(Valentine's Day)

When the music (finally) stops and you're between chairs,
and there's nowhere left to go.
What then?

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Friday 13th yesterday and the start of Carnaval. A rare confluence and hard to resist. This is the 128th post, 26. Imagine that! This ambiguous young person at the right with appliqué breasts. Who can say with confidence what's goin' on? It's the stuff of bedtime stories, of Prospero & Ariel. Proper thing to do was take the money & run to a hidey hole. There were hints, clues & examples - all ignored. Thing is, one can always emerge from a well-stocked Thousand Secrets bomb shelter - and pick one's time to do it too, or not, or, not have the choice. I closed the deal on the house in Metcalfe on Valentine's Day ... mid-80s sometime ... 85? No reason for choosing that day, a whim. I paid way too much, doomed from the get-go, simple as that. I thought, "I'll make a stand in Metcalfe," and then I tried to but didn't have the jam. ashram: a place of religious retreat, sanctuary, or hermitage; adaptation of Sanskrit 'asrama' hermitage, from 'a' (near to, towards) + 'srama' (exertion, earnest endeavour). forbear: a very old verb indeed - many citations in the OED starting in the (incomprehensible) 9th C; check out Ephesians 4 (& read on about the whoremongers). Elections in Nigeria today, could be the end of Goodluck Jonathan. And it's the anniversary of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger - there's a stone memorial halfway up Signal Hill to close that story. I recommended three good efforts recently and forgot to mention Angela and GreenSpiration! Doh! I found these excellent videos thanks to her newsletter (there's a link on her site to sign up):         Bill Moyers, The Children’s Climate Crusade; and,         Naomi Klein & Owen Jones, This Changes Everything.     (Both videos point at books.)

When this (right) by Chiquinha first came up I missed the connection with Charlie Hebdo and thought, "She's heartbroken and is (simply) telling us about her broken heart, sweet." Then the insatiable curtiosity of elephant child kicks in ... (see TV clip).

