At the beginning of the year I started keeping track of certain science stories related to genetics, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence. I wanted to see what developments were out there that might contribute to the following: trends in genetics, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence, each of them accelerating individually and converging collectively, make it very likely that a fundamental transformation of the human species is at hand. This is likely to happen more or less instantly in evolutionary time. Even on the scale of our day-to-day lives, it's likely to occur well before the end of the century, and is thus something many of us might live to see, especially in as much as these trends involve medical advances as well.
You can see my Q1 and Q2 recaps in previous postings. For Q3, even with me out of the country and not paying much attention for the month of August, several interesting stories have appeared:
Tiny New Battery is Printable
Embryonic stem cells used to create human sperm
Military Develops 'Cybug' Spies
Contact lens can dispense drugs to eyes
Gel heals injured brain and bone
Gene Therapy Cures Colorblindness in Monkeys
Brain scan reveals what you've seen
Micorsoft researcher converts his brain into E-memory
Even in this few months worth of headlines you can see potential for expanded lifespans, mobile robots powered by lightweight power sources and human brains interfaced with computers. To quote the prophet David Bowie:
Let me make it plain
You gotta make way for the homo superior
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Rising Tide of Right Wing Violence
In April, when a Department of Homeland Security report on the potential emergence of right-wing domestic terror threats was partially leaked, the Right in this country went wild with scorn and mockery. The media widely reported the dissing of the report, but did very little analysis of the relative merits or lack thereof of the idea.
The title, "Right-Wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment", pretty much gives you the thesis. You would think someone in the press at the time might have taken said thesis a little seriously based on:
- Jim Adkinson going on a shooting spree in a Unitarian church in June 2008 because, as explained in a letter he left behind, he “wanted to kill liberals”.
- Campaign rallies toward the end of the Presidential election where a beaming Sarah Palin said things like “You really get it!” to whipped-up crowds yelling “Traitor!” and “Kill him!” when Obama was mentioned.
- An assassination plot by skinhead groups that was broken up shortly after the election.
- Conservative groups organizing anti-Obama “Tea Parties” across the nation including one in which Texas Governor Rick Perry said frustration with the government might run so high that Texas might have to secede.
- Richard Poplawski in Pennsylvania, who frequently fretted about "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" staging a domestic disturbance on April 4th, donning body-armor and loading an AK-47 to then shoot the officers who responded.
By April, was it really that ridiculous to think that economic hardship in the country, combined with a sudden political change and exacerbated by alarmism from Rightist media, might be creating a milieu of violent extremism?
One could certainly make the case that Adkinson and Poplawski were lone nuts, but as subsequent coverage has made clear, they weren’t lone nuts who appeared out of the ether. Officers found Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by talk show host Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly in Adkinson’s apartment after the shooting. The note he left behind specifically mentions wanting to kill the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37). Poplawski turned out to be a follower of Alex Jones, who used to be a fringe 9-11 conspiracist but by March 2009 appeared on FoxNews.com hailed as “the one, the only, the great Alex Jones," in a segment warning about "what the government has done to take your liberty and your property away."
If mainstream media didn’t spot any emerging trend in April, you think they might have been on to one this summer, when, in the space of less than two weeks:
- Shawna Forde, a former member of the anti-illegal immigration border watch group the Minutemen, posed with another man as police officers in order to enter the home of a Hispanic family and kill them in Arizona on May 30th.
- Prominent abortion doctor Richard Tiller was gunned down in church in Wichita, Kansas on May 31st.
- White supremacist James Wenneker von Brunn went on a shooting spree in the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. on June 10th.
Still not enough trend? How about Virginia Congressional candidate Catherine Crabill in July helpfully noting that, if candidates trying to stop “Marxism” fail to get elected in November, at least we still have guns to affect change? How about the town hall meetings and Tea Parties all fall where Obama has been excoriated in the most inflammatory language? Find Mark Williams of the group Tea Party Express, for example, calling Obama an "Indonesian Muslim and welfare thug".
And then there’s Chris Broughton, who proudly wore an assault rifle and a handgun to an Obama rally in Arizona in August. Far from being a disconnected lone nut, Broughton is actually a member of a church congregation whose pastor, while disavowing calling for anyone in particular to do anything illegal, publicly prays that Obama “die and go to hell.”
Is it possible that a sitting member of Congress shouting “You Lie!” during a Presidential address is the relative ruly tip of an increasingly unruly iceberg of growing radicalization that is implicitly encouraged by leaders of the Conservative movement? Possible enough that we might want to take a serious look at what’s going on?
Before dismissing this as Liberal paranoia, let’s play a thought game:
What if, during the 2000 election, a radical leftist had gone on a shooting spree in an evangelical church leaving behind a note saying he wanted to, “kill conservatives?” Not long thereafter, Gore’s VP candidate had grinned and encouraged crowds shouting that Bush was a fascist who should be killed. After the election of Bush, left wing acts of violence dotted the country in the following months as prominent Liberals organized and encouraged town halls where Bush was described as dangerous and a threat. A Democratic congressional candidate advocated violent revolution if Liberals lost elections and a prominent Democratic governor mentioned seceding if Bush's agenda continued. And then a gun-totting member of a radical Black church congregation whose pastor called for Bush’s death came to a rally that the President was at? How calm, nuanced, reasoned and balanced would Fox News and talk radio be in reporting on this?
The title, "Right-Wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment", pretty much gives you the thesis. You would think someone in the press at the time might have taken said thesis a little seriously based on:
- Jim Adkinson going on a shooting spree in a Unitarian church in June 2008 because, as explained in a letter he left behind, he “wanted to kill liberals”.
- Campaign rallies toward the end of the Presidential election where a beaming Sarah Palin said things like “You really get it!” to whipped-up crowds yelling “Traitor!” and “Kill him!” when Obama was mentioned.
- An assassination plot by skinhead groups that was broken up shortly after the election.
- Conservative groups organizing anti-Obama “Tea Parties” across the nation including one in which Texas Governor Rick Perry said frustration with the government might run so high that Texas might have to secede.
- Richard Poplawski in Pennsylvania, who frequently fretted about "the Obama gun ban that's on the way" staging a domestic disturbance on April 4th, donning body-armor and loading an AK-47 to then shoot the officers who responded.
By April, was it really that ridiculous to think that economic hardship in the country, combined with a sudden political change and exacerbated by alarmism from Rightist media, might be creating a milieu of violent extremism?
One could certainly make the case that Adkinson and Poplawski were lone nuts, but as subsequent coverage has made clear, they weren’t lone nuts who appeared out of the ether. Officers found Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by talk show host Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly in Adkinson’s apartment after the shooting. The note he left behind specifically mentions wanting to kill the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37). Poplawski turned out to be a follower of Alex Jones, who used to be a fringe 9-11 conspiracist but by March 2009 appeared on FoxNews.com hailed as “the one, the only, the great Alex Jones," in a segment warning about "what the government has done to take your liberty and your property away."
If mainstream media didn’t spot any emerging trend in April, you think they might have been on to one this summer, when, in the space of less than two weeks:
- Shawna Forde, a former member of the anti-illegal immigration border watch group the Minutemen, posed with another man as police officers in order to enter the home of a Hispanic family and kill them in Arizona on May 30th.
- Prominent abortion doctor Richard Tiller was gunned down in church in Wichita, Kansas on May 31st.
- White supremacist James Wenneker von Brunn went on a shooting spree in the National Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. on June 10th.
Still not enough trend? How about Virginia Congressional candidate Catherine Crabill in July helpfully noting that, if candidates trying to stop “Marxism” fail to get elected in November, at least we still have guns to affect change? How about the town hall meetings and Tea Parties all fall where Obama has been excoriated in the most inflammatory language? Find Mark Williams of the group Tea Party Express, for example, calling Obama an "Indonesian Muslim and welfare thug".
And then there’s Chris Broughton, who proudly wore an assault rifle and a handgun to an Obama rally in Arizona in August. Far from being a disconnected lone nut, Broughton is actually a member of a church congregation whose pastor, while disavowing calling for anyone in particular to do anything illegal, publicly prays that Obama “die and go to hell.”
Is it possible that a sitting member of Congress shouting “You Lie!” during a Presidential address is the relative ruly tip of an increasingly unruly iceberg of growing radicalization that is implicitly encouraged by leaders of the Conservative movement? Possible enough that we might want to take a serious look at what’s going on?
Before dismissing this as Liberal paranoia, let’s play a thought game:
What if, during the 2000 election, a radical leftist had gone on a shooting spree in an evangelical church leaving behind a note saying he wanted to, “kill conservatives?” Not long thereafter, Gore’s VP candidate had grinned and encouraged crowds shouting that Bush was a fascist who should be killed. After the election of Bush, left wing acts of violence dotted the country in the following months as prominent Liberals organized and encouraged town halls where Bush was described as dangerous and a threat. A Democratic congressional candidate advocated violent revolution if Liberals lost elections and a prominent Democratic governor mentioned seceding if Bush's agenda continued. And then a gun-totting member of a radical Black church congregation whose pastor called for Bush’s death came to a rally that the President was at? How calm, nuanced, reasoned and balanced would Fox News and talk radio be in reporting on this?
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Help with my Ten Books in 2010 self-challenge
I've decided to issue myself a self-challenge in 2010: I'm going to try to read 10 books that are on my "always wanted to, but never got around to" list.
Now is the part where you come in- I've started a list, but it has over ten entires, with more being added all the time. Any particular "yea" votes? Or suggestions about something I might want to add? The list so far (mixing sacred and profane, in no particular order):
-the Illiad
-Paradise Lost
-Short Stories of Dostoevsky
-something by Tom Robbins (what?)
-Catcher in the Rye
-Jesus' Son
-Letters to a Young Poet
-something by Raymond Chandler (what?)
