Happy Struggle Between the Profane and the Sacred Day to all who celebrate.
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Happy Struggle Between the Profane and the Sacred Day to all who celebrate.
Posted at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn;
I have loved a stream and a shadow.I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech you learn to say " I "
When I question you:
For you are no part, but a whole;
No portion, but a being.
Ezra Pound.
Posted at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Charlie Kirk: "Democracy is a bad idea" pic.twitter.com/0KRyZqxZUG
— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) October 31, 2022
Damn, that's gonna piss off Alexander Hamilton:
Democracy in my sense, where the whole power of the government in the people, whether exercised by themselves or by representatives, chosen by them either mediately or immediately and legally accountable to them...[T]he proposed government...as far as is consistent with its genius has all the features of good government.
I mean, I'm not really a big fan of our white supremacist Founders and all, but I'll still take what they bequeathed us rather than listen to Dollar Store Sinestro. At least they aren't pretending any more...
Posted at 05:42 PM in History | Permalink | Comments (0)
Typepad has been a shitshow of late. DDoS attacks, API glitches, general app weirdness, and now a disastrous maintenance/migration process over the past weekend. Wondering if I should ask for some account credit to cover all the downtime and loss of revenue (lol).
Anyway, guess we'll just pretend there was no Sunday and move on. Time is all a bogus construct anyway.
Posted at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
It was terrifying and wonderful to watch.
Posted at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The town does not existexcept where one black-haired tree slipsup like a drowned woman into the hot sky.The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.Oh starry starry night! This is howI want to die.It moves. They are all alive.Even the moon bulges in its orange ironsto push children, like a god, from its eye.The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.Oh starry starry night! This is howI want to die:into that rushing beast of the night,sucked up by that great dragon, to splitfrom my life with no flag,no belly,no cry.
Anne Sexton.
Now go check out this trippy optical illusion...
Posted at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Current nighttime reading is At Day's Close: Night in Times Past. As we near twilight, I started thinking about a passage I read a night or two ago:
Myriad conventions governed the use of artificial lighting. Preindustrial families were constrained by concerns for both safety and frugality...
High on the list of iniquities was “burning daylight,” resorting to artificial light unnecessarily during the day. Wasting candlelight was synonymous with extravagance and dissipation. Individuals thought naturally profligate, such as children, servants, and slaves, received special scrutiny. Such was the outrage of the Virginia planter William Byrd II upon discovering his slave Prue with “a candle by daylight” that he “gave her a salute” with his foot.
Normally, not even twilight brought the first glimmer of household lights. The interval between sunset and nightfall in Iceland and most of Scandinavia was called the “twilight rest,” a hiatus during which it was too dim to ply one’s trade and too light to warrant candles or lamps. Persons instead reserved this hour before the evening’s tasks for rest, prayer, and quiet conversation.
I never knew there was a word for this time of day that I've always found a bit awkward and annoying because of the whole lighting situation. Rather than engaging in any prayer, figured I'd just blog...
Posted at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Since I'm swimming in nostalgia at the moment, how about a little Joan Didion?
I am not good about writing things down, in notebooks or otherwise. Always had an excellent steel trap memory, both long- and short-term, so never learned the habit. Much regret now.
Regardless, Didion writes in her essay about keeping notebooks in Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.
Oof, indeed. I'm trying to stay on better than nodding terms with my own self, present and past.
To that end, I've been listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols whilst puttering around. Back in the day, when the live broadcast came on the radio it was truly Christmas to me, and its magical sound still makes happy a number of the people I used to be.
They just did a reading from Genesis:
Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
Chuckled because this totally feels like 99% of the interactions the kids and I have. "Did you really just do the thing I said not to do?!" Oy.
I'm a little gentler than G-d regarding such sins, however:
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
After each lesson they always say, "thanks be to G-d." I find that funny because, like, humanity was just punished with mortality for knowing shit? I'm not sure I'm overly grateful for that blessing, yet I invariably shout, "THANKS, G-D!"
I am so going to Hell.
Posted at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Complaining about early Christmas decorations and sales is the same kind of performative curmudgeon-ness as the Pumpkin Spice hate. You aren't cool for complaining about these things...
Afuckingmen.
Everybody else is doing Halloween - my kids included - but once the Dark Months begin, I'm all about Xmas. I've had my multi-colored lights up all year, and am getting ready to bust out other little things to create a space I find cheery and comforting.
