With Apologies to My Friend and Colleague . . .

Hey, all you interdisciplinary types out there with a sympathetic side towards religion, take notice. I'm not entirely sure what my role in this conference is. At one point, I was a co-chair; but at another point, more like a series of consecutive points, I kind of neglected to do anything for it. Indeed, this trend held through for most of this year, which has more or less been lost in the neo-alcoholic haze that is student-loan-funded life in Brussels. All the same, with or without my administrative contribution, the oblique biblical reference on the main page notwithstanding, this looks like it could be halfway interesting -- in the not-at-all practical way most people would invest in the term 'interesting'. The other half of it, well, looks like yet another academic circle-jerk. (Look for the DVD at your local Hustler shop next spring. If I have anything to say about it, the special features will be killer!)

Souvenirs, anybody?

I've only about a week left in the States, so I've been frantically getting all my requisite shopping done this weekend. Shoes and socks yesterday, jeans today -- all of which, surprisingly enough, are poverty-strickeningly (is that a word??) expensive back in Britain and Belgium. In addition to my wardrobe enhancements, there's also the matter of souvenirs. Any suggestions for trinkets of Americana that I simply must buy for somebody, anybody, back in the Old World?

Oh, and don't bother suggesting this:

It's on its way already. Your welcome, Katrien.

'Everyone I know goes away in the end'

Suffice it to say, we here at Silentio are hoping tonight that good ol' J. R. Cash is giving heaven a bit of hell. He is, as I'm sure you know, or at least have been told a good three dozen times today, already missed. In an age in which artistic sincerity is only as important as it can either be commodified, Johnny Cash somehow achieved both -- he, the millionaire-mythic 'Man in Black'.

Having long been a fan, not to mention one who operates a sporadically-updated weblog, I think I'm qualified, or at the very least willing and able, to offer up a few things I've learned along the way:

(1) Black is, indeed, slimming; as is a copious amount of barbituates.

(2) I, too, would snowball Jackson for June Carter.

(3) Pushing one's brother onto a circular saw, in hopes of emulating the tragic inspiration for your brooding disposition, while hardcore, just isn't cool and definitely won't get you an autograph.

(4) One good turn definitely doesn't always deserve another.

And (5) how to win friends and influence people.

RIP, Johnny.

A Bit More About Religion

Ah, would that more religious traditions / myths / narratives discover their own Douglas Rushkoff.

Because I can

"The sun is half the world, half everything, the bodiless half. There is always this bodiless half, this illumination, this elevation, this future, or, say, the late going colors of that past, effete green, the woman in black cashmere. If, then, New Haven is half sun, what remains, at evening, after dark, is the other half, lighted by space, big over those that sleep, as of a lone, inevitable sound, a kind of cozening and coaxing sound, and like the goodness of lying in a maternal sound, unfretted by day's separate, several selves, being part of everything come together as one." (Wallace Stevens)

More words.... We even sneeze them, you know: ahhh choo. "Ahh" who? "Choo" . . . chew. "Ah[,] choo[-choo].." Words upon words, skin upon skin, sand upon sand -- layer upon layer, all the way down. My, we're getting thick already -- or maybe it's just me. Maybe both. May[it]be neither.

Not surprisingly, I'm more enchanted by the night than I am the day. The day seems so promising and alive, and yet I find the prospects of either wanting. The night, however, is demure. She slinks onto the stage with grace, slowly, until she finally owns it. She holds no promises -- in fact, she rarely speaks. She speaks so seldom, she hardly seems alive. And yet, when she does sleep, truth and lie do not matter nearly as much as hearing her voice. She speaks softly, like a lullabye. And when she sings, she sings in a hush. And when she sings, we all become one without a face, hushed and hidden.

Oh, what am I talking about now? What am I saying? Down what path am I treading with these romanticised, idealised thoughts? More to the point, though, why are these paths I set you on only well-worn by previous exits - was it an exodus or exile? Are we, pray tell, headed to Egypt or Eden? Maybe a breather from this mysterious course is necessary.

