An Election Rant

Congratulations, California voters! Your retrograde, wistful memories of the 90s, those heady days of a boom economy that sought nothing short of sucking the world's resources dry, welfare cuts, and NAFTA has in all likelihood subjected us to a four or five month contest over whose dick is bigger, Hillary Clinton's or John McCain's. Good times. Let's at least hope that she'll be so busy proving to everybody she's as ready to blow up Iran or Syria as she is to pull troops out of Iraq that she won't have time to spontaneously cry on cue.

Seriously. This country's collective imagination is appalingly dim. Assuming Hillary wins the general election, America is seriously okay with two families churning out four presidents -- in less than a twenty-five year span? And don't give me any crap about Hillary representing sound ideas. She's winning elections because she's a Clinton, plain and simple. Clinton supporters love to give Obama supporters a hard time for the flimsy content of their candidate, and this criticism is fair; but, at least Obama's devotion is based on an infectious personality, not nostalgia. The difference is that Obama is selling himself, or some vision of himself as a community organizer, along with some vague, liberal messianic vision, and Clinton is selling a return to rearguard politics, where Democrats gleefully win their few petty victories, protect abortion with a Supreme Court appointment, etc. Me, I'll take the vague messianism ... because, as seen with Reagan, if people buy into it, it gains a force of its own, and it takes on a life of its own, and it motivates a foundational shift in our conception of politics that I think is necessary.

Now, I'm not saying Obama represents my ideals, nor do I care even to call him "progressive," as I only care about progress to the extent that it actively constructs a future -- not the moving toward a utopic end. His cries of "unity" and such are stirring rhetoric, but it must not be the ultimate purpose. More preferable is the unity of an ecosystem, with its separate parts & species, living and non-living, working together -- and not always in apparent harmony. But an active ecosystem is not one that simply survives; indeed, there may be no such thing. An active ecosystem is built on nothing less than creativity.

I support Obama, and indeed voted for him today, only because I think he is the only remaining candidate capable of constructing a space for a community from whom something genuinely creative might take place beyond (and, perhaps, in spite of) his presidency. Hillary's appeal is to her success, much of it nothing of consequence, as a hard-knuckle liberal who will go toe-to-toe with the dreaded conservatives. It has been fun, but time is running out on this cynical charade that is American politics. I don't realistically see it lasting in its present spectator-sport form another fifty years, and really see nothing to gain in the long-term from the battles. The whole experiment around which it is based, quite literally, is running out of gas.

My hope for a Obama presidency extends beyond what bi-partisan legislation he can ram through on health care. His policies, in all likelihood, would be nothing to write home about. The idea, though, is that all movements have a spark; and they all have a figure around which they initially rally or relate, even if often for no reason that can be rationally argued. In Obama, and at this point, only Obama, do I see a president that maybe, one can but dream, whose personality ignites a desire to re-learn how to build and participate in communities; and, relatedly, to re-train ourselves how to think beyond the material constraints of our resources and environment (these limits will become increasingly obvious, possibly even as early as the first term of the next presidency -- and they represent a reality that, I fear, both McCain and Hillary would rage against militarily); and, in spite of himself, a re-dedication by these communities to re-take & re-vitalize politics as a creative struggle that unites professed Democrats & Republicans only by virtue of extending the horizon of possibility beyond what either have to offer.

Maybe this means Obama, if he somehow won, would have ultimately to sacrifice himself as a politician -- i.e., for his followers to betray him, by believing in him. Maybe so. But, I'm okay with that.

They Wanted It More

It's a well-worn cliche, but it's definitely true of last night's Super Bowl. The Giants just seemed to want it more. With good reason, everybody is going to focus on Eli Manning's absolutely stunning pass to David Tyree with a minute left. Right now I cannot think of a more exciting sequence in a Super Bowl -- not in my lifetime anyway. The closest I could come up with were from the final minute of Super Bowl XXXIV: McNair's amazing third-down scramble Kevin Dyson reaching for the endzone in the Titans' losing effort against the Rams. Some might cite Joe Montana's strike to John Taylor against the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII, but that drive had the feel of inevitability to it. You trusted Joe (or, in my case, feared him) ... but, Eli Manning?

It shouldn't take too long for the NFL mythologists to come up with a name for Eli's escape & heave and Tyree's catch. That play, in dramatic fashion, typifies the Giants' will to win the game, to make it their own -- to stomp to death the apparent invincibility of the Patriots. Any other game this season, the Pats score that touchdown with less than three minutes, follow it up by getting a fumble or interception, and ice the game with Brady taking a knee (or tossing another touchdown for good measure). Not this time. What else can you say? The Giants wanted it more.

I should've known. The signs were all there from the start. The pass rush that would not stop, for starters. Have you ever seen Brady hit so many times? This side of sleep, and even then I suspect he might be robotic enough to sleep standing, the only time he's been horizontal that much would be during far more intimate moments with Giselle. But then there was also curious play-calling. Quick strikes to Welker were there all game, so I'm not entirely sure why they didn't incorporate more slants like that w/ the other receivers. Or, for that matter, why Faulk can only make a play on third down. Or why they played the first half like it was twenty degrees and snow on the ground. Having said that, you have to credit the Giants' secondary. They played two straight games to perfection -- except for that mess of a Moss touchdown in the fourth quarter. But the decision that I still don't get is why Bellichek went for it on 4th & 13 from the Giants 31 in the middle of the third quarter. A 49-yard field goal in a dome is too long? How many 10+ yard pickups did the Pats have all game, and the odds were good that they'd get one there? The field goal wasn't automatic, sure, but you hit it and Eli's heroics result in an overtime. I didn't understand it then, and I really don't understand it now.

