxes. (We don’t have home delivery.) Christmas catalogs are arriving. Smart people put both street address and PO box on their orders.
I often think of decades ago when I was conducting a survey of animal control practices. From Portland I called Harney County, sagebrush country in SE Oregon. “What do you do with loose dogs?” “If they’re good dogs, we take ’em home. If they’re bad dogs, we shoot ‘em.” “How do you know which is which?” “Hell, lady, I know every dog in this county!” An essayist in New West emag was trying to describe places like Harney County and said it took a hundred acres to support a Holstein. A Holstein cow is a dairy animal that couldn’t live on sagebrush -- the mental image set me laughing.
Sorta like the philosophy professor who wants to genetically alter tigers and lions so they’ll graze like ungulates. Too much grass floating around already, maybe, in the high density populations of campuses. The genetic alteration altercation that really counts right now is the one that caused farmers to switch to Roundup-Ready seeds so they could spray with Roundup instead of harrowing out weeds. Now the herbicide is suspected of being toxic to humans so the law is forbidding the use of the stuff, but there are no “normal” seeds available. And the farmers sold their harrows. At the same time “Roundup-Ready” corn has helpfully sent pollen over to the neighbors who were previously certified as organic and authentic -- there are dueling lawsuits underway: those whose crops are contaminated versus those who sell the patented seeds and accuse the neighbors of stealing.
It’s possible that here in low density country we get along a little better because there are fewer lawyers and more cows (Angus, Charolais). Or maybe it’s because families run things to suit themselves. Or maybe it has something to do with those double-barreled shotguns. Opinions differ.
Friday, October 01, 2010
SHOULD WE BAN LISBETH SALANDER?
The University of Chicago Divinity School constantly asks, “What’s your method?” This post is about methods of reflection on heresy, blasphemy, nonconformity, going against the tide when you think the tide is wrong even if you’re pretty sure you’ll drown. To include non-readers (how would they get HERE?), I suggest three image-based methods:
1. Historical: those individuals in the past who have paid a terrible price for their stubborn opinions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoyofeNpHRQ
2. Scientific/experimental: both setting up social incidents and using the fMRI to “see” the brain.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheraminTrees#p/a/u/2/TrNIuFrso8I
3. Dramatic: Well, actually, you’ll have to get a DVD for this, Watch “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I’ve watched it twice now. The Swedish version with sub-titles for readers. (Sorry. There WILL be a Hollywood version.)
Cynically, I expect most people will watch this movie because Lisbeth Salander is outside the norm in a sexual/violent way kinky enough to capture the attention of the Brit murder-mystery fans. She is a genuinely vivid and appealing character with her black leather and motorcycle. (Who does that make you think of?) And she has that androgenous, bisexual, self-possessed, catwoman quality we seem to be attracted to these days. In the book the emphasis is on the other non-conformist, the investigative reporter who is far more like Clark Kent than Superman, and who is frankly Stieg Larsson, the original author.
Lisbeth must defend herself in terms of actual physical survival against predators. No ambiguity. Except that the structure of society allows her to be defined as crazy and therefore confined by the people who are supposed to be her guardians. We think of jailing dissidents as Soviet, but in fact the US does it all the time right now: troublesome people are locked up. Lisbeth is powerful: a kick-boxer, a computer hacker, a person with a network and access to technology beyond guns, like surveillance cams or stun guns.
Mikael Blomkvist is defending society. His motives and methods are stainless, yet he is defined as criminal and locked up. The method that he uses to get out of trouble is the same one that got him into trouble: steady investigation and reflection. In the book he is far more potent (literally). On the screen he becomes almost background for Lisbeth. He is an old-fashioned hero version now, since so many journalists who seemed to be revelatory have turned out to be making things up. But in becoming a movie, there is no time to develop the webworks of our modern society -- how twisted much of it has become. In the movie, the dragon tattoo that was on one shoulder has grown to inhabit Lisbeth’s entire back, even some on her thigh. The corruption of one family is now portrayed as occupying the whole country, maybe life everywhere.
I joked about this movie being “Wild Strawberries Meets Batgirl.” I was prompted by the opening with the Vanger patriarch to remember the old man who has betrayed his family in Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries.” This time, unlike the cold honor of the academician, the old man who ought to have been keeping order in his own family has known about or should have known about torture/sex/murder/Nazism among his brothers but either did nothing or pretended not to know. (There are a host of ironies in casting Christopher Plummer in this role.) His reasons seem to be preoccupation with business. In the book the point is made that international corporations are entwined with international crime. In the movie the focus shifts to atrocities against women which evidently can only be found and addressed by women outside the system via justified homicide.