Re: Mysticism

As much as I try to question my relationship with religion, it's probably pretty obvious to any regular readers that I'm still pretty consumed by the topic for one reason or another (there's a blog post, perhaps?). While I'm not inclined to, nor do I think most of you care to know, the specifics of what I believe and/or disbelieve, I thought I'd toss out a little essay on the topic, generally speaking, of mysticism.

* * * * * * *

What to do when words run out on you, off to another pen, another's lips? They're never our own, you know; they are forever, and forever have been, nothing but a haunting silence -- present only as a spectre. Words fail me.

"I who live by words am wordless when
I try my words in prayer. All language turns
To silence. Prayer will take my words and then
Reveal their emptiness."

So begins one of my favorite poems about prayer. If I don't do it often myself, I sometimes take solace that others do. This poem, which is not entirely distinguishable from the prayer its about, is a story and song of hope and healing. It is, on the surface, a story of peace and quiet:

"The stilled voice learns
To hold its peace, to listen with the heart
To silence that is joy, is adoration."

To silence?/./! -- need this be a simple statement, or also a question, an exclamation. Is it possible to be each? Is there enough breath, enough room on one tongue? -- though one may rightly suspect that the answer to this question depends upon who is asked. For instance, to interrogate the silence we identify as God, our question, statement, and exclamation is empty, indeed silent. What kind of silence is this?

"The self is shattered, all words torn apart
In this strange patterned time of contemplation
That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me,
And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended."

A silent devastation; but, and this is the ineluctable question that haunts, is it a devastation that is seen, and if so by whom? To speak, particularly in prayer, though perhaps also in poetry, and maybe still in one's living and dying, is to betray one's self by speaking the unspeakable Word, heard only in a whisper, (in parenthesis), and which comes at a price: "Do no think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to brign peace but a sword."The Word of prayer, then, it slices and it dices, having itself been punctured and hung to die. Indeed, in speaking the Word, one shares in its fate, as well as, so it is sometimes spoken, inside empty, silent rooms, its resurrection.

"I leave, returned to language, for I see
Through words, even when all words are ended.
I, who live by words, am wordless when
I turn me to the Word to pray. Amen."

This, to me though, causes yet more problems. We arise to a world of words that can do nothing but fail. What, then, does this say of that which we see, if we do indeed 'see through words'? What, then, does this say of our world, of us? What else can words say but silence?

A spoken silence?/./!

I've been asked by several people about mysticism, my philosophical investigations often sounding as though they may indeed be so disposed (though perhaps merely interested). Its minimal acknowledgement notwithstanding, I think this poem is a pretty fair description of the Christian variety. To be truly mystical, however, to follow the trail of one's assumptions and, one's prayers and tears, one must be willing to err along the groundless ground of a radical silence that never quite heals, unlike what we find in the poem. That is, the promised healing is always ever a present we can never open. "Is there no balm in Gilead?"

Faith, it would seem, is certainly scary business. I suppose it could be regarded in a couple of ways: a tease, or the motivation to continue erring, seeking that which cannot be found, saying what cannot be said and hearing only silence, but never a telling silence, of the sort that most mysticism uncovers. The mystic's gift is one that cannot be opened. It is an impossible gift that faith continually experiences as the impossible.

It's enough to make you mad. -- and indeed it normally does.

I, of course, find this whole realm of (non)thinking very intriguing. Mysticism points to Absolutely Nothing, which is not to say God -- or at least gives it its all to do so; it cannot, in fact, point to any thing, not even Nothing because Nothing then becomes the possible, the thought. No-thing is what is sought, and sought it must be, and never found.

I've already said too much: mysticism is the experience of the impossible as impossible, thus inflicting the mystic with her wounding silence that proves to be too much. Words fail. She and the Word, the Christ of the Gospel-page, collapse under the weight of an indifferent silence, only to find life again, and again, and again.

For Lack of Anything Better to Say . . . An Old Email

Dear _____,

I went for a drive tonight for a couple of reasons. For one, it was a beautiful dark-blue night -- like driving into the deep sea. The traffic was minimal, and the only thing I was missing was a destination. But, the more I thought about, do any of us ever know any of our destinations. Sure, we have our plans -- X marks the spot -- to go from point A to point B, perhaps indulging in circuitous scenic routes or nomadic fruit stands along the way, but the reality of life is that plans exist to fail.