The one sign I didn't realize until after the game, the one that really exemplifies the Giants simply wanting this game more. Early in the second quarter, the Giants' side of the field, Ahmad fumbles the handoff and the Patriots' Pierre Woods falls on it. Any other game this season, the Patriots get the ball and score a crushing touchdown and go up 14-3. This time, by the time the bodies cleared, Bradshaw had regained the ball. In the ensuing melee, Bradshaw had somehow managed to flip Woods onto his back and rip it away. That, in itself, says enough, indeed everything, about the game.

The only lingering mystery is a medical one: who is Tom Coughlin's skin doctor? After their game in Green Bay, I thought he was going to be permanently disfigured by frostbite. Who knew that skin grafts healed so quickly now.

Creepy

This might be old news to people more YouTube savvy than me. I saw it last year, and it creeped me out. A friend of mine said it best about when he suggested that the only thing that has really changed is that commercials today tend to have a better soundtrack.

West Coast Hoops

This is a week of confessions. Here's another: I've given up completely on college basketball. I've not watched more than five minutes of a NCAA basketball game this season, and may not even bother with the tournament. In its place, I've discovered the NBA.

If you've not been a NBA fan in the past, I can't blame you. But let me say this -- there's no better time than now to get into it. We're looking at a special era. Two icons in Kobe & LeBron, a renaissance in incredible point guard play (be it Nash, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Baron Davis, or the ageless Jason Kidd), and in teams like the Warriors, Mavericks, Celtics, Suns, Hornets & Trailblazers there is a new-found emphasis on actual teamwork.

A recent West Coast transplant from Ohio, being in a position to reall be a NBA fan is kind of new to me. It was a happy coincidence that K. & I were moving out here right when the Golden State Warriors were making their epic run against the Dallas Mavericks in the playoffs last year. Watching the games from our roadside hotel rooms, eager but unsure of what awaited us in the Bay Area, we knew we at least had basketball to look forward to. The Warriors have not disappointed.

They really are in the best position this side of winning a championship. A good team that can beat anybody on any given night (as witnessed by the spanking they gave the Hornets this week), and even take a series if they're hot, but not a team that anybody expects to say so hot as to win it at all. Expectations are reasonable, and the style of play is balls to the wall fun. I defy anybody to watch the Warriors play and not enjoy themselves. Purists will scoff, sure, as Baron Davis jacks up a three-pointer during a three-on-one fastbreak. But I bet even some of these right-thinking basketball fans would come around to at least appreciating the energy with which the team plays. It helps, too, that they're style of play really lends itself to close games that neither team are ever out of.

For those of you not following but know something about basketball. The West is so tightly bunched up right now, in terms of talent and in the standings, that the addition of Chris Webber to the Warriors is actually expected to make a significant difference. Bizarre. Well, that is until the Lakers trumped it completely, to the point of making the addition of Webber laughable, by trading for Pau Gasol. The only thing to get in the way of the Lakers making the Finals now is Kobe's ego.

Why Theology?

I've been a professional student of religion & theology since 1993. Nearly fifteen years now. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in God. I can't put my finger on when, but I am consumed by why.

The short answer: traditional notions of God simply stopped making sense to me. By traditional, I mean that of a transcendent, all-powerful, all-knowing Father. As I explored alternative notions of God, first through Buddhism, and then through radical Christian renditions that identified the Father as dying with the Son on the cross, I at first tried to equivocate when people asked me if I still believed. "Sure," I'd say. "Just very differently." Anymore, I'm not sure answering in the affirmative is at all helpful. Any explanation I offer will be involved and require lots of patience on the part of the curious, to the point that I suspect most would just say, "Why didn't you just say 'No'?" So, for all intents and purposes, no, I don't believe in God.

I repeat: I don't believe in God.

And yet, I must confess, it is still hard to write that. This is not because of some residual nostalgia. I do not sometimes wonder, "What if all my evangelical friends are right." I do not, when I think about death, experience fear because of the anxiety of burning in hell or eternal separation from God. My fear, rather, is one of human weakness -- of not being able to face the end of individuality, the collapsing of consciouness to nothingness; and of not being able to comprehend the complex ecology whereby the individuality of my living and dying unfolds into a ever-expanding network of human and non-human, via the constantly changing kaleidoscope of memory, the process of physical decay in which my body literally feeds the earth, or the seemingly infinite tapestry of decisions I've made that connect me to this world, and this world to me, even after my dying breath. It could well be said that the welcoming of this weakness is the reason I do not now believe -- though, I would be lying if I said I was aware of this when I first realized I did not believe. (That is the subject of another post, or perhaps even a book -- the evolution of disbelief.)

And yet, it remains hard to confess this. Not because I fear the reaction of others. My mom's reaction, maybe -- less because of what she would say to me, but because of how she would take it on as yet one more thing to worry about. She is a smart woman, I tell myself. She must know already. Or, like many from my past, suspect it, but wish to think otherwise. After all, the lies we tell ourselves about others sometimes make for the most polite conversation.

No, it remains hard to confess my disbelief in God because I do believe in miracles. Which is to say, I believe in acts of love and heroism. I believe that you do not get simply what you see, and that what you see is what you get. I believe there is more to a body than even the body knows. There is more to the individual, to the body-politic, to the universe untold than its constituent parts -- not that something divine transcends or permeates these parts, that there is anything BUT finite parts, but that the parts themselves are more than themselves. I believe that this is the stuff of creativity -- the creation of potential and possibility and power. The capacity not simply to change or evolve, to become something else, but the capacity to become something more, something that explodes from within expectations fashioned by past use, present desire, and future profit. Indeed, where these expectations alone explode beyond themselves.

I realize this threatens to become New Age mumbo-jumbo, so I'll be more concrete. In thinking things can be different, more than the horizon of expectations allow -- I am not content, for example, with a new president, a stronger Democratic party, a wider social safety net, or universal health care. I will take them all. But they are not miracles. The stuff of theology, as I understand it, of a political theology that matters beyond propping up the moralizing of sex or the extension of militaristic aggression or xenophobic hatred, prevents this from being the horizon, because theology, even without God, is the discourse of miracles.

