2010_11_13 The White Ribbon
In a way “The White Ribbon” is a poor man’s version of Robert Musil’s novel THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES. I mean that in the sense Musil’s novel is an aristocratic dark prelude to the First World War, whereas Director Hennke narrative takes place in a remote village in Northern Germany in 1913 and 1914. However, it is also much darker in spirit and more ominous than Musil’s narrative. There are three commanding male figures in ”The White Ribbon,” a doctor, a pastor and a Baron, a feudal Lord in a location that hardly seems in the 20th century. They are a nasty triangle of men who practiced a brutal form on male dominance over the women and the children of the village. It is also a story of a silent war going on between the children and the high-and-might triumvirate of Baron/Pastor/Doctor, three professionals that have usurps all authority over the peasant farmers. This war was largely subterranean and events are not clearly spelled out; there are a lot of suggestions about what was going on but ambiguity overrules clarity. There is much that is unanswered and never resolved. Many of Hennke’s films are like that.
The movie opens with the doctor mounted on his horse riding back home. When he approaches his garden the horse takes a tumble and the doctor breaks his collarbone in the accident. Only it turns out to be not an accident as someone had stretched a thin wire tied to two trees across the path and the horse had tripped over it. The incident put the doctor in the hospital for several weeks. By the time the police get there to investigate someone has removed the wire. We never find out who the guilty party was, although by the end of the movie we have some strong suspicions. There are eventually two other destructive incidents that take place but which are never resolved. Someone set fire to the Pastor’s barn which was burned to the ground, and the retarded son of the midwife was brutally assaulted and nearly blinded. The Baron’s son was also kidnapped and found tied to tree in the woods. There were a couple of attacks against the evil trio when we do know which one of the younger folks did it. The oldest son of one farmers, angry at his mother’s death which he blames on the Baron’s carelessness, destroys a huge cabbage patch belonging to the Baron and the pastor’s oldest daughter, one of the apparent ringleaders of the secretly rebellious youths, kills her father’s pet bird without attempting to cover her tracks. She killed the bird with a scissor and put it on his desk in the shape of a cross. The Pastor regularly canes his kids for minor infractions of his protocol of Christian behavior. In another instant, he had another son tie his 14 year old son to his bed to prevent him from masturbating and lectures the lad about such sinful behavior which could end up corrupting his nerves. As the abuse accumulates and the story unfolds it is no mystery why the kids push back against the tyranny of “the fathers.”
The only sympathetic male adult in the movie is the local schoolteacher. He’s also the voice of the narrator of the story—in old age as he looks back at his time in the village. He figures out what has likely happened but makes the mistake of talking to the pastor who calls him vile for suggesting any of his children would stoop to the behavior the teacher is suggesting. The Pastor is just covering his ass because if the authorities are called in he too could be swept up in the scandal of terrible abuse of the vulnerable children. He is a Christian hypocrite of the worst sort, a zealot who disciplines his kids like he was a Gestapo Captain. He beats them; he verbally abuses them by tearing them down as inadequate; and never shows them any warmth, love, or affection. He maintains a cool image and a stance of frowning down his nose at them. The mother is pathetically neglected, treated as a maid, not much more than that. It’s a breeding ground for revolution.
If the Pastor lives to exercise power, the Doctor lives for vanity’s sake. He is the nasty rooster who likes perverse sex, like fucking his live-in punching board, the Village midwife, a woman about 40, and the mother of the retarded boy Karli. After having sex with the midwife he tells her she’s ugly, has bad breath, and he wishes she’d “just die.” He also likes to finger his eldest daughter while he masturbates. She’s probably 16. He’s grotesquely arrogant, egotistical, and absent of empathy—an unsavory role model At the end of the movie he, his kids, the midwife and her son, all disappear, but not together and mysteriously—without a word to anybody. The last we see of the midwife she is borrowing a bike from the schoolteacher to go into town to tell authorities she knew who strung that trip-wire. But that was little more than a ruse to leave the village.
The Baron is the Lord of the Manor and the ceremonial spokesman for the village, the sponsor of the harvest festivities and the employer of many of the farmers. He looks and acts like an aristocrat. His wife dares to confront him with the fact she is leaving him and this hateful village “so full of brutality, envy, revenge and resentment.” The actress who played the role showed how nervous and fearful she was in opposing the “Lord of the Manor.” But as the film concludes she is still with her husband. The Baron’s steward had come in while they Baron and his wife were arguing to tell him some big news: the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were assassinated in the streets of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. At this point the film rather hurriedly come to an ambiguous end, while the narrator tells us he was drafted, went in the army, survived the war, but never went back to the village, so he never found out if any of those strange events were solved and understood. The final image in the movie is all the villagers gathered in the church to discuss the war. As people sit waiting the picture slowly turns dimmer and dimmer till, finally, the screen goes dark.
The film was shot in black and white, which was good I think. For one thing it was in tune with the drab character of the village and its environs. The black clothes the girls and women wear seem fitting, in-sync with the puritanical gloss of the culture and the stern Patriarchy that was still so pervasive and dominant.
When all is said and done “The White Ribbon” is a terrible indictment of the Germanic version of fatherhood and it helps us understand why “The Great War” happened and why someone like Hitler was able to come to power, as he was or represented the ultimate expression of the omnipotent paterfamilias.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Shellacking of the President
2010_11-03 The Shellacking of the President
Dear Pete,
Well, there’s one more idealistic, naïve, and silver-tongued president, if not exactly down the drain, with his back up against the wall. To me Obama is looking like a faux liberal, a politician in way over his head, another flash in the pan who was eaten up by an adoring crowd that was seduced by his stirring rhetoric of his campaign for the Oval Office. The first black president was another incentive to put him there, just as removing him from office was an incentive to the founding of the Tea Party movement, which from the beginning revealed a racist element. I have a hard time imagining him pulling out of the nose dive he is currently in, and he won’t be nestling with progressive in the next two years—far from it! Odds on he’ll do what Bill Clinton did, move to a center-right place in the political spectrum in order “to get along,” to be effective even in a minimal way. I would not look for him to get his hackles up—to be confrontational, like FDR was with the power of the wealthy in American politics. Obama, I regret to say, doesn’t seem to have the inner grit for that, as he is too identified with Establishment America. He wants to “get along,” above all else. He wants to be liked, to “do the right thing,” to compromise with the other side who have made it abundantly clear time and time again they see compromise as a one way street. The onus is on the president, not them, especially not after their victory last night. And yet today at his Press Conference Obama said he was sure he could work with Republicans. The man never learns and it pains me to say that.
It is fair to say this was a historic election and by that I mean it was more than the usual swing in midterm elections. The numbers in the House were the highest in 70 years. The average has been 22.6 seats change parties in off-year elections. This time it was between 60 to 65 seats, depending on a few races not resolved yet. And consider this: when they combine with the conservative Democrats in the House, well, they will be a legislative powerhouse. Won’t it be ironic if the Democrats in the Senate have to use the filibuster to, say, block repeal of the new Health Care Bill, which was on the minds of several Republicans today? Could happen. On the other hand, conservative Democratic Senators could cross over and join the Republicans, just like their brethren in the House—in order to once again “to get along” with the majority party, one that, unlike the Democrats under Obama’s leadership, can be aggressive in their use of the advantageous legislative position. That’s the big fear: That the GOP will carry through with their threat of a rollback of Obamacare and other bills and to do it with a vengeance. Europeans, who have had universal health care for decades, must think we are out of our minds, picturing our foolishness as a diapered male sitting on a jackass backward, looking behind not forward. Actually, I think the most likely scenario for the Senate will be two years of gridlock, with both sides shouting at each other for the responsibility of the do-nothing congress. I would picture that as a donkey and an elephant standing immobile on the bridge to nowhere.
Paul Krugman has been harping on the Republican eagerness to stop all government spending, which is in his view the worst possible thing they could do, for three reasons: If consumers are not spending due to fear and caution, if the private sector isn’t spending or hiring, out of caution and anxiety over the slow recovery from the recession, and, finally, if the government won’t fill the void, like the New Deal did in the Thirties, where will necessary cash flow come from? Money needs to circulate for things to happen. How can they block the flow and expect to get out of the hole we are in? Krugman has argued that the stimulus bill should have been at least double what it was. Can’t the Fed do it? Yes, and I hear they did make some kind of move today. During the next few years Krugman predicts hard times, a period of “political chaos and economic weakness.” It is hard to come to any other conclusion.
Be of good cheer (even though I know it’s difficult),
Jerry P
Dear Pete,
Well, there’s one more idealistic, naïve, and silver-tongued president, if not exactly down the drain, with his back up against the wall. To me Obama is looking like a faux liberal, a politician in way over his head, another flash in the pan who was eaten up by an adoring crowd that was seduced by his stirring rhetoric of his campaign for the Oval Office. The first black president was another incentive to put him there, just as removing him from office was an incentive to the founding of the Tea Party movement, which from the beginning revealed a racist element. I have a hard time imagining him pulling out of the nose dive he is currently in, and he won’t be nestling with progressive in the next two years—far from it! Odds on he’ll do what Bill Clinton did, move to a center-right place in the political spectrum in order “to get along,” to be effective even in a minimal way. I would not look for him to get his hackles up—to be confrontational, like FDR was with the power of the wealthy in American politics. Obama, I regret to say, doesn’t seem to have the inner grit for that, as he is too identified with Establishment America. He wants to “get along,” above all else. He wants to be liked, to “do the right thing,” to compromise with the other side who have made it abundantly clear time and time again they see compromise as a one way street. The onus is on the president, not them, especially not after their victory last night. And yet today at his Press Conference Obama said he was sure he could work with Republicans. The man never learns and it pains me to say that.