As a nod to Scary Season, I have been watching Scrooge variants, and will get to It's A Wonderful Life in short order. Yeah, it's a fucking ghost story, man, don't judge.
Reflecting on the relentless flow of time and annual cycles, I recall one of my happiest - or most content - memories from childhood: Xmas 1980ish (+/-2yrs).
I'd built a cushion fort at the end of our short hallway leading to my bedroom. My favorite present that year was a cassette tape of The Nutcracker, which I listened to on an ancient deck with earphones over and over whilst reading through the several choose-your-own adventure books I was also given. I felt cozy and warm and safe.
Do not begrudge my trying to feel that way again.
Posted at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I’m always better with you near.
Posted at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sometimes I long to be the woodpile,cut-apart trees soon to be smoke,or even the smoke itself,sinewy ghost of ash and air, goingwherever I want to, at least for a while.Neither inside nor out,neither lost nor home, no longera shape or a name, I’d pass throughall the broken windows of the world.It’s not a wish for consciousness to end.It’s not the appetite an army hasfor its own emptying heart,but a hunger to stand now and thenalone on the death-grounds,where the dogs of the self are feeding.
Chase Twichell.
Posted at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ben Railton has a little remembrance for good ole Bob Ross on his 80th birthday (which I'm ashamed I didn't notice).
As some folks know, I have long adored that soft-spoken, wacky-haired dude, going back to my freshman year of college in 1987. A friend of mine introduced me, not for the painting but because of his ASMR qualities: he'd record the shows onto audio cassette and listen to them to fall asleep.
I do not paint, but I enjoy watching Bob's world's materialize on the canvas. Beyond the soothing Zen thing, it's cool that somebody can do creative shit like that.
There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.
Selah.
Posted at 08:10 PM in Media & Entertainment | Permalink | Comments (0)
[T]he chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it...
- Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, September 29, 1725
My current training cohort is in the end game, working on their capstone projects more than being forced to listen my harangues. In between our sessions, I've also gotten to work with another cohort that's just ramping up, giving them all the whys and wherefores of data networks.
That's been my bread and butter for, like...one score and 300 moons now. I love learning and teaching about new things, but I consider networking to be kinda like comfort food.
When discussing interoperability between disparate systems (Layer 6 in the OSI Reference Model), I always bring up the Big Endian and Little Endian Problem (tl;dr: essentially should one read bit streams from right to left, or left to right). Endianism is famously derived from early adventures in Gulliver's Travels, which brings us to this post.
In his book, Swift describes the kingdoms of Lilliput and Blefuscu thus:
Which two mighty powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate war for six and thirty moons past. It began upon the following occasion.
It is allowed on all hands, that the primitive way of breaking eggs before we eat them, was upon the larger end: but his present Majesty's grandfather, while he was a boy, going to eat an egg, and breaking it according to the ancient practice, happened to cut one of his fingers. Whereupon the Emperor his father published an edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great penalties, to break the smaller end of their eggs.
The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown. These civil commotions were constantly fomented by the monarchs of Blefuscu; and when they were quelled, the exiles always fled for refuge to that empire.
It is computed, that eleven thousand persons have, at several times, suffered death, rather than submit to break their eggs at the smaller end. Many hundred large volumes have been published upon this controversy: but the books of the Big-Endians have been long forbidden, and the whole party rendered incapable by law of holding employments.
During the course of these troubles, the Emperors of Blefuscu did frequently expostulate by their ambassadors, accusing us of making a schism in religion, by offending against a fundamental doctrine of our great prophet Lustrog, in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Blundecral (which is their Alcoran).
This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text: for the words are these; That all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end: and which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's conscience, or at least in the power of the chief magistrate to determine.
Yeah, there's just a bit of pointed satire. While primarily about 18th-century British society, it could just as easily apply to our 21st-century political climate in the Colonies. For starters, which does Dr Oz's conscience think is the convenient end?
But right now the most vexing issue is whether if enough chicken ova eggsist in my fridge for me to do some deviling...
Posted at 03:14 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
It's been far too long...
Posted at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
FIRST VOICE
From where you are you can hear in Cockle Row in the spring, moonless night, Miss Price, dressmaker and sweetshop-keeper, dream of
SECOND VOICE
her lover, tall as the town clock tower, Samsonsyrup-gold-maned, whacking thighed and piping hot, thunderbolt-bass'd and barnacle-breasted, flailing up the cockles with his eyes like blowlamps and scooping low over her lonely loving hotwaterbottled body.