What kind of a miracle am I talking about? One can only ever venture guesses and estimations, but what about forgiveness of debt ... a worldwide forgiveness whose results we cannot even imagine. It's insane. Horrific, in fact. Economies would crumble, money would become meaningless. In a word, chaos. Miracles, after all, are not always pretty -- they are not always the result of beneficient forces. Debt forgiveness could come through mass legislation, or perhaps revolution; but more than likely through natural forces like environmental collapse. Miracles emerge from the spaces that exceed, but do not necessarily transcend, intention and agency, cause and effect.

What happens after miracles, as we've witnessed in those religions we believe and disbelieve, most of which were themselves borne from miracles, is always unknown and always contingent. To believe in the miracle, though, is not simply to believe in what follows, be it a doctrine or a constitution, but to direct one's attention to what matters: the miracles from which these emerge, which they try to keep from happening again, and to which they ultimately fall. If this sounds a lot like the structure of myth, that's because in a way it is. Attention is paid to miracles in the quality of the myths we create and enact in our daily rituals. The fact that we no longer believes in miracles is indicative of the death of mythology, replaced by the spinning of tall tales and cons.

What I've Been Reading

I get asked pretty frequently about what I've been reading. I'd like to think this because everybody thinks me to be really well-read, and always seeking to better myself verbally & intellectually. But, the truth is, everybody knows I'm unemployed, and you can only spend so much of your day pouring over Careerbuilder and forging reference letters. Anyway, I've gotten into a really bad habit lately of starting too many books. I have them planted all over the apartment. One in each of the two bathrooms, one next to the bed, a couple on my desk, and one somewhere within groping distance of the couch.

In the upstairs bathroom, I have a copy of Cormac McCarthy's Suttree. Unfortunately, I only ever use the upstairs bathroom to shower and pee. So, I've only gotten through the italicized meditation that takes up three pages. So, no review to offer. In the downstairs bathroom, I generally keep Thomas Pynchon's massive, 1,100-page Against the Day. I'm about halfway through it, and I'm still really liking it. It's definitely not for everybody, so I can't say everybody should dive in. For me, though, I find that I love to sit and read the prose out loud. I've yet to find a dull section, even with the ever-shifting narrative and writing styles. My IM away message is even from it: "It was the U.S.A., after all, and fear was in the air."

On my desk are two books, one I've just finished and the other I've just started. On Monday I finished reading George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning. I can't recommend this book enough. A very quick read, Monbiot approaches the issue of climate change from a British perspective. Which is to say, he approaches it from a perspective that is a) unafraid of science and b) isn't committed to finding minority voices in the scientific community to call into question generally established findings, contrarian voices who happen to be heavily funded by the likes of Exxon. Monbiot, more or less, in short, takes it as a scientific given that our carbon emissions have the potential to kill a lot of people due to rising temperatures. Instead of making the argument that there is a problem, he describes the actual problem itself. That is, by 2030 the world's temperature will likely have risen 2.3 degrees (celcius) above pre-industrial levels (1.4 degrees above what it is now) -- which is the point at which really bad shit will probably start happening ... granted, mostly to people who are already poor and/or already neglected. This last part kind of gets in the way of his call to arms against global warming: a 90% decrease in Britain's carbon emissions by 2030. He very capably shows how this might be possible, but in the end concedes that the political & psychological obstacles actually to do so are enormous. (This is even more true for the U.S., where a 97% decrease would be necessary.) BUT, in spite of this, it's a really great book. Monbiot offers an enthusiasm and fresh perspective to things, and his cynicism is always tempered by, not really hope, but a willingness to show that there is another way even if we don't take it.

The other book on my desk, which I've only just started, is Philip Goodchild's Theology of Money. For me, Goodchild is one of the best thinkers out there right now. This is a really difficult, often very technical book. But, I think it can be translated, and at some point I hope to do so here. From what I gather, about fifty or so pages in, he is looking at money as the force by which we order and identify our individual lives and our political/governmental entities. Money is not just something that resides in your wallet, or in your bank account -- it is the mediating element of what passes for reality. To change ourselves or our collective will, we have first to identify how money does this. Only then is an alternative even thinkable.

Next to my bed is Donald Barthelme's disturbing book, The Dead Father. I'm only about ten pages from finishing this short book, but I've not really read in bed for a while. Fortunately, it is remarkably easy to jump in at any point, and know exactly what is going on. The title says it all. The father -- God, authority, creator -- is dead, kind of. The process of getting rid of the dead father, however, is a bit more difficult.

And in the living room, Gary Giddins' Visions of Jazz. Basically just a collection of Giddins' essays and reviews about the classic jazz greats, from as far back as the '20s, to more brief discussions of contemporary acts in the early '90s, this book is a nice one to read when I get a chance to load whatever new CD I've discovered, and just get into the vibe of things. I learn something new each time I flip through it.

Oil!

Oh ... and Happy $100 Oil Day! Celebrate this historic occasion in style.

Happy New Year!

I've long had a problem with those misguided souls who go on about the world's "overpopulation problem." Mostly, this is a not-so-subtle way of saying that poor people really should stop breeding. Even more misanthropic critics will say, behind closed doors, after a few drinks, that AIDS will sort things out in Africa. Most would cringe at this sentiment, and rightly so, but they would likely not have a solution beyond a mixture of more education and/or liberalization of the Third World. If only we could teach them to become like us!

Unfortunately, the reality on the ground doesn't support this general assumption. In fact, if anything, the reality on the ground exposes the outright flaws both in the assumption and the perspective that came up with it in the first place. First, the assumption that everybody should be like us; and second, the self-perception that our way of life is the prize everybody's eyes should be on.