-something by Raymond Carver (particular recommendation?)
-the Analects
-the Varieties of Religious Experience
-Aristotle's Poetics
-The Corrections
-Good in Bed
-Pass it On
-something by DeLillo (I'm leaning towards "Libra")
-Godel, Escher, Bach
-Please Kill Me
-The Epic of Gilgamesh
Any suggestions?
Saturday, September 05, 2009
September Writing News
Now that I’m back from safari (more on that later) I figured it was time for another monthly update on my creative doings:
Film- “Deaf, Dumb and Blind Date”, one section of my three-part short film “Triptych” will screen at the Victoria Theatre on October 4th. I wrote and produced this one, for the next round in Scary Cow I’m thinking of directing a new project as well. While I ponder that, you can check out the previous installment of Triptych that screened in June, “Geek Wars”, on the Scary Cow website, project #33: http://www.scarycow.com/videos/round0008/round008.html
Publication- I just put together a portfolio of things that I’ve had published in the last few years. To my surprise, it reached almost 50 pages. Maybe I’m not as much of a slacker as I think! The latest additions are more musings on hipsters for LEGENDmag: http://legendmag.net/thelegendonline/2009/07/16/invasion-of-the-hipster-bodysnatchers/ , the short prose piece “relapse in 26 lines” for Slouch Magazine: http://www.slouchmag.com/?p=245 , and two poems for the science section in Umbrella Journal’s school-themed issue: http://www.umbrellajournal.com/fall2009/school_contents.html
Performance- I read at Magnet’s “Smackdab” reading series on Wednesday July 15th and at the Gallery Café poetry series on Monday August 3rd. The Magnet audience was mostly gay, which means they were literate and paying attention. Love it! The Gallery Café was also excellent, one of the largest and highest quality reading series I’ve been to, I definitely plan to go back some time. As for September, I’m not sure where I’m going to read yet, but I’m pledged to try, so stay tuned for details…
Novel- Still not sure what I’m going to do with the revision suggestions I got from the manuscript evaluation by the freelance editor I met at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in February regarding my novel, Out in the Neon Night. Until I figure it out, you can read the first chapter on my blog: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-chapter-of-my-novel-in-neon-night.html
Blog- The biggest doing on my blog has been my updates from my three-week trip to Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia in August. I finally have my pictures up too! Check it out here: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-africa-pictures-are-online.html
So there you have it, with more to come…
Film- “Deaf, Dumb and Blind Date”, one section of my three-part short film “Triptych” will screen at the Victoria Theatre on October 4th. I wrote and produced this one, for the next round in Scary Cow I’m thinking of directing a new project as well. While I ponder that, you can check out the previous installment of Triptych that screened in June, “Geek Wars”, on the Scary Cow website, project #33: http://www.scarycow.com/videos/round0008/round008.html
Publication- I just put together a portfolio of things that I’ve had published in the last few years. To my surprise, it reached almost 50 pages. Maybe I’m not as much of a slacker as I think! The latest additions are more musings on hipsters for LEGENDmag: http://legendmag.net/thelegendonline/2009/07/16/invasion-of-the-hipster-bodysnatchers/ , the short prose piece “relapse in 26 lines” for Slouch Magazine: http://www.slouchmag.com/?p=245 , and two poems for the science section in Umbrella Journal’s school-themed issue: http://www.umbrellajournal.com/fall2009/school_contents.html
Performance- I read at Magnet’s “Smackdab” reading series on Wednesday July 15th and at the Gallery Café poetry series on Monday August 3rd. The Magnet audience was mostly gay, which means they were literate and paying attention. Love it! The Gallery Café was also excellent, one of the largest and highest quality reading series I’ve been to, I definitely plan to go back some time. As for September, I’m not sure where I’m going to read yet, but I’m pledged to try, so stay tuned for details…
Novel- Still not sure what I’m going to do with the revision suggestions I got from the manuscript evaluation by the freelance editor I met at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in February regarding my novel, Out in the Neon Night. Until I figure it out, you can read the first chapter on my blog: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-chapter-of-my-novel-in-neon-night.html
Blog- The biggest doing on my blog has been my updates from my three-week trip to Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia in August. I finally have my pictures up too! Check it out here: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-africa-pictures-are-online.html
So there you have it, with more to come…
My Africa pictures are online!
As some of you may have heard, I went to Tanzania
Kenya
and Ethiopia
for three weeks last month. I now have some of my pictures from the trip in an online slideshow. Come and check it out! And you can also read my blogs from the trip if you like...
Kenya
and Ethiopia
for three weeks last month. I now have some of my pictures from the trip in an online slideshow. Come and check it out! And you can also read my blogs from the trip if you like...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The blog Ethiopia didn't want you to see II
I will contend with Africa no more- homeward bound!
I'm writing this at 10 AM (from my perspective) at the Semien Hotel in Addis Ababa, shortly before departing for my journey homeward. The end of (roughly) three weeks in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. Wow!
Yesterday, my last day here in Ethiopia, I spent the morning repaying all the folks whose kindness helped me enjoy Lalibela and Axum. Surprisingly, doing a money transfer at a domestic bank in Ethiopia was nowhere near as mind-numbing as I had feared! After that, I headed to the National Museum. After shaking off the efforts of a wannabe rasta "student" who swooped down on me as soon as the taxi stopped and tried to steer me to other sites that he would "guide" me to, I made my way inside. Man what is it with the scammy gangster wannabe rastas in Ethiopia?
Inside, a real bonafide student who worked at the museum gave me a free guided tour. Punctuated by the lights going out in the middle of a torrential raainstorm right when we reached Lucy. They came back on eventually and great aunt ^ 3.4 million years and I got to visit. It wasn't the real Lucy, which is usually in storage and only available to researchers (but is now touring the world for the first time ever!) but a cast, first of the bones laid out flat, and then reconstructed in a standing position. Australopithecus Afarensis was short, which I appreciate in a hominid, not being the tallest myself.
The museum was also full of a lot of other neat stuff, including some really stunning stone carvings from the 2600 year-old civilization at Yeha, and a fantastic contemporary art section. My guide was also knowledgable, friendly, and totally embarassed when I offered him a small tip at the end of the tour. We exchanged e-mails, as I have with a lot of people here, and hope to keep in touch. He's the kind of person I hope to remember more when I think of this country, rather than predatory pseudo-rastas. Although I guess both are parts of the same reality...
After that I hailed a taxi and tried to reach the national cathedral and a market I had read about that had fair fixed prices (I just don't have the haggle and bargain gene). The driver had never heard of any such places (even though a half dozen people in the last two days had mentioned the cathedral by name to me), but I did get a de facto city tour as he tried to find them. Finally I decided to stop contending with Africa and just return to my hotel. Boy was he consternated by that direction! It's been a long three weeks, and I'm happy to call the contest a draw. Africa-Chris tied 1-1, both retire for the evening.
In my case that meant a warm bath and watching the end of Police Academy on satellite TV. And now I'm here, about to depart. A 2 hour flight to nairobi, layover there, much longer flight to Amsterdam, layover there, and then a two hour flight to San Francisco. At least that's how I interpret it- I leave Amsterdam at 11 AM and arrive in San Francisco at 1 PM. That's two hours, right? Or maybe something is wrong in my figuring...
Regardless, I look forward to seeing you all soon!
I'm writing this at 10 AM (from my perspective) at the Semien Hotel in Addis Ababa, shortly before departing for my journey homeward. The end of (roughly) three weeks in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. Wow!
Yesterday, my last day here in Ethiopia, I spent the morning repaying all the folks whose kindness helped me enjoy Lalibela and Axum. Surprisingly, doing a money transfer at a domestic bank in Ethiopia was nowhere near as mind-numbing as I had feared! After that, I headed to the National Museum. After shaking off the efforts of a wannabe rasta "student" who swooped down on me as soon as the taxi stopped and tried to steer me to other sites that he would "guide" me to, I made my way inside. Man what is it with the scammy gangster wannabe rastas in Ethiopia?
Inside, a real bonafide student who worked at the museum gave me a free guided tour. Punctuated by the lights going out in the middle of a torrential raainstorm right when we reached Lucy. They came back on eventually and great aunt ^ 3.4 million years and I got to visit. It wasn't the real Lucy, which is usually in storage and only available to researchers (but is now touring the world for the first time ever!) but a cast, first of the bones laid out flat, and then reconstructed in a standing position. Australopithecus Afarensis was short, which I appreciate in a hominid, not being the tallest myself.
The museum was also full of a lot of other neat stuff, including some really stunning stone carvings from the 2600 year-old civilization at Yeha, and a fantastic contemporary art section. My guide was also knowledgable, friendly, and totally embarassed when I offered him a small tip at the end of the tour. We exchanged e-mails, as I have with a lot of people here, and hope to keep in touch. He's the kind of person I hope to remember more when I think of this country, rather than predatory pseudo-rastas. Although I guess both are parts of the same reality...
After that I hailed a taxi and tried to reach the national cathedral and a market I had read about that had fair fixed prices (I just don't have the haggle and bargain gene). The driver had never heard of any such places (even though a half dozen people in the last two days had mentioned the cathedral by name to me), but I did get a de facto city tour as he tried to find them. Finally I decided to stop contending with Africa and just return to my hotel. Boy was he consternated by that direction! It's been a long three weeks, and I'm happy to call the contest a draw. Africa-Chris tied 1-1, both retire for the evening.
In my case that meant a warm bath and watching the end of Police Academy on satellite TV. And now I'm here, about to depart. A 2 hour flight to nairobi, layover there, much longer flight to Amsterdam, layover there, and then a two hour flight to San Francisco. At least that's how I interpret it- I leave Amsterdam at 11 AM and arrive in San Francisco at 1 PM. That's two hours, right? Or maybe something is wrong in my figuring...