MR EDWARDS
Myfanwy Price!
MISS PRICE
Mr Mog Edwards!
MR EDWARDS
I am a draper mad with love. I love you more than all the flannelette and calico, candlewick, dimity, crash and merino, tussore, cretonne, crepon, muslin, poplin, ticking and twill in the whole Cloth Hall of the world. I have come to take you away to my Emporium on the hill, where the change hums on wires. Throw away your little bedsocks and your Welsh wool knitted jacket, I will warm the sheets like an electric toaster, I will lie by your side like the Sunday roast.
MISS PRICE
I will knit you a wallet of forget-me-not blue, for the money, to be comfy. I will warm your heart by the fire so that you can slip it in under your vest when the shop is closed.
MR EDWARDS
Myfanwy, Myfanwy, before the mice gnaw at your bottom drawer will you say
MISS PRICE
Yes, Mog, yes, Mog, yes, yes, yes.
MR EDWARDS
And all the bells of the tills of the town shall ring for our wedding.
Happy Birthday, Dylan Thomas! And go see famed Welsh Football Captain Michael Sheen, et al, deliver this whole thing at the National Theatre.
Posted at 08:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Sum total of all Intelligence from England is that the first Man is "unalterably determined, Let the Event and Consequences be what they will, to compell the Colonies to absolute Obedience." Poor deluded Man!
- John Adams to John Thomas, November 13, 1775
In August of '75, King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in rebellion and that the Mother Country would bring all its strength - including foreign assistance - to bear. On this date, he followed up with a speech in Parliament:
When the unhappy and deluded multitude, against whom this force will be directed, shall become sensible of their error, I shall be ready to receive the misled with tenderness and mercy ! and in order to prevent the inconveniencies which may arise from the great distance of their situation, and to remove as soon as possible the calamities which they suffer, I shall give authority to certain persons upon the spot to grant general or particular pardons and indemnities, in such manner, and to such persons as they shall think fit, and to receive the submission of any Province or Colony which shall be disposed to return to its allegiance. It may be also proper to authorise the persons so commissioned to restore such Province or Colony, so returning to its allegiance, to the free exercise of its trade and commerce, and to the same protection and security as if such Province or Colony had never revolted.
Took a while for the news to cross the Pond, and Congress started contemplating a response on November 13, noted in this dry line:
On motion made, Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to prepare a declaration, in answer to sundry illegal ministerial proclamations that have lately appeared in America.
They finally put together an answer on December 6:
We, the Delegates of the thirteen United Colonies in North America, have taken into our most serious consideration, a Proclamation issued from the Court of St. James's on the Twenty-Third day of August last. The name of Majesty is used to give it a sanction and influence; and, on that account, it becomes a matter of importance to wipe off, in the name of the people of these United Colonies, the aspersions which it is calculated to throw upon our cause; and to prevent, as far as possible, the undeserved punishments, which it is designed to prepare, for our friends.
The John Adams miniseries realllllllly takes, uh...liberties with all this, compressing, eliding, etc1, but I still like the scene dramatizing their reception of the King's proclamation.
The silly thing is George and Parliament fundamentally overreacted. They in fact pushed the Americans to rebel when originally, their primary (stated) intent during the First Congress was to re-assert their rights as Englishmen, particularly through fair representation2. What a waste.
1 - And getting the date wrong?
2- Funny line in the proclamation is a direct response to their only resolution of any meaningful weight (non-importation/non-consumption), where the King whines about "obstruction of lawful commerce".
Posted at 08:23 PM in History | Permalink | Comments (0)
But we in it shall be remember’d.
Olivier is fine and all, but give me Branagh any day of the week. Yes, a different time, different audience expectations, and different intent:
The Olivier film was shot near the end of the Second World War and dedicated to memory of English military sacrifice, specifically to the "Commandos and Airborne Troops of Great Britain the spirit of whose ancestors it has humbly attempted to recapture." A film explicitly and unapologetically of the moment of its production, its audience a war-weary Britain in need of an emotional boost, it understandably portrays Henry and his war as benignly patriotic, eliminating any moral or ethical ambiguity in the king and any sense of fractured will among his troops.
