=jr5d09a JOURNAL, FROM 9 Dec '05 Succeeds =jr5n24e.txt which succeeded =jr05x17.txt which succeeded =jr0510e.txt ================================================================== CAVEAT TABBYCAT: These Journals -- =jr*.txt -- are a mixture of material. The letters_to_the_editor are in general in final form, and appropriate for others to critically read. Some of the poems are, too. And the philosoophic and/or political notes, even when too discursive to submit for publiction, are appropriate for public criticism. But I also include sketches for parts of poems, and for possible essays. And that is more or less personal material, posted here mostly for convenience, not exhibition. We all have private parts to our public lives, and situations in which we would like others to overlook our unintended visibility. And this is especially the case if what we are doing might give offense to another. And so with some of what I write in these journals. When I am ready to release poems, I put them into docs with docname =po*.txt I once passed PVK on his way to the privy to do his ablutions. I looked up to meet his gaze, and found it averted. And conversely, once in a class I was moved to tears, and looked up to him for a cue, and found his gaze averted, directed upward. The Midrash teaches that when the children of Israel encamped, they pitched their tents so that no one could look into the tent of another. Of course that is easily done if you pitch your tent so that the rising sun shines through the door. And so we were told to do at New Buffalo. Incidentally, that is why much newspaper and TV_news photography is inappropriate. One does not photograph corpses, since few of us look our best in such situations, and would rather not be so remembered by our friends, much less persons to whom we would ordinarily not even speak. In general, that is why Indians, and me at New Buffalo, do not want to be photographed. It is an inauthentic re_ification, a pour_autres rather than a pour_soi (Sartre's terminology). Too, one needs a satiric eye, unless you're a saint. But you have no right to inflict your satiric perspective on the objects of your satire. ZR has a fine sense of irony, but has not yet learned not to use it against others. One applies it only in a literary context, and against public situations, especially political situations. But not to interpersonal situations. Anyhow, when I remember, I'll try to flag risque material 'CAVEAT TABBYCAT', and put it at the bottom of the doc. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Re: IHT 8 Dec '05 (Knowlton) The oddity of Gonzales' rationale for torture Hanging Judge 'Speedy' Gonzales of Texas -- fastest wimp with a rope since Judge Dread Scott went to hell as part of the advance guard for Georgie Bushie Junior -- reportedly (IHT 7 Dec '05) advised the Bushies that they could torture infidels abroad because the U.S. Constitution applies only in the USA. Well, it's true that we can't demand that the Sultan of Bono institute a bicameral legislature, nor insist that President Putin not run for a 3rd term. But it would seem that U.S. citizens are both obligated to and protected by U.S. law even when they are 'Innocents Abroad'. Notes: IHT 8 Dec '05 (Knowlton) "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said during his confimration hearsngs, that before the U.S. Senate ratified the (U.N.) torture convention, it had added a reservation the document's reference to cruel and inhumane or degrading treatment referred only to such treatment as is forbidden by the U.S. Constitution. Because the Supreme Court has hadld that the Constitution does not apply abraod, the administration maintained, techniques short of outright torture could legally be employed aborad." Well, that's quite a muddle. I'd not advise writing it in an essay at Harvard Law School. Or even Belmont Senior High School Civics Class. First of all, it's not clear how a nation can be said to have 'ratified' a treaty or international convention if it first adds exceptions -- neither explicit exceptions, nor re_interpretations which, in disregard of the quaisi_legislative intent of the Convention, are intended to serve as potential justification for exceptions. Nor will it do to say with contextual qualification that 'the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not apply abroad'. Presumably this or those rulings were not a simple universal statement, but rather, a response to particular cases, limited in force to similar cases. Nor will it do to suppose that the U.S. Constitution prohibits only 'outright torture' -- whatever that is supposed to mean -- the old rack and rake and thumbscrews I suppose. On the contrary, the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution is inclusive, not particularized, in its prohibition of 'cruel and unusual punishment'. Further, the principle of extradition presupposes that U.S. citizens are indeed subject to U.S. law when abroad, and can be tried in the USA for crimes committed abroad, if the the country in which the crime was committed assents. And moreover, the U.S. generally expects that its citizens will be treated in accord with U.S. norms when imprisoned and tried abroad. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Israel should seriously consider a request by the President of Iran that we move to Europe. It renains only to negotiate the precise size and shape of our new home. I suggest Switzerland as a basic territory, with supplemtary rights to occupy territory in northern Scandanavia, the better parts of the Netherlands, and a reasonable number of vinyards etc. in France. Needless to say, before we all pack up and move, adequate provision must be made to safeguard the Jewish religious heritage in Israel. A long_term lease with private management by Disneyland would seem to be the best option. --------------------------------------------------------------- Apparently Pinter, of whose greatness as a writer I am unaware -- though he bound to better than Beckett or Bellow -- gave a very good, reasonable, and analytic Nobel Prize acceptance speech . One would like to read the text of it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stepping out for a cigarette break the cook takes a stick and pokes down the icicles. (Campra, 10 Dec ) ------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================================================== Bagatelle: It's 'time out of time' the train (only to underline something my mother once said) no expectations; obligations suspended and destinations temporarily un_ inevitable; one need merely never descend. (Groschenen__Bellinzona lst_class carriage, 7 Dec '05 ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Old men talk on trains ohne pause ohne halte each trying to convince the other of something forgotten while holding back the silence's waiting reply. (7 Dec '05) -------------------------------------------------------------- "left only death's ironic scraping" (Wallace Stevens) cold dark winter night "no" bloody "moon" of course. Before my comfortable bed with a warm coverlet is a large off_colour TV set displaying bare_breasted raddled young women and behind that a mirror with a gaunt wild_haired greybeard gazing in pointless aspiration. No wind tonight to grace with gothic melodrama that silent winter judgement. Even Picasso did not mock so. (Hotel Arcobaleno, 8 Dec '05 ) ------------------------------------------------------------------ What I did on my day off: another shopping_list poem: And old used battery sits in the snow. I pick it up and put it in my pocket and carry it down the road and take the bus to the station and take the train under the mountain but find no place to put it there and so I carry the battery back under the mountain and ride back up the hill to the end of the line at the base of the rainbow hotel and take out the battery and put it by my hotel bed to wait until tomorrow to find a place to put it. :FYI ---------------------------------------------------------------- On Philosophical Poetry: Krishna, oddly was blue they say or rather, techolet "where the sky meets the sea" "I'm just a Wayfaring Stranger traveling through this world below " "Pure Intelligence" said PVK (and poor old Kant had his 'Reine Vernuft') -- l'havdil -- "When the blues chase up a rabbit rabbit he runs a mile. Poor little rabbit, crying like a new_born child. Wish I was a head_a_light upon some East_bound train -- I'd shine my light on cool Coloraedo's hills ..." and so you see whatever I've chanced to see I've tried to say and share with you. (8 Dec '05 ) --------------------------------------------------------------- Notes on JW Lit I lately asked the JW's to send me some lit. A group of 3 stopped by -- perfectly nice people. My immediate motivation was to read up on their critiques &/or criticisms of the Theory of Evolution. I do think that all this oppoisiton to the 'theory of intelligent design' is ideologic, an unackowlged matter of political correctness. It feels quite off_key. The IHT has been beating that drum -- dismissing any criticism of the theory of evolution with dogmatic scorn. I got to reading the JW lit when I was down and out on the beach on Rodos. I think they're much closer to a Jewish 'attunement' than is generally acknowleged. The love the Bible, and the land of Israel, although they barely acknowlege the existence of a Jewish government. Their writing on Proverbs is usually quite good. Their pictures are very nice, andshow a real love of biblical Israel. Their ethical and moral values are about the same as those of religious Judaism. Family_centered, honest in business, etc. etc. And in terms of ecology, etc. they seem quite New Age. This is not the place to go into the creationism dispute. I touch on it here and there, in my =jr*.* docs. I washed a few clothes early this morning, and hung them on my porch rail to dry. Now I've taken my long underwear in to defrost. Pity I can't put it in the teflon frying pan with the hamburger. Now doubt teflon is bad for you. Almost everything is. "Cocaine's for horses / not for men / the Doc says it'll kill yu / but he don't say when. / Cocaine / all around my brain." (USA folk song, ca. early 1900s) Hamburger is a lot cheaper here than cheese. About SF 10 / kg of hamburger, close to SF 30 for alpine cheese -- which is about what you've got to get to get a solid yellow cheese with flavor. Lox costs about SF 67 a kilo. Come to think of it, why can't the Swiss raise their own salmon. Well, it seems to me that most religious folks incline toward creationism. There is something ideologically atheistic about the anti_creationism movement. They keep saying that creaetionism can't be evaluated scientifically -- which is true enough, but it's a schema, not a theory -- so one evaluates it philosophically, not scientifically. And in attatcking creationsim, they show practically no interest in what the theory of evolution does and does not explain, much less its conceptual status. Also, they seem to assume that creationism presupposes the most simplistic anthropomorphism. PVK seems to imply that a large measure of 'intelligent design' has determined our world. He does not necessarily presuppose a 'Designer', much less an intelligent one. But he does suggest that physical existents not merely display but in some sense are 'caused' by a 'template'. Aristotle was almost the only one to note that there are many different types of 'cause' -- he distinguished 5 types -- material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, 'final' (ie, purposive= casuse) -- I have to cook on the front porch, though it won't get above freezing until the sun strikes