In essence, when we plan to do something, we, by definition and often unconsciously, plan NOT to do some other set of alternative actions that would otherwise prevent what we would like to accomplish. This is all well and good, and I would think provides the impetus for most of the things that actually get done in life, but the shocking reality is that things rarely ever go as planned. Planes are generally either early or late. No two road trips ever takes exactly the same amount of time. The things that we often think are set in stone are perhaps only written in chalk.

The reason for this is simple: We interact on a nearly infinitesimal level with other people and their plans. Some of these plans coincide with ours, others don't; all of them, however, directly or indirectly, play a role in the development, promotion, or subversion of each of our plans. One decision may not appear to affect another, but on closer inspection -- that is, interestingly, by stepping back -- we see that most human circumstances are created by human decisions, or humans working toward a (unconscious or conscious, unintentional or intentional [whatever either of those words really mean]) plan.

It is not so much a puzzle, as this is far too static an image, as it is a bivouac of ants. When a colony of ants is on the march, they set up headquarters by forming a nest composed entirely of their own bodies. A few ants will anchor themselves by their legs to the bottom of a fallen tree. Other ants hook onto the first ones, then more, then more, until they begin to form long, wiggling brown ropes. As more and more ants join, the ropes merge into an enormous thicket. It may contain hundreds of thousands of individual ants. Inside are tunnels and chambers and galleries through which ants carry food, tend to the queen and her brood, and fuss with the endless chores of maintaining the bivouac.

The point of all this, simply enough, is to say that what looks like, from a distance, a single 'something' is actually a complex collection of 'somethings'! The same would appear to be true with human circumstances. Nothing we do is done is our own. We often make plans that are congruent with societal norms, norms that are constructed by a community's prevailing majority and not necessarily representative of an individual creation. Sometimes these societal norms are internal compulsions, other times they are external -- neither can be said to be any more or less malevolent because of where its compulsive power resides. Furthermore, the very actions in which we engage ourselves are connected with other plans on the outside that work against the success of our own. In sum, our plans are merely that -- ours. Yours are not mine; mine are not yours. In fact, your plans two weeks ago for tomorrow may not reflect your goals now for that same day. Therefore, not only are our plans 'ours,' but they are 'ours' only on the most banal (though necessary) of existential levels. That is, they are our plans in-the-now, if such a time can rightfully be said to exist -- the moment you appeal to it, it is has passed.

Plans are perhaps not things to which we appeal, as we attempt to give our life its parameters or its shape, but simply the product of lives lived in response to the free-floating, surface-level chaos that comprise the matrix of the human condition. Should we plan? I think so: To live is to plan, for all human decisions necessitate a plan of action -- do this, don't do this; to plan is to (often) fail; to fail is to live (and learn, so the maxim goes). And so the cycle goes. To not plan doesn't avoid the 'problem,' if you want to call it that. It, in fact, shows how wed we are to its reality, because it itself is a plan of action. One, I hasten to add, we have already failed to achieve.

To conclude, I said I had couple of reasons for my drive this evening, but the most important was that I was hungry.

Love,

Brad

A Dedication

The Death Bong

(For my long-suffering hosts.)

Oh Yeah

I don't remember mentioning this in any of my previous posts, but on Saturday I flew back to the Heartland of America. To my fellow Americans, I have come bearing gifts -- that of dark chocolate and fine Trappist ales from Belgium (sadly, there was one beer casualty whilst travelling, rendering one piece of luggage a stinky mess), not to mention some delicious uisge beatha To those Europeans I've left for five weeks, I promise to return with a revived level of snarky, blame-America-first scorn ('cause, you know, that's what we lefties do). As for now . . . I'm truly enjoying central air conditioning.

Something Light to Start Off Your Day

Okay, maybe not. I saw a little blurb on Indianapolis' Fox affiliate last night -- their 10:00 news, by the way, is something beyond awful (I take back all the awful things I've thought about the BBC) -- about somebody dying during a prayer meeting, and this actually seemed darkly humorous at the time, but the story behind the blurb is unspeakably, heartbreakingly sad.