Gone are Henry's seemingly sadistic threats to the citizens of Harfleur (3.1). Gone is the traitor scene (2.2) -- replaced by expansive pageantry and a dumb show of Henry's pious devotion before the troops set off to storm the beaches of Normandy. Gone is the sense, in the play's opening scene, of faction among the English governing powers, replaced by clerical slapstick. Gone is the nuance built even into the play's most apparently jingoistic moments. Olivier stripped the danger from the bickering captains and the personality from the French lords, reducing both groups to caricatures.
What remains is a bluntly-realized Merrie Olde English past, exemplified by the film's spectacular opening model effect, a shining and splendid Shakespearean London straddling a pristine, glimmering Thames.
Branagh's 1989 film, on the other hand, was made for a film audience whose view of war had been conditioned by the failed adventure of Vietnam, honed by the many films that captured the disillusionment of the following generation, and given point by the British conflict with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982, a controversial and much-politicized military victory.
In Branagh's film, Henry's war proceeds from a trumped up pretext concocted in a shadowy antechamber by sinister, whispering bishops. Henry's first appearance, a larger-than-life stalking silhouette framed by fire, evokes nothing so much as Darth Vader, and even when he is revealed to be a boyish figure rather dwarfed by his throne, he maintains a cold intensity: his whispered, steely-eyed "May I with right and conscience make this claim?" comes out as false piety barely-disguising realpolitik tail-covering.
Unlike Olivier, Branagh preserved the traitor scene and allowed it to blot with suspicion the "full-fraught men, and best" in his service, a suspicion reflected in the sidelong glances of Exeter, Erpingham, and Westmorland. Branagh's army seemed never to be fully united; the bickering between Fluellen and Macmorris had real menace, and Williams (played by Michael Williams) managed to present a serious ethical conundrum, and a challenge to a duel, to Branagh's Henry (the challenge had been cut in the 1944 film).
Where Olivier's Agincourt was a brilliant and bloodless piece of Technicolor chivalric pageantry, Branagh's was a bitter, brutal slog in a huge mud puddle that reddened sickeningly by the end of the battle. Where the Olivier film glossed over the human cost of battle, the Branagh film dwelt upon it...
Still, I prefer the 1989 version over 1944. I mean, who can not love Brian Blessed? Derek Jacobi? And a young Christian Bale?
Anyway, Happy Crispin Crispian to all who celebrate, especially all the cobblers.
Posted at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Bit of a role reversal it seems...
Posted at 06:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
RMJ calls out a key thing in contemporary electoral politics that bugs the shit out of me:
[A] whole generation of pundits (and their parents) were raised on "It's the economy, stupid," which wasn't a bad campaign motif in 1992, but that was a time of several recessions (practically one after another) and an extreme "bubble" economy...so the country was rather tired of the roller coaster ride (and the image of Poppy staring in awe and wonder at a grocery store scanner, as if it were a marvel of American ingenuity. All that showed was that Poppy never bought his own socks.) But Carville's idee fixe was meant only to focus the Clinton campaign staff. It was never meant to be the ultimate explanation of American politics.
The continued railing about "the economy" (which, to some people is the stock market, to others the price of gas, etc) is anachronistic. Would anybody rally voters shouting, "Remember the Maine!"? Nah, today that dog just won't hunt (as Clinton liked to say).
Is the economy important? Of course. Man's gotta eat.
But as people have noted, abortion access is an economic issue as much as a human rights issue. So that's gotta trump economics in the grand scheme of things - or rather, it is the sufficient condition to necessary economics.
Same with democracy. Oligarchs are spending literally billions of dollars to make sure we don't have a functioning democracy. Rather than a vibrant economy, they'd rather trap us all with low wages and force us to buy marked up shit at the company store (yes, that includes my own employer). So securing democracy is the prime objective, from which the economy flows.
Those folks screaming loudest about the economy stand to benefit from that focus. They want to convince us that the price of Halloween candy is the most important crisis our nation has ever faced (other than drag shows). Because yes, for them, economics (read: dreams of avarice) is the reason for the season.
Much like it was for the wealthy smugglers who threw tea into the harbor because they resented a corporate tax break and competition. Much like the white men who committed treason in defense of slavery.
Fuck those guys. And fuck all the stupid pundits who cling to their lazy-assed narratives.
Posted at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
All their hockey hullabaloo, and that bitch...
