My face is green, anyway
Some creature from the invisible world of microbes is having at me this morning. Let's see how things go.
The day's chores seemed to have distracted my invisible assailants. I've been reading snatches from the Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers that I mentioned in a previous post. Just finished one in which Vendela Vida, of whom I'd never heard, interviewed Shirley Hazzard, who counted Elizabeth Bowen as a great friend years ago. ( A very good sign, in my book.) Ms. Hazzard's conversation produced some valuable bits for me. At one point, she was talking about her book called People in Glass Houses, a collection of short stories that contains some particular ones she referred to as "satirical stories that are on the side of truth." She goes on to say,"People in power, even if it's only petty bureaucratic power, are rarely good news. They become unreachable, unless by satire. Alexander Pope sees them as 'Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne,/ Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone./ O sacred weapon! left for Truth's defence,/ Sole Dread of Folly, Vice, and Insolence!' " I certainly concur emphatically with her concerning people in power, but these days even our constant barrage of Satire doesn't seem to phase them, or not enough. I want these fuckers to feel DREAD. And you know whom I mean.
Ms. Hazzard observes thusly near the end of the interview:" As I consider our modern lives, I feel that, due to the growing uncertainty of the world, people anxiously want to believe themselves on top of things, in control. Especially in the United States just now, at the height of world power, there is the impulse to settle on what is attestable, to pronounce and explain; to exclude mystery, imagination, the intuitive powers of individual existence. What about the unattestable, that informs all that most matters to us? What about the accidental nature of our life? The salient events of private life are always tinged with the accidental."
And to finish: "From the psychiatrists and sociologists, we never hear a word about the accidental, the unattestable. Max Beerbohm said, of this era of explanation,'They explain because they can't understand.' Which is perhaps why, with so much elucidation, we're still in the dark."
Yes, I say yes. And I say further that these people who are control freaks, don't value anything without a bottom line, and that is why they must mine, drill, pave, landscape, manicure every last bit of mystery out of our world, in every sense of the words. No stone left unturned, literally, no stone left unmined, unmoved, and all crushed. NOTHING left to the imagination.
Ah. Firing me up.
The day's chores seemed to have distracted my invisible assailants. I've been reading snatches from the Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers that I mentioned in a previous post. Just finished one in which Vendela Vida, of whom I'd never heard, interviewed Shirley Hazzard, who counted Elizabeth Bowen as a great friend years ago. ( A very good sign, in my book.) Ms. Hazzard's conversation produced some valuable bits for me. At one point, she was talking about her book called People in Glass Houses, a collection of short stories that contains some particular ones she referred to as "satirical stories that are on the side of truth." She goes on to say,"People in power, even if it's only petty bureaucratic power, are rarely good news. They become unreachable, unless by satire. Alexander Pope sees them as 'Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne,/ Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone./ O sacred weapon! left for Truth's defence,/ Sole Dread of Folly, Vice, and Insolence!' " I certainly concur emphatically with her concerning people in power, but these days even our constant barrage of Satire doesn't seem to phase them, or not enough. I want these fuckers to feel DREAD. And you know whom I mean.
Ms. Hazzard observes thusly near the end of the interview:" As I consider our modern lives, I feel that, due to the growing uncertainty of the world, people anxiously want to believe themselves on top of things, in control. Especially in the United States just now, at the height of world power, there is the impulse to settle on what is attestable, to pronounce and explain; to exclude mystery, imagination, the intuitive powers of individual existence. What about the unattestable, that informs all that most matters to us? What about the accidental nature of our life? The salient events of private life are always tinged with the accidental."
And to finish: "From the psychiatrists and sociologists, we never hear a word about the accidental, the unattestable. Max Beerbohm said, of this era of explanation,'They explain because they can't understand.' Which is perhaps why, with so much elucidation, we're still in the dark."
Yes, I say yes. And I say further that these people who are control freaks, don't value anything without a bottom line, and that is why they must mine, drill, pave, landscape, manicure every last bit of mystery out of our world, in every sense of the words. No stone left unturned, literally, no stone left unmined, unmoved, and all crushed. NOTHING left to the imagination.
Ah. Firing me up.
posted by isabelita at 9:48 AM
7 Comments:
Yes, they 'explain because they can't understand'...which, of course, means that their explanations are all fucked up because they are, in fact, making them up. Hmmm...sounds a bit like religion, doesn't it?
When the people's voices are not heard and even more importantly are not considered relavent enough to make a president or senator or even a judge act right, well that sorta sounds a little like the short moustached man who killed the Jewish men, women, and children. I see the similarity between Bush and Hitler. They both have these grand ideas of their leader worth, they both are two fries short of a happy meal, they both are repressed sexually, they both are trying to gain approval from someone that they should love. I'm not sure that Bush wouldn't do a full blown genocide if he thought the liberals would keep our mouth shut. Yes, I see him as Hitler, and the sad thing, most of us are letting him do these things without even a protest, like many of the Germans did, silent protest does not work.
Yes, neil, it does. And this lot's dedication to profiteering is quasi-religious.
zelda, I have no doubt that Bush/Cheney would oversee further genocide in the Middle East, and would conduct one here if they could get away with it. Lynne Cheney gave this as an indication of her spouse's "humorous" side:"When I asked him how many terrorists it took to paint a wall, he answered, 'It depends on how hard you throw them!'" and the climate is increasingly conducive to them finding more and more "terrorists"...These people are thugs, so it's small wonder that the good ole boys all worship them.
I want these fuckers to feel DREAD
And I say further that these people who are control freaks, don't value anything without a bottom line, and that is why they must mine, drill, pave, landscape, manicure every last bit of mystery out of our world, in every sense of the words.
That about sums it up. Ditto I say. Don't go over to Neil's location unless you want to fire yourself up a little more. He has a fantastic collage up to wish the President a Happy Thrid Birthday on the Iraq war.
good one ... the control freaks only use the illusion of mystery to confuse the fuckees ... but like you said ... they see nothing but the bottom line and so they mindlessly kill and pave for vapid convenience and profit ... simplifying the world with their ugly lack of vision ... nice post .... stuff worth being pissed about ....
But you know, I feel much like an endangered species, regarding all this...how can we fight back? Our sort simply aren't inclined to conflict.
blogging is one small way. Voting, on the other hand, is a very good action to take against all incumbents.
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