Shitholder.

Love has no pride.  
Hangin' by a thread.

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Here, listen to some'a this:                                   Who's gonna stand up?    Other versions: orchestral, With Crazy Horse, and solo.       A-and: Fork in the Road.

 

It seems obvious that Stephen Harper is the epitome rather than an exceptional case - from the election record alone. And Franklin, lost, maddened by the lead in his (then newly invented) tinned food, personifying all of us (including Stephen Harper) too accurately for comfort. As long as one is alive one has to be somewhere, doing something (even if it's nothing). This post will arrive in early December but it is being composed in mid-November because ... there's nothing else to do.

Pretence. I send my children away believing I am saving them, then sit in pubs all afternoon pretending to read newspapers and go in and out of cinemas until they close pretending to watch movies. Always buy two coffees and pretend to be taking one for an imaginary friend. Pretend to be sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette waiting for the library to open. exculpatory, adjective: Adapted or intended to clear from blame or a charge of guilt; apologetic, vindicatory. atonement, noun: The condition of being at one with others; unity of feeling, harmony, concord, agreement. Restoration of friendly relations between persons who have been at variance; reconciliation. Propitiation (favourable, gracious, kind) of an offended or injured person, by reparation of wrong or injury; amends, satisfaction, expiation (penance). A simpleminded mistake: Buber (I thought) is about categories - Thou/You/It - and it's so, in part, but he is also about process and arriving (possibly) at an authentic 'we'. Nós. dialogue, noun: a conversation between two or more persons; a colloquy (speaking together). dialectic, noun: the investigation of truth by discussion.         This meaning is muddied, the word having been idologically hijacked by the Socialists for         a specialized meaning which you can look up for yourself. dialogic, adjective: pertaining to, or of the nature of dialogue; sharing in dialogue.

Love/hate relationships, maybe this includes all of them, but surely not simultaneously (simply to satisfy mere mechanical feasibility). Pierre Reverdy may be right - «Il n'y a pas d'amour, il n'y a que des preuves d'amour.» One obvious possible proof is choice, which undoes in a way some of the cynical part. Probably no one will mention that the Brasilian cartoons are not translated this week. Oh well.

He that we last as Thurn and Taxis knew         Now recks no lord but the stiletto's Thorn,         And Tacit lies the gold once-knotted horn.         No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,         Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero. Sturm und Drang then is it? A Fugue? Theory & Praxis (not knowing too many -axis words)? Twisted sadness? Chagrin? What is our Thomas on about? tacit: Not openly expressed or stated, but implied; understood, inferred. Latin tacere to be silent.

Job's wife says to 'im, "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die." An odd question and a strange non sequitur kind of rhetorical echo. I'm not telling you any of this because I expect you to (necessarily) do anything but simply because I want you to know it, or (at least) have the opportunity of knowing it, the possibility, perhaps later on in the future sometime. Or not.

A-and, I am putting it into this blog so I can remember it too. There are kinds, modes, of thinking. Darwin in the 1850s, and ... Darcy Wentworth Thompson - 'On Growth and Form' (1917) - scientists. In statistics you trim off the highs and lows, discard the outliers; but in science it may be the very outliers that first show up some crack in the current theory and lead to a superior integration (seems to me). Please Sir, could I have a little yin with that yang? Will it be correctitude & ideology or (essentially) light-hearted observations on consistency designed to enlighten?

Filling time downloading TV programs and watching them; BBC, ITV, British shows mostly, mysteries, dramas, police stuff; there seems to be a band of gypsies who go about making them and the same actors appear frequently. The stories are mostly (99%) dreck, unreal mindless crap-o-la, manipulative shit, improbable, impossible, untrue, and the mind wanders. I forget what I've seen and watch the same series over again several times. Actresses with wide-set eyes, and I wonder how much of whatever is in mind or personality or intelligence or spirit, what you will, is determined by a (presumably) greater bifocal effect? Humming Big Bopper's 'Chantilly Lace' ... "Ain't nothin' in the world like a big-eye'd girl ..." The colours run from one thought to another, into them all, channels of memory remembered (and likely many more unconscious but still active in whatever structures store them). Up pops Pynchon's use of 'palimpsest' and another dozen layers pile on - startin' t'look like a jamboree! I read somewhere - one of the psychologists who designs clearly measurable experiments - that the change in size of the pupils in person A's eyes is perceptible by person B who then registers person A's level of interest and possible intentions. Amazing!   Not me. So much anodyne TV I can hardly recognize entire faces anymore nevermind details.