Regardless, I look forward to seeing you all soon!
The blog Ethiopia didn't want you to see I
I never did get to post my last two entries from Addis Ababa, as the government of Ethiopia, in their infinite wisdom on how to deal with potential dissent, blocks Blogger.com. I was able to post them as Facebook notes (which tells you what a thankless job blocking specific websites in order to silence voices is), I figured I'd post them here for completeness' sake. First below, second to follow...
P.S. I'm back!
*************************************
Last day in Africa!
I think you could make a case that tomorrow is my last day in Africa, since my flight out of Addis Ababa isn't until after noon, and then I have a connecting flight through Nairobi that doesn't leave until 10 PM. But let's not get distracted by technicalities- this is my last (full) day in Africa!
I'm currently in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. I arrived here yesterday from Axum. Many apologies for not blogging more from there, the connections in Axum were 56 kbps dial-up (I didn't think that still existed outside of my parent's house!) and Blogger and Facebook were just way too much for those poor little phone lines.
My second day in Axum I visited the remains of Ethiopia's (and sub-saharan Africa's) oldest surviving structures, a 2600 year-old temple in Yeha, about a half-day's trip from Axum. This site is thought to be the font of all later Ethiopian civilization and completed my journey backwards in time (the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela are around 12th century, the stellea and other remains of the Axumite civilzation are from about 200 BC to 900 AD). It was truly awesome to stand there amidst walls that are still standing from before the birth of Socrates, arund the time of the Old Testament prophets.
The third day in Axum I had a chance to visit the old town, a winding array of old stone houses that was the area where most people lived before moving to the more "modern" concrete and electircity newer parts of town. UNESCO, which is big on preserving the historical heritage sites in Ethiopia, is actually paying most of these people to relocate, so the remains of the Axumite civilization that are under their farmhouses can be recovered. It makes sense, but also seems a shame, since those houses themselves are lovely and historic.
All-in-all, I'm glad I got to spend a third day in Axum, since it gave me a chance to appreciate it on my own (the omnipresent wannabe rastaman guide who met me at the airport had business out of town that day). It also gave me a bit of a break from the guide's constant attempts to hustle and vercharge me for things, although there were plenty of other people around town (including one of the busboys at my hotel!) who tried to take up where he left off. Let's just say if the people in Lalibela made that town seem like heaven, the people in Axum did a good job of presenting the other end of the cosmic spectrum...
But yesterday I arrived here in Addis Ababa, where, among other things, people are too busy being in the capital city to even care to much abut little old tourist me. It's bliss! The city itself is also really lovely- even though the population is well into the millions, the terrain is hilly, trees are everywhere throughout, and the whole thing is ringed by mountains, giving it a much more calm, fresh and open feeling than you might expect. I visited St. George Church and the Ethnographic Museum, which is housed in the former palace of Emperor Haile Selaisse. I even got a chance to see his still preserved bedroom, changing room and bathroom!
Today I have my sights set on the national cathedral, and the National Museum, where I look forward to meeting my great^3.4 million years aunt Lucy. I'll hopefully report about that tomorrow morning, and then I'm homeward bound!
P.S. I'm back!
*************************************
Last day in Africa!
I think you could make a case that tomorrow is my last day in Africa, since my flight out of Addis Ababa isn't until after noon, and then I have a connecting flight through Nairobi that doesn't leave until 10 PM. But let's not get distracted by technicalities- this is my last (full) day in Africa!
I'm currently in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. I arrived here yesterday from Axum. Many apologies for not blogging more from there, the connections in Axum were 56 kbps dial-up (I didn't think that still existed outside of my parent's house!) and Blogger and Facebook were just way too much for those poor little phone lines.
My second day in Axum I visited the remains of Ethiopia's (and sub-saharan Africa's) oldest surviving structures, a 2600 year-old temple in Yeha, about a half-day's trip from Axum. This site is thought to be the font of all later Ethiopian civilization and completed my journey backwards in time (the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela are around 12th century, the stellea and other remains of the Axumite civilzation are from about 200 BC to 900 AD). It was truly awesome to stand there amidst walls that are still standing from before the birth of Socrates, arund the time of the Old Testament prophets.
The third day in Axum I had a chance to visit the old town, a winding array of old stone houses that was the area where most people lived before moving to the more "modern" concrete and electircity newer parts of town. UNESCO, which is big on preserving the historical heritage sites in Ethiopia, is actually paying most of these people to relocate, so the remains of the Axumite civilization that are under their farmhouses can be recovered. It makes sense, but also seems a shame, since those houses themselves are lovely and historic.
All-in-all, I'm glad I got to spend a third day in Axum, since it gave me a chance to appreciate it on my own (the omnipresent wannabe rastaman guide who met me at the airport had business out of town that day). It also gave me a bit of a break from the guide's constant attempts to hustle and vercharge me for things, although there were plenty of other people around town (including one of the busboys at my hotel!) who tried to take up where he left off. Let's just say if the people in Lalibela made that town seem like heaven, the people in Axum did a good job of presenting the other end of the cosmic spectrum...
But yesterday I arrived here in Addis Ababa, where, among other things, people are too busy being in the capital city to even care to much abut little old tourist me. It's bliss! The city itself is also really lovely- even though the population is well into the millions, the terrain is hilly, trees are everywhere throughout, and the whole thing is ringed by mountains, giving it a much more calm, fresh and open feeling than you might expect. I visited St. George Church and the Ethnographic Museum, which is housed in the former palace of Emperor Haile Selaisse. I even got a chance to see his still preserved bedroom, changing room and bathroom!
Today I have my sights set on the national cathedral, and the National Museum, where I look forward to meeting my great^3.4 million years aunt Lucy. I'll hopefully report about that tomorrow morning, and then I'm homeward bound!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Raiders of the Lost Axum
So here I am on my fourth night in Ethiopia, and the first in the town of Axum. Sorry I haven't written for a few days. If you want to introduce some chaos into your travel plans in Africa, I suggest the following:
1. Leave Momabasa, Kenya for a connecting flight through Nairobi to Ehtiopia on the day Kenya airways resolves a three-day old strike.
2. Amidst the total chaos in the Nairobi airport with lines out the door, be lucky to get your (much delayed) flight, and have no time to do anything else at the airport.
3. Upon 2 AM arrival in Addis Ababa, Ehtiopia, find the one open foreign exchange window refuse to change your Kenya Shillings for Ethiopian Birr.
4. Proceed directly via a 7 AM flight to Lalibela, Ethiopia, a small town where nobody exchanges any currency except US$, and no bank will take any form of debit or credit card. You have plenty of money for the next few days, becuase the guidebooks warned you to make sure you had cash as nothing else was accessible, but you can't use any of it.
That being said, the people I met in Lalibela are the nicest people I have met anywhere. The manager at my hotel, the Lal Hotel, said to just charge everything to my room and pay their head office when I got back to Addis Ababa in a few days. And then a very nice gentlemen at the Ehtiopian Airlines office, not wanting me to backtrack to Addis just to be able to change money, loaned me some money to be able to go on here to Axum after Lalibela. My saviors!
The town was just as beautiful as the people. It's the rainy season, so everything is verdant green, and the whole small town is laid out up and down hills. The centerpiece, and the reason I was there, was a series of 12th and 13th century rock-hewn churches that were meant to create a "New Jerusalem" in Ethiopia and continue to be a pilgrimmage site to this day. Simply stunning to see, and to feel the power of people chanting and praying in carved out stone that has been visited continually for over 900 years.
And today I was on to Axum, which was the site of a major civilization that traded far and wide from about 400 BC to 900 AD. They left huge craved stellae (think, big stone obelisk) which I visited today. They also converted around 300 AD to Christianity, becoming the second oldest Christian nation in the world. The big pilgrammage site here is Saint Mary of Zion, built around 1600 by medieval Ethiopian emperors on the foundations of an older church dating to around 600 AD. There's also a small chapel on the grounds that's said to house the Ark of the Covenant.
Yes, that's right, the Ark of the Covenant. Legend has it that it was brought to Ethiopia by the Queen of Sheba's son by King Solomon. The Ehtiopian Emperors, right down to Haille Selaisse, continued to claim descent from Solomon. Only the head priest can enter the holy of holies hwere it's kept, but I did my best to soak up sacred emananations from a distance without bursting in to flame.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to visit the even older ruins of a civilzation at a site near here called Yeha, and then one more day here after that before heading back to Addis Ababa for the finale of my Africa excursion. I hope to write more tomorrow!
1. Leave Momabasa, Kenya for a connecting flight through Nairobi to Ehtiopia on the day Kenya airways resolves a three-day old strike.
2. Amidst the total chaos in the Nairobi airport with lines out the door, be lucky to get your (much delayed) flight, and have no time to do anything else at the airport.
3. Upon 2 AM arrival in Addis Ababa, Ehtiopia, find the one open foreign exchange window refuse to change your Kenya Shillings for Ethiopian Birr.
4. Proceed directly via a 7 AM flight to Lalibela, Ethiopia, a small town where nobody exchanges any currency except US$, and no bank will take any form of debit or credit card. You have plenty of money for the next few days, becuase the guidebooks warned you to make sure you had cash as nothing else was accessible, but you can't use any of it.
That being said, the people I met in Lalibela are the nicest people I have met anywhere. The manager at my hotel, the Lal Hotel, said to just charge everything to my room and pay their head office when I got back to Addis Ababa in a few days. And then a very nice gentlemen at the Ehtiopian Airlines office, not wanting me to backtrack to Addis just to be able to change money, loaned me some money to be able to go on here to Axum after Lalibela. My saviors!