The fact is, the American dream isn't even a nightmare. No, there's too much that is tangible to it even to sustain that particular metaphor. It is, rather, a bordello fantasy straight out of Ben Franklin's Parisian nightlife. Ah, but here's the thing -- we're convinced that a) the role-play is real, and that the jizz jar bent before us / rancid piece of pulled pork dangling over us really speak in love when they say, "You fuck me better than the rest," and b) that those pox marks on our genitals will heal themselves (and if not, why not, spread the love!). Our national myth of prosperity is a role-play that never stops. We will, we're assured, figure out ways for it to continue -- be it, blindfolds, Viagra, novelty costumes, clowns, ponies and and rubber balls. Oh, and yes, extending the invitation that others can play along!

So, we present the Third World with the Third Way, an illusion of our own illusion, that is, the means to consume as much as we do, if they but embrace democracy and its open markets, and then snicker mightily at the tragedy that the Earth cannot even sustain our own present levels of consumption. To embrace our illusion, and even to openly propogate it, is one thing; but to believe in it is another thing entirely. Such is the damnable offense of religion and marriage and education and liberalism, etc.

So, you're right, Jared Diamond. No, the problem isn't them. The problem isn't the real sex and overpopulation of others -- as patriarchal and problematic as their sex often is. The problem is our wet dream turned real: an erection that never stops at an orgy that never ends. The American way of life, at its finest.

Merry Christmas to Me!

Christmas isn't really that big a deal in Casa de Silentio. At most, we swap one gift. Normally, we even let the other person in on what the gift will be -- oftimes even buying it while out with them. Last year, for example, we bought each other Sigor Ros concert tickets. This year, things were only slightly different. Different in the sense that K. bought me the gorgeous, framed & mounted concert poster to the left, and I've not yet managed to get her anything. Now, before the ladies go crazy on me here, to be fair, it's not all my fault. For starters, she went on a tear and indulged her every buying whim when we visited L.A. last week, from sweatshirts in Huntington to snazzy hats in Venice Beach -- not to mention a guided tour through Compton. And that doesn't even mention the fajita combination dinner at Chevy's we had on Christmas day. Anyway, by the time I found something tangible from me to her -- *cough* the day after Christmas *cough* -- the online store had sold out. Oh well, if the Jews can hold out using the same oil in the temple for eight days, she can stick with her old, saggy-assed pajamas for another week.

So, yes, Merry Christmas to me.

Also on Christmas, I got a revenge that was one year in the making. Last year around this time, Mr. Aquadoodiloop bested me in the championship of our fantasy football league ... by a half-point! I still remember watching the Monday night Philly game, and seeing Brian Westbrook crank out the final, meaningless junk yards that put him over the top. Shock and rage blended into a fistful of hate, which I kept clenched for a year tighter than a homophobe's sphincter in the Castro. One would think that finishing first in a Aquadoodiloop-less fantasy baseball league would've helped, but no. If anything, I became all the more determined to crush my nemesis. The season progressed to form. He and I remained neck and neck most of the way, splitting the regular season matchups; enduring the scorn of our spouses, who participated in the festivities but despaired of & mocked our fanaticism; and then we each beat back our playoff challengers. The stars aligned for our matchup last weekend, and, I'm happy to report, poetic justice whispered in my ear and promised to make my enemy her bitch. And indeed she did. I beat him by a full point this time around, but that is only because we went without fractional points -- otherwise, the margin would've been roughly the same as last year, this time in my favor. Next year, my friend ... rubber match?

Merry Christmas to me, x2.

Sadly ... not all was perfect this holiday season. Indeed, the sole significant disappointment was so tremendous as to almost ruin it all. To explain requires a little context, but even then I don't expect many to get it. Kenny Rogers Roasters has always held a very special place in the hearts and gullets of me and my friends. In college and part of graduate school, it was one of the few places we could all agree on when posed with the question, "Where you want to go for dinner?" The wood looked at the chicken it had cooked, and saw that it was good. And we loved the wood for this. The wood had little to do with the macaroni and cheese, but we loved the wood for this too. Like all good religious experiences, a little irrational attribution is natural. Kenny Rogers smiled down at us while we dirtied our faces and mouths with his food, consuming his woody goodness, and gazed up at him in admiration for the chicken he'd likely never even tasted. At some point, Kenny Rogers Roasters lost the favor of the American eating public, and it wasn't long before we lost our wood. We were at a loss for a long time. Each of us found our own substitutes, I suppose. Some of us moved on quicker than others. But I liked to think that a piece of Kenny's wood stay with us all.

Like many good things from the college years, I gave up on reliving it. It was not meant to be. That was, until the days just before leaving for my trip to L.A. It was revealed to me from a mysterious ninja from upstate New York that there was one remaining Roasters in the United States, in the Ontario Mills Mall just outside of L.A. My wood had returned, I sang, with vibratto. Sure, it would require a major detour to the east outside of L.A., not to mention venturing into the largest mall west of the Mississippi River just days before Christmas, though happily after the Chanukah rush -- but I didn't care, and I somehow managed to convince K. she shouldn't either. The saintly Belgian agreed to our detour, after taking her for one more trip to her new L.A. landmark, California Donut, and we set off while in en route back to the Bay Area.

If poetic justice smiled on me during fantasy football, cruel heartbreak kicked me in the balls. I should've known. Remember, if you will, the final Kenny Rogers Roasters is in a mall food court. A MALL FOOD COURT! I knew this, but thought, hoped, that the power of the wood would transcend it all ... and, yes, make it all good. Oh, but it was not to be. Kenny was there in name only. There were no pictures. No gold albums. No music. Only the soul-devouring dullness of ... a MALL FOOD COURT. And the food ... well, the macaroni was lukewarm at best (due to the slower than dirt mother or fourteen in front of me), and the chicken tasted as though it had been warmed up with a bathroom hand dryer. A part of me died that afternoon at the Ontario Mills Mall. Maybe a part that should've died when I graduated, alongside the hope for viable employment. The thick fog that haunted the central valley during my drive back to Oakland from L.A. that night was appropriate, that and the smell of a memory's death on my fingers and its taste in my mouth. For those taking notes, it smells like stale dog urine preserved in the fridge and tastes like under-cooked mussels.

