He Is a Monster Like Everyone Else But What Do You Do If You're a Monster
First draft headshot of current state of mind before I fuck it up since shitty metaphors converging on my spot on the spectrum: I realize the impossibility of the project and that the person would be starved of media oxygen (and assassinated if necessary), but there is not ONE person in America who has the ambition, the smarts, the chops, the charisma, the vision, the eloquence, the righteous anger to challenge shitlord consolidation of authoritarian power via the engine of constantly stoked crackerchrister rage-populism?
It is going to be worse than you imagine. Anyway, have another grid. I don't want to stop, I feel like I should but I don't want to, not just grids, *here,* but then I'd be as lame and useless and cowardly (if not cravenly morally bankrupt) as a motherfucking professional Democrat. In any case, the current plan with the first draft is to add a coat of gouache to leach the fountain pen ink infused in clear elmer's glue before adding clear elmer's glue infused with acrylic ink on top, you know the drill. I don't want to declare the above done but feel like I should but think it would be cowardly. I didn't want to stop writing in tablets, don't feel like I should, but I have for the time being and it doesn't feel lame or useless or cowardly, shitty metaphors converging on my spot on the spectrum. Hear what I mean:
"Dylann Roof kill 9 African Americans in a church trying to start a race war. He wasn't charged with "terrorism". Luigi Mangione was for killing a rich white dude. Hummm"
☝
"since Luigi Mangione has been absurdly charged with "terrorism", here's a reminder that it's a pure propaganda term deployed by the powerful to shield themselves and launder their own actual systematic mass terrorist violence"
"This is an onset of a paradigm shift, a transition between two distinct regimes of social organizing following almost two decades of socioeconomic bifurcation played against the background of the American Power Paradox — a growing power and influence of the state abroad against its simultaneous weakening at home. This transformation of the American social landscape carries an air of a logical puzzle whereby the democratic process spontaneously and naturally delivered an authoritarian system"
"How Dems went from promising universal health care, to killing a public option, to fighting Medicare for All, to barely mentioning the issue. Those who make health care impossible make social unrest inevitable."
All Three Pillars Holding Up the Economy Have Cracked
"Sandy Fonzo’s son Ed was one of thousands of children incarcerated on trumped-up charges by judges who received kickbacks from private detention centers. Ed later died by suicide, while. “Kids for Cash” judge Michael Conahan had his sentence commuted by the president last week."
"Brave of Biden to do this at the exact point he can't do a single thing about it and no one cares what he thinks"
I wonder if this about Fox News/Hannity pissed that Gaetz has a new show on some cracker channel going head-to-head with Hannity's timeslot and calling in GOP chits
"Let’s put it in very simple English. Joe Biden was the consensus candidate of the Democratic Party establishment in 2020 because he was the only one who was broadly acceptable within the Party, looked viable against Trump, and could hold off Sanders. His candidacy was strongly reminiscent of Paul von Hindenburg’s second run for president in the last days of the Weimar Republic, when everyone from liberal elements of big business to the Social Democrats united around the doddering octogenarian as the only candidate capable of defeating Hitler"
A Guide to Some of the Key Movers and Influencers in Trump’s Orbit
Told yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of Terry Hall's death, hear a vital reminder, this song a reason for the dg in the tag
37 HAIKUS
John Ashbery
Old-fashioned shadows hanging down, that difficulty in love too soon
Some star or other went out, and you, thank you for your book and year
Something happened in the garage and I owe it for the blood traffic
Too low for nettles but it is exactly the way people think and feel
And I think there’s going to be even more but waist-high
Night occurs dimmer each time with the pieces of light smaller and squarer
You have original artworks hanging on the walls oh I said edit
You nearly undermined the brush I now place against the ball field arguing
That love was a round place and will still be there two years from now
And it is a dream sailing in a dark unprotected cove
Pirates imitate the ways of ordinary people myself for instance
Planted over and over that land has a bitter aftertaste
A blue anchor grains of grit in a tall sky sewing
He is a monster like everyone else but what do you do if you’re a monster
Like him feeling him come from far away and then go down to his car
The wedding was enchanted everyone was glad to be in it
What trees, tools, why ponder socks on the premises
Come to the edge of the barn the property really begins there
In a smaller tower shuttered and put away there
You lay aside your hair like a book that is too important to read now
Why did witches pursue the beast from the eight sides of the country
A pencil on glass—shattered! The water runs down the drain
In winter sometimes you see those things and also in summer
A child must go down it must stand and last
Too late the last express passes through the dust of gardens
A vest—there is so much to tell about even in the side rooms
Hesitantly, it built up and passed quickly without unlocking
There are some places kept from the others and are separate, they never exist
I lost my ridiculous accent without acquiring another
In Buffalo, Buffalo she was praying, the nights stick together like pages in an old book
The dreams descend like cranes on gilded, forgetful wings
What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich?