The town was just as beautiful as the people. It's the rainy season, so everything is verdant green, and the whole small town is laid out up and down hills. The centerpiece, and the reason I was there, was a series of 12th and 13th century rock-hewn churches that were meant to create a "New Jerusalem" in Ethiopia and continue to be a pilgrimmage site to this day. Simply stunning to see, and to feel the power of people chanting and praying in carved out stone that has been visited continually for over 900 years.
And today I was on to Axum, which was the site of a major civilization that traded far and wide from about 400 BC to 900 AD. They left huge craved stellae (think, big stone obelisk) which I visited today. They also converted around 300 AD to Christianity, becoming the second oldest Christian nation in the world. The big pilgrammage site here is Saint Mary of Zion, built around 1600 by medieval Ethiopian emperors on the foundations of an older church dating to around 600 AD. There's also a small chapel on the grounds that's said to house the Ark of the Covenant.
Yes, that's right, the Ark of the Covenant. Legend has it that it was brought to Ethiopia by the Queen of Sheba's son by King Solomon. The Ehtiopian Emperors, right down to Haille Selaisse, continued to claim descent from Solomon. Only the head priest can enter the holy of holies hwere it's kept, but I did my best to soak up sacred emananations from a distance without bursting in to flame.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to visit the even older ruins of a civilzation at a site near here called Yeha, and then one more day here after that before heading back to Addis Ababa for the finale of my Africa excursion. I hope to write more tomorrow!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Last night in Kenya
I'm back in Mombasa now after a sweaty, jostly but otherwise quite fine ride down the coast from Watamu. This is my last night in Kenya- tomorrow I do some sightseeing around town, and then head to the airport for the flight to Ethiopia. This is also the halfway mark of my journey overall, the first half in Tanzania and Kenya, and now the next half in Ethiopia. In honor of this, I'd like to mention a few things about the Tanzania/Kenya potyion that didn't make it in to the daily narrative:
- I love women's dresses. No, this isn't some kind of long overdue confession. Rather, just an appreciation for the incredible colors and patterns I've seen in dresses all over these two countires.
- Matatus rock! They're these litle minibuses that are the main means of transport, and they're much cheaper than any taxi or bus, and always colorfully decorated. usually with religious themes, but I've also seen Jay-Z, Eminem, Ludacris and Led Zeppelin.
- Safari moments that didn't make the main narrative, like when my driver got out to pee at one point, and a distant herd of elephants trumpeted and formed a defensive circle around their young, or when he caused a mother lion to long around puzzled when he mimicked the meow of one of her cubs.
- The sounds and smells of safari. You know the images, buy you have to include the smell of dung, pervasive mooing of wildebeest, and incredible racket of hippos.
- Also that it's not all fun and games. I saw bones scattered all over, we came across hyaneas chewing on the head of a wildebeest, and at one point we came upon a dying hyeana by the side of the road, after it had probably fought with others or (m guide guessed) been kicked by a buffalo.
- Cats! I never saw any in Tanzania, but there was a black cat at the border crossing with Kenya (good sign) and I've seen them around in cities and villages all over Kenya.
- The sound of the call to prayer at all hours of night and day. Tanzania and Kenya are both about half and half Muslim and Christian, and the coast in Kenya where I've been for the last few days is mostly Muslim, so there's always a mosque nearby.
These are a few things that come to mind now, I'm sure I'm missing many others. But soon it's on to Ethiopia, with all new adventures to share! I'm arriving very late, so probably I'll check in the day after tomorrow. See you all then!
Chris
- I love women's dresses. No, this isn't some kind of long overdue confession. Rather, just an appreciation for the incredible colors and patterns I've seen in dresses all over these two countires.
- Matatus rock! They're these litle minibuses that are the main means of transport, and they're much cheaper than any taxi or bus, and always colorfully decorated. usually with religious themes, but I've also seen Jay-Z, Eminem, Ludacris and Led Zeppelin.
- Safari moments that didn't make the main narrative, like when my driver got out to pee at one point, and a distant herd of elephants trumpeted and formed a defensive circle around their young, or when he caused a mother lion to long around puzzled when he mimicked the meow of one of her cubs.
- The sounds and smells of safari. You know the images, buy you have to include the smell of dung, pervasive mooing of wildebeest, and incredible racket of hippos.
- Also that it's not all fun and games. I saw bones scattered all over, we came across hyaneas chewing on the head of a wildebeest, and at one point we came upon a dying hyeana by the side of the road, after it had probably fought with others or (m guide guessed) been kicked by a buffalo.
- Cats! I never saw any in Tanzania, but there was a black cat at the border crossing with Kenya (good sign) and I've seen them around in cities and villages all over Kenya.
- The sound of the call to prayer at all hours of night and day. Tanzania and Kenya are both about half and half Muslim and Christian, and the coast in Kenya where I've been for the last few days is mostly Muslim, so there's always a mosque nearby.
These are a few things that come to mind now, I'm sure I'm missing many others. But soon it's on to Ethiopia, with all new adventures to share! I'm arriving very late, so probably I'll check in the day after tomorrow. See you all then!
Chris
Friday, August 14, 2009
My Life in Ruins
Hello from Watamu! Which is a coastal town in Kenya, about 50 miles north of Mombasa. I arrived here yesterday by a little 9 seater van, the ubiquitous form of inter-city transport here in East Africa. It was a pretty uneventful journey, although the old lady next to me was wincing the whole time. At first I thought it was me, but then I realized she had some kind of pain. Other than the general pain of being jammed in a mini-van with 8 sweaty people.
I came here to visit the nearby ruins at Gede, which I went to today. There was apparently a very prosperous Swahili trading town here from around 1200-1500, although no historical record mentions it. It was large though, with a palace, inner and outer walls, and numerous houses and mosques, and the people there traded with Arabia, India, the Meditarranean and China based on goods found there. All of it now is stone ruins, crumbling into the jungle. It really struck me, bing there in this place that was once busy, touching stone walls that somebody had erected 600 years ago, and then eventually totally abandoned it. There weren't many people there, most of the jungle trails I had to myself, so much so that I occassionally wondered if I'd get back to the entrance on my own. I did though, and had some quality monkey and butterfly encounters along the way.
That mission being accomplished, I'm heading back to Mombasa tomorrow, and then flying on to Ethiopia the next day. Until then, I'm going back to my guest house and it's resident herd of goats and swarm of cats. Now that's wildlife!
I came here to visit the nearby ruins at Gede, which I went to today. There was apparently a very prosperous Swahili trading town here from around 1200-1500, although no historical record mentions it. It was large though, with a palace, inner and outer walls, and numerous houses and mosques, and the people there traded with Arabia, India, the Meditarranean and China based on goods found there. All of it now is stone ruins, crumbling into the jungle. It really struck me, bing there in this place that was once busy, touching stone walls that somebody had erected 600 years ago, and then eventually totally abandoned it. There weren't many people there, most of the jungle trails I had to myself, so much so that I occassionally wondered if I'd get back to the entrance on my own. I did though, and had some quality monkey and butterfly encounters along the way.
That mission being accomplished, I'm heading back to Mombasa tomorrow, and then flying on to Ethiopia the next day. Until then, I'm going back to my guest house and it's resident herd of goats and swarm of cats. Now that's wildlife!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
So now we're in Kenya...
...Mombasa, to be exact, the second largest city in Kenya with a lovely location right on the Indian Ocean. I am so happy to smell ocean again! What can I say, I'm a coastal kind of guy... In any case, I arrived here through what has probably been the most dangerous part of my journey to date, a 9 hour bus ride from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It actually wasn't too scary, and I ended up going with a really local carrier, a girl from China, 2 Spaniards and I were the only non-Africans on the bus. The most heart-stopping moment came when we debussed for lunch. I didn't know what was going on, and by the time I got my order together and started eating, the bus was making like to leave the parking lot! Much fun scrambling ensued. Anyway, I'm here now and I quite like here.
A lot of people in Arusha pointed out to me that the Bush from Arusha to Mombasa is actually faster than from Dar es Salaam, so i didn't need to fly there first. The reservation was already pre-paid, though, so I went with the wheels that were already in motion. I kind of wish I had known about it beforehand, though, becuase Dar was chaotic and most maked by a fight with my hotel when they said I couldn't downgrade from deluxe to regular. At which point I walked out, and headed to a hotel next door. I'm still looking for the hotel police to bust me, but I guess I'm safe since I'm in another country now.
Flying there did get me a stop at the island resort of Zanzibar on the way, though. The white sand beaches and coral reefs were duly spectacular from the air. And sitting with a bunch of bus goers in a dark alley at 6 AM waiting to disembark is it's own kind of fun too. I've been up at or before 6 half the days I've been here so far! I think I need to look up the meaning of the word "vacation"...
For now, though, I'm just happy because this city is pretty groovy, and my room has a bathtub, something I've been coveting. Tomorrow I'm up at a reasonable hour and taking a bus up the coast to a small beachside town where I'm going to stay for two nights, as a base to check out the ruins of an old Swahili trading town. Internet allowing, I'll check in from there tomorrow.
A lot of people in Arusha pointed out to me that the Bush from Arusha to Mombasa is actually faster than from Dar es Salaam, so i didn't need to fly there first. The reservation was already pre-paid, though, so I went with the wheels that were already in motion. I kind of wish I had known about it beforehand, though, becuase Dar was chaotic and most maked by a fight with my hotel when they said I couldn't downgrade from deluxe to regular. At which point I walked out, and headed to a hotel next door. I'm still looking for the hotel police to bust me, but I guess I'm safe since I'm in another country now.
Flying there did get me a stop at the island resort of Zanzibar on the way, though. The white sand beaches and coral reefs were duly spectacular from the air. And sitting with a bunch of bus goers in a dark alley at 6 AM waiting to disembark is it's own kind of fun too. I've been up at or before 6 half the days I've been here so far! I think I need to look up the meaning of the word "vacation"...