it, which won't be until 6 Febuary -- about 2 months from now, and then the ssun will only come above the ridgeline for less than an hour -- if I boil water inside, it would turn into a cold fog when the heat goes down. I only survive here because this rebuilt shipping container stays warm and dry. Of course we taken a diametrically opposite position to the JW's - - one can't even say the name of their orgganization -- on the question of whether one should or should not use a proper noun to designate Supreme Being. I won't even use an ArtScroll siddur, because their use of an indefinite noun -- the Hebrew word for 'the NAME' -- sounds to me, and seems often to be taken by Baal Tchuvas, as a proper noun, that is, a name. To, I think, ALLAH was never intended as a proper noun, but as a sound that could not be mistaken for a noun -- a sigh of wonderment -- Ah -- Lah! -- Donovan brings this out in his song, "Wear your love like Heaven". More seriously, the JW's seem to have swallowed this Apocalypse bit, from Revelations, "hook line and sinker." And that's nonsense, but the Apocalypse is death, and the 2nd Coming is resurrection -- spiritual ressurrection, not physical. And too, they have the triumphalist notion of a 'saving remanant', a 'chosen few'. I mean, the notion of 'chosen people' scarcely figures in Judaism, and to the extent it does, it is a matter of being invited to volunteer for service in this world, with noting said about being th3 only ones to get into the next world, much less to survive eartly catastrophes. OK, let me note what's on my desk, and get on with things. 'See the Good land' -- This booklet (pp35), (c) '03, is a set of maps of biblical lands during the various biblical periods. It seems very good, better than anything I happen yet to have seen -- eg in the Reform Chumash that I got maybe 20 years ago. I would hope that it is available in Israel. 'Awake' -- This is one of the two booklets that the JWs pass out on streetcorners. It is published in 87 languages, semi_monthly in English (with English audiocassettes and CD, in MP3 format, also available). It is also published monthly in Hebrew (hardcopy only), The statement of purpose says that it "always stays politicallyx neutral nad doe snot exalt onr reace anboe another." It adds "this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world that is about to replace the present wicked, lawless system of things." Home office is The Watchtower, 25 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn NY 11201 It is in this publication that I have read the various criticisms and maybe critques of the thory of evolution. It is nicely illustrated, with high_quality photos, mostly of nature, on off_white paper. The JW's are of course Christian, and I think one can say that their primary focus is on the New Testament, and only secondarily on the Old Testament. But it may be that they show more interest an appreciation of the Old Testament than many Christian groups. Awake seems to show a solid appreciation of science, albeit viewing it from a religious perspective, and with the presupposition of an eventual apocalypse, which is viewed as a cleaning event from which a sort of Messianic Garden of Eden will emerge for those deemed woethy of surviving it. When I saw Awake ca. '02, I had a concluding section with any number of interesting little snippits. One could say that 'Awake' is the ostensibly secular outreach publication, and that 'The Watchtower' is aimed primarily at members at persons drawn to the JW's. It is published semi_monthly in both English and Hebrew. The statement of purpose states that this publication "comforts all peoples with the good news that G_d's Kingdom will soon destroy those wo oppress thier fellowmen, and that it will turn the earth into a paradise. It eocoures faith in G_d's now_reigning King, Jesus Christ ..." and adds "it is nonpolitical. It adheres to the Bible as its authority." The JWs are a very recent apocalyptic -- cult, really -- dating from about 1914. They are modern and grounded, and seem to be accepting fact that the immininent apocalypse which their founders anticipated has been a bit delayed. They strike me as less blood_thirsty than a lot of Christian groups have been, excepting the Quakers of course. Incidentally, they are pacifists, and generally recognized as such. Their knowlege of the land of Israel and of biblical history seems very good. As for the apocalypse, also termed Armageddon, the Dec. 1 '05 issue of The Watchtower , which is the one which I happen to have now, remarks that "only heavenly armies will share with Jesus Christ in the warfare. None of ... Christian servants on earth [ that is apparently a phrase used by the JWs to refer to themselves ] will take part -- 2 Chronicles 20:15, 17 Well, it's a fool's errand to try to chase down whatever Christians cite as their proof_texts. The anachronism of going to the Old Testament to prove prophecies in the New Testament is a bit staggering. And Judaism uses proof_texts to justify halachic conclusions (if not, really, to deduce them ), but not as confirmation of claims of fact. For instance, if a long_lost scroll of the Nevi'im or even the Chumash was uncovered and authenticated and found to say, 'And it came to pass that Isiah and Jerimiach and Amos and Thmose and all those dudes came togther and said, dig it y'all, this carpenter dude is going to come down from Natzereth to the Kineret, and then walk up to Jerusalem and get himself in all kinds of trouble, and this guy is the Mesiah, so do whatever he says" that the Jewish people would, as a single person, respond, 'Nu?'