It is fair to say this was a historic election and by that I mean it was more than the usual swing in midterm elections. The numbers in the House were the highest in 70 years. The average has been 22.6 seats change parties in off-year elections. This time it was between 60 to 65 seats, depending on a few races not resolved yet. And consider this: when they combine with the conservative Democrats in the House, well, they will be a legislative powerhouse. Won’t it be ironic if the Democrats in the Senate have to use the filibuster to, say, block repeal of the new Health Care Bill, which was on the minds of several Republicans today? Could happen. On the other hand, conservative Democratic Senators could cross over and join the Republicans, just like their brethren in the House—in order to once again “to get along” with the majority party, one that, unlike the Democrats under Obama’s leadership, can be aggressive in their use of the advantageous legislative position. That’s the big fear: That the GOP will carry through with their threat of a rollback of Obamacare and other bills and to do it with a vengeance. Europeans, who have had universal health care for decades, must think we are out of our minds, picturing our foolishness as a diapered male sitting on a jackass backward, looking behind not forward. Actually, I think the most likely scenario for the Senate will be two years of gridlock, with both sides shouting at each other for the responsibility of the do-nothing congress. I would picture that as a donkey and an elephant standing immobile on the bridge to nowhere.
Paul Krugman has been harping on the Republican eagerness to stop all government spending, which is in his view the worst possible thing they could do, for three reasons: If consumers are not spending due to fear and caution, if the private sector isn’t spending or hiring, out of caution and anxiety over the slow recovery from the recession, and, finally, if the government won’t fill the void, like the New Deal did in the Thirties, where will necessary cash flow come from? Money needs to circulate for things to happen. How can they block the flow and expect to get out of the hole we are in? Krugman has argued that the stimulus bill should have been at least double what it was. Can’t the Fed do it? Yes, and I hear they did make some kind of move today. During the next few years Krugman predicts hard times, a period of “political chaos and economic weakness.” It is hard to come to any other conclusion.
Be of good cheer (even though I know it’s difficult),
Jerry P
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Emma Chooses Life
2010-10_23 Emma Chooses Life
As an actress, Tilda Swindon is money in the bank: She never appears in bad movies. “I Am Love “is her latest success.
It has an opening sequence that is remarkable. It is of Christmastime Birthday party for the elderly Patriarch of the Recchi family, the head of a very successful textile business in Milan, Italy. It is a scene of various members of the family arriving at Trancredi Recchi’s palatial home, the oldest son of the Patriarch who is married the Emma (Tilda Swindon) who is busy seeing to the kitchen staff that the preparations for the dinner come off as planned. From the start we observe that Emma is an adjunct to this Italian family, as her Russian background has been buried under the gloss of her adopted Italian language and culture. She maintains a mask of polite and civil engagement with all members of the family, keeping a discreet, unrevealing distance from intimate connection. Her closet ally in her own home is the Servant Supervisor, Ida. Inside she knows she’s the outsider in this crowd, but at the same time she doesn’t want to make waves. She bites the bullet and makes due with her life as is. But to return to the longish opening scene is the fact it is not only beautifully photographed, it is exquisitely edited, being one of the smoothest flows of images I have ever had the pleasure to experience. And it fits with the picture-perfect harmony that seems to be at the heart of this rich Milanese clan. Form dovetails with content, effortlessly.
Unbeknownst to those at this lavish banquet for the patriarch he has a special announcement to make. When he arrived we get a good preview of his status with the three generations present. He is treated with utmost respect and affection, indeed, you wonder why they don’t genuflect or kiss his ring. You can’t help but notice there is something Old World about the hierarchy to this family, as if they are a throwback to a previous time. One thinks they resemble a 19th century family untouched by the stress and turmoil of modernity. But as we all know looks can be deceiving. This harmonious prelude hides some dissension and unhappiness. The announcement the Elder Recchi is making is he retiring—in fact, he’ll be dead in less than six months—and naming his eldest son, Trancredi, the new CEO and his grandson Edo, a CEO in training. He salutes Trancredi as a loyal son (“all that a father could want”) and solid businessman. Everyone sits unmoved by his choices; there are undercurrents but they remain mute.
As I watched this scene unfold, I couldn’t help but flash on two previous movies of similar character and substance. The first that came to mind is “The Leopard,” the 1963 movie directed by Luchino Visconti. Like “I Am Love” the earlier movie was a multigenerational spectacle, but this time dealing with 19th century Sicilian aristocracy, with Burt Lancaster playing the role of the family patriarch who realizes his class, privileges, and life-purpose are fading as modernity begins to move forward crowding his way of life to the sidelines. “I Am Love” deals with a self-made aristocrat and his progeny, a capitalist success story, but they all have pretentions that parallel the Sicilian’s style and modus vivendi. New York Times movie critic, Manohla Dargis called the polish and pose “postclassical Hollywood Baroque.” There is the same august tone, the self-conscious elegance, the stress on appearances, and the adoration of the patriarch. And to finalize this connection between the two films there is the fact that Alain Delon’s character in “The Leopard” was also named Trancredi, the same name as the oldest son of the Patriarch in ‘‘I Am Love.” The new film is clearly homage to Visconti’s, which obviously deeply influenced Luca Guadagino, the Director of “I Am Love.” The second film I thought of was Luis Bunel’s 1972 “Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.” That film was a mocking tribute to the Dinner Party that was so loved by the Bourgeoisie, which they treat almost like a secular mass, allowing them to glory in their affluence and self-importance.
The middle section of the film deals with Edo and his girl friend—they get married and at the end of the film she’s pregnant—and his developing relationship with his new friend Antonio the chef (Edodrado Gabbrielillni) who he wants to open a restaurant with as Antonio as co-owner and chief chef—he is a superb gourmet cook. But at the end of the middle section the story takes a dramatic turn. Emma finally emerges from her shell. Two things motivate it. First of all she reevaluates her own situation due to the fact her daughter Elizabetta has declared herself a Lesbian which flies in the face of the family values. Then she eats a shrimp dish prepared by Antonio and she goes off into an ecstatic reverie, something akin to an orgasm. When I saw her reaction I turned to my wife, who was watching the movie with me, and said, “By God, she’s falling for Antonio. The shrimp is acting like an aphrodisiac!”
And sure enough, on the pretense of showing her his garden in the hills he takes her there in his truck and before you can say whoopee three times they become lovers. They enter into what I would call a Laurencian interlude, where she becomes Connie and Antonio becomes Mellors, and they act out their version of LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER. She experiences a passion she never knew or had forgotten about. She discards her fancy clothes and goes back to a tank top and shorts. She starts speaking in Russian again and brings her Russian name out of the closet. And like in the first sequence, Guadagino has the lovers photographed with form following content. The love scenes are gauzy and blurry; you see a breast, then a leg, and then a curve of a back and so on, like that. Meanwhile, the erotic ambience is heightened with flowers, buzzing insects and soft breezes through the fields, another touch that reminds of D.H. Lawrence. She sheds her Italian veneer. Antonio has not only helped her find her sensual center again, but also her integrity as a person.
But when she tells Edo what has happened he gets upset and trips near the swimming pool and hits his head. They take him to the hospital but he dies there. This tragic accident shatters the family harmony. Previously Edo had been upset when his father had sold the family business to a businessman in London. The family unity is broken and Trancredi tells Emma, “You no longer exist for me.” Utterly stricken and beyond the point of no return, she changes clothes and flees the property, pausing only to hug Ida and to see Elizabetta nod her approval to what she is about to do. The fact Antonio is twenty years younger than her is of no moment. The urgent thing is to escape. The fundamental truth in the situation is she has awakened and rejected her false self. She has become the self she knew herself to be.
The film has moved from a picture-perfect family celebrating its continuity and hold on business and success, to family dissension and an unexpected passion, and a death in the family which is the final wedge that drives Emma out the door. Nothing real comes without pain, but the important thing is and should be, “to your own self be true.”
As an actress, Tilda Swindon is money in the bank: She never appears in bad movies. “I Am Love “is her latest success.