For now, though, I'm just happy because this city is pretty groovy, and my room has a bathtub, something I've been coveting. Tomorrow I'm up at a reasonable hour and taking a bus up the coast to a small beachside town where I'm going to stay for two nights, as a base to check out the ruins of an old Swahili trading town. Internet allowing, I'll check in from there tomorrow.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Lions and hippos and boars, oh my!
I'm back from my three-day safari to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro parks in Tanzania. This will be a little brief and impressionistic, as I am a bit bleary thanks to three days in a row of 6 AM awakenings. Some of the things that stand out for me, amidst an overall experience that was amazing and outstanding:
- The red and purple-garbed Maasai herders tending animals along the roads.
- The variety of climates from arid semi-desert ot mountain rainforest to grasslands.
- Did I say grasslands? Vast grasslands in the Serengeti, stretching to the horizon with a sky bigger than you can imagine.
- Camping under the unfamiliar, and yet not, diamond blaze of the southern stars.
- Baboons swarming across the road the minute we entered Ngorongoro Park.
- The first sighting of an elephant emerging from the mist.
- Seeing a hippo chasing a lion away from a watering hole.
- Lions? Yes, many, often quite close. Sometimes with cubs.
- The roaring and tense stare-offs that occured when one pride of lions strayed too close to another.
- Not to let the rest of the feline world be outdone, cheetahs, a leopard, and a serval cat (a litle spotted wildat, which darted across the road with something in it's mouth).
- Zebras wandering through our campsite at Ngorongoro, and the elephants that came to drink from the watertank there.
- Ngorongoro itself, a crater formed by the collapse of a twenty-mile wide volcanic crater, with tropical rainforests on it's flanks, and runoff feeding in to grasslands down below and creating a lake in the center.
-Olduvai Gorge. I could write a whole entry on that place alone. Suffice it to say that being where our whole genus was born was a profund experience for me. Go Homos! (and props to Australopithecines as well).
These are just some of the things that come to mind. In a basically two-day period (minus driving two and from, two days in the parks themselves) I saw elephants, giraffes, hippos, a rhino, buffalo, wildebeest, more different kinds of antelope and gazelle than I can name, zebras, lions, cheetahs, a leopard, a serval cat, hyaneas, jackals, baboons, monkeys, ostriches and assorted strange and wonderful birds. I'm sure I'm forgetting something in this list, overall an amazing experience, well well worth it. Thanks to my tour operator, Kilidove, and especially to my driver/guide and cook, who went above and beyond the call of service for helping me work things out along the way.
Tomorrow I'm flying to Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, from which I'll take a bus the next day to Mombasa, Kenya. More to follow...
- The red and purple-garbed Maasai herders tending animals along the roads.
- The variety of climates from arid semi-desert ot mountain rainforest to grasslands.
- Did I say grasslands? Vast grasslands in the Serengeti, stretching to the horizon with a sky bigger than you can imagine.
- Camping under the unfamiliar, and yet not, diamond blaze of the southern stars.
- Baboons swarming across the road the minute we entered Ngorongoro Park.
- The first sighting of an elephant emerging from the mist.
- Seeing a hippo chasing a lion away from a watering hole.
- Lions? Yes, many, often quite close. Sometimes with cubs.
- The roaring and tense stare-offs that occured when one pride of lions strayed too close to another.
- Not to let the rest of the feline world be outdone, cheetahs, a leopard, and a serval cat (a litle spotted wildat, which darted across the road with something in it's mouth).
- Zebras wandering through our campsite at Ngorongoro, and the elephants that came to drink from the watertank there.
- Ngorongoro itself, a crater formed by the collapse of a twenty-mile wide volcanic crater, with tropical rainforests on it's flanks, and runoff feeding in to grasslands down below and creating a lake in the center.
-Olduvai Gorge. I could write a whole entry on that place alone. Suffice it to say that being where our whole genus was born was a profund experience for me. Go Homos! (and props to Australopithecines as well).
These are just some of the things that come to mind. In a basically two-day period (minus driving two and from, two days in the parks themselves) I saw elephants, giraffes, hippos, a rhino, buffalo, wildebeest, more different kinds of antelope and gazelle than I can name, zebras, lions, cheetahs, a leopard, a serval cat, hyaneas, jackals, baboons, monkeys, ostriches and assorted strange and wonderful birds. I'm sure I'm forgetting something in this list, overall an amazing experience, well well worth it. Thanks to my tour operator, Kilidove, and especially to my driver/guide and cook, who went above and beyond the call of service for helping me work things out along the way.
Tomorrow I'm flying to Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, from which I'll take a bus the next day to Mombasa, Kenya. More to follow...
Friday, August 07, 2009
Greetings from Arusha
I woke up this morning and confirmed that the vast dark space beyond my room was indeed a vast space, only now not quite so dark. It was a big plain, with dry scrubby brush, rainclouds looming, and the not-too distant mountains hidden in cloud. The air was thick with humidity and the strong smell of life, and birds flittd all around the garden between the bungalows. At breakfast there was a great deal of bird interest in my plate, but they were so pretty I didn't mind. I sat afterward at a table looking out at the brush, writing in my journal and planning out the rest of my day.
The rest of that day started with the driver from Kilidove, the tour company I'm taking the safari with, coming to pick me up to drive me in to town. His name was David, and we talked about rich and poor people, Obama, and history. He was especially keen on my upcoming trip to Ethiopia. Everything got much greener as we approached Arusha, which is by a river and gets the runoff from the mountains. The town is insanely busy, but everybody I've run into is incredibly warm and friendly. There's some hawking of goods to the tourist (of which there are a lot in this town, since it's the jumping off point for most safaris), but mostly just people who genuinely want to say hi and talk.
I wish I had more time, as it was, I spent the remainder of the day dealing with banks and payments for the safari, which I'm leaving on tomorrow. It's going to be three days, to the Sernengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and (I'm especially excited about this) a stopover at Olduvai Gorge. Since we'll be out in the wild with tents and all, I probably won't be able to write again until late on the 10th or sometime the on the 11th. I will, though, bring back lots of pictures for you all! Love to all until then, especially Abbey and the furry feline monsters we share our home with. I can't wait to tell them about their huge wild cousins when I get back...
The rest of that day started with the driver from Kilidove, the tour company I'm taking the safari with, coming to pick me up to drive me in to town. His name was David, and we talked about rich and poor people, Obama, and history. He was especially keen on my upcoming trip to Ethiopia. Everything got much greener as we approached Arusha, which is by a river and gets the runoff from the mountains. The town is insanely busy, but everybody I've run into is incredibly warm and friendly. There's some hawking of goods to the tourist (of which there are a lot in this town, since it's the jumping off point for most safaris), but mostly just people who genuinely want to say hi and talk.
I wish I had more time, as it was, I spent the remainder of the day dealing with banks and payments for the safari, which I'm leaving on tomorrow. It's going to be three days, to the Sernengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and (I'm especially excited about this) a stopover at Olduvai Gorge. Since we'll be out in the wild with tents and all, I probably won't be able to write again until late on the 10th or sometime the on the 11th. I will, though, bring back lots of pictures for you all! Love to all until then, especially Abbey and the furry feline monsters we share our home with. I can't wait to tell them about their huge wild cousins when I get back...
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Something scurried by in the heart of darkness
This will be brief, as I'm almost incoherently travel-addled, and purloining the hotel's office computer to write this. After more than 24 hours of flights spanning three continents, I'm here! Here is the KIA Lodge, next to Kilimanjaro International airport. Tomorrow I'll head in to Arusha, the town where a lot of the safaris in northern Tanzania leave from. For now I have a bungalow on the edge of a big dark plain, with scrubby brush and dim lighting from the moon through clouds. Something scurried away when the porter turned on the light on the front porch for me. What stayed was tons of geckos, which I hope will minimize the mosquito action. Headed to bed now, with strange new smells wafting in the moonlit breeze around me...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
1,000,000 words
During a recent session of my bi-weekly writing group, while commiserating about what a long, rejection-laden road getting published can be, one of our members mentioned the notion that it’s not until you’ve written a million words that you’re even starting to get good.
While that sounded rather daunting, it reminded me of something I’d read in various Kerouac biographies. When Jack Kerouac first met William S. Burroughs in 1944, he apparently told Burroughs that he’d already written a million words. That always caught my imagination, impressing me with the relentless incandescence of his output, the drive to just get it out, out, out, at all costs. It also always made me feel like a big, fat failure, and a lethargic one to boot, since he would have only been 22 at the time.
I wondered if anybody else had an opinion about this “million words” idea. I found several people citing a quote from Henry Miller’s “On Writing” to the effect that it takes writing a million words to find your voice. Crime writer Elmore Leonard, who certainly ought to know a thing or two about good strong writing attributes it to the widely-revered John D. McDonald and says:
John D. McDonald said that you had to write a million words before you really knew what you were doing. A million words is ten years. By that time you should have a definite idea of what you want your writing to sound like. That’s the main thing. I don’t think many writers today begin with that goal: to write a certain way that has a definite sound to it.
Science-fiction writer Jerry Pournelle, in an essay about how to get his job, helpfully notes that being an author is a really easy job. Unfortunately, nobody pays you to be an author until you first become a writer, which turns out to take work and time. In fact the work is mostly time, according to him:
I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material.
Pushcart prize-winning poet and novelist Ward Kelley had this intriguing wrinkle to contribute:
There’s that old saw about becoming a writer–if you want to be one, you first have to write a million words. While it’s an old saw, I believe it to be true. However, you seldom hear mentioned what should be tagged to the end of it. The axiom should include the reason for the million words: all these practice words put a writer in position to use the best literary advice I ever discovered. That advice is "don’t think."