. Meaning, 'So since when did Nevi'im know anything about the real world. And anyhow I've got to see about my overdraft this afternoon.' But while most Christian groups seem to assume or at least claim to, that evil will be removed to the earth because all the evil_doers will do tchuva, the JW's more realistically take the position that some may, but most won't, and so the only way evil will be removed is if they are destroyed. This article states "Much of the strife and bloodshet today is caused by imperfect human rulership and the selfish striving for nationalistic interests. (Ecclesiastes 8:9). Seeing t texpand their influence, human governmetns totally disregard _G_d's established Kingdom. [ N.B.(sa) -- that 'estblished Kingdom' seems to be what PVK terms 'the spiritual hierarchy'. ] There is no indicatin that they will reliqusih thier sovereignty to G_d and Chirst. (Psalm 2; 1.9), Such governments must therfore be removed to pave the way for the rightous rule ... " [ I am at a bit of a disadvantage in writing about, and quoting the JW's, since they do use a term which I cannot even write. I would say, though, that no offense it intended, and that they are as religiously motivated in intentionally using it as we are in intentionally avoiding any such term. ] The article does state unequivocally that the Armageddon they envison is not a nuclear holocaust, nor anything similar. The Watchtower usually includes a 'life story' of a person, or more usually an alderly married couple, who are among its veterans. I must say I found those rather moving as a lay out on the beach on Rodos, dressed in little more than rags. I didn't mind that very much at the time -- the weather was mild, and the senery excellent, and a number of the Greek people were very kind to me, and very tolerant. At the time I slept quite well, and for the first year or so had very clear continuous dreams, very vivid. In one, PVK was giving a talk, and it was rather a good talk, and I did recall it in the moments when I woke up, but shortly thereafter, and to this day, all I can recall was "unless we imagine G_d to be a virtuoso" -- where 'virtuoso'' was used in the mildly pejorative sense, eg of sommeone like Paderewski, or they say, of early Beethoven, who puts in all sorts of tehcnically demanding but musically unnecessary embellishments over the essntial musical statement. Well, nowadays I sleep intermittently, rarely have dreams that I can recall, much less that I want to recall -- though taking a vitamin pill with a lot of B_comlex before going to bed does enhance the dreaming, and dreaming does seem to leave me more rested -- unless they're nightmares, in which case a quick cup or two of strong black coffee is what's needed. I have repeatedly felt that I could have handled all those flipouts if I had just kept enough willpower and toughness to drink coffee when I needed to go up (that is, out of a tendency toward incapacitating depression), and beer when I needed to come down. There is a rather pious disdain for alcohol in much of the SO -- maybe taken from the Islamic prohibition of alcohol, although in principle the SO, despite having a spiritual lineage predominantly of Islamic mystics, should in principle give no more weight to the religion and cusotoms of Islam than to those of any other religion. And this bias against alcohol becomes hypocritical when combined with a tolerance for the varoius allopathic pyschiatric drugs legally pushed nowadays. In prohibiting the use of drugs, PVK never clearly stated, as far as I know, how if at all that applied to psychiatric drugs. But in my opinion, he never adequately addressed the situation of psychologic brekdowns. At least for persons of no more than typical human strength of character. Well, this issue of The Watchtower then has a biblical article, this one "Highlighs from the book of Second Chronicles." I am glad to see that The WatchTwoer sitll has biblical illustratoins, done in pastels or oils I suppose. These seem to show a real love and appreciation of biblical times and culture. I would note though that Christians are usually shown bare_headed, and Jews, who are almost always cast in something of a supporting role, are shown with heads covered. Well, that's about all I can to with this material for now. It's well past my bedtime -- several hours after the stars came out -- and so I might as well drink some Buffy Grape -- which is what they call what we have, or what they used to have, in Israel, as Eskoliot -- grapefruit juice with sugar, in carbonated water, relatively natural as such things go. And maybe a glass of whatever jug wine I got most recently -- Chianti, I think it was. No worse than the Swiss Merlot, which is consistently forgettable. Might open a can of sardines, too. Dependable protein. Switzerland seems to sell practically nothing from Israel, except in the few stores that sell to Jewish customers -- there's one corner of a produce shop in Lugano, just up the street from the synagogue, that sells some kosher food from Israel. Once I found a mango from Israel in the Zenith kitchen, and stole it, figuring, why should they deserve it, I'll save it for Shabat. But I didn't quite get around to eating it, until it was going bad. Once I stole a few loaves of bread form the kitchen for Shabat. A few days later I told Chris. He said, 'Didn't work so good, did it.' Once, when I awas living at the Bet Zayit campground -- in one ogf those straw bungalows until the rainy season, then in one of produce garages -- I made kiddish over a bottle of -- sherry, I think it was, but maybe port -- that I got from a shop in East Jerusalem, near Jaffa Gate. It was made at a monastary. Later I told Eliahu about it. He said, It didn't really work, did it. I have other publications from the JW's, but don't have time to look at them now. I have a Bible from them. It looks ok, except for the way they handle the Tetragammaton. But the Catholic Bible is as bad or worse -- they try to use the Yud_(K)ay_Vav_(K)ay -- and ArtScroll with its treatment of an indefinite noun as a