It has an opening sequence that is remarkable. It is of Christmastime Birthday party for the elderly Patriarch of the Recchi family, the head of a very successful textile business in Milan, Italy. It is a scene of various members of the family arriving at Trancredi Recchi’s palatial home, the oldest son of the Patriarch who is married the Emma (Tilda Swindon) who is busy seeing to the kitchen staff that the preparations for the dinner come off as planned. From the start we observe that Emma is an adjunct to this Italian family, as her Russian background has been buried under the gloss of her adopted Italian language and culture. She maintains a mask of polite and civil engagement with all members of the family, keeping a discreet, unrevealing distance from intimate connection. Her closet ally in her own home is the Servant Supervisor, Ida. Inside she knows she’s the outsider in this crowd, but at the same time she doesn’t want to make waves. She bites the bullet and makes due with her life as is. But to return to the longish opening scene is the fact it is not only beautifully photographed, it is exquisitely edited, being one of the smoothest flows of images I have ever had the pleasure to experience. And it fits with the picture-perfect harmony that seems to be at the heart of this rich Milanese clan. Form dovetails with content, effortlessly.
Unbeknownst to those at this lavish banquet for the patriarch he has a special announcement to make. When he arrived we get a good preview of his status with the three generations present. He is treated with utmost respect and affection, indeed, you wonder why they don’t genuflect or kiss his ring. You can’t help but notice there is something Old World about the hierarchy to this family, as if they are a throwback to a previous time. One thinks they resemble a 19th century family untouched by the stress and turmoil of modernity. But as we all know looks can be deceiving. This harmonious prelude hides some dissension and unhappiness. The announcement the Elder Recchi is making is he retiring—in fact, he’ll be dead in less than six months—and naming his eldest son, Trancredi, the new CEO and his grandson Edo, a CEO in training. He salutes Trancredi as a loyal son (“all that a father could want”) and solid businessman. Everyone sits unmoved by his choices; there are undercurrents but they remain mute.
As I watched this scene unfold, I couldn’t help but flash on two previous movies of similar character and substance. The first that came to mind is “The Leopard,” the 1963 movie directed by Luchino Visconti. Like “I Am Love” the earlier movie was a multigenerational spectacle, but this time dealing with 19th century Sicilian aristocracy, with Burt Lancaster playing the role of the family patriarch who realizes his class, privileges, and life-purpose are fading as modernity begins to move forward crowding his way of life to the sidelines. “I Am Love” deals with a self-made aristocrat and his progeny, a capitalist success story, but they all have pretentions that parallel the Sicilian’s style and modus vivendi. New York Times movie critic, Manohla Dargis called the polish and pose “postclassical Hollywood Baroque.” There is the same august tone, the self-conscious elegance, the stress on appearances, and the adoration of the patriarch. And to finalize this connection between the two films there is the fact that Alain Delon’s character in “The Leopard” was also named Trancredi, the same name as the oldest son of the Patriarch in ‘‘I Am Love.” The new film is clearly homage to Visconti’s, which obviously deeply influenced Luca Guadagino, the Director of “I Am Love.” The second film I thought of was Luis Bunel’s 1972 “Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.” That film was a mocking tribute to the Dinner Party that was so loved by the Bourgeoisie, which they treat almost like a secular mass, allowing them to glory in their affluence and self-importance.
The middle section of the film deals with Edo and his girl friend—they get married and at the end of the film she’s pregnant—and his developing relationship with his new friend Antonio the chef (Edodrado Gabbrielillni) who he wants to open a restaurant with as Antonio as co-owner and chief chef—he is a superb gourmet cook. But at the end of the middle section the story takes a dramatic turn. Emma finally emerges from her shell. Two things motivate it. First of all she reevaluates her own situation due to the fact her daughter Elizabetta has declared herself a Lesbian which flies in the face of the family values. Then she eats a shrimp dish prepared by Antonio and she goes off into an ecstatic reverie, something akin to an orgasm. When I saw her reaction I turned to my wife, who was watching the movie with me, and said, “By God, she’s falling for Antonio. The shrimp is acting like an aphrodisiac!”
And sure enough, on the pretense of showing her his garden in the hills he takes her there in his truck and before you can say whoopee three times they become lovers. They enter into what I would call a Laurencian interlude, where she becomes Connie and Antonio becomes Mellors, and they act out their version of LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER. She experiences a passion she never knew or had forgotten about. She discards her fancy clothes and goes back to a tank top and shorts. She starts speaking in Russian again and brings her Russian name out of the closet. And like in the first sequence, Guadagino has the lovers photographed with form following content. The love scenes are gauzy and blurry; you see a breast, then a leg, and then a curve of a back and so on, like that. Meanwhile, the erotic ambience is heightened with flowers, buzzing insects and soft breezes through the fields, another touch that reminds of D.H. Lawrence. She sheds her Italian veneer. Antonio has not only helped her find her sensual center again, but also her integrity as a person.
But when she tells Edo what has happened he gets upset and trips near the swimming pool and hits his head. They take him to the hospital but he dies there. This tragic accident shatters the family harmony. Previously Edo had been upset when his father had sold the family business to a businessman in London. The family unity is broken and Trancredi tells Emma, “You no longer exist for me.” Utterly stricken and beyond the point of no return, she changes clothes and flees the property, pausing only to hug Ida and to see Elizabetta nod her approval to what she is about to do. The fact Antonio is twenty years younger than her is of no moment. The urgent thing is to escape. The fundamental truth in the situation is she has awakened and rejected her false self. She has become the self she knew herself to be.
The film has moved from a picture-perfect family celebrating its continuity and hold on business and success, to family dissension and an unexpected passion, and a death in the family which is the final wedge that drives Emma out the door. Nothing real comes without pain, but the important thing is and should be, “to your own self be true.”
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Dawn of the Guiding Light
2010_10-12 The Dawn of a Guiding Light
One night in May of 1972 I was depressed over the fact my drawings seemed so impenetrable, both to me and others. I asked myself, is it possible I am barking up the wrong tree? When I looked at what I have done since 1969, when I left my ‘Horror Period’ behind, one minute I see the promise of things to come and maybe even some great talent preparing to break loose; but 5 minutes later when I looked again the stuff looked ridiculous and empty, a shot in the dark, hardly worth the effort. Things just weren’t coming together as I had hoped they would when we arrived in Tucson the year before. I had been flailing about for a few years trying to find new footing. The new work looked experimental, tentative, the result of a search that wasn’t paying off yet. I was still without a clear road to take. I was still juggling possibilities, toying with bits and pieces of ideas that could tease my imagination but couldn’t stand alone yet.
On that night in question I was reading THE BANQUET YEARS by Roger Shattuck. I felt an intense identification with Eric Satie who was one of the artists discussed in the book. I loved Satie’s comic sense and how he could make nonsense have a metaphysical aura. That sort of thing had a lot of appeal to me. Satie was also, like me, very idiosyncratic. Here is what Shattuck said about him. “Irony, spite, and fantasy combine into a fairy tale about a nonsense world not less but MORE ordered than ours. Satie’s entire career represents an effort to confound, to provoke laughter, to give pause, and then to disappear—and least of all to entertain or edify.” I had long ago embraced the refusal to be ordinary, or simply an entertainer, bandwagon artist, or a decorator. Others could happily go that route but not me. Shattuck went on to say that Satie’s talents were best revealed in “sudden visitations,” or epiphanies-- eruptive moments of visionary experience. I knew something about those kinds of experiences. Indeed, when I was drawing I would try to get locked into the memory of those experiences, using them as, so to speak, a platform to perform on—they were the GROUND of my creativity. If I failed to get really centered that’s when the results looked ridiculous and empty, like a jumble of lines and shapes that didn’t add up to anything. But if I am locked in and intensely focused I can deliver an authentic “hieroglyphic” image that reflects a numinous experience-- about being in a context of radiant and expansive harmony. So I look on creating as a, if you will, yoga, a way to meditate and achieve unity of purpose and being. There is also something of prayer in my approach, communing with a higher power that comes down and flows through me. Drawing provides the elevation I crave. Exalted vision is where it’s at for me. The material image represents the marriage between that which is visible and that which is invisible, what is accurately described as a SYMBOL—something unknown made manifest.
These thoughts got me thinking about the spatial character of Munch’s work and how space, and the way he uses it, reveals psychological and metaphysical depths. For example, let’s take a look at “The Dance of Life.” It is one of his most famous works as well as one that best represents his style of expressionist painting. All the figures in the foreground are specters profiled against a vast enigmatic (and horizontal) background composed of earth, air, water, and sky and secondary dancers. The whole scene seems cursed by an odd but striking full moon whose reflection touches the shoreline behind all the dancers. Aside from the four main figures up front the other dancers reflect and express a ghoulish anonymity—mere specters awash in a sea of crackling nerves and uncertainty. One man whose face is visible leers at his dancing partner with lust on his mind. But it is three women and the one man in the frontal plane that carry the main thrust of the narrative and the effect is achieved by formal means. The three females are in dresses of different colors, white, red and black; this is no accident either. The colors were carefully chosen to represent different stages of life for women. White indicates virginity, naiveté, purity, inexperience: innocence. The woman dancing with the somnolent man with his eyes closed is dressed in red, and oddly but significantly, one loop of red paint outlines his body, like a lasso holding him in place and giving him definition. The male dancer had his eyes closed, moving in robotic fashion, as if mesmerized by the opposite sex, not a good outcome for someone like Munch who had great anxiety about the opposite sex and deeply feared what he thought of as the devouring tendencies of the female. In short, the male of the species is her captive and the red dress represents her sex and passion, aspects of life that rule after innocence is gone, especially when man and wife have entered the middle stage of life. (By the way, Munch never married—he was afraid to.) Finally, there is the woman in black, she of sorrowful mien, her hands held clenched in front of her. She of course is a representation of the late stage of life, old age accompanied by unhappiness and despair. The symbolic flavor of the entire scenario is clear and unmistakable. Munch cannily conjured his three stages of a woman’s life, innocence, lust, and old age, in simple but concrete form, with color as a dramatic accent on meaning.