UPDATE: It's official now: it was a homicide.

For Those of You with Extra Cash

Perfect for that empty spot next to your bowling trophies, no?

Out of Commission

Just to let everybody know, due to the wild world of a virus-infected computer, I've been out of blogging commission since Wednesday, and will continue to be, for the most part, throughout next week. I truly hate blogging at Katrien's place in Voorshoven anyway, so maybe it's for the better.

It's a bird, it's a plane.... no, wait, it's just a bird

You Want A Piece o' Me?

Masters of intimidation, they stalk their victims relentlessly and without mercy. Now they are bringing their menace to Britain's town and cities and have been blamed for a string of brutal attacks on urban dwellers this summer.

The arrival of vast numbers of seagulls has created a sharp upsurge in reported incidents. Most major urban areas have experienced attacks, including London, Birmingham and Glasgow.

[. . .]

Councils throughout the UK are drawing up plans to tackle the menace. Calls for mass gull culls are growing. Shooting, poisoning or egg-destroying have been discussed by exasperated officials.

It follows a series of attacks, whose victims have included a woman who sustained deep beak wounds to her head, a pet dog pecked to death and a Welsh pensioner, who had a fatal heart attack after she was swooped on by the birds.

One Sussex school recently had to postpone lessons and install netting above the playground to protect pupils following the attentions of an agitated seagull. Another recent victim was pensioner Marie Munro, who was attacked and put in hospital after weeks of intimidation by the same seagull, an attack that shares parallels with Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 thriller The Birds.

Munro recalls being constantly followed around by the gull for hundreds of yards. However, it was when she set off her personal alarm in a desperate attempt to frighten her stalker away that the intimidation turned ugly. 'That was a big mistake. Every time I stepped a foot outside it would follow me overhead, occasionally dive-bombing me,' she said.

Then the seagull began trailing her husband Len. The next phase of attack entailed attacking the pair in their back garden. Then last month came the attack that sent her to hospital for treatment.

As the creature dived for her face, Munro staggered back and fell, splitting the bone down the length of her foot and rupturing her tendons. Yesterday the plaster came off, but the terror remains. 'They are spreading farther afield. They are just so aggressive and intelligent with it,' she warns.

[. . .]

[Peter] Rock, a visiting fellow at Bristol University, said: 'Urban gulls are increasing exponentially. Many reports suggest they are terrorising workers and even striking bystanders on the street. They also produce large amounts of excrement, some deliberately aimed at humans.' (my emphasis)

Heads up!

Journalistic Dissonance

It's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Day in today's Washington Post.

First, there's Option A:

This article is based on interviews with analysts and policymakers inside and outside the U.S. government, and access to internal documents and technical evidence not previously made public.

The new information indicates a pattern in which President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their subordinates -- in public and behind the scenes -- made allegations depicting Iraq's nuclear weapons program as more active, more certain and more imminent in its threat than the data they had would support. On occasion administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views. The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied . . .

And then, Option B:

THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL race seems to be carrying the Democratic Party in a dangerous direction on the issues of the Iraq war and national security -- dangerous for the nation and risky for the party too. Some of the candidates are more off course than others. If they listen to former vice president Al Gore, who took it upon himself last week to suggest a theme of attack for the nine candidates, they will all go off the cliff.

Mr. Gore, who not so long ago was describing Iraq as a "virulent threat in a class by itself," validated just about every conspiratorial theory of the antiwar left. President Bush, in distorting evidence about the Iraqi threat, was pursuing policies "designed to benefit friends and supporters." The war was waged "at least partly in order to ensure our continued access to oil." And it occurred because "false impressions" precluded the nation from conducting a serious debate before the war.

This notion -- that we were all somehow bamboozled into war -- is part of Mr. Gore's larger conviction that Mr. Bush has put one over on the nation, and not just with regard to Iraq.

[. . .]

