Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

The Zenith City

Duluth Current
One thing I love about Duluth is it’s insecurity – a trait I find endearing. For instance: is it a town or is it a city? Is it a decaying post-industrial outpost on the northern frontier or a booming tourist mecca with untold fresh water reserves that will undoubtedly make it the wealthy capital of Sector 7 after the resource wars of the 2060′s?

A nice little homage to my favorite city. Read it — and dream of the day you’ll get to live in wonderful Duluth, Minnesota.

3 a.m. Phone Call

Clinton’s “3 a.m. Phone Call” Ad – The FixWith just five days left before the critical Ohio and Texas primaries, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (N.Y.) campaign is out with a provocative new ad that raises the specter of a future world crisis and asks voters who they would want in the White House if such an event occurred.

This is lame.

First, if you believe for a single instant that Hillary Clinton would be making these earth-shatteringly critical decisions all by herself without consulting experts (and she’s not one), then you are naive.

And second, as president, Barack Obama will have access to the same group of experts that Hillary Clinton would be consulting.

Let’s assume for a moment the scenario of the 3 a.m. phone call is real, though, and for whatever reason, there’s nobody around for the president to consult with. Do you honestly think Clinton is better equipped to handle that kind of situation? A time like that would require, above all else, a leader with wisdom. Experience alone wouldn’t be enough. Without wisdom, we’d be doomed. And, quite honestly, I have to question the wisdom of a candidate who would put out such an ad.

Dispose Of The Meat

A Pet Owner’s Final Choice – washingtonpost.com
“Five or 10 years ago, it was only a handful of people who were paying for services like individual cremations,” says Bob Vetere, the association’s president. “People have humanized pets to such a degree that they are doing almost everything to pets that they do for humans. I am waiting for pet wakes in the future.”

Don’t get me wrong. I love my cats — a lot. But I think this kind of thing is a little crazy. I mean, once they’re gone — they’re gone. All that’s left is meat and fur. I feel the same way about human bodies, too, by the way. I just can’t see spending a bunch of money on all sorts of “special treatment” for the body. It’s just meat! The person you loved is gone, gone, gone.

I like the idea of returning the elements of the body back to the earth as quickly as possible. If there were fewer of us (humans and animals), burial without chemicals or a box would be a good way to go. In highly populated areas, cremation and scattering of ashes isn’t bad.

The body disposal technique I like best of all, though, is sky burial. Now THAT would be a very cool way to go!

“I’m So Smart” No. 8,973

In which I answer the pressing news questions of the day without even bothering to read the articles attached to the headlines.

Q) The economy is tanking. So why is Wal-Mart thriving?

A) Wal-Mart is thriving because when people start to feel the financial pinch, they’re more inclined to shop there even if they hate the place. (And who doesn’t?) Their stuff is cheap and, for the most part, the quality isn’t much different from what you’d get elsewhere.

Q) What’s wrong with the Bush and Clinton plans to suspend foreclosures?

A) It just puts off the inevitable and delays economic recovery. It’s like when you’ve got a sore covered by a band-aid. At some point after the bleeding has stopped and the thing has scabbed over, you know you’re going to have to rip that sucker off. Sure, it hurts — but it’s got to be done and, once it’s exposed to the air, the sore will heal more quickly.

Q) How do you build a public library in the age of Google?

A) You make it a center of learning — not just a repository of books. You make it a cultural center.

Q) How did we get hoodwinked into tolerating abusive interrogations?

A) We didn’t get hoodwinked into tolerating anything. There are a lot of factors at play in this whole issue. Part of it, of course, is plain old secrecy. I have no doubt that we’ve seen only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the terrible things our government has been doing. Fear-mongering: 9/11 scared the shit out of people and people who are frightened will sometimes act rashly. Ignorance: many people just don’t realize that torture is actually not an especially effective method for getting reliable information out of people. More ignorance: our educational system (including parents) doesn’t do a good job of teaching people how to think deeply about complex topics like morality. To a certain extent, our reliance on fast-paced media reinforces shallowness of thought. Sociological factors: Even people who are initially freaked out by the torture will put aside their discomfort when they observe that people around them aren’t alarmed. People in groups will do terrible things that they’d never do alone. Obedience to authority: people in strictly regimented authoritarian environments will do what they’re told to do — even when it may be something they find personally distasteful. In order to understand how this sort of thing happens, you need only consider Germany of the 1930s and 40s. The same kinds of psychological and sociological  principles are at play everywhere and at all times.