I learned an awful lot by scrutinizing Munch’s methods of expression, especially when it came to the depiction of the relationship between men and women. My book EROS AND PSYCHE is quite indebted to him.
A few days later I was playing around with another Munch painting and some other paintings. They were pictures that I had cut out of magazines and were rearranging on my desk, as if I was looking for something. Suddenly I flashed on a relationship between Munch’s “The Scream” and two other pictures on my desk, Ingres’s painting “’M. Louis-Francois Bertin,” painted in 1832, and a painting by Morris Graves of a snake coupled with a moon image painted in the late 1930s. I saw the three images as a perfect illustration of my tripartite ideograph on the nature of Being, that is, Persona/ Psyche/Pneuma, concepts I borrowed from Gnosticism. The Ingres was a painting of the archetypal bourgeois gentleman, a perfect example of “Hylic” man, man the gross materialist devoted to the senses, money and success. HYLE represents the lowest level of consciousness, a human being whose spirituality is nil or undiscovered. Hylic man has no interior life; it is closed off to him, like a large boulder covering a cave entrance. On the other hand “The Scream” describes a man whose outer shell has been broken and broken is the first step in being open—the boulder has been removed and the inside of the cave is now visible. Emotionally it is at the opposite pole from “M. Bertin,” who is pictured as an arrogant, overconfident man who thinks he is better than the “small people.” The man in “The Scream “is experiencing the beginning of a deeper awareness, one of the interior life, of the need for soul-making. The image was and is an excellent reflection of the Psyche, humanity in distress, quite appropriate for the modern age. It is an image that brings into focus the daemonic intermediate level of Being, with the bridge to the depths being the linkage between the unconscious and consciousness.
The Morris Graves painting is called “Snake and Moon” and it was done when Graves was under the sway of Oriental Philosophy and deliberately sought to instill echoes of mysticism in his evocative and poetic paintings of animals. “Snake and Moon” represents the nonhuman element in nature and the Pneuma, the breath of Spirit. We are in new space now, where Light and Dark commingle, where Kundalini abides like silent thunder and lightning; we are now at the GROUND OF BEING, where an infinite power sometimes crosses over to ignite spiritual energy in the Psyche. The presence of the full moon links us with where we started, with “The Dance of Life,” human beings swaying under the magic of the full moon, something of special importance to me ever since my “lunacy” episode during THE INFERNO.
So where did this playing around with images and ideas take me, especially the idea of tripartite division of PERSONA/PSYCHE/PNUEMA, the so-called “Threefold Cord of Alchemy.” I was just following my intuition. In the winter of 1971, when I was living in Eugene I had done a drawing while I was stumbling around in the dark looking for a new direction after my ‘Horror Period’ in Las Vegas; that was the first I ever tried with the idea of three levels. It was called “The Eternal Return.” The lower level was occupied by water and a large tapir—I was thinking about their presence in “2001: A Space Odyssey”—while the middle section—and there was a clear demarcation between levels—was a self-portrait, and the uppermost level had an angel fertilizing an egg on the borderline between the second and third levels. This was my first and rather rough interpretation of the Threefold Cord of Alchemy. The eventual name I gave to these images based on three vertical registers and accompanying symbols was “The Hieroglyphic Theater.”
Now, how did I come by these ideas? Around the same time, while I was teaching part-time at Oregon State up in Corvallis, I had read HIDDEN SYMBOLISM OF ALCHEMY AND THE OCCULT ARTS by an early Freudian named Herbert Sillberer. It had been published in 1917 and was something of a breakthrough book and much praised by the likes of Carl Jung who went on to investigate Alchemy at greater length. Sillberer wrote that his purpose was to “give consideration to the chemical viewpoint of alchemy and also of hermetic philosophy and its hieroglyphic educational methods.” In other words, he saw their potential for raising consciousness, as we would say today. Alchemy wasn’t the “black mud of the Occult” as Freud had told Jung in 1909. He went on to pose this important question: Do you follow the lead of Psychoanalysis or do you opt for “the hermetic, hieroglyphic solution?” In Post-Inferno times I had to opt for the latter. It was clear to me what had to be my preference. I had become someone anchored in esoteric, obscure, dream-like, and super-personal imagery, a treasure trove of empirical experience that I had garnered between the years 1968 and 1973. Communication wasn’t a high priority for me. Doing it was an end in itself. Squeezing the juice out of the sponge was the important thing. That was the Hermetic side to the activity. The hieroglyphic side had to do with the “psychology of symbol-making,” the externalizing of difficult material from one’s inner life.
This is where a second book came in. And it is funny how you find the right book at the right time to direct you in the right direction. It was Frances Yates book, BRUNO AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION, the Vintage edition which had been published in 1969. Yates was a Renaissance scholar who specialized in the period’s esoterica. In the BRUNO book she discussed the influence of Egyptian hieroglyphics on the development of “emblem poetry,” which was in vogue at the time among the Humanists. Hieroglyphics were understood to have “a hidden moral and religious meaning.” It could be understood to be a kind of disguise that only the cognoscenti would be hip to. It was also a gesture of respect towards Hermes Trismegistus, the “Thrice-Greatest Hermes” who was thought to be a combination of the Greek God Hermes and the Egyptian God Thoth, the God of wisdom. He was the legendary inventor of hieroglyphs. Marsllio Ficino said hieroglyphs were”a way of stating hidden truths” and for me subjectivity is the truth.
In 1972 I sat in on a Egyptian Art History class at the University of Arizona taught by a Professor Stein. One day while talking about Old Kingdom Temples he showed a slide of a stela found on many Temples of the period. They were like, if you will, ‘Holy Cards,’ visual encapsulations or abbreviations of spiritual truth for a Pharaoh whose name was often associated with the Temple. The stela was a vertical format divided into two main sections, with the lower section having two parts. Inside a rectangle that took up basically the lower half of the format was a rendering of a Pillared Hall and above the hall was a snake, said to be a cobra. On top of the ‘box’ was a huge falcon, a reference to the God Horus who it is said had the sun and moon for eyes. I say ‘huge’ not only in the sense of physical size but also in symbolic importance. That was about all Stein had to say about it. I forgot all about the Serehk Motif, which is the common name for the cartouche, until about two years later when I ran across it again in another book on Egyptian Culture, THE DICTIONARY OF ANCIENT EGYPT by Margaret Bunson. It then dawned on me I was looking at the prime historical model for my three-decker universe which by then I was already referring to as THE HIREOGLYPHIC THEATER. How dense I had been in Professor Stein’s course. I had been blind to the connection. The pillared Hall which you can see into was, symbolically speaking, the world of space and time, the physical realm, and the Kingdom of Masks not souls. The middle realm was ruled by a snake, by Kundalinli’s bite which can open the psyche—the soul-- to its depths and destiny. Then surmounting the body and soul was the spirit, Horus the Falcon whose wings could help it soar to the heights of self-knowledge. I had found the archetype of the three-fold cord, The Serekh Motif.
One night in May of 1972 I was depressed over the fact my drawings seemed so impenetrable, both to me and others. I asked myself, is it possible I am barking up the wrong tree? When I looked at what I have done since 1969, when I left my ‘Horror Period’ behind, one minute I see the promise of things to come and maybe even some great talent preparing to break loose; but 5 minutes later when I looked again the stuff looked ridiculous and empty, a shot in the dark, hardly worth the effort. Things just weren’t coming together as I had hoped they would when we arrived in Tucson the year before. I had been flailing about for a few years trying to find new footing. The new work looked experimental, tentative, the result of a search that wasn’t paying off yet. I was still without a clear road to take. I was still juggling possibilities, toying with bits and pieces of ideas that could tease my imagination but couldn’t stand alone yet.
On that night in question I was reading THE BANQUET YEARS by Roger Shattuck. I felt an intense identification with Eric Satie who was one of the artists discussed in the book. I loved Satie’s comic sense and how he could make nonsense have a metaphysical aura. That sort of thing had a lot of appeal to me. Satie was also, like me, very idiosyncratic. Here is what Shattuck said about him. “Irony, spite, and fantasy combine into a fairy tale about a nonsense world not less but MORE ordered than ours. Satie’s entire career represents an effort to confound, to provoke laughter, to give pause, and then to disappear—and least of all to entertain or edify.” I had long ago embraced the refusal to be ordinary, or simply an entertainer, bandwagon artist, or a decorator. Others could happily go that route but not me. Shattuck went on to say that Satie’s talents were best revealed in “sudden visitations,” or epiphanies-- eruptive moments of visionary experience. I knew something about those kinds of experiences. Indeed, when I was drawing I would try to get locked into the memory of those experiences, using them as, so to speak, a platform to perform on—they were the GROUND of my creativity. If I failed to get really centered that’s when the results looked ridiculous and empty, like a jumble of lines and shapes that didn’t add up to anything. But if I am locked in and intensely focused I can deliver an authentic “hieroglyphic” image that reflects a numinous experience-- about being in a context of radiant and expansive harmony. So I look on creating as a, if you will, yoga, a way to meditate and achieve unity of purpose and being. There is also something of prayer in my approach, communing with a higher power that comes down and flows through me. Drawing provides the elevation I crave. Exalted vision is where it’s at for me. The material image represents the marriage between that which is visible and that which is invisible, what is accurately described as a SYMBOL—something unknown made manifest.