But you know, maybe this is okay. Maybe Christmas & New Years is just as much about finally putting something to rest as it is dreaming of something new. Goodbye, Kenny. Finally. Forever. Amen.

The Wire -- Season Four

I can't remember if I've written about The Wire here. If not, it's been a major oversight on my part. Seriously, if you've not seen this show, do so. Season Four was released on DVD today, and K. & I just made our way through the first disc. A three-hour movie would wipe me out, but three hours into this season and I'm really pissed I don't yet have disc two (hours four through six). I remember one Friday back in Cincinnati, K. & I watched six hours of Season Three in one go. That's pretty unprecedented for me when it comes to tv.

You're not liable to find more captivating characters on tv, and the degree of investment in them is a little unsettling. Three episodes in now, and my heart is already aching for at least two of this season's new characters. And Bodie... poor, stupid, but strangely noble Bodie. I fear he won't make it to Season Five. Such is the life of a street soldier.

Anyway, I repeat. Get this on your queue, buy it used. Get caught up on The Wire.

Hiatus

This past weekend, I took some mild heat from a friend I didn't even know visited Silentio for not posting anymore. Consider it a hiatus, of sorts, even if I have been blogging elsewhere. You, dear Silentio, are always my first love, though. Even when neglected. Like the slave in my closet. Umm.

This month, as you may know, is National Novel Writing Month. Being basically unemployed, and having completed the writing and publishing projects that had consumed my time for months, I figured I'd give it a shot. My first thought was an epic erotic poem. Not enough epic poetry written these days, and certainly not erotic poetry. In fits and starts, grunts and gasps, I made my way through a series of jaw-dropping stanzas. Write-in participants swooned at the ever-expanding girth of my word count. And then, as quickly as it began, I was finished. Done before the story was. One week into November.

The next week I began a new story. This time, I decided to go Gothic. Conjure up a little modern Poe, perhaps. If we cannot satisfy our readers' sexual appetites, we'll make them curl into a ball on their bed, screaming into the pristine-clean sheets, biting their pillow. The result: a simple story of a preacher who loves his only son, but on occasion beats him silly -- claiming later to be possessed. The son loves his father, believes him and decides that accepting his Satanic beating would be the ultimate act of love for his possessed father. I quickly realized , within a week, there was not 70,000 words to be had in this short story.

The third week I devoted to a a not-so-distant not-quite dystopian future, in which the middle class has not so much revolted as gone insane. Their employers, recognizing the high cost of fuel, and succumbing to governmental pressure to "Go Green," have granted their employees a wish: work from home. The only problem, these same employees, who are no longer able to afford the appearance of luxury promised to them by the late-20th/early-21st century, have become slaves to their suburban homes and the gadgets they've amassed. With no refuge from what they've gathered for themselves, one couple systematically destroys their possessions in increasingly creative ways -- discussing the beauty of burning HDTVs, cooking IPods while they play in their portable Bose players, and disassembling SUVS and using the parts to create a totem commemorating Mammon's death.

But then I decided I wanted to write something socially relevant. So, this week I've poured myself into a writing a screenplay about a chef who loves his food creations so much that he cannot bear to have them eaten. So, in a madcap comedy he has to figure out a way to keep his job as a lead chef by serving somebody else's food. Finally, through a series of hilarious events, he decides to try some of his own cooking. He dies from salmonella-poisoning.

A Movie Review

‘I knowed you was crazy when I saw you settin’ there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.’

‘Yes. Things fall into place.’

Beyond the stark and brute depiction of the preparation, explosion and aftermath of violence that makes up so much of No Country For Old Men, there is a much more steady, and more enduringly interesting, reflection on the insanity and inevitability of this violence. Joel and Ethan Coen have never shied from the ironic or insane elements of brutality, as most famously depicted in their contemporary classic Fargo, but never with such exhaustion or nihilism. Indeed, it took the suffocating absence of irony in Cormac McCarthy’s literary vision for them finally to realize despair.

The principle characters of this triangulate tale are introduced quickly. First, the story’s moral conscience and commentator, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. In a wind-swept, weary voice-over he speaks, as though only to himself, of how crime is not what it once was. He no longer understands what he is fighting, and is in fact unsure he wants to. The world, he suspects, is so far gone that to fight against it is to become a part of it; and to become a part of it is to endanger one’s soul. As Bell speaks, the camera pans from the parched Texas prairie to the very embodiment of what he is fighting and fearing, Anton Chigurh.

Fittingly, and in retrospective defiance of Bell’s opening monologue, Chigurh begins the film in police custody. ‘Yessir, I got it covered,’ says the deputy, as he reports Chigurh’s recent arrest to his superior over the phone. Within seconds, however, the deputy is dead, strangled to death by a handcuffed Chigurh. The only facial expression Chigurh shows is that of physical exertion. Beyond that, it is blank. We are thus introduced to a killer who kills not for pleasure or strictly for gain. His is, we learn, a moral conscience of its own—that of a pure activity that requires no commentary. In a world not quite fit for the gods, Chigurh is depicted as the closest we have.