I’ll be very interested to see what Hollywood does. It’s a clue that the mild Mikael will now be played by Daniel Craig, known for being James Bond. Much focus is on the Salander character. Interviews with Noomi Rapace, the Swedish actress. are all about her private life and her character: how she went on a diet, exercised constantly, took kick-boxing lessons and motorcycle lessons, how her personal life was affected, how they got the tattoo onto her back. Ours is a society relentless in its pursuit of the individual and nonconformity while equally relentlessly enforcing conformity to cubicle life. This movie is a pornography: an enthrallment to intensifying something, maybe in hopes of resolving it, maybe just for the pure sensationalism, maybe a displacement of frustration.
Once on an airplane during my ministry years, I sat next to an outstanding child psychologist. Offhandedly he remarked that “Anne of Green Gables” was a book much loved by children in every culture he had worked with, including Africa, because the experience of being the oddball, the outsider, is paradoxically so universal. Anne overcomes every problem because of her giftedness, her soft heart, and her endearing blunders. The woman who invented Anne, Lucy Maude Montgomery, was clearly drawing on her own life, which did not go so well. Her father was not dead, just a discarder. The Cuthberts were her own punishing grandparents. She married a clergyman, who ought to have had the right inspiration and guidance for a happy life, but who was so crushed by depression that Lucy Maude had to cover for his failures. In the end she committed suicide. Is it any wonder that we would prefer the fiction?
Tim Barrus hates for me to talk about Nasdijj, a fiction that turned into a vendetta. He’d much rather be seen as the video-poet he has become (see Facebook) and the group that evolved out of a gaggle of gifted boys in Paris and has now taken flight to be something else or at least somewhere else. Again, his work has been discredited by concentration on his identity and private life. Suppressing him also suppresses the issues that consume him (nearly literally): boys who have caught HIV-AIDS from sex work and boys who are trafficked. They are often close in image to Lisbeth Salander: androgenous, technically adept, outrageous in image with goth spikes, dramatic makeup, hair over one eye. My attachment to them is my nonconformity.
What’s my role? What’s my method? I watch. I read. I analyze and look for patterns. If you have watched these videos, I assure you that though I admire these historical figures and my birthday is the same as the day they burned Michael Servetus (neither Nygvist nor Blomkvist) for the heresy of Unitarianism, I have no desire to be a martyr. But I am acutely aware of being out of step, even in the Unitarian context. I don’t look like Lisbeth (more like her mother who was played by Noomi’s real mother) and I’m no technical adept. I don’t stand out in a crowd, which can be an advantage. I’m more of a Steig Larsson, an old-fashioned writer, no more traumatized than most.
The exotic and the homely do not contradict each other. Conformity is fine so long as non-conformity is tolerated, learned from, protected, seen as a source of renewal. And so long as the non-conformity is not just a matter of moving allegiances, switching the method of conformity to the goals of a destructive sub-group like the Vanger’s Fascists.
1. Historical: those individuals in the past who have paid a terrible price for their stubborn opinions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoyofeNpHRQ
2. Scientific/experimental: both setting up social incidents and using the fMRI to “see” the brain.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheraminTrees#p/a/u/2/TrNIuFrso8I
3. Dramatic: Well, actually, you’ll have to get a DVD for this, Watch “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I’ve watched it twice now. The Swedish version with sub-titles for readers. (Sorry. There WILL be a Hollywood version.)
Cynically, I expect most people will watch this movie because Lisbeth Salander is outside the norm in a sexual/violent way kinky enough to capture the attention of the Brit murder-mystery fans. She is a genuinely vivid and appealing character with her black leather and motorcycle. (Who does that make you think of?) And she has that androgenous, bisexual, self-possessed, catwoman quality we seem to be attracted to these days. In the book the emphasis is on the other non-conformist, the investigative reporter who is far more like Clark Kent than Superman, and who is frankly Stieg Larsson, the original author.
Lisbeth must defend herself in terms of actual physical survival against predators. No ambiguity. Except that the structure of society allows her to be defined as crazy and therefore confined by the people who are supposed to be her guardians. We think of jailing dissidents as Soviet, but in fact the US does it all the time right now: troublesome people are locked up. Lisbeth is powerful: a kick-boxer, a computer hacker, a person with a network and access to technology beyond guns, like surveillance cams or stun guns.
