As I was explaining last night to a fellow who turned out to be from Scotland, Texas is in the rather unusual position of having to defend a rational policy.
And what I mean by that: Texas, by virtue of its geographic character, shares a pretty enormous border with Mexico, meaning that in spite of all the abstract thinking and (let's be honest) stupid rhetoric that gets tossed around on this issue-- they actually and truly have to deal with being a border state. As a result, even though they are firmly in The South, solidly conservative, GOP, home of George W. Bush and so on, someone like Rick Perry has had to stand up and say to other GOP candidates things along the lines of, "Well, we'd all love to build a fence to keep out 'illegals', but you know that's not really feasible or desirable..." while the other candidates then get to jump on him for being soft on illegal immigration.
You can probably see the rich irony of the situation. Texas politicians get flak from their own party for dealing with reality, no matter how much they might wish it were otherwise, if only because official party policy is at such odds with reality. And this puts them in the blackly humorous position of having to defend a rational, reasonable, forward-thinking set of policies because such rationality is held in such low regard by others in their party.
This, to me, is modern political theater at its most absolutely hilarious. I mean, for pure black comedy you just can't beat it. It makes Pagliacci look absolutely amateur.
I think in certain ways this makes Rick Perry the inescapable end-product of our modern political system, or at least one wing of it (the Democratic side of the aisle has a much more subtle terror going for them, but I won't go into that now). Where he is not absolutely and monstrously wrong, he is absolutely and monstrously right, and there is no way either of these positions can do him any good. (There's also the chance that he really is a braindead buffoon. But I don't think it's lack of intelligence, per se, that makes him the figure that he is). He is right for all the wrong reasons, and he's wrong for all the right reasons. And you can't ask for a more fascinating politician than that.
As a matter of fact, what's been his most effective strategy so far, as a politician? Not showing up! He didn't show up for debates when it came to the governorship of Texas, and that suited him perfectly. That strategy was a resounding success. And now that he's become a national joke, what is he talking about doing? Not showing up! Yes! The problem is that he has actually been going to the GOP debates, and opening his mouth, and just generally spewing forth the type of incoherent word-salad that has him plummeting in the polls like a swan with an arrow through its heart. His tactic is to be absent. His positions are that which remain once all other positions have been taken by other, irritatingly present candidates. Rick Perry is What's Left. And that is fucking brilliant.
Now, this may have suited him for the governorship, but I don't think it'll be enough to win him the GOP nomination. For one thing, Mitt Romney just keeps showing up and not being demonstrably insane, which you can tell is pissing off the Washington insiders no end. They're desperate to go with any-fucking-body else, but it's just not happening. For another thing, Perry has already burst his own balloon by doing the opposite of what he does best. He's already shown up (and it's been a disaster). If he had been the perfect, abstract candidate... and aren't those polls hilarious, the ones that show Obama losing to generic, anonymous "Republican candidate", but him thumping soundly any actual person with a name and an agenda?-- he might've stood a chance. But no, he's become distinct now, and what he is is distinctly... strange. Not electable, anyway. Oh well. Poor Richard.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
another in a series of endless examples
there is, I believe, a fundamental difference between american and european attitudes when it comes to personality. (This is a grotesque and probably objectionable oversimplification on the parts of both europeans and americans, but it serves here as a shorthand for what I'm really getting at. The idea, of course, being that I'm trying to emphasize a basic duality which transcends national boundaries, and has at various times been filled by American and European roles. The two characters could easily be reversed and probably have been).
On the one hand, you have a certain affected naivety, where the roles of social convention are followed to a T, at the expense of a certain effectiveness. On the other hand, you have a kind of honesty which seems simplistic but (in my opinion) is much more effective when it comes to communication and tolerance of the individual.
James Spader's character on "The Office" (in this case a pretty quintessentially "American" show) fills the second type of personality, and in so doing, lends a pretty good streak of humor. He simply exists, unapologetically, leaving the other characters politely bewildered in his wake. (I wonder if this might not have to do with europe's having had yea many years to understand and absorb the lessons of Kafka, who taught us once and for all the absolute nightmares that lay behind trying to politely follow the rules. Which in turn prefigured the endless enigmatic terrors of Stalin's bureaucracy and so on). At any rate, the lesson to be learned is the difference between being "open", which is merely a shorthand for being confused and not much of anything, and simply being, which is far more fascinating and potentially impolite, which is just better, I think, for all of us.
On the one hand, you have a certain affected naivety, where the roles of social convention are followed to a T, at the expense of a certain effectiveness. On the other hand, you have a kind of honesty which seems simplistic but (in my opinion) is much more effective when it comes to communication and tolerance of the individual.