The aim of Chigurh’s activity throughout the film is finding and punishing his own Prometheus, Llewelyn Moss. Moss is a ‘man’s man’. He is rugged: he is an outdoorsman who tracks and hunts wild game; and as observed by his wife, he’s never been known to quit when faced with a challenge. He is human: he loves his wife; and he has compassion for those who are suffering. And most of all, he is decisive. He decides, first of all, to investigate the mysterious scene of a drug deal gone bloodily bad; he decides to take the $2 million he finds; he decides to return to the scene hours later so that he might give water to the sole survivor. All these decisions, and those that follow, set in motion a series of events that inevitably lead to an anticipated climactic encounter with Bell and Chigurh.

The Coens are masters of their craft in telling this story. Many of the scenes are long, but they remain taut and intricate in their details, especially those depicting the cat and mouse chase between Chigurh and Moss. Bell remains on the outskirts of the action, distanced from its immediate tension, but not its effects. Each corpse and clue incites a reflection that confirms his belief that he is no longer cut out for his line of work. Time has, he believes, caught up with him, and the “old ways” and manners no longer hold true. The world is, in effect, damned. And neither the Coens nor McCarthy are interested in redeeming it for us. The world’s damnation is without question. Theirs is, rather, whether this damnation is new, or have we always carried its curse?

What seems to go unremarked in most assessments of No Country for Old Men, be it the novel or the film, is the degree to which this most tragic of questions is explored in a modern, “genre-fiction” rendition of classical tragedy. We have all of the constituent structural parts: a monologue/prologue; an actor-chorus, or amoibaion, who comments on the action mostly from a distance (i.e. Sheriff Bell); an episodic story paced by Bell’s “choral” reflections/stasimons; and even a multi-layered, epiphanic exodus. Of course, unlike classical tragedy, our encounter with these elements is in all likelihood initially unnoticed; or where it is noticed, especially during Bell’s extended debate with his mentor on lost innocence and present depravity during the post-climactic denouement of Chigurh’s stalking of Moss, it is easy to overlook the complexly tragic implications of what is happening in the midst of this apparently conservative reminiscing of a bygone era.

The Coens set all the converging pieces in motion with delightful, expert pacing, and as we see Bell approaching the scene, we already know that the violence that propelled the players forward is not far behind. Up to this point, we have been given very little indication that the Coens are going to really push the crime genre beyond itself, and thus beyond the description and depiction of the insanity at our violent, damnable core. And yet, here, the tragic content of No Country for Old Men really takes shape, beyond even the experiments with its form (which the Coens have already used to some degree, though to comic effect, in The Big Lebowski).

In the end, this very violent story is not really about violence—its celebration, its ironic send-up, or even its condemnation. Moreover, and far more provocatively, in placing markedly more emphasis on the immediate results of the story’s climactic confrontation than on the unfolding of the confrontation itself, emphasizes the fact that, for the Coens, neither is this film consumed by a narrative structure that privileges climax. Rather, in the style of a true modern tragedy, violence accompanies and inheres to the decisions made by Moss, to those he appears freely to choose and those set upon him; the climactic, pitched battle we anticipate, in effect, has already been set by the decisions made. It is only now for the players to play their parts.

Where Bell cannot face this, and is compelled instead to look backward, and Moss is fixated on the pure contingency of trying to stay alive, only Chirguh seems to know the truth laid out by the Coens and McCarthy. ‘You know how this is going to turn out, don’t you?’ he asks Moss. Chigurh, the humourless force of nature, compared in the film to the bubonic plague, cannot be placated: ‘You can't make a deal with him. Even if you gave him the money he'd still kill you. He's a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles. Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that. He's not like you.’ Indeed, on a certain level, it could even be argued that Chigurh does not in fact decide who lives and who dies. Through their decisions, those pre-determined as well as those that emerge purely from chance, death and life are dealt. As such, in the midst of contingency, the inevitability of consequences lurks. Chigurh illustrates this a couple of times, when he flips a coin and places a person’s fate on whether they call it correctly. One central character refuses, arguing instead, ‘The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you.’ But in the final scheme of fate and nature, refusal is its own decision, with its own consequences.

Football Blogging: Week 2

I wanted to blog every Monday of this year's NFL season, but a somewhat spur of the moment roadtrip to Seattle last week scuttled my plans. I was back late Sunday night, but I was in no shape to assess what had transpired the day before. Plus, I'd only been able to catch bits and pieces of the Bears-Chargers game on the radio. Fortunately, this weekend I was able to be as slothful as I wanted to be. Fresh from the high that was Kentucky's 40-34 throttling of Louisville on Saturday, I sat down Sunday morning very excited.

A few random thoughts from my day on the couch:

• Fantasy football owners of Joey Galloway, be very very wary. I've seen this before. He is one of the ultimate in fantasy teases. You bench him, and he ends up torching New Orleans for 135 yards and 2 TDs. You start him next week, and he gets two balls for 40 yards and a fumble. Beware.
  
• Braylon Edwards hasn't been in the league long enough to develop a reputation, but the Browns have. I don't see him doing quite so well against Oakland next week, and I think Oakland will get its first win of the season.
• Good people of Oakland, please don't sell out all the Raider games. I really don't want to get stuck with them on my tv every week. It's bad enough I'll have to avoid the 49ers winning ugly every week. Is there a worse looking 2-0 offense?
• Speaking of ugly, the AFC West will threaten the NFC North for ugliest (but most competitive) division in football.
• I hate to think it, but the Steelers might win the AFC North with relative ease.
  
• I really wish LaDanian Thomlinson had a blog so he had an immediate outlet to whine after every loss.
  