Why don't you put    Why don't you put     Why don't you put    Why don't you put   Who are you your memories         your metaphors         your jaws                your molecules        really? on paper?                on the clothesline?     in the barrel?           in a credit rating?    I'm not shouting! [Serasa: The word is not in Dicionário inFormal nor Houaiss - nor anything in between: Webster's, Collins &c.. The only on-line references I can find are to the name of the largest Brazilian credit rating agency: Serasa aka Serasa Experian.] If Jerry Van Amerongen's air-horn floor-lamps catch on (like, say, hula hoops) will it be enough (I wonder) to penetrate, to upset the smug complacency that rules? Probably not. Life would be simple if it were all white-hats & black-hats like in western movies; all Citizens & Terrorists. The correctitude mavens (in white & brown) at The Globe and Mail want it to be the cancer of extremism. There is a notion among some Christians that pursuing the historical Jesus is persuing a red herring - along the lines of the "If there's a design then there must be a designer" falacy, heresy, whatever these kinds of things are called theology-wise. Chris Hedges (in the article referenced a few posts ago) quotes his friend Hamza Yusuf talking about duelling in Kentucky & Ireland and honour and "something deep in the soul of men". He may have something useful to offer here - even if he did write a book called 'I Don't Believe in Atheists' just a few years ago, even if he doesn't find the Charlie Hebdo cartoons funny, and even if he makes the (mistaken I think) leap with Hamza Yusuf to "I have no feeling of solidarity with mockers." The people at Charlie Hebdo knew they were pulling the tiger's tail and knew, not hypothetically but from experience, that the tiger has claws. I do find some of the cartoons funny (though I also appreciate how Hedges may not) but regardless of that their characters include courage - in spades! I know a shrink who thinks that all humour involves putting someone down. I don't agree with her but she has arguments (which I'm sorry I can't remember well enough to recapitulate) including references in Freud (I think). I just wish Charlie Hebdo would chase the purveyors of the environmental catastrophe with the same enthusiasm, fervour ... as assiduously and acerbically! Here, this was going to be a separate post but I'll make it a Valentine's bonus: How fuckin' stupid Are these people?!! •   EU paper calls for binding CCS targets by 2030, Arthur Neslen, Monday 26 January 2015. Phony solutions proposed by time-servers - even the time frame (2030?) is nonsense;   •   David Cameron rejects call for fracking ban, Damian Carrington, Monday 26 January 2015;   •   The Other Pipeline You Should Worry About, It’s Not Just Keystone XL, It’s Also Line 61, Dan Kaufman, January 16 2015;   •   The Keystone XL Illusion, Joe Nocera, January 16 2015;   •   Regulators grant environmental permits for Lancashire fracking site, Press, Friday 16 January 2015;   •   Oil lobby calls for North Sea tax reductions as BP cuts 300 jobs, Terry Macalister, Thursday 15 January 2015;   •   Engaging with oil companies on climate change is futile, admits leading UK environmentalist, Damian Carrington, Thursday 15 January 2015;   •   It is 'impossible' for today’s big oil companies to adapt to climate change, Jonathon Porritt, Thursday 15 January 2015;   •   Does climate change exist? The Senate is about to let us know, Suzanne Goldenberg, Thursday 15 January 2015;   •   Harvard defies divestment campaigners and invests tens of millions of dollars in fossil fuels, Suzanne Goldenberg, Wednesday 14 January 2015;   •   For the Love of Carbon, Paul Krugman, January 11 2015;   •   Australia accelerates coal mine projects in the face of study that finds it should stay buried, Oliver Milman, Wednesday 7 January 2015;   •   Organic farming not always best for environment, says government adviser Lord Krebs, Fiona Harvey, 7 January 2015;   •   Heavyweight Response to Local Fracking Bans, Jack Healy, January 3 2015;   'Infantilizing dictats' says George Monbiot. It's out of context here but ... that's exactly the phrase that seems to sum it up for me and I like it. ['Dictat' (with a short 'A') is not quite in the OED, and the plural (not quite) suggested is 'dictata', and one might expect italics for a Latin expression - SO - it may simply be a typo in The Guardian (and not the first time) - OR - it may be intended as written, in which case, like I said ... I like it.] Your keen apprehension will have picked out Lancashire in this list of official nonsenses ... So. This Valentine is also going out to the members of Frack Free Lancashire: Good On 'Em! Meanwhile the science gets clearer & clearer: •   Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists, Oliver Milman, Thursday 15 January 2015;   •   Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet, Will Steffen et al., January 2015; and an accessible pdf; and Supplementary Information (pdf);   •   The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration (pdf), Will Steffen et al., January 2015; and Supplementary Material;   •   Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says, Carl Zimmer, January 15 2015;   •   Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean, Douglas J. McCauley et al. - Abstract the rest is locked up tightly;   Grant you, the scientists involved are not naked and shouting on streetcorners or rooftops, the conclusions are all carefully hedged, but you don't have to read between the lines, you just have to read all of the lines to get the message: We Are (Very Nearly) Fucked!

I think there's enough in the frames above to see what they have in common. And now? We will do what?

Anyway ... I checked in 'Six Nonlectures': ee cummings absolutely uses 'soi-disant' so I am diddled. And doubly diddled because in the process of re-reading emerges a privileged, smug, self-involved ungrownup child, a 50s Mick Jagger (of a sort) whom I missed first time through. Oh well. Still laffin' over it though; have to say I would include both expressions in my lexicon: soi-disant for self-styled solipsism, pretentious pretence, general complacent assholery - bog standard pillicock posers; and soi distant for serious & pathological alienation carrying hints of ecstasy, Greek theatre, (possibly noble) hauteur, (possibly fearful) reserve - the mind-state of politicians, bureaucrats, drone pilots and weapons manufacturers.

A Moment of reflection with Herman the Wolf:   Starting tomorrow I'm going to start loving people ... as if there were no tomorrow. This was another ... Moment of Reflection.

I'm not dead yet. Anything could happen. You thinks I know fuck not'ing, but I know fuck all! [Thanks to Lloyd & Anita, and this Valentine is for them as well."]   To err is human! To really fuck up is even more human!   Be mine Valentine.

 
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