Posted at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I love that when I call you on the long drab days practicalitykeeps one of us away from the other that I am callinga person so beautiful to me that she has seen my awkwardnesson the actual sidewalk but she still answers anyway.I say that when I fell you fell beside me and the concreterefused to apologize. That a sparrow sat for a spellon the windowsill today to communicate the new intelligence.That the goal of objectivity depends upon one’s faithin the accuracy of one’s perceptions, which is to saya confidence in the purity of the perceiving instrument.I won’t be dying after all, not now, but will go on living dizzilyhereafter in reality, half-deaf to reality, in the roomperfumed by the fire that our inextinguishable will begins.
Timothy Donnelly.
Posted at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
As I've mentioned before, one of my faves is The Name of the Rose. Skipping Monday Night Football since my fantasy team already has this week locked up, and otherwise I don't care about the Pats or Bears. Instead, yeah, I'm watching the movie because it's dark out, and it feels right.
Just came to one of my favorite (non-creepy) scenes:
William: Oh, dear!
Adso: Why "oh, dear"?
William: You are in love.
Adso: Is that bad?
William: For a monk it does present certain problems.
Adso: But doesn't St Thomas Aquinas praise love above all other virtues?
William: Yes, the love of God, Adso. The love of God!
Adso: And the love of... woman?
William: Of woman, Thomas Aquinas knew precious little. But the Scriptures are very clear. Proverbs warns us, "Woman takes possession of a man's precious soul." While Ecclesiastics tells us, "More bitter than death is woman."
Adso: Yes, but what do you think, master?
William: Of course, I don't have the benefit of your experience...but I find it difficult to convince myself that God would have introduced such a foul being into creation without endowing her with some virtues. Hm?
How peaceful life would be without love, Adso. How safe... how tranquil...and how dull.
I think that counts as progressive for its epoch. Misogyny aside, it's a rare tender moment amid all the devilry.
Okay, back to my broody film.
Posted at 07:42 PM in Media & Entertainment | Permalink | Comments (0)
When I was but a wee lad, my best friend K's favorite baseball team was the newly-minted Toronto Blue Jays. I never questioned why (it is also quite possible I've simply forgotten), although it seems a bit weird for a kid in NW Ohio to support a buncha foreigners (ahem).
Anyhoo, 30 years ago today, those perfidious Canadians defeated America's Team (lol, Braves) in Game 6, becoming the first and only un-American club to win the World Series. I remember it well.
No, check that. I remember all the trappings, not so much anything particular about the competition. I used to hang out a lot with a work friend (these days she might be called a "work wife"?), and often we'd make an amazing dinner at her house (J was a great foodie and taught me a lot) while catching a game. We watched much of the playoffs that way, and all of the Series.
Neither of us particularly cared for either team, but we certainly wanted to see some history in the making. Same the following season when the Phillies were on deck to defend America's honor and bring the title back home. The horror of Canadians repeating was too terrible to contemplate, and I suspect that everything went downhill from there (stop blaming the Cubbies' 2016 victory over my Guardians).
They will likely be the only Canadian team to take the crown in my lifetime since the Expos skedaddled from The Big O, that echo-y concrete cavern. I do miss being able to run up to Montreal on game day, spend less than 20 bucks to get baseline seats just a few rows up, and bang the empty seats to annoy the visitors, all whilst enjoying some Molson "export" and poutine*.
Saw Bonds hit his 55th homer at Stade olympique during his record year. He wasn't even supposed to play that day, but what to my wondering eyes should appear when I came back from concessions? Barry stepping up to pinch hit, then...BOOM, goodbye!
And yes, a record is a record, whether it was Maris' 61, or the McGwire/Sosa fireworks, or a former Killer B's steroidal enablement. Spare me.
Speaking of Olde Tyme Baseball, the '93 Series included that gross lump of blah, Lenny Dykstra. Only thing I recall about him lo these many years later is that he liked his chaw, and I used to make bad jokes in class referring to him when we'd discuss routing protocols (Dijkstra's algorithm). Okay, maybe you had to be there.
I'm just glad the Mariners were able to knock of the Jays this year so we didn't risk another real World Series. Also nice to see Philly back, and I hope they're more effective against Houston than they were Joe Carter's Toronto so long ago. Because you know what they say about Cheaters (and Canadians)...
* One time, I was talking to a compatriot about wanting to get some putain. He, a French-Canadian, quietly corrected me; Maturin to my Aubrey.
Posted at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
The clouds roll by and the earth turns old...
Posted at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)