• If the Bengals don't fire Chuck Bresnahan this season, and possibly even Marvin Lewis, two things should happen: a) fans should turn in their season tickets, and b) the first-team offense should refuse to take the field. I love that I actually read some columns talking about the "surprising" Bengals defense stopping the Ravens last week. Back up. Read that entire sentence. They got a bunch of turnovers from.... the offensively inept Baltimore RAVENS. It's shocking that they gave up 500+ yards to the Browns -- nobody knew they were that bad -- but c'mon. Some perspective, please.
• I was ready to crown Indy the team to beat after they destroyed the Saints last week. Well, not so fast. Indy is still great, don't me wrong. They look about as good as they were at the end of last season (which, is a couple of steps below where the Patriots are now, but hey!). Beating this Saints team doesn't look to be a big deal right about now. It almost makes me wonder if everybody took it easy on New Orleans last year, via NFL mandate. I'm not saying that people threw games. Save that for the NBA. Just eased back, so as not to blow them out of the water early in the game. Make it exciting in the fourth quarter. If you win in the fourth fine ... but keep it close. Remember, the Saints were a couple of late stops and scores away from a losing record last year. Hmmm.
• I was asking somebody before the Chargers game ... why is everybody so big on them? Outside of Gates and Thomlinson, what other weapons do they have? Are any of their WRs even starters in your fantasy leagues -- the true measure of a championship caliber team?
  
• A friend's observation from last night: "John Madden is so precious. Everyone else has reached the point of being so bad, that I actually enjoy him now."
• Edgarrin James = comeback season? Great game for him yesterday, and he actually looked nice and fiesty in the Cardinals otherwise abysmal loss against the 49ers last week.
• The Houston Texans should campaign the NFL to switch conferences. Who could beat them in the NFC right now?
• Quentin Jammer has such a kickass good porn name for such an overrated corner. (Unrelated: Eat My Black Meat 2 on Spice is a little pricey.)
• I may not leave my wife for Feist, but I would certainly invite her into the relationship. Interestingly, upon revealing this to a friend with whom I was watching last night game, he pointed out to me that my porn fantasies almost always revolve somebody who resembles my wife. Aww. Love ya, honey!
• Not entirely apropos of nothing, during the 49ers-Rams game, the announcers kept using the term "muff," as a kind of shorthand for "muffed punt." I need to rewatch the telecast, but I swear I remember the announcer say, "That's the second muff of the day," "They're all over the muff," and "The recovered the muff." If you're not at least giggling at this, you should not be reading this post.
• So, the kid in the new psychadelic Peyton Manning ad ... that's his inner child? Huh? Oh ... and yes, Marvin Harrison in the tank of sharks, clearly some kind of subtle indication of his being kept in the closet because of his homophobic head coach.
  
• Ben Stiller just needs to go away. Maybe he'll learn from Owen Wilson's mistakes. Cut WITH the wrist, Ben. WITH.
  

A Link

A little bit lighter on the posting this week. I started a full-time temp. job, and am only just now getting used to the jolt to my regular routine.

I did find the time to read this fabulous synopsis of the current market meltdown, how we got to this point and where it all might be heading & why. Much better than what you're liable to find in most newspapers. It's a bit long, but very worth your time. Surprisingly, even a good many of the comments are worth reading.

The Lighter Side

I realize I've been a little shrill and alarmist as of late. So, I thought I'd step back from the brink of annihilation. If only for a bit.

Two music-related notes. (1) I recently downloaded D'Angelo's now-rather-old Brown Sugar CD, and I've fallen in love with him all over again. Fortunately, K. doesn't like him AT ALL. All the more for me! For D'Angelo fans, he has a new CD coming out this month, I think. (2) If anybody out there should have a copy of Herbie Nichols' Love, Gloom, Cash, Love, and you're not opposed to making me a copy, I'd be forever grateful. This is a ridiculously hard CD to find in CD shops.

Two links. First, the likely NSFW link -- it's a short piece on one man's sex education in the "Second Life" virtual world. It's not a flawless piece of writing, but if you can't at least giggle at lines like "Within seconds Justyn Jewell was balls deep in Tony's avatar," then you're beyond hope.

Second, it's been while since I've linked to Mark Morford, several years in fact, but last week's column about America's obsession with free shit is spot-on and terrific.

Free plane ticket! Free iPod! Free colonoscopy! Free tank of gas! Free extra set of cheap useless knives when you buy the two other sets of cheap useless knives! Free supersizing of your Coke! Free upgrade to premium membership when you commit to a 10-year contract! Pay no money whatsoever! Seriously! No money at all! All we ask in return: countless, endless chunks of your time, your brain, your intelligence, your health, your soul, your respect for nature, just a little bit of your ability to think and feel and care about the world. Come on now, is that too much to ask?

The Problem With Blame

I was responding to Gabe's comment to the previous post, and realized it might be fitting just to publish it here instead -- if only to keep up my streak of daily posting this week.

*********
Re: I think the bottom line is what James Kunstler and you have been harping on: we cannot continue to live as we have been living... but we are surrounded by fucking idiots.

What's worse, in my opinion, is that I don't think we can so easily look around and blame the "fucking idiots" for this mess. Consumption, be it the kind that rapes the environment or the kind that ignores reality (i.e., via credit & debt), is now fully engrained & inseparable from our contemporary culture. Which to say, it is almost impossible for most people to do live truly alternative lifestyles, let alone imagine something differently.

For example. One of the things observed about the decrease in gas consumption in California is that it is mostly because of California's wealth. I.e., in a very real sense, they simply can afford to conserve, either by living in urban areas, or buying cars w/ better fuel consumption, etc. For the vast majority of Americans, however, this is almost impossible. They have, for example, accumulated so much shit in their houses that to move to a smaller, urban area would mean they'd have to leave as trash a lot of the things they've picked up along the way -- enormous couches, a tv p/room, rugs fit more for the Tajj Mahal than Maple Avenue, dust-covered treadmills, pool tables, etc.