Okay. Fine.
Where, I wondered, was I against this benchmark? I started to tally up the various things I’ve written since I recommitted to my childhood dream of writing following my divorce in 2002. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, between the manuscript of my novel, a not-yet completed new novel, print and online essays and articles, my short film screenplays, poetry, as-yet unpublished short stories, blog postings, and journals, I am closing in on 800,000 words. At this pace, in another two to three years I’ll reach 1 million and actually be starting to produce something worthwhile. Hooray!
That honestly doesn’t seem so bad now that I’ve come this far. And if I’ll be almost twenty years older at that point than Kerouac was when he reached one million, maybe my remaining creative (not to mention physical) lifespan will at least match the 25 years that lay ahead of him at 22. Not too bad, not too bad…
Friday, July 10, 2009
Man has invented more doom!
You may have seen my blog from earlier in the year tracking stories that had to do with the gathering forces of genetic manipulation, cybernetics and artificial intelligence that, I would (and d0) content stand to fundamentally transform our species into something new within short order (less than 100 years, quite possibly less than 50 years). That blog was illustrated with stories I'd run across in the first quarter of the year. I thought I'd update it now with some from Q2:
So what do you think? Has man, as Bob Dylan puts it in License to Kill, "Invented his doom"? What does "doom" mean in this context? Unparalleled disaster, or a bold new change?
Robot scientists can think for themselves
Mind-Reading Device Sends Twitter Messages
DNA Nanotechnology making custom shapes
Genetically engineered monkeys pass on glow to offspring
Human Language Gene Changes the Sound of Mouse Squeaks
Synthetic fiber may cure blindness
Robot displaying emotions unveiled
Robot surgeon finds tiny shrapnel
Australian scientists kill cancer cells with "Trojan horse"
So what do you think? Has man, as Bob Dylan puts it in License to Kill, "Invented his doom"? What does "doom" mean in this context? Unparalleled disaster, or a bold new change?
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
July (and June!) Writing News
Yes, we’ve gone into extended two-month issues for the summer. You know how it is, what with family visiting and being out of town and moving in with girlfriends and all. At least that’s what I did on my summer vacation! In between, some creative activity has occurred as well. To whit:
Film- “Geek Wars”, one part of my three-part short film “Triptych” (formerly “Three Conversations About No Thing”) screened at the Victoria Theatre on June 7th. The audience seemed to enjoy it. You might too! You can see it on the Scary Cow website, project #33: http://www.scarycow.com/videos/round0008/round008.html . You can also catch me playing the pizza delivery guy briefly at the beginning of #22, “Just Super”, which I did set management & costuming for as well. The crew is currently working on editing the remainder of Triptych, which we’ll screen during Scary Cow’s next quarterly screening this fall. I’ll announce more as the time approaches...
Publication- I’m at 22 submissions for the first half of the year, not far off my goal of one a week, and already higher than all of 2008! The acceptance rate is currently at 9% versus 2008’s eventual 14.3%, for those of you with a statistical interest. Two of the latest fruits of this labor to appear are “Post-separation alone at night listening to Patti Smith sing “Dancing Barefoot” while thinking of mistakes I made while living in Hong Kong blues” in Lit Up Magazine (posted May 30th): http://litupmagazine.wordpress.com/ and “Twelve Steps to the New Israel of the Beats” in the July issue of SoMa Literary Review: http://www.somalit.com/New_Israel.html
Performance- I read at the Café Brainwash open mic on May 18th, my fourth public reading so far this year. It was a really fun, boisterous venue, and I got to be all prophetic by reading a new poem on autoerotic asphyxiation before that whole David Carradine business. My next targets are to read at Magnet’s “Smackdab” reading series on Wednesday July 15th and at the Gallery Café poetry series on Monday August 3rd. See you there?
Novel- I’m currently absorbing the manuscript evaluation feedback from the freelance editor I met at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference in February regarding my novel, Out in the Neon Night. What she advises would be some significant structural reworking, but it is intriguing, I just need to figure out if I agree and if I’m up for it. Until then, you can read the first chapter on my blog: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/2009/02/first-chapter-of-my-novel-in-neon-night.html
Blog- Did I just say Blog? Yes I did! You can catch up with my attempt to write 40 poems in 40 days, musings on Dylan, and other topics at: http://chris-west.blogspot.com/ Definitely check it out in August, when I’ll be traveling in
I look forward to sharing more with you in all these areas now that we’re in the second half of the year!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Forty Poems in 40 days-sputtered out at 35.
Well, it was a noble experiement. And if moving and the busiest work week I've had in like, ever at this job, and an out of town trip all conspired to zap me short of the finish line, I still learned something. Namely that, despite what I have long believed, one does not have to passively wait for the Muse to arrive to do poetry. It can be practiced on demand. Maybe not always prettily, but it is possible. Good news for stuck poets everywhere who want the kick-start! Below are entries 21-35. You can find 1-10 and 11-20 in previous entries.
************************************************
Two shakes of a lamb’s tail
Urban Dictionary:
Where did the phrase come from?
Answer Girl:
No one seems to know.
Her dark matter:
One who has seen, sees readily.
The Maven’s Word of the Day:
Visualize those little tails
constantly thrashing
back and forth.
Book of Love
Who, they ask
(understand, despite
my coming disparagement
of it,
that it remains
a damn fine question)
who,
who wrote the book of love.
Who wrote it?
We ought to ask:
Has anybody ever read
the motherfucker?
The world has
by and large
seems to have
left it on the shelf.
But you and I,
You and I…
Meeting Abbey’s Mom
Curtain pulled to one side
staring out morning window
with the cat.
Hand on doorknob
deep breath before opening
warm flannel
deep bosom hug.
Amused smile
sideways glances
holding her hand.
Hearing of
embarrassing childhood
stories
now warming
to possibilities.
Do it now!
Turn down the dog
Switch off the cat
Floss your pants
Fluff the driveway
Put on your groceries
Unzip the TV
Slip on your car
Make the garden
Water your bed
Fold the eggs
Whatever word is given
Act don’t think
Do it now
Concrete Poem
one square
gray
with hints
of silver and white
smooth plane
marred by chunks
scratches
and lumps of age
spotted with pads
of squashed black
sticky gum
white splatter
left by
passing bird
and green-yellow scrub
growing at the margins
Ergonome’s 12 Golden Rules for safe keyboard use #11 & 12 work well for life in general too
When you travel
from Home,
don’t resist
natural movement
When you’re not traveling,
Rest at Home
Church Street Café
Back when it was Muddy Waters
this place
used to be
a train-wreck,
each pitted, scarred table
a coach carrying
a choir of whores
who gargled
waterfalls of scorn,
their filth lodged
in every crevice
of the cracked,
blackened brick wall.
When it was renamed
a gong must have struck
in some eternal realm
sparking a baptism,
the whole place born again
as a respectable haunt
of laptop computers
and advertising execs
talking independent film.
Morning commute, 28 Fort Mason
Bank of dirty brown-gray cloud behind
Stonestown pull of the magnet from the
journal clasp on the pen ivy-choked parking
lot fence work crew shoveling piles of tar
into hole in the road hedges look like an
80s rapper’s haircut San Francisco Masonic
Center glares through lack of windows
Taraval Vietnamese place orange green
red splash of color on the corner Sunset
lettered avenues a sea of pastel houses
squat peach Jiffy Lube guards Noriega’s
slope down to the sea growing crowd of
elderly Chinese at the front of the bus
broken by lone Russian newspaper reader
“wet paint” sign by the barrel-chested
green trash can on Judah chipped paint on
a forlorn tan house between Iriving and
Lincoln thick green trees on either side of
the fast route through the park clear smell
of eucalyptus through the window blue-suited
crews watering & pruning he rose garden at
Fulton the girl on at Balboa long straight
blonde hair mass exodus at Geary as always
California connection to Chinatown finishes
off the stragglers white arrows point toward
narrow lanes green walls climb the side
toward the tunnel flickering halogen light in
concrete tube on the other side tall trees in
the Presidio like matchsticks white clock and
red lights on the toll booth steel gray bay and
red thrust of bridge up into foggy
disappearance ivy ripples in the wind at the
turnaround Coast Guard ship clipping white
trail through the Bay Palace dome with white
city dully gleaming in background light is
transparent here at the stop.
ST:TMP
The first twenty minutes
always makes me cry
With the medal cast
on the burning sands
The Golden Gate
And the shuttle
with the admiral
circling the ship
like a lover
approaching the beloved
with hushed reverence
Changing Viewpoints
We are flat, and
it moves around us.
We are round, and
it moves around us.
We move around it,
in epicycles.
We move around it,
in ellipses.
We move around it,
in ellipses, determined by
the force of gravity.
We, and it, and millions of others
are all gathered together.
Billions of others, all gathered
together in a giant pinwheel.
Our pinwheel just one of billions.
Just one of billions
all expanding outward
from a single point.
From a single point,
that’s a quantum fluctuation.
Quantum fluctuations
are influenced by observers.
It moves around us?
This seat is mine motherfucker!
Surge of adrenaline
and leap to the feet
from the crappy side-facing seat
as the bus slams to a stop.
Launch down the aisle
icy stare-down of the old man
bounding my way,
proceed
with no regard
for little old ladies
boarding in the back.
Slide in to the last forward-facing seat
for the long ride to come,
panic finally subsiding.
(untitled)
from pointing straight up
to shriveled
can happen in six seconds flat
when she pulls a gun
Ode to Sinatra and Sean Combs in Hell
I see k.d. lang
on TV screen
singing with Tony Bennet
and I like her less.
What’s she doing
with that thug?
Then I realize I’m confusing
Tony Bennet
with Dean Martin
and I like them both again.