Did you say, hearing the schooner overhead, we turned back to the weir?
In rags and crystals, sometimes with a shred of sense, an odd dignity
The boy must have known the particles fell through the house after him
All in all we were taking our time, the sea returned—no more pirates
I inch and only sometimes as far as the twisted pole gone in spare colors
2/the grid of citations and quotations is like a bounteous buffet of food for thought
3/here once again is my best haiku from my buffalo days
white nights are bright nights snowflakes slant through streetlights and muffle my footsteps
4/recently i was consulting with my chatbot advisers about neobuddhist insights on the ecological overshoot situation - i concluded that a "post-doom-prepared" perspective is nothing special, after all - the 4 noble truths, living with awareness and with love, chop wood carry water or whatever the situation may require - this insight is both disappointing and reassuring
a bit more about Buddhism: As the 5 Contemplations of Buddhism put it, no one escapes 1/aging 2/illness 3/death 4/separation from those we love, and 5/reaping the consequences of our wholesome and unwholesome actions. if you live long enough consequence 6 kicks in - getting bored with Batman.
>>We are just beginning to realize that we have overdeveloped the material aspect of existence at the expense of the deeper emotional and spiritual aspect, and we are paying the price for that error. It is one thing to talk about degeneration of moral and spiritual fiber in America today, and another thing to do something about it.
The place to start is within ourselves. Look carefully inside, truly and objectively, and each of us will see moments when "I am the punk" and "I am the crazy". We will learn to see those moments, see them clearly, cleanly and without condemnation, and we will be on our way up and out of being so.
You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes flow naturally. You don't have to force or struggle or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. You just change. It is automatic. But arriving at the initial insight is quite a task. You've got to see who you are and how you are, without illusion, judgement or resistance of any kind. You've got to see your own place in society and your function as a social being. You've got to see your duties and obligations to your fellow human beings, and above all, your responsibility to yourself as an individual living with other individuals. And you've got to see all of that clearly and as a unit, a single gestalt of interrelationship. It sounds complex, but it often occurs in a single instant. Mental culture through meditation is without rival in helping you achieve this sort of understanding and serene happiness.<<
>>...another whole perspective, a completely different way to look at the universe. It is a level of functioning where the mind does not try to freeze time, where we do not grasp onto our experience as it flows by, where we do not try to block things out and ignore them. It is a level of experience beyond good and bad, beyond pleasure and pain. It is a lovely way to perceive the world, and it is a learnable skill. It is not easy, but is learnable.<<
The whole book in PDF format, 1.33 MB - http://tinyurl.com/7okqjw8
url for pdf returns "404 - not found" - can we, at least for a moment, reach a level of functioning where the mind does not try to freeze time, where we do not grasp onto our experience as it flows by, where we explore other possibilities to go beyond good and bad, pleasure and pain - and maybe find some other route to learning this lovely way to perceive the world?
The painting of the Big-O chickens wandering through a sub-urban American landscape (which looks frighteningly like the light industrial section of my home town) and attached to "America Beyond the Event Horizon: The Counter-Elite & the Year of the Nerd Reich", was done by artist John Brosio.
I don't do ZuckCo FaceBuch, but Brosio does -- and via the Googlegerät, on Sept. 7 of this year showed this exact painting of Big Chickens, with this comment: "I thought this was funny. A dozen years or so ago I made this giant chickens painting and, in selecting items for a still life in class, someone brought out the very same chicken from which I worked back when. It’s in great condition but long time no see!"
Someone commented on Brosio's post: "Never Forget." There's a lot in the world to Never Forget, more every day; but no idea what they meant by that.