I pester my NDP Member of Parliament, Matthew Kellway, in public meetings and with repeated emails, to have him explain the detailed mechanics of fossil fuel subsidies. He is the NDP critic for environmental issues and might be expected to know. He never answers, except once, in person face-to-face, when he promises to. Now a report comes out, described in The Guardian, and available for download from Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Many questions are answered. One that isn't: What about government pension plan investments? (And unions for that matter?) I put it about but no one responds so I leave it here not to be forgotten. Suburbs as proxy (poxy) frontier. Gaudi's towers, and Shukhov's, are (certainly) not design-committee exercises. They lack the appalling language of correctitude & appeasement. They are also both incomplete - and don't remind me of dildos or french ticklers either. I am sure that none of these observations are connected.

The concrete column on the right there is for show not blow - there is a gap between it and the beam it appears to support - the structural engineer had integrity.   :-) Back-turnings and cold shoulders too numerous to count. Three 'Antichrist's. (At least) two horrible 'Waddya-still-doin'-here?'s. 'Asshole!' from the kids (specific sins not specified). Silent shunning from all the other kin. And one 'shitholder'. Doesn't guess. Hasta be told again and again. Nine inch nails an' the penny still don't drop. In the event, 'shitholder' is coupled with a flying solid-oak dining-room table (in the days when 'solid-oak' means something). Some people think he holds this against her. Not so. Such strong authentic originality fills him with amazed admiration, love. Put that way they (naturally) assume it's ... sarcasm, some irony some, twist or other. When all it is is true.

What are the facts? Who knows? And the whole computer thing is a red herring too, Vince was right. (God bless 'im - though neither of us would ever say such a thing.) A shitholder to be sure (me not Vince). Viejo verde ('green old man'). Gordo feio e fedorento. Com hábitos ruins, viciado, desesperado, infeliz, só. "To cease upon the midnight with no pain," says Keats ("the blushful Hippocrene" having already been touched upon above). A young man admitting he will live because the muse stops singing? Is that it? A curious inversion. I wish I'd saved enough for a hidey-hole in Brasil or Costa Rica. Disappear up my own arsehole like a dying anemone or coral polyp. I didn't, and I (exactly) do not know now what to do next.

  
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Não vamos desistir do Brasil.

(We will not give up on Brazil.)

(As if somebody were goin' 'round sayin' "Vamos desistir!"   ?)