He's not the only Democrat who thinks he can have it both ways, pandering to anti-Bush passion while protecting his national-security flank. Sen. John Kerry has been trying something similar with, for example, this applause line, which he must know can only stoke isolationist sentiment: "We shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad while closing them in Brooklyn." It would be possible to support firefighters in Brooklyn without questioning U.S. commitment to Iraq. Sen. Joe Lieberman has found plenty to criticize in the Bush administration foreign policy without abandoning his longstanding support of American strength and democracy promotion. It's an honorable position, and one that doesn't depend on portraying everyone else as poor saps duped by wizardly Bush propaganda.

Unfortunately, unlike the series of old, you can't flip ahead to see which alternative leads you (or, as the case may be, the ascendency of an oil-addled junta) to an untimely end. Bugger.

Another Season

I don't think this has anything to do with it, but seeing it today made me think of another season of footie action here in Glasgow. Have at it, ye neighbourly, intoxicated yobs.

It's a Life

Sorry for the lack of posts these latter days. Between meetings at the department and moving, I'm ready for this week to be over! Fortunately, I'm nearly moved into my new flat in Glasgow -- and so very close to having a decent cable provider to boot! After toiling for two years in relative squalor it's nice to have a bit more luxury in my life, even if most of that luxury is paid for with loans. Perhaps I should be like all the other cool bloggers and start asking for money?

Anyway, for those who are at all curious, this is what my street looks like:

I should say, though, that I don't actually know this to be Dumbarton Road, my new West End haunt, but there's something about every major street around here that looks utterly same. So, even if it's not, it may as well be my street.

A Dedication

This one's for Silentio's favourite regular reader -- she knows who she is. And if she doesn't, she'll know when she clicks the link. For everybody else, I can but say: 'The Dude abides.'

What a Great Gig!

For proof that reading the smaller, slightly hidden articles in your Sunday paper is much more fulfilling than anything on the front page see page twenty-one of today's Observer, 'Delphic oracle was ancient glue-sniffer':

She advised generals about invasions; told citizens about the fates of their investments; and even warned Oedipus about the dangers of murdering his father and marrying his mother.

Yet the oracle at Delphi was not blessed with prophetic vision, scientists have discovered. In fact, she was high on alcoholic vapours.

This is the conclusion of scientists - writing in this month's Scientific American - who have found that the oracle chamber was built over a geological fault from which seeped ethane and ethylene gases. As a result, the oracle, the temple maiden who uttered Delphi's prophecies, was probably in a permanent narcotic state.

In other words, the oracle's utterings, upon which so much of ancient Greek life depended, were not the words of Apollo, the god of prophecy, but the babblings of a drunk or glue-sniffer.

Readers of Nietzsche, of course, already knew this, as Dionysus can never be too far from Apollo.

Foreign Policy

UPDATE: I don't necessarily object to the three words I've since deleted from this post, but posting them was a product of a double of Glenfiddich I probably should not have accepted. Being too forthright is always frowned upon here at Silentio, if not necessarily in real life -- even when there's whisky involved.

Unemployment versus No Employment

Good news, my unemployed friends! Our great nation's unemployment rate in July dipped to the laughably miniscule (or not!) 6.2%. Wonderful news! Beautiful day! No more beans and rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the masses sing. Oh wait, you mean there's a difference between unemployment going down and number of places offering NO EMPLOYMENT going up?

The nation's unemployment rate declined to 6.2 percent in July as nearly half a million discouraged Americans stopped looking for a job. Payrolls were cut for the sixth month in a row, suggesting that businesses remain cautious and want to keep work forces leans despite budding signs of an economic revival.

The Labor Department's report Friday pained a picture of a job market that remains stubbornly sluggish and continues to frustrate people looking for work.

The economy lost 44,000 jobs in July. While that's an improvement from the 72,000 shed in June, economists were hoping that positions would actually be added. They were forecasting payrolls to go up by around 10,000.

Although the jobless rate dipped to a two-month low of 6.2 percent from a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June, much of decline's July represented the exodus of 470,000 discouraged people who abandoned job searches because they believed no jobs were available.

Oh, lest ye Republicans worry about the reelection chances of your chosen son, we almost get yer weapons fer ya. Ahem, on second thought, or do we?