James Spader's character on "The Office" (in this case a pretty quintessentially "American" show) fills the second type of personality, and in so doing, lends a pretty good streak of humor. He simply exists, unapologetically, leaving the other characters politely bewildered in his wake. (I wonder if this might not have to do with europe's having had yea many years to understand and absorb the lessons of Kafka, who taught us once and for all the absolute nightmares that lay behind trying to politely follow the rules. Which in turn prefigured the endless enigmatic terrors of Stalin's bureaucracy and so on). At any rate, the lesson to be learned is the difference between being "open", which is merely a shorthand for being confused and not much of anything, and simply being, which is far more fascinating and potentially impolite, which is just better, I think, for all of us.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Parable
I stumbled across this by accident. I quite like it.
An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.
“How does it taste?” the master asked.
“Bitter,” spit the apprentice.
The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake”.
As the water dripped down the young man’s chin the master asked, “How does it taste?”
“Fresh,” remarked the apprentice.
“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.
“No,” said the young man.
At this, the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, ”The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things... Stop being a glass. Become a lake."
An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.
“How does it taste?” the master asked.
“Bitter,” spit the apprentice.
The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake”.
As the water dripped down the young man’s chin the master asked, “How does it taste?”
“Fresh,” remarked the apprentice.
“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.
“No,” said the young man.
At this, the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, ”The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things... Stop being a glass. Become a lake."
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
It Keeps me Running
On a camping trip last weekend, I was sitting next to this beautiful, intelligent woman by the fire pit. I wanted to ask her a little bit about herself.
"So," I said, and then stopped.
"Yes?" she said.
"I wanted to ask you..." and then I trailed off. I could feel my thoughts piling up, one on top of the other, like a traffic jam. I couldn't really think of any way of asking her to tell me about herself that didn't sound questionable or peculiar. Abort.
"Um, never mind. It's not important".
She got up and walked away.
Dope, I thought to myself. That didn't go very well. Now her most recent memory of you is going to be of a sub-verbal doofus. I sat there stewing for a few minutes. Then a feeling came up on me. It was a feeling of frustration and, from frustration, freedom. I had botched things, so now I could do as I liked without fear of further embarrassment. It was clear in an instant that I needed to communicate, if I was to communicate, through a better medium than idle chatter between strangers.
I walked back to my tent and got my guitar. Now I was on more familiar ground. Late nights, fire going, lots of cheerful people bent on beer and unidentified substances. Yes, this was an old, comforting situation. I could deal with this.
I sat down by the fire and started thwacking the strings, letting my self-recrimination and turbulence come bouncing out, lapping out in waves that hit the trees and the rocks and the bugs underground. There was no one in a ten-mile radius who was singing Radiohead with more fervor than I was at that moment.
Amazingly, the universe granted me a wish. She came bouncing back up soon after. I had thought she might be the musical type, and I wasn't wrong. She started inhabiting the musical space right along with me. I brought out a book of Beatles tunes and a flashlight. She volunteered to hold the flashlight. "How's this?" she asked, putting her arm around my shoulders and shining the light on the pages. We stayed like that and sang "While my Guitar Gently Weeps", our heads practically touching, her harmonizing with the lyrics, totally intent on the song and the emotion.
Folks, I don't ask for much, but every man needs a good moment now and then. Just a little crumb. A little twinkle. Doesn't have to be much. I'm not greedy. A moment that puts its arm around you and sings with you. It keeps me running.
"So," I said, and then stopped.
"Yes?" she said.
"I wanted to ask you..." and then I trailed off. I could feel my thoughts piling up, one on top of the other, like a traffic jam. I couldn't really think of any way of asking her to tell me about herself that didn't sound questionable or peculiar. Abort.
"Um, never mind. It's not important".
She got up and walked away.
Dope, I thought to myself. That didn't go very well. Now her most recent memory of you is going to be of a sub-verbal doofus. I sat there stewing for a few minutes. Then a feeling came up on me. It was a feeling of frustration and, from frustration, freedom. I had botched things, so now I could do as I liked without fear of further embarrassment. It was clear in an instant that I needed to communicate, if I was to communicate, through a better medium than idle chatter between strangers.
I walked back to my tent and got my guitar. Now I was on more familiar ground. Late nights, fire going, lots of cheerful people bent on beer and unidentified substances. Yes, this was an old, comforting situation. I could deal with this.
I sat down by the fire and started thwacking the strings, letting my self-recrimination and turbulence come bouncing out, lapping out in waves that hit the trees and the rocks and the bugs underground. There was no one in a ten-mile radius who was singing Radiohead with more fervor than I was at that moment.
Amazingly, the universe granted me a wish. She came bouncing back up soon after. I had thought she might be the musical type, and I wasn't wrong. She started inhabiting the musical space right along with me. I brought out a book of Beatles tunes and a flashlight. She volunteered to hold the flashlight. "How's this?" she asked, putting her arm around my shoulders and shining the light on the pages. We stayed like that and sang "While my Guitar Gently Weeps", our heads practically touching, her harmonizing with the lyrics, totally intent on the song and the emotion.