These thoughts got me thinking about the spatial character of Munch’s work and how space, and the way he uses it, reveals psychological and metaphysical depths. For example, let’s take a look at “The Dance of Life.” It is one of his most famous works as well as one that best represents his style of expressionist painting. All the figures in the foreground are specters profiled against a vast enigmatic (and horizontal) background composed of earth, air, water, and sky and secondary dancers. The whole scene seems cursed by an odd but striking full moon whose reflection touches the shoreline behind all the dancers. Aside from the four main figures up front the other dancers reflect and express a ghoulish anonymity—mere specters awash in a sea of crackling nerves and uncertainty. One man whose face is visible leers at his dancing partner with lust on his mind. But it is three women and the one man in the frontal plane that carry the main thrust of the narrative and the effect is achieved by formal means. The three females are in dresses of different colors, white, red and black; this is no accident either. The colors were carefully chosen to represent different stages of life for women. White indicates virginity, naiveté, purity, inexperience: innocence. The woman dancing with the somnolent man with his eyes closed is dressed in red, and oddly but significantly, one loop of red paint outlines his body, like a lasso holding him in place and giving him definition. The male dancer had his eyes closed, moving in robotic fashion, as if mesmerized by the opposite sex, not a good outcome for someone like Munch who had great anxiety about the opposite sex and deeply feared what he thought of as the devouring tendencies of the female. In short, the male of the species is her captive and the red dress represents her sex and passion, aspects of life that rule after innocence is gone, especially when man and wife have entered the middle stage of life. (By the way, Munch never married—he was afraid to.) Finally, there is the woman in black, she of sorrowful mien, her hands held clenched in front of her. She of course is a representation of the late stage of life, old age accompanied by unhappiness and despair. The symbolic flavor of the entire scenario is clear and unmistakable. Munch cannily conjured his three stages of a woman’s life, innocence, lust, and old age, in simple but concrete form, with color as a dramatic accent on meaning.
I learned an awful lot by scrutinizing Munch’s methods of expression, especially when it came to the depiction of the relationship between men and women. My book EROS AND PSYCHE is quite indebted to him.
A few days later I was playing around with another Munch painting and some other paintings. They were pictures that I had cut out of magazines and were rearranging on my desk, as if I was looking for something. Suddenly I flashed on a relationship between Munch’s “The Scream” and two other pictures on my desk, Ingres’s painting “’M. Louis-Francois Bertin,” painted in 1832, and a painting by Morris Graves of a snake coupled with a moon image painted in the late 1930s. I saw the three images as a perfect illustration of my tripartite ideograph on the nature of Being, that is, Persona/ Psyche/Pneuma, concepts I borrowed from Gnosticism. The Ingres was a painting of the archetypal bourgeois gentleman, a perfect example of “Hylic” man, man the gross materialist devoted to the senses, money and success. HYLE represents the lowest level of consciousness, a human being whose spirituality is nil or undiscovered. Hylic man has no interior life; it is closed off to him, like a large boulder covering a cave entrance. On the other hand “The Scream” describes a man whose outer shell has been broken and broken is the first step in being open—the boulder has been removed and the inside of the cave is now visible. Emotionally it is at the opposite pole from “M. Bertin,” who is pictured as an arrogant, overconfident man who thinks he is better than the “small people.” The man in “The Scream “is experiencing the beginning of a deeper awareness, one of the interior life, of the need for soul-making. The image was and is an excellent reflection of the Psyche, humanity in distress, quite appropriate for the modern age. It is an image that brings into focus the daemonic intermediate level of Being, with the bridge to the depths being the linkage between the unconscious and consciousness.
The Morris Graves painting is called “Snake and Moon” and it was done when Graves was under the sway of Oriental Philosophy and deliberately sought to instill echoes of mysticism in his evocative and poetic paintings of animals. “Snake and Moon” represents the nonhuman element in nature and the Pneuma, the breath of Spirit. We are in new space now, where Light and Dark commingle, where Kundalini abides like silent thunder and lightning; we are now at the GROUND OF BEING, where an infinite power sometimes crosses over to ignite spiritual energy in the Psyche. The presence of the full moon links us with where we started, with “The Dance of Life,” human beings swaying under the magic of the full moon, something of special importance to me ever since my “lunacy” episode during THE INFERNO.
So where did this playing around with images and ideas take me, especially the idea of tripartite division of PERSONA/PSYCHE/PNUEMA, the so-called “Threefold Cord of Alchemy.” I was just following my intuition. In the winter of 1971, when I was living in Eugene I had done a drawing while I was stumbling around in the dark looking for a new direction after my ‘Horror Period’ in Las Vegas; that was the first I ever tried with the idea of three levels. It was called “The Eternal Return.” The lower level was occupied by water and a large tapir—I was thinking about their presence in “2001: A Space Odyssey”—while the middle section—and there was a clear demarcation between levels—was a self-portrait, and the uppermost level had an angel fertilizing an egg on the borderline between the second and third levels. This was my first and rather rough interpretation of the Threefold Cord of Alchemy. The eventual name I gave to these images based on three vertical registers and accompanying symbols was “The Hieroglyphic Theater.”
Now, how did I come by these ideas? Around the same time, while I was teaching part-time at Oregon State up in Corvallis, I had read HIDDEN SYMBOLISM OF ALCHEMY AND THE OCCULT ARTS by an early Freudian named Herbert Sillberer. It had been published in 1917 and was something of a breakthrough book and much praised by the likes of Carl Jung who went on to investigate Alchemy at greater length. Sillberer wrote that his purpose was to “give consideration to the chemical viewpoint of alchemy and also of hermetic philosophy and its hieroglyphic educational methods.” In other words, he saw their potential for raising consciousness, as we would say today. Alchemy wasn’t the “black mud of the Occult” as Freud had told Jung in 1909. He went on to pose this important question: Do you follow the lead of Psychoanalysis or do you opt for “the hermetic, hieroglyphic solution?” In Post-Inferno times I had to opt for the latter. It was clear to me what had to be my preference. I had become someone anchored in esoteric, obscure, dream-like, and super-personal imagery, a treasure trove of empirical experience that I had garnered between the years 1968 and 1973. Communication wasn’t a high priority for me. Doing it was an end in itself. Squeezing the juice out of the sponge was the important thing. That was the Hermetic side to the activity. The hieroglyphic side had to do with the “psychology of symbol-making,” the externalizing of difficult material from one’s inner life.
This is where a second book came in. And it is funny how you find the right book at the right time to direct you in the right direction. It was Frances Yates book, BRUNO AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION, the Vintage edition which had been published in 1969. Yates was a Renaissance scholar who specialized in the period’s esoterica. In the BRUNO book she discussed the influence of Egyptian hieroglyphics on the development of “emblem poetry,” which was in vogue at the time among the Humanists. Hieroglyphics were understood to have “a hidden moral and religious meaning.” It could be understood to be a kind of disguise that only the cognoscenti would be hip to. It was also a gesture of respect towards Hermes Trismegistus, the “Thrice-Greatest Hermes” who was thought to be a combination of the Greek God Hermes and the Egyptian God Thoth, the God of wisdom. He was the legendary inventor of hieroglyphs. Marsllio Ficino said hieroglyphs were”a way of stating hidden truths” and for me subjectivity is the truth.
In 1972 I sat in on a Egyptian Art History class at the University of Arizona taught by a Professor Stein. One day while talking about Old Kingdom Temples he showed a slide of a stela found on many Temples of the period. They were like, if you will, ‘Holy Cards,’ visual encapsulations or abbreviations of spiritual truth for a Pharaoh whose name was often associated with the Temple. The stela was a vertical format divided into two main sections, with the lower section having two parts. Inside a rectangle that took up basically the lower half of the format was a rendering of a Pillared Hall and above the hall was a snake, said to be a cobra. On top of the ‘box’ was a huge falcon, a reference to the God Horus who it is said had the sun and moon for eyes. I say ‘huge’ not only in the sense of physical size but also in symbolic importance. That was about all Stein had to say about it. I forgot all about the Serehk Motif, which is the common name for the cartouche, until about two years later when I ran across it again in another book on Egyptian Culture, THE DICTIONARY OF ANCIENT EGYPT by Margaret Bunson. It then dawned on me I was looking at the prime historical model for my three-decker universe which by then I was already referring to as THE HIREOGLYPHIC THEATER. How dense I had been in Professor Stein’s course. I had been blind to the connection. The pillared Hall which you can see into was, symbolically speaking, the world of space and time, the physical realm, and the Kingdom of Masks not souls. The middle realm was ruled by a snake, by Kundalinli’s bite which can open the psyche—the soul-- to its depths and destiny. Then surmounting the body and soul was the spirit, Horus the Falcon whose wings could help it soar to the heights of self-knowledge. I had found the archetype of the three-fold cord, The Serekh Motif.