And really
I only feel that way
about Dean Martin
because he palled around with
Frank Sinatra.
So maybe
he’s innocent too.
Regardless,
my contempt for P. Puff-diddly Comb
and his whole genocidal crew
remains undimmed.
I guess I just don’t like gangsters.
Every day in recovery is like this
The bee on my shoulder
buzzes.
It is his nature,
he means no particular harm.
I move to swat.
It is instinct,
I contemplate it without malice.
Pausing,
I use the umbrella strap
to brush him off.
A new day has dawned.
Singing the lease
walking from room to room
checking the fixtures
your ghost was on me
like a rabid Pomeranian
************************************************
Two shakes of a lamb’s tail
Urban Dictionary:
Where did the phrase come from?
Answer Girl:
No one seems to know.
Her dark matter:
One who has seen, sees readily.
The Maven’s Word of the Day:
Visualize those little tails
constantly thrashing
back and forth.
Book of Love
Who, they ask
(understand, despite
my coming disparagement
of it,
that it remains
a damn fine question)
who,
who wrote the book of love.
Who wrote it?
We ought to ask:
Has anybody ever read
the motherfucker?
The world has
by and large
seems to have
left it on the shelf.
But you and I,
You and I…
Meeting Abbey’s Mom
Curtain pulled to one side
staring out morning window
with the cat.
Hand on doorknob
deep breath before opening
warm flannel
deep bosom hug.
Amused smile
sideways glances
holding her hand.
Hearing of
embarrassing childhood
stories
now warming
to possibilities.
Do it now!
Turn down the dog
Switch off the cat
Floss your pants
Fluff the driveway
Put on your groceries
Unzip the TV
Slip on your car
Make the garden
Water your bed
Fold the eggs
Whatever word is given
Act don’t think
Do it now
Concrete Poem
one square
gray
with hints
of silver and white
smooth plane
marred by chunks
scratches
and lumps of age
spotted with pads
of squashed black
sticky gum
white splatter
left by
passing bird
and green-yellow scrub
growing at the margins
Ergonome’s 12 Golden Rules for safe keyboard use #11 & 12 work well for life in general too
When you travel
from Home,
don’t resist
natural movement
When you’re not traveling,
Rest at Home
Church Street Café
Back when it was Muddy Waters
this place
used to be
a train-wreck,
each pitted, scarred table
a coach carrying
a choir of whores
who gargled
waterfalls of scorn,
their filth lodged
in every crevice
of the cracked,
blackened brick wall.
When it was renamed
a gong must have struck
in some eternal realm
sparking a baptism,
the whole place born again
as a respectable haunt
of laptop computers
and advertising execs
talking independent film.
Morning commute, 28 Fort Mason
Bank of dirty brown-gray cloud behind
Stonestown pull of the magnet from the
journal clasp on the pen ivy-choked parking
lot fence work crew shoveling piles of tar
into hole in the road hedges look like an
80s rapper’s haircut San Francisco Masonic
Center glares through lack of windows
Taraval Vietnamese place orange green
red splash of color on the corner Sunset
lettered avenues a sea of pastel houses
squat peach Jiffy Lube guards Noriega’s
slope down to the sea growing crowd of
elderly Chinese at the front of the bus
broken by lone Russian newspaper reader
“wet paint” sign by the barrel-chested
green trash can on Judah chipped paint on
a forlorn tan house between Iriving and
Lincoln thick green trees on either side of
the fast route through the park clear smell
of eucalyptus through the window blue-suited
crews watering & pruning he rose garden at
Fulton the girl on at Balboa long straight
blonde hair mass exodus at Geary as always
California connection to Chinatown finishes
off the stragglers white arrows point toward
narrow lanes green walls climb the side
toward the tunnel flickering halogen light in
concrete tube on the other side tall trees in
the Presidio like matchsticks white clock and
red lights on the toll booth steel gray bay and
red thrust of bridge up into foggy
disappearance ivy ripples in the wind at the
turnaround Coast Guard ship clipping white
trail through the Bay Palace dome with white
city dully gleaming in background light is
transparent here at the stop.
ST:TMP
The first twenty minutes
always makes me cry
With the medal cast
on the burning sands
The Golden Gate
And the shuttle
with the admiral
circling the ship
like a lover
approaching the beloved
with hushed reverence
Changing Viewpoints
We are flat, and
it moves around us.
We are round, and
it moves around us.
We move around it,
in epicycles.
We move around it,
in ellipses.
We move around it,
in ellipses, determined by
the force of gravity.
We, and it, and millions of others
are all gathered together.
Billions of others, all gathered
together in a giant pinwheel.
Our pinwheel just one of billions.
Just one of billions
all expanding outward
from a single point.
From a single point,
that’s a quantum fluctuation.
Quantum fluctuations
are influenced by observers.
It moves around us?
This seat is mine motherfucker!
Surge of adrenaline
and leap to the feet
from the crappy side-facing seat
as the bus slams to a stop.
Launch down the aisle
icy stare-down of the old man
bounding my way,
proceed
with no regard
for little old ladies
boarding in the back.
Slide in to the last forward-facing seat
for the long ride to come,
panic finally subsiding.
(untitled)
from pointing straight up
to shriveled
can happen in six seconds flat
when she pulls a gun
Ode to Sinatra and Sean Combs in Hell
I see k.d. lang
on TV screen
singing with Tony Bennet
and I like her less.
What’s she doing
with that thug?
Then I realize I’m confusing
Tony Bennet
with Dean Martin
and I like them both again.
And really
I only feel that way
about Dean Martin
because he palled around with
Frank Sinatra.
So maybe
he’s innocent too.
Regardless,
my contempt for P. Puff-diddly Comb
and his whole genocidal crew
remains undimmed.
I guess I just don’t like gangsters.
Every day in recovery is like this
The bee on my shoulder
buzzes.
It is his nature,
he means no particular harm.
I move to swat.
It is instinct,
I contemplate it without malice.
Pausing,
I use the umbrella strap
to brush him off.
A new day has dawned.
Singing the lease
walking from room to room
checking the fixtures
your ghost was on me
like a rabid Pomeranian
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Forty Poems in Forty Days- part II
Half way through my self-imposed challenge of writing 40 poems in 40 days, and I'm still in it. As proof, here are the poems from days 11-20. Fair warning: among the prompts in this ten day period were writing something repulsive and/or not politically correct, and writing an over the top erotic poem. If you read further, having been warned, I am not responsible for what happens to you...
************************************************
Day 11 called for no punctuation
The thing is (comma)
it’s not hard for me to do (period)
It’s easy (exclamation point)
I often leave punctuation out
in my poems (semi-colon)
commas (comma)
semicolons (comma)
even periods
or question marks (period)
Doesn’t everyone (question mark)
Bacon!
It’s a
wonderment
of
red,
orange
and
sienna
proteins,
with
twisty white
fatty
pathways
leading
to heaven.
It all makes sense now…
All the mother wounds
God-shaped holes
shifty obsessions
and cat love.
Even the Disappearing Mine
when I was ten
and the meaning
of the Green Flash incident.
I understand it all,
the secret.
The key lies in realizing
that your whole life
is actually—
Ah, but I don’t need
to tell you.
You can see for yourself
just do what I did:
In Microsoft Excel 2009
go to the menu, click on “tools”
choose “data analytics” from the dropdown
install the “analyze my whole damn life” toolpack
then use the help menu
to write the “understand everything” equation.
Minor Hues
Everybody knows
about ochre,
umber
and burnt sienna.
But who respects beaver?
What praise draws timberwolf?
Wherefore not into glory goes cornflower?
Is there a palette
that will honor
these marginal shades
before Crayola
shuffles off
their mortal coil?
The Ideal Man
You can keep
your
Apollo,
Adonis
and young Ganymede
buggered by Jupiter.
Give me
William Shatner,
circa 1967,
yellow-green tunic
torn at the shoulder,
wiping blood
off of his knuckle-busted
Elvis sneer
before teaching
a quarrelsome Klingon
the facts of life.
(untitled haiku)
Poop? Poop! Coprolites?
Maybe in a few million
Shit hardened years
Summer of Hate
I hear it was
really something
that first summer of 1967.
Peace and Flowers
positive vibrations
all that happy hippy bullshit.
But within a few years
the hippies switched
from LSD to speed
started killing cats for food
and the streets
filled with real shit.
Ever since then
it’s been
a Summer of Hate.
A Summer of
yellow-eyed
disease infected homeless
in crap-caked clothes.
A summer of
sneering teen gutter punks
from the burbs
playing homeless for the weekend
spitting on passersby
who don’t give them change.
A Summer of
abscess ridden junkies
leaving their fluids in the gutter
and port-a-potties overflowing
with the orange caps
of their syringes
A Summer of
Those who never made it out
of the Sixties
wandering emaciated
food and dried slobber-ridden
birds nest beards shaking
as they rant to thin air.
A Summer of
faux nostalgia head shops
yuppie ice cream parlors
and comodified counterculture
drawing in
fat, complacent onlookers.
Summer in and Summer out
for almost 40 years now
an Endless Summer
of Haight.
Autoerotic asphyxiation
Every time I think of you
I pull the plastic tubing
a little tighter
swell another half inch
and reach for the lube
How I Know I’m In Love
Sometimes it comes
In little things transformed:
Your earplugs on the dresser
Coated with dried wax
Beautiful to me
Captain! Oh Conservative captain!
(with all due apologies to Walt Whitman and Abe Lincoln)
This twentieth day of May
Two Thousand and Nine
you left us, dear Rush.
Call me no more, you said
the titular head
of the party Republican.
“I never sought it.
I give it back.”
Oh sweet selfless prince!
At the thought of politics
shorn of your presence
I weep, unashamed, like a woman,
and tear my shirt in grief.