(And this is to say nothing at all of the neglected urban cores themselves, where we are asking people to move in order to consume less. They have become inhospitable places, due to a generation of poor maintenance, decayed family and doomed communities. Which is to say, it takes more to bring people to an urban area than opening a couple of bars. What's worse, the problems of urban living are mostly correctable for those who can afford it. The moment an urban area is "cleaned up," look around, and you'll likely find it has been "cleaned" of those who are blamed for making it dirty -- the poor, the homeless, the drug addicts. They are blamed for their irresponsible maintenance of their neighborhoods and the the poor stewardship of their exorbitant "government handouts," despite the fact far and away more government money (tax breaks, etc.) were extended toward the suburbanization of American cities than was extended to its core. Ah, but where there is suburban crime & decay, the blame is on video games and violent tv, not irresponsibility.)

There is also, and perhaps more fundamentally, the simple fact that most people shop at Wal-Fart or Shitkea because their budget forces them to do so. We know that we should buy a more expensive toaster or coffee table, or whatever, knowing full well the cheaper good will break down, forcing us to spend more on a litany of replacements every few years than we would on a one-time investment in something of quality craftsmanship, something that lasts. And yet, (a) most of us don't have the money on hand to make that one-time investment, so to buy the nice table means to put it in on the credit card, and thus to pay even more for it because of interest; and (b) if everybody stopped buying the cheap replacement-goods, this country's economy would shrivel & dry up faster than Betty White's vagina. When taken together, it is a powerful one-two punch that keeps us stalled, our imagination racing for an alternative we cannot conceive.

I write all this, hell, I think all this, I know that it comes off as defeatist. But I don't think so. Seeing our world as itself calling for -- groaning out for (as Saint Paul puts it) -- a fundamental change, not a "makeover" fit for ABC and that spikey-haired twat with the megaphone -- is the stuff of religion. The fact that those who consumed by this call, those who groan so often that they are finally ignored, are not always explicitly religious, and that most of those who are explicitly religious do not do so, is an indictment fit for another post.

Under $3

Yesterday I noticed that for the first time since I've been living west of the Rocky Mountains (only since May, for those of you not keeping score at home), gas dipped below $3 p/gallon. In fact, this is the cheapest gas has been out here since March. And, of course, everybody is thrilled. Especially the analysts, who you very easily beaming with the good news, "Don't worry, people. The worst is over. Our refineries are working at full strength, without problems. The price of gas is no longer related to the price of oil. And besides, even the the price of oil is tumbling after its quick ascent to $78 p/barrel week."

I hate to be so damn depressing, and I know I have been, but don't believe it. Or, if you do believe it, don't sell that Hybrid in your driveway for a new Expedition. A few things to keep in mind: (a) investors stopped their profit-taking, and thus stopping the price plummet, the very moment ConocoPhillips shut down two refineries on the East Coast (it should be recalled, US refineries are held together with spit and paper, and there is no major investment to create any new ones); (b) the price of oil skyrocketed last week even though there was no major disruption like a hurriance in the Gulf or flare-up in the Middle East; (c) the infrastructure of the oil industry, not to mention our levels of consumption, are such that it will not take much of a disruption to diminish the glut of gasoline that is causing gas to be cheaper than oil; (d) those people our newspapers quote as experts in forecasting the future cost of oil & gas have, for the most part, consistently & grossly underestimated their price; and lastly (and most importantly), (e) the price of gas has everything to do with a temporary supply glut -- with maybe a very little related to a slight uptick in conservation (esp. in California) -- NOT because we are producing more oil than we are consuming -- because, quite simply, we're not.

Manstrokewoman

TI've not seen the British show Manstrokewoman, but by all accounts from friends, and given clips like this, it looks funny as hell:

On A Personal Note

Most people who read Silentio already know my friends Julia & Pat, and already know about the recent birth of their second child, Conrad. If so, you also probably know about the (hopefully small) drama brewing around this new little one. Whether you do or you don't know them, I would be a very poor friend indeed if I didn't inch out a paragraph of space on my own blog to say to two of my closest friends, Congratulations and Stay Strong.

K. says she might even hold this one. Oh dear, I don't know what that might mean for me.

Who Knew?

Wow... who could've guessed that an economic boom based on the denial of economic reality and propped up by hallucinogenic induced visions of dancing dollar signs was ripe for a jolt.

Relatedly, this has been making the rounds around the internet since Friday, but I can't help but link to the meltdown of CNBC's market cheerleader, Jim Cramer.

UPDATE: James Kunstler is one of the better popular voices in the growing chorus of people concerned about the present economy and where it is headed -- to what he calls "the long emergency." So, it is only natural that he has a nice bit up today about Kramer's tirade.

Cramer's histrionics were only a few clicks above his normal antics on the "Mad Money" show, but even so, they made a remarkable impression of someone in real, not mock, despair. He mentioned more than once during the tirade that he'd been on the phone all week with other interested parties who were begging him to do something about the rising bloodbath on Wall Street. And by "do something," they clearly meant that Cramer should go on his TV show and make an appeal to Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke to drop the prime interest rate at the Fed's meeting this coming Tuesday -- the purpose of which would be to make cheaper loan money available to the Wall Street players whose investment houses suddenly found themselves underwater in the churning straits off Hedge Fund Island, weighed down by bagfuls of worthless securitized non-performing mortgages.

Personally, I don't quite get how a financial industry based on bad loans would be helped by borrowing more money to bail out a hopelessly unwinding Ponzi loan racket of the type the industry had engineered for itself -- but maybe I'm lacking the gene for financial creativity that the Bear Stearns bonus babies were all born with.

In any case, apropos of Cramer's telephone marathon, one can only imagine the number of cell phone minutes racked up this weekend out in the Hamptons by players trying desperately to finagle their way out of the brutal fact that their firms and funds suddenly lay exposed to the cruel ravages of reality. A lot of catered crab tidbits and mini-quiches must have gone uneaten out along the dunes as weeping men in blazers realized that "marked to market" had come to mean the same thing as "holding a bundle of shit."