proper noun is as bad. The New King James is ok, it uses 'the LORD', as do the JPS Pulications. This is what I came of age with, and it's all that I'm not uncomfortable with. I've been trying for some time to get a 'Authorized' -- ie, the original King James. That's the translation I started with, and it's what I'm comfortable with. Also, the subsequent translations keep trying to introduce colloquial variants, and whatever variants I've noticed are less good from a standpoint of language. The Catholic 'New Jerusalem Bible' is almost unreadable. They clarify what does not need clarification, and miss the rhythm and simplicity of the language of the King James. The Revised and the JW seem to introduce only minor changes, but from the standpoint of poetic diction, those seem in general to be a small step in the wrong direction. The JW's have an interlinear Greek/English New Testament. I cannot quite accept the notion of the New Testament in Greek. The original must have been in Hebrew, and no doubt we suppressed and destroyed it. The thought seems to be in Hebrew, highly referenced to the Old Testament, though not in the way the Christians assume. They keep trying to show that our Prophets prophecied the coming of Jesus. While as I say, we really don't care. First of all, Prophets -- Nevi'im -- don't prophecy, except in the most limited political sense -- look out for a betrayal and invasion from Egypt, etc. But they are not fortune_tellers. But it is the case that Jesus is continually trying to show how his teaching in grounded in Jewish tradition, and in halacha. And much of that is in his phrasing, if you back_translate it into the conjectured Hebrew original. (OK, the Kaddish is Aramaic). Eg, the 'LORD's Prayer' echos the Kaddish. That also indicates that Jesus taught in Hebrew, not Aramaic, for in Aramaic his references would mostly have been obscurred if not lost. To translate the Bible, you must have a poet's ear and mind. For cadences, but also for allusions. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================== One of the frustrating things about MicroSoft is that it is continually trying to anticipate your needs, and usually gets it wrong. So the screen display keeps changing. And ever change takes away the transparency that you hae worked so hard to put onto the screen. That is, a writer wants to be vonscious, when sitting at a computer, of nothing but his thought. That is why I did not accept the false teeth they made for me, with so much time and effort and skill and money. Because when I sat down to write, I was conscious of my false teeth, instead of being wholly conscious of what I wanted to say. Again, MicroSoft Applications ae bound to fall and be supplanted, because a closed_source and hence hierarchic structure simply cannot perceive much less customize itself in response to, the great variety of end_user needs. They end up designing their applications for Median Man, and no innovative thinker is Median. Also, MicroSoft can introduce its practically monopolistic features just where they're most inconvenient. The truth is, that everyone shares software, and MicroSoft seems to take a vicious joy in trying to obstruct that, and so force you to buy their overpriced products -- which in any event are unlikely to be available. The worst is that they limit all the products on sale to the local language. In Ticino, I can get MicroSfot products only in Italian. If I go over the mountain to Graubunden, I can get them only in German. For something as simple as changing the prompts and menu's from Italian to English --which is a little program that takes only a few seconds to install -- I have to get a Master Disk, and I have to send to the USA for that. Though I'm told that somewhere outside Lugano, in an industrial cetner, there is one store that may sell English software, though nobody at the Bellinzona station even recognized the name of the town. =============================================================== Honest George sits in his warm Restorante selling the daily plate and lots of fried potatoes. Outside, alone a bare_headed, bare_handed man is pushing a quarter_ton metal safe on rollers slowly over the snow to set at the feet of Honest George who sits in his warm Restorante all the while which is quite a long while. ----------------------------------------------------------------- It is often said, especially by those who would like the USA to leave the Iraq quagmire, that the primary reason the insurrectdionists fight is because the USA is there. Well, yes and no. The primary reason that anyone fights is that the enemy is occupying territory that they want. But there is a tendency to apply to Iraq the similarly unsuitable model of the Israel__Palestinian conflict. It is not precisely that the Iraquis, poor sensitive souls, and so hurt in their national pride by finding their land occupied by western imperials infidels, that the only way they can regain their self_respect, and even manhood, is by standing up against overwhelming odds and fighting, even if they have to sacrifice their lives to do so. Rather, the secret servics of neighboring countries see a very low_cost way in which they may gain control of rich nation, whose capacity for action is largely paralyzed by its sentimental semi_democracy. It is unrealistic to romanticize and personalize realpolitik. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Spielberg's film 'Munich' would seem, from what I read in the headlines, to put his Holocaust Remeberance project in rather a bad light. There's no great virtue in loving dead Jews; even the Nazis did so, may they burn in hell until the North Pole drowns Bushie in the Lincoln Bedroom. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Well, of course Christ is born at the winter solstice (Christmas) and the dark of the moon (Chanukah). This is Jewish tradition, that Meshiach comes only "at the very last day" -- when things are at their very worst. HIK says, "Thou comest on earth with a Message, like a dove from above when dharma decayeth." And that is very much a Jewish principle -- the Divine intervention occurs only when there's no other help at hand -- because normally we are supposed to do for ourselves. And that is, "it is forbidden to rely on a miracle." And also it is "six days of the week thou shalt labour " ---------------------------------------------------------------- *** THIS SPACE FOR RENT *** EAT AT HONEST GEORGE'S -- THE HORSE IS ON VACATION -- ***$$$ ZOWIE FOR HOWIE $$$*** ============================================================== CAVEAT TABBYCAT: From one of the rooms upstairs , a girlish giggling. Then Rosie appeared, followed by Davn, blushing prettily. ------------------------------------------------------------------- add to p_poem (just so to those who miss such) humungous ganzongas I can see if not feel whatever I missed when I did it for real too worried and budy to notice ------------------------------------------------------------ One could -- neither 'bnarely' nor 'hardly' seems quite the right word here -- imagne how a woman of her abilities wold joint with such a letftover latke. Perhaps it was that he was long_lasting; he did not seem the sort of chap woho wold ver get particularly excited about anything. ------------------------------------------------------------------ I was once told that the Oberlin Nympho rated her 'lovers', or so she said, on "variety, endurance, and emotional content". She was a short skinny little thing with no tits, of course. 'Runt_of_the_litter', so to speak. As they say, one makes the best of what one has, or at least conspicuously compensates for socially_perceived deficits. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Occasionally it occurred to me that I might reconsider going to nudist beaches, as I might have seemed at somewhat a disadvantage in comparison with gentlemen whose blood stays in the brain only long enough to distinguish a woman from a bowl of spaghetti. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Stop me if you've heard this one: It has lately occurred to me, after having watched almost enought of it, at least for an evening, that pornography often degrades women. If I recall, others have made this point. Dworkin already said it, built up her career, and died. (The better students at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music used to bewail their lack of achievement, saying, albeit with a bit of romantic exaggeration, "At my age Mozart was already dead.") (Albert the Alligator says: "Amazing how a handsome man looks good in whatever he happens to throw on." And so I see my writing. Or rather, hear it in an inner ear.) I suppose it's all those back_door poses made me think so. Even done by at least semi_ _pro's, it seems at best a painful ecstacy, rather along the lines of grinding on a sore tooth. The way they stage porno, sex seems to be just one more physical function that nice people only in utmost necessity. Quite unlike eating, or even smoking. Why can't there be more nice porno. As_it_is_said, "Bed is the poor man's opera." For that matter, why can't there be more opera on TV. Not to mention ballet. Nowadays, almost the only deep drama there is is porno. All the rest is superficial. "Humani sum, et in mihi nihil humanorum alienum puta" I used to think that was the quintessence of humanism. It ain't, it epitomizes what makes conservatives crazy when they contemplate what they suppose to be 'moral relativism'. It's the apocryphul story of the Stoic who walked past a corpe, found he could not avert his gaze, and finally plucked out is eyes and said Here, look your fill. It's why the rabbis say, do not come near to a mocker, do not associate with a bad person. It's why I am a homophobe. Like flu, male homosexuality is contagious. The whole point of circumcision -- symbolically; there is a physical justification as well, but that's a matter, not of sexual excess -- I mean, how can one have too much of a good thing (well, that is a facile remark )-- but of the carcinogenic potential of smegma -- OK, let's see what I've got worth writing in these leftover notes. I've avoided even looking at them for a few weeks, but it's time to clean out my inbox. It is not pornography per se that is offensive, but sexsual exploitation -- sex depicted in such a crude way that one might suppose that it really is one of those private functions which nice popele do only in necessity, and not otherwise. (Freud made a simplistic reductionism of the fact that the alleviation of tension is perceived as pleasureable. Indeed, that must be the categorial form of the survival instinct, otherwise who would bother. But that does not entail that pleasure is the alleviation of tension. For starters, one might speak of 'negative pleasure' -- itching and scratching -- and 'positive pleasure' -- eg, seeing Swan Lake. There ought to be a pornography of good sex, and of civilized sex, and that should be a subdivision of commercial sex too. At best, lesbian pornography is charming , at least done by true amateurs -- those who aparently let themselves be photographed so that they could "meet girls" (to borrow a bathetic reduction from Jules Feiffer. As in any drama, the least of what one wants to see is the act itself. We know what they do, but we come to drama to experience, in vicarious safety, what we are missing in our own lives -- the normal human feelings that should accompany such experiences. Porcretional sex is contractual, especially in Jewish tradition. Enjoyment is secondary, epiphenomenal. Although the husband, but the wife, is obligated to 'be with' his spouse with reasonable fsrequency -- when she