Monday, October 18, 2010
The Chilian Miners
2010_10_17 The Chilean Miners
The Chilean Miners, all 33 of them, are above ground again and trying to adjust to their new-found fame. They were liberated from their temporary tomb in less than 24 hours and certainly must have felt reborn or at least that they had been given a second chance at life. They all wore dark glasses as they emerged from the depths to protect their eyes from the sun. The world marveled at their courage and survival and everyone doffed their hats at the ingenuity of the folks who saved them by knowing what had to done to get them out from the bowels of the earth.
The next chapter for them may prove more difficult than their incarceration in the mine. There are numerous pressures on them already, individually and as a group, as many journalists are clamoring for pictures and an interview. TV people want a piece of the action. There are movie and books deals to consider. Some Chilean millionaire has deposited $10,000 in every man’s bank account to help them through the first several weeks of freedom. The government has pledge to take of their health concerns for at least the next six months. They are wanted around the world, literally, as their story has become the story of the 21st century, certainly the best feel-good story that one can imagine. (In contrast, there was an underground explosion in a Chinese mine yesterday, with 16 miners killed, and the event wasn’t even reported on the news in China. Who cares about the loss of 16 individuals when your population is 1.4 billion people? ) But some other miners are beginning to feel the trauma of the ordeal and are beginning to experience nightmares. My guess would be that the end result of this post-rescue hoopla will be a situation that will eventually resemble the bad outcome experienced by so many Lottery winners. The miners won’t have the tools or the experience to handle the onslaught of their sudden fame. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that they did a remarkable thing, surviving like moles underground for 70 days, and the engineers that got them out were equally fantastic on their end of the deal. It will long be a heroic moment to remember.
I have been slowly working my way though Rifkin’s book THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION which I am convinced has to be regarded as an important book. It has a Grand Design and its intention are noble—to suggest there is still time to save humankind by embracing the notion of empathy as basic to the human condition. I have been reading the book in an on-again off-again fashion, knocking off 25 pages here and as few as 10 pages there. Currently I am up to page 365 and the section called “The Psychological Consciousness in a Postmodern Existential World.” What he had to say about the Romantic Era was interesting, specifically, it gave great impetus to the virtue of caring for others, as if they were the first Liberals on the scene in the West. Rifkin calls the era “a true revolution in the history of consciousness.”
I call the book a Grand Design because of the large amount of ground he covers, from the Ancient world to the present, all of it looked at from the dual perspective of empathy and entropy, the twins of human progress, like the positive and negative polarities of human reality, the generative contraries. As history has progressed empathy has played an increasingly important role in the development of civilization, and Rifkin now sees and affirms it as the answer to Global Consciousness in a world in crisis. That does make sense to me as I am the type who easily identifies with the pain and suffering of others, and it seems to me, that if that capacity was more wide spread, of reasonable depth, and totally authentic, we’d be a lot better off. But the crisis we are in, at least in this country, is the growing power of our corporate overlords…hell, I remember Saul Bellow before he died warning us that the individual was no longer the focus of our culture; the Corporation now was…and Norman Mailer used to refer to the U.S. as “Corporation Land,” as far back as the late sixties. Now things are even worse, with the recent CITIZENS UNITED Supreme Court decision which allows corporations to spend all they want on the candidates of their choice and they don’t have to declare the amounts or who they are. When you combine that decision with the anger and prejudice on the far right, and the likelihood that the Republicans are going to make significant gains in November, we are in deep shit. Now that they can buy politicians by the handful they are nearing the pinnacle of their power. It is difficult to image what could stop them. They can do pretty much what they want. They could have a lock on Congress by 2016, perhaps even earlier.
The next several years with be decisive in this consolidation of power. We have reached the point of wealth triumphant; a cabal of Multinational Corporations is ready to actually contemplate taking over, while maintaining a look of normality, a Congress full of empty suits that do their bidding while spouting patriotic gore in speeches written for them by clusters of bought specialists. With the masses in a state of perpetual ignorance, being continually fed the Big Lie and soothed by legalized pot and other illusory or pacifying chemicals. NFL football would be even more popular than it is today, even more of gladiator sport than it is today, and the entertainment industry would do its part to keep the masses tranquilize and cooperative. The rich and their minions would live in gated communities that are highly fortified within these ‘zones of exception,’ having all the pleasures and distractions the rich need to be content. Some form of Oligarchy would be in force, composed of CEOs of various corporations. They would represent the ruling class. Their job would be to establish a servile society, clusters of workers who would be kept docile and in line. The Military Establishment would of course be their right arm of the Ruling Class, the necessary enforcers and the institution that would have to recruit the fresh blood for the Armed Forces, which have the aura of an elite force. They would go along with the ruling Oligarchy because it would be to their benefit; it would bestow high social status. The media will be their spokesman too, and progressives will be the first group weeded out, perhaps jailed or otherwise suppressed.
I don’t see any way to stop this from happening.
The Chilean Miners, all 33 of them, are above ground again and trying to adjust to their new-found fame. They were liberated from their temporary tomb in less than 24 hours and certainly must have felt reborn or at least that they had been given a second chance at life. They all wore dark glasses as they emerged from the depths to protect their eyes from the sun. The world marveled at their courage and survival and everyone doffed their hats at the ingenuity of the folks who saved them by knowing what had to done to get them out from the bowels of the earth.
The next chapter for them may prove more difficult than their incarceration in the mine. There are numerous pressures on them already, individually and as a group, as many journalists are clamoring for pictures and an interview. TV people want a piece of the action. There are movie and books deals to consider. Some Chilean millionaire has deposited $10,000 in every man’s bank account to help them through the first several weeks of freedom. The government has pledge to take of their health concerns for at least the next six months. They are wanted around the world, literally, as their story has become the story of the 21st century, certainly the best feel-good story that one can imagine. (In contrast, there was an underground explosion in a Chinese mine yesterday, with 16 miners killed, and the event wasn’t even reported on the news in China. Who cares about the loss of 16 individuals when your population is 1.4 billion people? ) But some other miners are beginning to feel the trauma of the ordeal and are beginning to experience nightmares. My guess would be that the end result of this post-rescue hoopla will be a situation that will eventually resemble the bad outcome experienced by so many Lottery winners. The miners won’t have the tools or the experience to handle the onslaught of their sudden fame. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that they did a remarkable thing, surviving like moles underground for 70 days, and the engineers that got them out were equally fantastic on their end of the deal. It will long be a heroic moment to remember.
I have been slowly working my way though Rifkin’s book THE EMPATHIC CIVILIZATION which I am convinced has to be regarded as an important book. It has a Grand Design and its intention are noble—to suggest there is still time to save humankind by embracing the notion of empathy as basic to the human condition. I have been reading the book in an on-again off-again fashion, knocking off 25 pages here and as few as 10 pages there. Currently I am up to page 365 and the section called “The Psychological Consciousness in a Postmodern Existential World.” What he had to say about the Romantic Era was interesting, specifically, it gave great impetus to the virtue of caring for others, as if they were the first Liberals on the scene in the West. Rifkin calls the era “a true revolution in the history of consciousness.”
I call the book a Grand Design because of the large amount of ground he covers, from the Ancient world to the present, all of it looked at from the dual perspective of empathy and entropy, the twins of human progress, like the positive and negative polarities of human reality, the generative contraries. As history has progressed empathy has played an increasingly important role in the development of civilization, and Rifkin now sees and affirms it as the answer to Global Consciousness in a world in crisis. That does make sense to me as I am the type who easily identifies with the pain and suffering of others, and it seems to me, that if that capacity was more wide spread, of reasonable depth, and totally authentic, we’d be a lot better off. But the crisis we are in, at least in this country, is the growing power of our corporate overlords…hell, I remember Saul Bellow before he died warning us that the individual was no longer the focus of our culture; the Corporation now was…and Norman Mailer used to refer to the U.S. as “Corporation Land,” as far back as the late sixties. Now things are even worse, with the recent CITIZENS UNITED Supreme Court decision which allows corporations to spend all they want on the candidates of their choice and they don’t have to declare the amounts or who they are. When you combine that decision with the anger and prejudice on the far right, and the likelihood that the Republicans are going to make significant gains in November, we are in deep shit. Now that they can buy politicians by the handful they are nearing the pinnacle of their power. It is difficult to image what could stop them. They can do pretty much what they want. They could have a lock on Congress by 2016, perhaps even earlier.