Q) My boyfriend insists on roadtripping to his parents house every weekend. What can I do?

A) That’s just plain weird. Dump him.

Q) I’m about to pay way too much for a house, and I know it. Does that make me a fool?

A) Yes.

Q) Should Hillary Clinton drop out?

A) No. Not yet, at least. The longer she’s in, the better Obama looks to people. As she falls behind, her inner control freak becomes more apparent and her handlers resort to sleazier tactics. (They’re really not dong her any favors.) So… no. She should remain in the race a while longer to help more firmly cement Democratic and Independent support for Obama.

Q) It’s a long throw from Mr. McCain’s 71 to Sen. Obama’s 46 and that may be the big invisible issue in the fall: Do we feel better with Papa at the helm or the whiz kid brother? 

A) Well, I can only speak for myself (and for the millions of other truly intelligent voters), but I’ve had more than enough of “Papa’s” style of politics. We no longer live in the world of McCain’s youth. The Cold War is over. China is an economic powerhouse. It’s past time we let the people of the Middle East sort out their problems by themselves. Hard work and a willing spirit are rarely sufficient anymore for a person to make it big in this country. (Senator Obama himself is among the last of that breed.) McCain’s politics are the politics of the past. We need someone who can lead us into the future we all want. That’s a future where all Americans have a chance at a decent job, health care, and the opportunity for a good education. It’s a future where billions of dollars and thousands of young lives aren’t wasted in an unjust war. So, I guess it probably goes without saying that I much prefer the whiz kid.

Please. Give us the whiz kid.

Repost: The Genius of Philip Glass

This is a repost of something I wrote in January of 2005

Nothing Less (washingtonpost.com):
“During [Philip Glass's] second year with [Nadia] Boulanger, he was engaged to transcribe a film score by [Ravi] Shankar into Western notation for some Parisian studio musicians. ‘What came to me as a revelation was the use of rhythm in developing an overall structure in music,’ Glass later wrote. ‘I would explain the difference between the use of Western and Indian music in the following way: In Western music we divide time — as if you were to take a length of time and slice it the way you slice a loaf of bread. In Indian music (and all the non-Western music with which I’m familiar), you take small units, or ‘beats,’ and string them together to make up larger time values.’”

What this made me think of is how a lot of the work of J.S. Bach unfolds. At first, Bach can seem mechanical–like that sliced bread Glass talks about–but, after repeated listening and allowing oneself to become immersed–it seems to me that Bach can be like this. Not division and sub-division and sub-sub-division but, rather, assembling a whole from tiny bits. I think only a very few Western composers have ever accomplished this. I love Mozart but…I don’t think Mozart was capable of it.

Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about J.S. Bach lately. About his incredible genius. And I’ve got an idea that’s pretty much guaranteed to offend a whole bunch of you. Anyway…the germ of this idea came a few days ago while I was rehearsing some flute trio music with a couple of friends. Bach came up for some reason and I mentioned how much I loved his music. I said, “Bach must be God’s favorite son….uhhh….second-favorite son!” (Both my friends are Christians and I didn’t want to offend… Do you detect a recurring theme here?) But that got me thinking. Why shouldn’t Bach be God’s favorite son? It seems to me that a God of love–a God who is The Creative Force In The Universe–would best be represented among human beings as a person with a gift for creating works of timeless beauty. Yes? A person whose work pretty much everyone in the world could look at and say, “Yep. There’s great beauty there!” no matter who or where they were. Yes? Yes! A God of love–a God of Creation–wouldn’t be into this whole sin and sacrifice thing. Any God who was really all about Love and Creation would choose Bach over Jesus any day. (I think Jesus had some really great things to say but, come on, what kind of God would insist on killing his only kid? Especially to “atone” for “sins” that humans were supposedly born with in the first place. That’s just nuts.) Soooooo….. If God has been incarnate in any human, in seems to me that person must be Bach.

I’m not saying we should start a new religion where we worship Bach. That’d be stupid. Bach was a human being. And besides, what kind of Supreme Being even wants or needs worshippers? I’m just saying, doesn’t it make sense that if a Supreme Being were going to incarnate, it’d be in Bach?

Makes sense to me.

Okay. So, I was originally talking about Philip Glass–who, although a wonderful composer–is no J.S. Bach. The Washington Post article goes on to describe one of Glass’s more famous works: Einstein on the Beach.