“Mention me not,”
you told MSNBC,
“for an entire month!”
An entire month!
Scarcely can I imagine one day
without you by my side
to stem the Liberal tide.
The dark days ahead
seem to me as grim
as to you must seem
the thought of life
without oxycontin.
************************************************
Day 11 called for no punctuation
The thing is (comma)
it’s not hard for me to do (period)
It’s easy (exclamation point)
I often leave punctuation out
in my poems (semi-colon)
commas (comma)
semicolons (comma)
even periods
or question marks (period)
Doesn’t everyone (question mark)
Bacon!
It’s a
wonderment
of
red,
orange
and
sienna
proteins,
with
twisty white
fatty
pathways
leading
to heaven.
It all makes sense now…
All the mother wounds
God-shaped holes
shifty obsessions
and cat love.
Even the Disappearing Mine
when I was ten
and the meaning
of the Green Flash incident.
I understand it all,
the secret.
The key lies in realizing
that your whole life
is actually—
Ah, but I don’t need
to tell you.
You can see for yourself
just do what I did:
In Microsoft Excel 2009
go to the menu, click on “tools”
choose “data analytics” from the dropdown
install the “analyze my whole damn life” toolpack
then use the help menu
to write the “understand everything” equation.
Minor Hues
Everybody knows
about ochre,
umber
and burnt sienna.
But who respects beaver?
What praise draws timberwolf?
Wherefore not into glory goes cornflower?
Is there a palette
that will honor
these marginal shades
before Crayola
shuffles off
their mortal coil?
The Ideal Man
You can keep
your
Apollo,
Adonis
and young Ganymede
buggered by Jupiter.
Give me
William Shatner,
circa 1967,
yellow-green tunic
torn at the shoulder,
wiping blood
off of his knuckle-busted
Elvis sneer
before teaching
a quarrelsome Klingon
the facts of life.
(untitled haiku)
Poop? Poop! Coprolites?
Maybe in a few million
Shit hardened years
Summer of Hate
I hear it was
really something
that first summer of 1967.
Peace and Flowers
positive vibrations
all that happy hippy bullshit.
But within a few years
the hippies switched
from LSD to speed
started killing cats for food
and the streets
filled with real shit.
Ever since then
it’s been
a Summer of Hate.
A Summer of
yellow-eyed
disease infected homeless
in crap-caked clothes.
A summer of
sneering teen gutter punks
from the burbs
playing homeless for the weekend
spitting on passersby
who don’t give them change.
A Summer of
abscess ridden junkies
leaving their fluids in the gutter
and port-a-potties overflowing
with the orange caps
of their syringes
A Summer of
Those who never made it out
of the Sixties
wandering emaciated
food and dried slobber-ridden
birds nest beards shaking
as they rant to thin air.
A Summer of
faux nostalgia head shops
yuppie ice cream parlors
and comodified counterculture
drawing in
fat, complacent onlookers.
Summer in and Summer out
for almost 40 years now
an Endless Summer
of Haight.
Autoerotic asphyxiation
Every time I think of you
I pull the plastic tubing
a little tighter
swell another half inch
and reach for the lube
How I Know I’m In Love
Sometimes it comes
In little things transformed:
Your earplugs on the dresser
Coated with dried wax
Beautiful to me
Captain! Oh Conservative captain!
(with all due apologies to Walt Whitman and Abe Lincoln)
This twentieth day of May
Two Thousand and Nine
you left us, dear Rush.
Call me no more, you said
the titular head
of the party Republican.
“I never sought it.
I give it back.”
Oh sweet selfless prince!
At the thought of politics
shorn of your presence
I weep, unashamed, like a woman,
and tear my shirt in grief.
“Mention me not,”
you told MSNBC,
“for an entire month!”
An entire month!
Scarcely can I imagine one day
without you by my side
to stem the Liberal tide.
The dark days ahead
seem to me as grim
as to you must seem
the thought of life
without oxycontin.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Project Dylan: Bringing it All Back Home (1965)
After a shameful break, I'm back with "Project Dylan", my sequential overview of my favorite Bob Dylan albums. So far I've covered Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A' Changin, and Another Side of Bob Dylan. Now on to Bringing It All Back Home...
****************************************
In standard Dylan exegesis, Bringing It All Back Home is where Dylan breaks with the folkie/protest singer identity of his earlier work. Not only is he already turning electric here, well before he gets to “Like a Rolling Stone”, but his artistic focus turns to an inner symbolic world where his vision reaches the surreal new levels that mark him as the poet of his generation. I suppose that’s all true as far as it goes, but what I hear throughout this album is seething protest. The protest is now bigger, and more fundamental, than civil rights or the anti-war movement. It’s nothing less than a repudiation of the way things are, the entire way society is organized.
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” kicks in to it with full tilt electrified blues, rock and roll by any other name, that in just over two minutes flat of rapid-fire verse paints a picture of a society that one can only hide out from in basements as it seeks to put you on the day shift. And what else is it but the whole system of expectations itself that he doesn’t want to labor for anymore in “Maggie’s Farm”: Well, I try my best/ To be just like I am/ But everybody wants you/ To be just like them/ They sing while you slave and I just get bored/ I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more? The pervasive rebellion reaches a high point on “Outlaw Blues”, an echoing steely blues song that warns off all comers: Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'/ I just might tell you the truth.
The whole argument comes to a conclusion in the masterful incisive poetic stream of consciousness that is “It’s Alright Ma’ (I’m Only Bleeding)”. I won’t go into its rich detail here except to note that the poet, even while admitting: If my thought-dreams could be seen/ They'd probably put my head in a guillotine, still asserts: Although the masters make the rules/ For the wise men and the fools/ I got nothing, Ma, to live up to. Read the rest when you have a chance, and see if it doesn’t ring even more true in the aftermath of financial and consumer collapse in 2009 than it did in 1965.
Even a song that is clearly comedic, like “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”, where Dylan actually busts up laughing at the beginning, uses absurdism and rhyme to lay bare the genocide and thievery at the heart of the founding of the country. The joking “On the Road Again” similarly insists on opting out of the great big out-of-control American nightmare: You ask why I don’t live here?/ Honey how come you don’t move? So too with the seemingly abstract poetry of “Mister Tambourine Man” and “Gates of Eden” which nonetheless seek out realms beyond the straightjacket of everyday life.
There are more personal moments too, including what I think is one of the most beautiful love songs ever written, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”. My heart aches every time I hear the lines: My love she speaks like silence/ Without ideals or violence/ She doesn't have to say she's faithful/ Yet she's true, like ice, like fire, not least because I know nothing I write will ever touch it. “She Belongs to Me” shimmers with line after line of beautiful poetry subtly undercut by the servitude to the woman it portrays. Words also fail to describe the bitter beauty of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, a breakup song that assigns longing and melancholy regret for the breakup to the other party, surely a neat trick if there every was one. It also seems a kind of bridge to the albums larger theme of protest, the bereft woman as American society itself, told to leave failed excess behind and begin again:
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
****************************************
In standard Dylan exegesis, Bringing It All Back Home is where Dylan breaks with the folkie/protest singer identity of his earlier work. Not only is he already turning electric here, well before he gets to “Like a Rolling Stone”, but his artistic focus turns to an inner symbolic world where his vision reaches the surreal new levels that mark him as the poet of his generation. I suppose that’s all true as far as it goes, but what I hear throughout this album is seething protest. The protest is now bigger, and more fundamental, than civil rights or the anti-war movement. It’s nothing less than a repudiation of the way things are, the entire way society is organized.
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” kicks in to it with full tilt electrified blues, rock and roll by any other name, that in just over two minutes flat of rapid-fire verse paints a picture of a society that one can only hide out from in basements as it seeks to put you on the day shift. And what else is it but the whole system of expectations itself that he doesn’t want to labor for anymore in “Maggie’s Farm”: Well, I try my best/ To be just like I am/ But everybody wants you/ To be just like them/ They sing while you slave and I just get bored/ I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more? The pervasive rebellion reaches a high point on “Outlaw Blues”, an echoing steely blues song that warns off all comers: Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'/ I just might tell you the truth.
The whole argument comes to a conclusion in the masterful incisive poetic stream of consciousness that is “It’s Alright Ma’ (I’m Only Bleeding)”. I won’t go into its rich detail here except to note that the poet, even while admitting: If my thought-dreams could be seen/ They'd probably put my head in a guillotine, still asserts: Although the masters make the rules/ For the wise men and the fools/ I got nothing, Ma, to live up to. Read the rest when you have a chance, and see if it doesn’t ring even more true in the aftermath of financial and consumer collapse in 2009 than it did in 1965.
Even a song that is clearly comedic, like “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”, where Dylan actually busts up laughing at the beginning, uses absurdism and rhyme to lay bare the genocide and thievery at the heart of the founding of the country. The joking “On the Road Again” similarly insists on opting out of the great big out-of-control American nightmare: You ask why I don’t live here?/ Honey how come you don’t move? So too with the seemingly abstract poetry of “Mister Tambourine Man” and “Gates of Eden” which nonetheless seek out realms beyond the straightjacket of everyday life.
There are more personal moments too, including what I think is one of the most beautiful love songs ever written, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”. My heart aches every time I hear the lines: My love she speaks like silence/ Without ideals or violence/ She doesn't have to say she's faithful/ Yet she's true, like ice, like fire, not least because I know nothing I write will ever touch it. “She Belongs to Me” shimmers with line after line of beautiful poetry subtly undercut by the servitude to the woman it portrays. Words also fail to describe the bitter beauty of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, a breakup song that assigns longing and melancholy regret for the breakup to the other party, surely a neat trick if there every was one. It also seems a kind of bridge to the albums larger theme of protest, the bereft woman as American society itself, told to leave failed excess behind and begin again:
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
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