The next several years with be decisive in this consolidation of power. We have reached the point of wealth triumphant; a cabal of Multinational Corporations is ready to actually contemplate taking over, while maintaining a look of normality, a Congress full of empty suits that do their bidding while spouting patriotic gore in speeches written for them by clusters of bought specialists. With the masses in a state of perpetual ignorance, being continually fed the Big Lie and soothed by legalized pot and other illusory or pacifying chemicals. NFL football would be even more popular than it is today, even more of gladiator sport than it is today, and the entertainment industry would do its part to keep the masses tranquilize and cooperative. The rich and their minions would live in gated communities that are highly fortified within these ‘zones of exception,’ having all the pleasures and distractions the rich need to be content. Some form of Oligarchy would be in force, composed of CEOs of various corporations. They would represent the ruling class. Their job would be to establish a servile society, clusters of workers who would be kept docile and in line. The Military Establishment would of course be their right arm of the Ruling Class, the necessary enforcers and the institution that would have to recruit the fresh blood for the Armed Forces, which have the aura of an elite force. They would go along with the ruling Oligarchy because it would be to their benefit; it would bestow high social status. The media will be their spokesman too, and progressives will be the first group weeded out, perhaps jailed or otherwise suppressed.
I don’t see any way to stop this from happening.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Clash of Polarities
2010_10_10 The Clash of Polarities
Because I just finished reading OBAMA’S WAR, the latest reportorial opus by the savant Bob Woodward, I feel compelled to make a few comments. The text focuses on the intense discussions held a year ago in regard the war in Afghanistan. It was a kind of seminar called for by Professor Obama that resulted in an executive White Paper. I found the book a tough read; maybe it is exciting for wonks and political junkies, but it was a grind for me. It was an old story told anew, about the bickering that always seems to occur in the midst of wartime, as the military brain trust pit themselves against Team Obama composed of a civilian cadre dug in and determined to fend off the pushy Team Generals. The Generals seek to get the civilians out of the way before they hurt themselves—or make peace on their own or too quickly. Since they feel better trained and equipped to handle war in all its aspects, they are best qualified to make THE BIG DECISSIONS ABOUT THE CONDUCT OF OBAMA’S WAR. So went their thinking. They were, after all, the professionals in this scenario. Especially in this case, as the president, as most people would agree, is a raw rookie in this circumstance. In the final analysis, the long series of discussions were bound to not be successful because they never had a real chance to be. It was all a formal exercise, like war games, or a game of bureaucratic one-upmanship, the military pressing hard against Team Obama with Team Obama pushing back as hard as they could, and with equal passion, with Obama and people like Gen. James Jones hanging in a middle zone between the clashing perspectives.
Jim Jones was in the news yesterday. He resigned his post as NSA Director, effective in two weeks. He got out four months before he had originally planned to which was at 24 month’s service. Personally, I think the post was a grind for him too, but in a different way: it was an impossible balancing act over an abyss called “failure,” a fear that existed on every level for every faction in this THE GREAT DEBATE. Poor Jones, he had a boot in two worlds. He was, on one hand, the well-intentioned advocate for POTUS (that’s military-speak for President Obama of the United States) while on the other hand, he was a retired General mindful of the concerns and goals of his old pals in the Pentagon and Defense Dept. In a futile attempt to please both sides he ended up paralyzed by the polarization in his own head so he decided to run for the hills. He had had enough of the big squeeze. But last night I read a section in OBAMA’S WAR where Jones had said that it would be a “disaster” if his Chief Deputy, Tom Donilon, was his replacement, which was exactly what happened yesterday. Donilon is one of those long-lived loyal Democrats who have found various posts since Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office. It is true he is far removed from the space the General came from. Calling him a “disaster” could simply mean he is more a team player than Jones was.
The book describes the uneven dialogue among the civilian leaders who make the Big Decisions, meaning Team Obama going head to head with Team Generals who were actually doing most of the talking because the president had asked them to set the agenda. Team Obama was in the position of counter-puncher, a role they seemed to be adjusting to. The clique of Generals saw themselves as more knowledgeable and savvy in the world of war. Most of the book deals with this tug of war between the thinkers vs. the doers, the president vs. the hawks, the Democrats vs. the Republicans, McCain vs. Biden, and blue eyes vs. brown eyes. By the way, Biden worked hard to keep Obama above water—not overwhelmed by the clique of Generals. They ended up respecting his intellectual acuity.
While the military always goes for the gold, victory, it is an unrealistic goal in Afghanistan, which is notorious as the “graveyard of Empires.” The American people are not going to accept what it would take to wrap up a win in Afghanistan. It would take a decade at least and might take 20 years. It would also be very expensive. The Generals estimated $113 billion a year. That’s a lot of money going down a rat hole when millions of people are unemployed and our infrastructures keeps decaying. Things cry out for attention but the war goes on and on, like a bad habit. Yesterday marked the first day of the 10th year of the war. The public is already dubious about staying in this fight, at least how it is currently framed and mounted. And it’s obvious we are nowhere near a foothold there, much less close to a satisfactory ending to the conflict. President Karzai is another big problem: he is incapable of good governance. He has, for the Americans who have to deal with him, the stature of small town mayor. He is a serious roadblock to the progress called for. Another big problem is Pakistan which was and still is double-dealing with us: they take our money and funnel part of it to the Taliban who are supposed to be the enemy.
Aside from the clashing of opinions, Obama had hoped for a plan of action that would be of use to him in an ongoing fashion. Ultimately what the generals wanted was, as General McChrystal put it, “a fully resourced counterinsurgency” that would be open-ended with no exit plan and the right to attack the “the safe havens in Pakistan.” Big Mac wanted 100,000 troops there for 10 years. It’s strange how these military geniuses can expect their outrageous demand to be simply agreed to and provided for. Wars or potential wars are always more of a priority than domestic problems at home. They don’t seem to have a good grasp of what it is like for a lot of people. They lack a sense of proportion which makes them look self-indulgent to an extreme degree. But the President’s Final Oder called for “degrading the Taliban,” not defeating them; to encourage the capacity of Afghan forces so we can drawdown our troops by July 2011; the addition of 30,000 troops (rather than 40,000); it was acceptable to hit those safe havens in Pakistan; and the cost of being there would be $113 billion a year. The problem of President Karzai was put on the back burner for another day and he is still a fly in the ointment. The Generals wanted more troops, more money and more power. Obama was their intellectual equal and had the will power to hold firm on some basic principles, keeping them on a short leash, with the civilian component of our government doing, all things considered, pretty well. The Generals huffed and they puffed but could not blow the civilians away.
And of course Gen. Stan McChrystal is long gone committing professional suicide by being flippant with his remarks when being interviewed by a journalist from Rolling Stone about the president and other members of Team Obama. The next logical choice took his place, Gen. David Patraeus. The book about these two leading lights of the military establishment has yet to be written.
Because I just finished reading OBAMA’S WAR, the latest reportorial opus by the savant Bob Woodward, I feel compelled to make a few comments. The text focuses on the intense discussions held a year ago in regard the war in Afghanistan. It was a kind of seminar called for by Professor Obama that resulted in an executive White Paper. I found the book a tough read; maybe it is exciting for wonks and political junkies, but it was a grind for me. It was an old story told anew, about the bickering that always seems to occur in the midst of wartime, as the military brain trust pit themselves against Team Obama composed of a civilian cadre dug in and determined to fend off the pushy Team Generals. The Generals seek to get the civilians out of the way before they hurt themselves—or make peace on their own or too quickly. Since they feel better trained and equipped to handle war in all its aspects, they are best qualified to make THE BIG DECISSIONS ABOUT THE CONDUCT OF OBAMA’S WAR. So went their thinking. They were, after all, the professionals in this scenario. Especially in this case, as the president, as most people would agree, is a raw rookie in this circumstance. In the final analysis, the long series of discussions were bound to not be successful because they never had a real chance to be. It was all a formal exercise, like war games, or a game of bureaucratic one-upmanship, the military pressing hard against Team Obama with Team Obama pushing back as hard as they could, and with equal passion, with Obama and people like Gen. James Jones hanging in a middle zone between the clashing perspectives.
Jim Jones was in the news yesterday. He resigned his post as NSA Director, effective in two weeks. He got out four months before he had originally planned to which was at 24 month’s service. Personally, I think the post was a grind for him too, but in a different way: it was an impossible balancing act over an abyss called “failure,” a fear that existed on every level for every faction in this THE GREAT DEBATE. Poor Jones, he had a boot in two worlds. He was, on one hand, the well-intentioned advocate for POTUS (that’s military-speak for President Obama of the United States) while on the other hand, he was a retired General mindful of the concerns and goals of his old pals in the Pentagon and Defense Dept. In a futile attempt to please both sides he ended up paralyzed by the polarization in his own head so he decided to run for the hills. He had had enough of the big squeeze. But last night I read a section in OBAMA’S WAR where Jones had said that it would be a “disaster” if his Chief Deputy, Tom Donilon, was his replacement, which was exactly what happened yesterday. Donilon is one of those long-lived loyal Democrats who have found various posts since Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office. It is true he is far removed from the space the General came from. Calling him a “disaster” could simply mean he is more a team player than Jones was.
The book describes the uneven dialogue among the civilian leaders who make the Big Decisions, meaning Team Obama going head to head with Team Generals who were actually doing most of the talking because the president had asked them to set the agenda. Team Obama was in the position of counter-puncher, a role they seemed to be adjusting to. The clique of Generals saw themselves as more knowledgeable and savvy in the world of war. Most of the book deals with this tug of war between the thinkers vs. the doers, the president vs. the hawks, the Democrats vs. the Republicans, McCain vs. Biden, and blue eyes vs. brown eyes. By the way, Biden worked hard to keep Obama above water—not overwhelmed by the clique of Generals. They ended up respecting his intellectual acuity.