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If You're Goin' You're Probably On Your Way By Now. I Sure Do Wish Y'all The Best.  This excellent video (50 minutes) ought'a get the juices flowing. There are some events on the map for Toronto (the interface is a nightmare but the information is there if you persevere): People's Climate March. In Toronto Avaaz, 350 & Greenpeace are organizing a solidarity march: Sunday, September 21 @ 1:00 pm, Nathan Phillips Square/In front of City Hall. See here. Marina Silva airbrushed: (she's 56 and the reality shows the wrinkles of some hard miles) ... a-and showing the Tim DeChristopher salute: In June 2010 they're holding hands: In October (fair enough, it's between the first round and the runoff) he's endorsing Dilma: Listen to his endorsement (video), he says: "Dilma will care for the environment because she is a woman and that's what women do." Well, if that kind of stupid sexism doesn't choke you then you deserve whatever you get I suppose. Only a few months previous he's using exactly the same phrases about Marina (video). This is language that is suspect whomever it is supporting. Waidaminit! This is Dilma Rousseff he's talking about! Surely our memories are long enough to consider:         - her actions to gut the protective provisions of the Forest Code;         - her unwavering support for Belo Monte; and,         - the treatment she has meted out to indigenous populations. (To list just three - don't want to confuse you with too many facts.)   Now he's morphed into The Berserkers Excoriator: Leonardo Boff, theologian:                                       False prophecies: "Dilma is still the best                                             If you don't vote for Dilma Brazil will end!  option for the Brazilian people."                              The election is near! An interview: With Marina: the poor lose an ally and the rich gain a spokeswoman (the original source on Viomundo). And an article: Marina Silva: the one who switched sides, which is picked up and circulated even in the mainstream liberal Jornal do Brasil. Heaven help us if we have difficulty choosing between gay marriage and continued existence as a species (or utterly debunking such a choice). This is where Norrie's distinction between primary (physical) & secondary(ideological) concerns begins to cut the mustard; where the Frye rubber hits the road. (Eh?) The only comparison of Brazil & Argentina I know of is in a joke: What happens to the national average IQs of Argentina and Brazil when a Brazilian emigrates to Argentina?   They both go up because only the stupidest Brazilian would emigrate to Argentina; but any Brazilian is smarter than every Argentinian. And Leonardo Boff uses Argentina in the first paragraph - leaving me uncertain. Maybe he's indulging some strange rhetorical invocation - or, maybe he's lost the plot. Born December 1938, he'll soon be 76 - not that old. I thought their friendship was of long standing (duration after all is how humans judge character). I would have thought ol' Leonardo would know more about her then? I imagine the strident bitterness in Boff's accusations and judgements will put a strain on whatever friendship there was. This is surprising behaviour in a country where friendship may be more than mere agapé, where it may sometimes have to do with survival. I translated these texts because I thought there might be clues but didn't find a smoking gun; except that his concerns seem exaggerated, pedantic, unproven - and more-or-less convincing. He says she changed sides; presumably resonating with her switch from Catholicism to whatever you want to call it, Protestantism, and from PT to PV to PSB; but I wonder if there wasn't an earlier switch, from something she grew up with to Catholicism? I don't know, just guessing. And let me say (before someone else does, if indeed anyone at all reads them) that my translations are not very good, incomplete, sloppy even. It seemed like a good thing to do but I am running out of steam gentle reader, sorry. Elements of this story also seem to resonate (tentatively) with Joan of Arc (Shaw's version, the part where the theologians 'examine' her)? In the end (can't resist saying this) I scoff at Boff - he seems to me to be talking, not through his hat since he doesn't usually wear one, but through some ideology hidden in his long white hair and beard. Not that he's wrong necessarily, like I said he's convincing in a way, just ... on the wrong wavelength. A more balanced analysis, in English, with some insights into 'agribusiness friendly' from Gwynne Dyer in the Georgia Straight. About the same time up pops an activist I recognize in an article originally in A Pública but coming to me (as usual) in the Amazônia Friends of the Earth newsletter. The article is an excellent overview. And Antônia Melo is the real meal deal (in my opinion) To tell the truth it is all becoming (personally mind you, just for me I hope y'unnerstan') hysterically funny because, really, I see the best women of their generation - people like Marina Silva and Elizabeth May - trying to work things out in terms of government. Government?! They might do more good on the barricades with the likes of Zoe Blunt, Crowbird, Brett ... not many I know of but there must be some more ... me (a cracked pot and therefore, quite naturally, empty). The old spiritual leaders - Desmond Tutu, Leonardo Boff - greatly respected and listened to for decades and more; may now simply be so far into their dotages that they are no longer to be trusted. Scary territory gentle reader, very scary indeed to be in such a landscape and such darkness with no dependable guides. Here's humanity being governed towards extinction ... ... while the best lack all conviction (in the way of action) ...  ... and when Marina Silva is elected Presidenta, her death by 1,000 compromises begins and she winds up like Barack Obama - tits on a bull. Well ... at least she actually has tits. Speaking of which ... August 1st was World Breast Feeding day apparently: My friend is concerned that this 'squabble on the Left' will split the vote and allow some nasty candidate from the Right to slide in there. Left? Right? How many politicians can dance on the head of a pin? I want to make a complaint.                                 Against ... ?                                 It's not against.                                                               It's in favour!                                                               Are you sure it's a complaint?                 No. Last time I was thinkin' bout Marina I wrote: Notwithstanding a suspicion (verging on outright prejudice) of anyone carrying any religious imprimatur whatsoever but especially of all officially certified Romans, Moslems & Evangelical Protestants; Notwithstanding a pronounced pretty princess psychological pathology known as the 'Fuck Little Miss Muffet AND The Tuffet She Rode In On' syndrome; Notwithstanding a 0% success rate on rubbings of various old lamps found on beaches and a firm conviction (if only occasionally deployed) to be careful what you wish for; IF I WERE a prayin' man and thought it would help Marina, I would be down on my knees. But I'm not and I don't so I won't. No. I hope she loses, is converted to direct action, instigates a hunger strike (a real one, in the heat of her summer and the frozen depth of our winter) and calls up sayin' she wants me on their team at the door of Toronto City Hall (but in Portuguese a'course). Along with Elizabeth May in Ottawa. Ban Ki Moon at the UN in New York. Yvo de Boer in Amsterdam. Tim DeChristopher on the steps of the Harvard Divinity School. Yeah. That!     Or ... ... or maybe ... not a hunger strike. I just say 'hunger strike' because I had an idea a few years ago and no one has shown me anything to change my mind, show me something more effective, possibly more effective. Maybe she's got another notion. I could probably be convinced.

 
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