Folks, I don't ask for much, but every man needs a good moment now and then. Just a little crumb. A little twinkle. Doesn't have to be much. I'm not greedy. A moment that puts its arm around you and sings with you. It keeps me running.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Solitude
Solitude, though silent as light, is, like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone-- all leave it alone. Even a little child has dread, whispering consciousness, that if he should be summoned to travel into God's presence, no gentle nurse will be allowed to lead him by the hand, nor mother to carry him in her arms, nor little sister to share his trepidations. King and priest, warrior and maiden, philosopher and child, all must walk those mighty galleries alone. The solitude, therefore, which in this world appalls or fascinates a child's heart, is but the echo of a far deeper solitude through which already he has passed, and of another solitude deeper still, through which he has to pass: reflex of one solitude-- prefiguration of another.
--Thomas De Quincey
--Thomas De Quincey
Friday, July 22, 2011
Fulcrum
So much was going on at one time; I'm empty now inside. But I know what it is. I have put my inner self to sleep, for a little while, and am trying my luck in the hard-edged, concrete world of the outside. Once I have secured a better place for the animal I can turn back in on myself and water the seeds that have gone to sleep under the soil.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Life in Death
I'll tell you about another time I felt happy. It was towards the end of our Anatomy class, when our teacher told us that some of the kids from the Zoology class were offering a look at their dissections, you know-- to see what was going on at the other branches of the taxonomic tree.
A bunch of us were curious to check it out. We were told that the Zoo class got specimens in from all over the county, and dissected them, putting their skeletons up for display. All of us had done our cadaver dissection at that point, and weren't about to be put off by a little biology.
Anyway, when I walked in the door, it was amazing. They had a deer, a mountain lion, and a fox all in various stages of dissection. The deer was laid out on a large table, with its open belly looking like a barrel. The scarlet blood pooled between its ribs. There was fur and blood everywhere.
The smell was intense and unmistakable. The animals were not treated with any sort of preservative, and the ripe stench of dead biological matter had well set in. Flies buzzed around. The only time I could remember smelling anything like it was when I cleaned out the fridges filled with chicken when I worked at a barbecue joint.
The whole thing was fantastic. It was savage, intense, messy. Students were walking around with filtration masks and gloves while the vibrantly dead figures lay, exploded open, on various surfaces. There were skeleton models of various animals set up around the room.
As I walked around, I was joined by the girl I had a pretty severe crush on. We strode the room, peering over people's shoulders, taking in the pools of blood and the skin and the muscles and the bones and the paws and the teeth. The smell was like rotten vinyl. Her hair looked like the red patch of a blackbird's wing. I felt great. Some atavistic part of my brain was definitely being spoken to, some simian part that looked at the slaughterhouse scene and saw only triumph. I felt like picking up a femur and running out to smash the first thing I saw, hooting all the while. It was gross and primeval and totally exhilarating. I wished I could visit the room whenever I wanted, to get some sort of visceral impact.
My modern routine is fairly safe and sanitary, for the time being. But it was nice to look at animals, to see biology in an up-close and impolite way, to know that some sort of identification with carnage rumbles and paces around the back of my modern, civilized brain. It's reassuring.
A bunch of us were curious to check it out. We were told that the Zoo class got specimens in from all over the county, and dissected them, putting their skeletons up for display. All of us had done our cadaver dissection at that point, and weren't about to be put off by a little biology.
Anyway, when I walked in the door, it was amazing. They had a deer, a mountain lion, and a fox all in various stages of dissection. The deer was laid out on a large table, with its open belly looking like a barrel. The scarlet blood pooled between its ribs. There was fur and blood everywhere.
The smell was intense and unmistakable. The animals were not treated with any sort of preservative, and the ripe stench of dead biological matter had well set in. Flies buzzed around. The only time I could remember smelling anything like it was when I cleaned out the fridges filled with chicken when I worked at a barbecue joint.
The whole thing was fantastic. It was savage, intense, messy. Students were walking around with filtration masks and gloves while the vibrantly dead figures lay, exploded open, on various surfaces. There were skeleton models of various animals set up around the room.
As I walked around, I was joined by the girl I had a pretty severe crush on. We strode the room, peering over people's shoulders, taking in the pools of blood and the skin and the muscles and the bones and the paws and the teeth. The smell was like rotten vinyl. Her hair looked like the red patch of a blackbird's wing. I felt great. Some atavistic part of my brain was definitely being spoken to, some simian part that looked at the slaughterhouse scene and saw only triumph. I felt like picking up a femur and running out to smash the first thing I saw, hooting all the while. It was gross and primeval and totally exhilarating. I wished I could visit the room whenever I wanted, to get some sort of visceral impact.
My modern routine is fairly safe and sanitary, for the time being. But it was nice to look at animals, to see biology in an up-close and impolite way, to know that some sort of identification with carnage rumbles and paces around the back of my modern, civilized brain. It's reassuring.
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