While the military always goes for the gold, victory, it is an unrealistic goal in Afghanistan, which is notorious as the “graveyard of Empires.” The American people are not going to accept what it would take to wrap up a win in Afghanistan. It would take a decade at least and might take 20 years. It would also be very expensive. The Generals estimated $113 billion a year. That’s a lot of money going down a rat hole when millions of people are unemployed and our infrastructures keeps decaying. Things cry out for attention but the war goes on and on, like a bad habit. Yesterday marked the first day of the 10th year of the war. The public is already dubious about staying in this fight, at least how it is currently framed and mounted. And it’s obvious we are nowhere near a foothold there, much less close to a satisfactory ending to the conflict. President Karzai is another big problem: he is incapable of good governance. He has, for the Americans who have to deal with him, the stature of small town mayor. He is a serious roadblock to the progress called for. Another big problem is Pakistan which was and still is double-dealing with us: they take our money and funnel part of it to the Taliban who are supposed to be the enemy.
Aside from the clashing of opinions, Obama had hoped for a plan of action that would be of use to him in an ongoing fashion. Ultimately what the generals wanted was, as General McChrystal put it, “a fully resourced counterinsurgency” that would be open-ended with no exit plan and the right to attack the “the safe havens in Pakistan.” Big Mac wanted 100,000 troops there for 10 years. It’s strange how these military geniuses can expect their outrageous demand to be simply agreed to and provided for. Wars or potential wars are always more of a priority than domestic problems at home. They don’t seem to have a good grasp of what it is like for a lot of people. They lack a sense of proportion which makes them look self-indulgent to an extreme degree. But the President’s Final Oder called for “degrading the Taliban,” not defeating them; to encourage the capacity of Afghan forces so we can drawdown our troops by July 2011; the addition of 30,000 troops (rather than 40,000); it was acceptable to hit those safe havens in Pakistan; and the cost of being there would be $113 billion a year. The problem of President Karzai was put on the back burner for another day and he is still a fly in the ointment. The Generals wanted more troops, more money and more power. Obama was their intellectual equal and had the will power to hold firm on some basic principles, keeping them on a short leash, with the civilian component of our government doing, all things considered, pretty well. The Generals huffed and they puffed but could not blow the civilians away.
And of course Gen. Stan McChrystal is long gone committing professional suicide by being flippant with his remarks when being interviewed by a journalist from Rolling Stone about the president and other members of Team Obama. The next logical choice took his place, Gen. David Patraeus. The book about these two leading lights of the military establishment has yet to be written.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Trust the Doctor
2010_10_05 Trust the Doctor
Dear Charlie,
Yesterday I talked to several guys who have experienced colonoscopies multiple times. Two of the fellows at the pool hall where I play have racked up several due to the fact their parents died of colon cancer so they and return every three years for another one. My doctor wants me to do the same thing. I don’t think I have ever objected to the procedure as strongly as you seemed to, although I did feel there had to be a damn good reason to do it, like blood in the stool. One persuasive factor for me, besides my age and simple curiosity about a colon that had never been cleaned out in three quarters century of use and abuse, was the doctor I was assigned after entering the hospital through the ER. His name was Dr. Ayaaz Ismail, originally from Zimbabwe, where he went to Med School, plus he went to Yale Med School and put in a few years at a hospital in New Haven. He was Semitic in appearance, short, trim, handsome, and very well spoken. He had a great bedside manner that was easy to respond to. My guess would be he came from the upper classes in his Zimbabwe; he was smooth, elegant and self-assured. After 14 years of experience with doctors and other medical people I have developed a keen instinct on whom I can trust and who will do right by me. I felt good about Dr. Ishmail right away. When he suggested I undergo the procedure I was willing to go with him and in retrospect I am glad I did. The fact we didn’t discover the cause of the severe abdominal pain which brought me to the ER in the first place seems part of the gamble you undertake with any medical procedure. I did come away with the knowledge that my colon was in very good shape, which is something I hadn’t had before.
Of course my experience was different from the other people I talked to because mine took place under emergency conditions; that added more stress and discomfort as I was hooked up to two IVs at the same time, which restricted my movement. I sat on three different commodes while various people were in and out of my room while I defecated uncontrollably. The whole thing was public and there was nothing I could do about it. Doing the purge at home would be a whole other experience. My vascular surgeon, Dr. Scott Berman, dropped in to see me and he stopped in his tracks when he saw me on a commode in the middle of the room. “Oh,” he said,” I didn’t know you were so indisposed.” But he did manage to tell me he had seen the CT-Scans they had taken not long after I entered the hospital and the stent graph and aneurysm looked good and were not involved in the current situation.
Have you had a colonoscopy? The actual procedure is a breeze compared to the prep that for me was a long hellacious experience. When they go up your five feet of your colon they put you in a twilight state so you can be still but yet can come out of it quickly. The procedure took 30 minutes while the prep took 10 hours. I was given a gallon of liquid called “Go-Lightly.” I was supposed to consume the entire gallon in two phases, with a little sleep in between. At one point in the first phase I sat on the john for 3 hours which was tough on my butt and knees, as you might imagine. The second phase was the easier of the two—I also cheated by pouring out about 12 Oz of the Go-Lightly down the drain. I knew I was cleaned out and enough was enough.
At the end of the procedure Dr. Ayaaz leaned over me and told me everything looked good; there was no cancer, only one polyp he removed and in general the colon was in a good state of health, which was gratifying news and certainly justified having the procedure done. However, the colitis he suspected as the cause of the pain was not present so the mystery remained unsolved. He did give me 10 photos of my clean colon, all pink and glowingly clean. I was home by dinner time on Friday night. I took it easy at dinner, eating only scrambled eggs and soup.
Later amigo,
JWP
Dear Charlie,
Yesterday I talked to several guys who have experienced colonoscopies multiple times. Two of the fellows at the pool hall where I play have racked up several due to the fact their parents died of colon cancer so they and return every three years for another one. My doctor wants me to do the same thing. I don’t think I have ever objected to the procedure as strongly as you seemed to, although I did feel there had to be a damn good reason to do it, like blood in the stool. One persuasive factor for me, besides my age and simple curiosity about a colon that had never been cleaned out in three quarters century of use and abuse, was the doctor I was assigned after entering the hospital through the ER. His name was Dr. Ayaaz Ismail, originally from Zimbabwe, where he went to Med School, plus he went to Yale Med School and put in a few years at a hospital in New Haven. He was Semitic in appearance, short, trim, handsome, and very well spoken. He had a great bedside manner that was easy to respond to. My guess would be he came from the upper classes in his Zimbabwe; he was smooth, elegant and self-assured. After 14 years of experience with doctors and other medical people I have developed a keen instinct on whom I can trust and who will do right by me. I felt good about Dr. Ishmail right away. When he suggested I undergo the procedure I was willing to go with him and in retrospect I am glad I did. The fact we didn’t discover the cause of the severe abdominal pain which brought me to the ER in the first place seems part of the gamble you undertake with any medical procedure. I did come away with the knowledge that my colon was in very good shape, which is something I hadn’t had before.
Of course my experience was different from the other people I talked to because mine took place under emergency conditions; that added more stress and discomfort as I was hooked up to two IVs at the same time, which restricted my movement. I sat on three different commodes while various people were in and out of my room while I defecated uncontrollably. The whole thing was public and there was nothing I could do about it. Doing the purge at home would be a whole other experience. My vascular surgeon, Dr. Scott Berman, dropped in to see me and he stopped in his tracks when he saw me on a commode in the middle of the room. “Oh,” he said,” I didn’t know you were so indisposed.” But he did manage to tell me he had seen the CT-Scans they had taken not long after I entered the hospital and the stent graph and aneurysm looked good and were not involved in the current situation.
Have you had a colonoscopy? The actual procedure is a breeze compared to the prep that for me was a long hellacious experience. When they go up your five feet of your colon they put you in a twilight state so you can be still but yet can come out of it quickly. The procedure took 30 minutes while the prep took 10 hours. I was given a gallon of liquid called “Go-Lightly.” I was supposed to consume the entire gallon in two phases, with a little sleep in between. At one point in the first phase I sat on the john for 3 hours which was tough on my butt and knees, as you might imagine. The second phase was the easier of the two—I also cheated by pouring out about 12 Oz of the Go-Lightly down the drain. I knew I was cleaned out and enough was enough.
At the end of the procedure Dr. Ayaaz leaned over me and told me everything looked good; there was no cancer, only one polyp he removed and in general the colon was in a good state of health, which was gratifying news and certainly justified having the procedure done. However, the colitis he suspected as the cause of the pain was not present so the mystery remained unsolved. He did give me 10 photos of my clean colon, all pink and glowingly clean. I was home by dinner time on Friday night. I took it easy at dinner, eating only scrambled eggs and soup.
Later amigo,
JWP
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