wishes. (When she does not wish, he is strongly enjoined from doing so, although not halachically forbidden -- subject to the restrictions of tameh, which are halachic. Sex is a matter of sharing -- or rather, putting onself into -- the ordinarily private space of another -- the physical space; love is sharing of emotional space, and darshan is a matter of sharing spiritual space. Sharing mental space is mind_reading at worst, and intellectual dialectic at best. So sex is communion at best, voluntary sharing ordinarily, and an assortment of power_games at worst (mostly and at worst by men; few men are hurt by having been had by a voracious femaale; but the converse is not so. Indeed, it may be that most women, especially young women, are hurt by their early couplings. ("Do not rouse up love until it please", says the Shulamite, or Queen of Sheba, in Songs of Songs. And with such earnest insistence she repeats it, it seems the poem of a women transcending her hurt in love -- "but my own winyard I did not keep" "I went out to seek my love ... the watchmen hurt me" -- there is a very poignant voice running just under the surface of that poem. Akiva, who loved women, saw that. (And R. Zalman Schahcter writes, of the four who entered the PaRDeSH, only Akiva "went and returned in peace" and that was beause, says R. Zalman, (I quote from memory), "his wife sent him off and welcomed him back with earthly love.") Four entered PaRDeSh. One died, one went mad, one turned to evil. Only Akiva left and returned in peace. PVK remarks, repeatedly, if you are faced with more stress than you can make use of, it may be that you will either contract cancer or go mad. I sometimes wonder if when I have flipped out, I have subconsciously made that choice as a very rational survival mechanism. Well, that was the one who died, and the one who went mad. Now go back to 'humani sum et in mihi nihil humanorum alienum puta'. That is a curse, not (as I had supposed) a matter of grace. For it entails that all human vices are latent within us. Now everyone knows, the reason that psychedelics expand your consciousness is because ordinarily we contract our consciousness, in order to get through life. On its higher levels, that is 'civilization and its discontents', but on its deep level, its base, it is a matter of course of contracting perception. And of course, the survival mechaism for coping with stress is to expand one's consciousness. That is the hyper_altertness of soldiers, and when they cannot contract their consciousness after their military service is over, their state is called 'post_traumatic stress syndrom'. But when we expand our consciousness, we are exposed to the attraction of all those vices which we had contracted our consciousness to repress. And so at that point -- and I have experienced this -- one can either remain sane by turning to evil, or remain good at the price of become an addle_pated fool. And so you see, 'the Other' -- Acher, Elisha ben Abuya -- chose evil. It is said, "he uprooted the young shoots". Whatever that means, it was so evil that thenceforth his name was not mentioned (there is of course an exception from his younger days, in Pirke Avot). My guess is: he betrayed the yeshiva bokers to Rome, to become castrati in Roman whorehouses. Well, Catullus is just the delighful fresco on real degeneracy. I mean, some of those Roman generals put up crucifixes like mileposts, or so I read in some inexpensive paperback. And crucifixtion was as terrible a torture as any in history. OK, back to my notes. You see, Norman Mailer traces out the philosophy of degeneracy. Hence his most apt title, 'Why are we in Vietnam'. Reich was first with 'The Psycopathology of Facisim', and the USA killed Reich most cruelly, forcing him into a situation where he died insane. Now everyone knows, Essau became Rome, and then, many imply, he became the USA. Whether he came over with Werner von Braun they do not say. I suppose one can't quite say it, the biblical chracter of Essau is not bad, and the rabbi's acknowleged that in their commentary -- that when Jakob stole the blessing, and so brought Essav to tears , he later paid, not for having taken the blessing -- Rivka was quite right on that point -- but for having brought a basically decent if simple man to tears. And at its best, Rome was decont but simple_minded. Whereas Nazi_ism aspired to be absolute evil -- nihilism -- and succeeded, pulling along all those 'good Germans', the cows (no offense intended to cows. And when the evil herdsman is struck down, the cows all go back home, and say, 'We never did anything, we just went along. We always go along.' And they say, We'll be good now, and no doubt they will, assuming no other demon cuts in in front of them. A convicted murderer once said, I don't see why they won't let me out. I wouldn't kill anyone out there. Capital punishment refuses to admit the spiritual existence of Grace. Running for President , George Bush Jr. watched Kayla Thorpe, who had become a true Christian and surely died in a state of grace, go to her judicial murder. She had been an accomplice in the murder of a man. The jury of normal Americans might have forgiven her for that, had she not admitted that the event brought her to orgasm. Humani sum, et in mihi nihil humanorum alienum puta. The attraction of pornography. Or Bob Dylan, "You forgot about my debutante." "Your debutante knows what you need, but I know what you want." "Oh Mama, can this really be the end -- to be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues AGAIN." Bob Dylan of course often veils his thoughts, even from himself, in home_made imagery. Has anyone asked why he named himself after Dylan Thomas. Gvalt, it's just now noon, but the sky is grey, and feels like its trying to snow. I've been up since about 2 AM -- on the other hand, by the