Mikael Blomkvist is defending society. His motives and methods are stainless, yet he is defined as criminal and locked up. The method that he uses to get out of trouble is the same one that got him into trouble: steady investigation and reflection. In the book he is far more potent (literally). On the screen he becomes almost background for Lisbeth. He is an old-fashioned hero version now, since so many journalists who seemed to be revelatory have turned out to be making things up. But in becoming a movie, there is no time to develop the webworks of our modern society -- how twisted much of it has become. In the movie, the dragon tattoo that was on one shoulder has grown to inhabit Lisbeth’s entire back, even some on her thigh. The corruption of one family is now portrayed as occupying the whole country, maybe life everywhere.
I joked about this movie being “Wild Strawberries Meets Batgirl.” I was prompted by the opening with the Vanger patriarch to remember the old man who has betrayed his family in Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries.” This time, unlike the cold honor of the academician, the old man who ought to have been keeping order in his own family has known about or should have known about torture/sex/murder/Nazism among his brothers but either did nothing or pretended not to know. (There are a host of ironies in casting Christopher Plummer in this role.) His reasons seem to be preoccupation with business. In the book the point is made that international corporations are entwined with international crime. In the movie the focus shifts to atrocities against women which evidently can only be found and addressed by women outside the system via justified homicide.
I’ll be very interested to see what Hollywood does. It’s a clue that the mild Mikael will now be played by Daniel Craig, known for being James Bond. Much focus is on the Salander character. Interviews with Noomi Rapace, the Swedish actress. are all about her private life and her character: how she went on a diet, exercised constantly, took kick-boxing lessons and motorcycle lessons, how her personal life was affected, how they got the tattoo onto her back. Ours is a society relentless in its pursuit of the individual and nonconformity while equally relentlessly enforcing conformity to cubicle life. This movie is a pornography: an enthrallment to intensifying something, maybe in hopes of resolving it, maybe just for the pure sensationalism, maybe a displacement of frustration.
Once on an airplane during my ministry years, I sat next to an outstanding child psychologist. Offhandedly he remarked that “Anne of Green Gables” was a book much loved by children in every culture he had worked with, including Africa, because the experience of being the oddball, the outsider, is paradoxically so universal. Anne overcomes every problem because of her giftedness, her soft heart, and her endearing blunders. The woman who invented Anne, Lucy Maude Montgomery, was clearly drawing on her own life, which did not go so well. Her father was not dead, just a discarder. The Cuthberts were her own punishing grandparents. She married a clergyman, who ought to have had the right inspiration and guidance for a happy life, but who was so crushed by depression that Lucy Maude had to cover for his failures. In the end she committed suicide. Is it any wonder that we would prefer the fiction?
Tim Barrus hates for me to talk about Nasdijj, a fiction that turned into a vendetta. He’d much rather be seen as the video-poet he has become (see Facebook) and the group that evolved out of a gaggle of gifted boys in Paris and has now taken flight to be something else or at least somewhere else. Again, his work has been discredited by concentration on his identity and private life. Suppressing him also suppresses the issues that consume him (nearly literally): boys who have caught HIV-AIDS from sex work and boys who are trafficked. They are often close in image to Lisbeth Salander: androgenous, technically adept, outrageous in image with goth spikes, dramatic makeup, hair over one eye. My attachment to them is my nonconformity.
What’s my role? What’s my method? I watch. I read. I analyze and look for patterns. If you have watched these videos, I assure you that though I admire these historical figures and my birthday is the same as the day they burned Michael Servetus (neither Nygvist nor Blomkvist) for the heresy of Unitarianism, I have no desire to be a martyr. But I am acutely aware of being out of step, even in the Unitarian context. I don’t look like Lisbeth (more like her mother who was played by Noomi’s real mother) and I’m no technical adept. I don’t stand out in a crowd, which can be an advantage. I’m more of a Steig Larsson, an old-fashioned writer, no more traumatized than most.
The exotic and the homely do not contradict each other. Conformity is fine so long as non-conformity is tolerated, learned from, protected, seen as a source of renewal. And so long as the non-conformity is not just a matter of moving allegiances, switching the method of conformity to the goals of a destructive sub-group like the Vanger’s Fascists.
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