May this time of year allow us to forget, for a time, all the things we knew already and are told not to forget, and all the things about to happen that we won't be able to forget because it won't be happening on teevee, but happening on our street, more or less. All Good Things to you and yours. And the Chickens.
i was asking one of my chatbot cyberacquaintances about sid smith's youtube videos titled "how to enjoy the end of the world" - they told me not to take the title too literally - it doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't care
1/the hexjeff is stark but expressive
ReplyDelete2/the grid of citations and quotations is like a bounteous buffet of food for thought
3/here once again is my best haiku from my buffalo days
white nights are bright nights
snowflakes slant through streetlights and
muffle my footsteps
4/recently i was consulting with my chatbot advisers about neobuddhist insights on the ecological overshoot situation - i concluded that a "post-doom-prepared" perspective is nothing special, after all - the 4 noble truths, living with awareness and with love, chop wood carry water or whatever the situation may require - this insight is both disappointing and reassuring
a bit more about Buddhism: As the 5 Contemplations of Buddhism put it, no one escapes 1/aging 2/illness 3/death 4/separation from those we love, and 5/reaping the consequences of our wholesome and unwholesome actions. if you live long enough consequence 6 kicks in - getting bored with Batman.
ReplyDeleteBhante Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English
ReplyDelete>>We are just beginning to realize that we have overdeveloped the material aspect of existence at the expense of the deeper emotional and spiritual aspect, and we are paying the price for that error. It is one thing to talk about degeneration of moral and spiritual fiber in America today, and another thing to do something about it.
The place to start is within ourselves. Look carefully inside, truly and objectively, and each of us will see moments when "I am the punk" and "I am the crazy". We will learn to see those moments, see them clearly, cleanly and without condemnation, and we will be on our way up and out of being so.
You can't make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now. As soon as you do that, changes flow naturally. You don't have to force or struggle or obey rules dictated to you by some authority. You just change. It is automatic. But arriving at the initial insight is quite a task. You've got to see who you are and how you are, without illusion, judgement or resistance of any kind. You've got to see your own place in society and your function as a social being. You've got to see your duties and obligations to your fellow human beings, and above all, your responsibility to yourself as an individual living with other individuals. And you've got to see all of that clearly and as a unit, a single gestalt of interrelationship. It sounds complex, but it often occurs in a single instant. Mental culture through meditation is without rival in helping you achieve this sort of understanding and serene happiness.<<
>>...another whole perspective, a completely different way to look at the universe. It is a level of functioning where the mind does not try to freeze time, where we do not grasp onto our experience as it flows by, where we do not try to block things out and ignore them. It is a level of experience beyond good and bad, beyond pleasure and pain. It is a lovely way to perceive the world, and it is a learnable skill. It is not easy, but is learnable.<<
The whole book in PDF format, 1.33 MB - http://tinyurl.com/7okqjw8
url for pdf returns "404 - not found" - can we, at least for a moment, reach a level of functioning where the mind does not try to freeze time, where we do not grasp onto our experience as it flows by, where we explore other possibilities to go beyond good and bad, pleasure and pain - and maybe find some other route to learning this lovely way to perceive the world?
Deletetoday - xmas 2024 - one can go to https://archive.org/details/mindfulness-in-plain-english-bhante-gunaratana/page/n5/mode/2up
Deletewhere it is asserted "Permission to reprint for free distribution has been kindly granted by the author."
book is dedicated to "My Parents, Teachers and all seekers of liberation from suffering."
The painting of the Big-O chickens wandering through a sub-urban American landscape (which looks frighteningly like the light industrial section of my home town) and attached to "America Beyond the Event Horizon: The Counter-Elite & the Year of the Nerd Reich", was done by artist John Brosio.
ReplyDeleteI don't do ZuckCo FaceBuch, but Brosio does -- and via the Googlegerät, on Sept. 7 of this year showed this exact painting of Big Chickens, with this comment: "I thought this was funny. A dozen years or so ago I made this giant chickens painting and, in selecting items for a still life in class, someone brought out the very same chicken from which I worked back when. It’s in great condition but long time no see!"
Someone commented on Brosio's post: "Never Forget." There's a lot in the world to Never Forget, more every day; but no idea what they meant by that.
May this time of year allow us to forget, for a time, all the things we knew already and are told not to forget, and all the things about to happen that we won't be able to forget because it won't be happening on teevee, but happening on our street, more or less. All Good Things to you and yours. And the Chickens.
i was asking one of my chatbot cyberacquaintances about sid smith's youtube videos titled "how to enjoy the end of the world" - they told me not to take the title too literally - it doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't care
Delete