time the sun has gone under, my mind is so full that I have to go to sleep to let it unload. Or Bob Dylan -- "I need a dump_truck to unload my mind." OK, where am I in my notes: Truly consensual sex is 'good sex', contractually consuensual ses, mosttly for procretion -- I suppose I had meant to write, 'is ordinary sex' -- the Harvard College Travel Bureau Guide -- 'Let's Go' -- to Israel -- their overriding advice was, don't packk heavy, just take more money -- I came from Israel to Zenith one year schlepping 6 full_sized packs, only one of which was for my books, though another was for my cassettes -- as I walked from the bus_stop passed the Restorante, Mike saw me and said, 'Steve, how did you do it.' I said, 'Slowly.' So anyhow those Harvard snots said in passing that Israel was a land of 'raw sex'. Reviewing that year's Harvard Guiebook as an example of media_bias -- I was volunttering at Dave Bedein's Israel Resource Center -- I noted that there was also rare, well_done, and overdone varities of it. Prostituion is contractual, but can be ddmed 'truly contrctual' only if the woman was free, especially socio_econically free, to reject the contract. A hunter once said, deere season is simply a contractual relationship between the sportsman and the dder. In Crocodile Dundee -- which I never go to see in its entirety, because just as she was stripping down to her bra -- it was a very nice white_lace bra -- the broadcast was interrupted to say that Rabin had got himself shot -- anyhow, the movie opens with a bunch of drunken louts shooting kangeroos, whereupn Crocodile Dundee wraps himself in the skin of a dead kangeroo, and starts shooting at the hunters. They say, "that kangeroo is shooting back." In short, for a relationship to be 'truly contractual', the supposedly contracing parties must be equally free. Sex to which one party -- ususally the woman - did not 'freely consent' is 'bad sex'. It is perceive,d by both of the participants, and bny spectators, as an exercise of power. Much or most male homosexual prison sex is explicitly of that type. The charm of lesbian pornography is that we may imagine -- generally inaccurately, no doubt -- that both parties come to it freely. In prison, the strongest men ahve 'free consent', because the defintion of prison is, that one canot walk way from an unpleasant situation. That's in lesser degree ture of workplace 'sexual harassment'. 'I had no choice, it was either "grin and bear it" (a USA expression in the 1940's that says volumes about socio_economic exploitation) or be forced to do without a new car this year. Where the imprisonment is socio_economic, the pornography of -- (these notes are a bit muddled ) -- So involuntary sex is attractive to gynaphobes, who wish to see women sexually humiliated. And insofar as one shares that as a latent tendency, one may feel ashamed at having watched pornogrpahy. And hence the prevalence of anal sex in pornogrpahy. It is included in maybe half of the routines, and while I have seen women look happy having normal sex, I have not seem even the pro's look happy at that. Again, I noted: from what i< have seen of anal pronogrpahy, most women, even profession or at least semi_pro, seem to find it at best a painful ecstacy, not a joyous ecstacy. So, as many have noted, pornogrpahy is in large part -- (!) -- though not entirely -- a voyeeuristic fantasy, and to an extent an instance of the subjugation of women- (And surely if there is 'Duh Now' moment in this essay, that was it. A bit like Moore managing finally to prove , at least to his own mind, that he really does have a hand on the end of his arm. And Justin Case once said, Steve's still trying to prove he's a hippy. The rest of us more or less figure we've got it made. And the subjugation of women is an instance of the nihilation -- if not quite an attempt at annihilation -- if not denial, of the 'Other' -- and hence a manifestation of facism. Whereas gender_equality is merely the latest ploy in exoomic exploitation of an available weaker class. So gender_equality is similar to -- or I'd rather say, an instance of -- what Marcuse terms 'repressive desublimiaton' (a very valuable concept that he coined) Hence the 'Brve New World' of Communism. Walter Mitty's revenge. The shadow of Thurber, who kept out of sight -- which is itself a nobility. Ok, that's that for those notes. One more porny poem to type up, and then I can turn the heat back on, walk out to the porch, take the last pack of hamburger out of most of its paper wrapping, and cut if up with a shot of Bombay Saphire Gin -- it ain't quite as good as the white Bombay Gin, but it does have a very clean taste. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 45 channels of TV and all that's worht looking at all the long night long for 3 days was a few black cats flashed by 'tired eyes' ----------------------------------------------------------------- OK, "Zowie for Howie" -- "Let's Eat" -- as Bob "Wertz" Armigage used to say at New Buffalo -- he's buried on a hillside there -- he was one of the founders of New Buffalo, and always had a cheerful word for almost everyone. I think they said that what he died of was pulmonary tuberculosis, or maybe it was a spinal tuberculosis -- we all took whatever drugs came by, but most of us stuck to pot and hash and sometimes a bit of LSD. Anyhow, it had been quite a cold winter -- maybe 20 below zero, Rahrenheit, at night, sometimes -- I got the flu for about a month, just from staying outside too long on Christmas morning wearing a new coat that was not warm enough -- that was after a pryer meeting, of ourse. OK, go for lunch and maybe this afternoon 'relate to' adding up, though of course not paying, my bills. ================================================================= =============================================================