The flutist Ransom Wilson, who would later conduct and record some of Glass’s music, has left a vivid impression of a New York performance of “Einstein on the Beach”: “As I listened to that five-hour performance, I experienced an amazing transformation. At first I was bored — very bored. The music seemed to have no direction, almost giving the impression of a gigantic phonograph with a stuck needle… Then, with no conscious awareness, I crossed a threshold and found that the music was touching me, carrying me with it. I began to perceive within it a whole world where change happens so slowly and carefully that each new harmony or rhythmic addition or subtraction seemed monumental.”

That’s a wonderful description of how a lot of Glass’s work is. It’s almost hypnotic. It…builds. And then, without you even realizing how it happened, you find yourself somewhere else entirely. When finally you return, everything seems…different. Better. It somehow makes sense in ways that you hadn’t expected.

Doesn’t that remind you a lot of Bach’s “Musical Offering”?

Yeah. It’s like that.

Or…it’s like the end of T.S. Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

That’s what Philip Glass’s music is like. It takes you places and then, when you come back to the beginning, it’s all new and transformed somehow. (Or is it you that’s transformed?)

Whichever.

The fire and the rose are one.

Some of you may be more familiar with Glass’s commercial music. For example, he composed music for the movie “The Truman Show.” He’s also responsible for the score in the film Koyaanisqatsi (and in the later Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi.) You all remember Koyaanisqatsi, right? Hopi language? Translates to “Life Out Of Balance”? Very interesting film. Anyway…Philip Glass music is all over the place. Kinda makes you wonder what movies Bach would be writing for if he were alive today, eh?

So, that’s the genius of Philip Glass. Visit his very interesting web site by clicking here.

Duluth Harbor

This very cool picture comes from the HarborCam run by the Northern Images guy. Click on the picture to go to his web site. He’s got a lot of really beautiful pictures.

I especially like the weird glowy-ness of the street lights. The picture was taken around 5:30 pm — so right around dusk. It looks like it was possibly a little hazy out.

Our Visit To The NRA Gun Museum

Click on the picture to see the slide show.

Talk The Talk

Colbert I. King – Truth the Clintons Can’t Handle – washingtonpost.com
A year ago, many pundits held another unshakable belief. The polls showed Clinton sitting pretty with black Democrats. Obama, of course, was as black then as he is now.

Which is not very.

Barack Obama is one of the whitest black guys around.

Just close your eyes and listen to his voice. Can you hear it? Maybe you have to be of a certain age and scientific leaning but… listen carefully. It’s so clear to me!

Imagine Barack Obama saying, “billions and billions…”

Carl Sagan.

Barack Obama sounds a LOT like Carl Sagan. Not what he says so much as how he says it. He’s got that ivy league education accent!

That’s one of the reasons he’s not so scary to us white folk.

A Willingness To Talk

Obama-Clinton Debate Starts Warm, Heats Up – washingtonpost.com
In the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s resignation, the two debated Cuba policy and whether they would meet the island nation’s new leader without preconditions. Clinton said no and Obama said yes, but he added that he would do so only with plenty of preparation.

And that’s a perfect example of why Obama would be a better president.

You can’t begin a meaningful dialog by setting a bunch of preconditions before you’re even willing to talk to the other guy. That’s not how real diplomacy works. What you’ve got to do is sit down with the other party without preconditions and start talking. And talk. And talk. And eventually, you find something you can agree on. And you build from there. It’s hard work but it’s the only way of creating the conditions necessary for lasting, positive change.

Clinton, apparently, would continue the same hard-ass policy that the Bush administration has so spectacularly demonstrated doesn’t work.

That alone is why she shouldn’t become president. There can be no peace without a willingness to simply talk.

Just Another Day In Wisconsin, Apparently

Duluth News Tribune | Appeals court upholds Superior man’s deer sex conviction
WAUSAU, Wis. — A state appeals court Wednesday upheld a Superior’s man conviction for having sex with a dead deer.

Okay. Putting aside for a moment the whole ick factor in this story, doesn’t it strike you that what this guy needs much more than a jail term is a nice long stay at an inpatient psychiatric facility?? I mean… don’t the people of Wisconsin consider this sort of thing to be a clear indication of serious mental illness?

Jeez.

Also, in case you were wondering, I didn’t go looking for this story. It popped up on my RSS feed of headlines from the Duluth News Tribune.

I feel like I have to make it VERY CLEAR that this is a story I really wish I hadn’t seen.