When I read a book like George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London" my brain shuts off for the subsequent hours while I process what it is I had been shoving in front of my eyes for a week straight. The basic premise is that our main man G.O. loses his two sources of income in Paris while plies his craft at becoming a writer, something he believes he was born to do. He then relies on his journal/wits to retell the interim period in which he was flat broke. The characters he unveils throughout his exasperating walks come, unsurprisingly, from the dregs of society.
If there are any takeaway lessons from the book, they might be;
-It's way iller to be poor in Paris than in London.
-You can definitely still go to jail for, to quote Richard Manuel of the Band, "the crime of having nowhere to go".
-Orwell believes that those "tramps" who skulk about the country side for fear of being locked up are divided in to two camps; 1)the educated who have fallen on hard times and 2)working stiffs whose services were no longer required at their prior line of work. In the case of the latter, he seems to claim that they lack two things; 1) something to keep their bodies, and therefore minds, occupied and 2) some kind of sexual activity. Orwell repeatedly mentions the rampant homosexuality among the wandering homeless/unemployed of Great Britain.
That's about it, also Simmons is doing a podcast about NBA trades, and....I'm listening.
2009/02/11
Cantankerous Sores
It's sunny and 75, what the fuck Huelva? I love you.
This blog is a great little space to explore some things of interest:
Ben Baker-Smith just launched a new website; check it out here.
Joe Flaherty was in my dream the other night; check out his IMDB page here.
This video is a fucking disgrace, but kind of exactly the direction I'm headed in sonically.
This blog is a great little space to explore some things of interest:
Ben Baker-Smith just launched a new website; check it out here.
Joe Flaherty was in my dream the other night; check out his IMDB page here.
This video is a fucking disgrace, but kind of exactly the direction I'm headed in sonically.
Steak Fritters
I have noticed that, more often than not, people who work lower level security jobs or clerk positions here in Huelva do the absolute minimum required. If you give them money, they love you forever.
I have no problem giving this drop a second plug; nobody I know is working harder than Taka at making some original sounds.
Cancel my subscription to Spanish Elle Magazine; their christmas edition featured some of the most homoerotic photos of Pau Gasol I have EVER seen.
Why is it suddenly a big deal that MIA is Tamil?(Psych; read about some real shit) Fucking NYT missed the boat on that one like they were Elian Gonzalez's momma (RIP).
I have no problem giving this drop a second plug; nobody I know is working harder than Taka at making some original sounds.
Cancel my subscription to Spanish Elle Magazine; their christmas edition featured some of the most homoerotic photos of Pau Gasol I have EVER seen.
Why is it suddenly a big deal that MIA is Tamil?(Psych; read about some real shit) Fucking NYT missed the boat on that one like they were Elian Gonzalez's momma (RIP).
2009/02/10
hello potential backers
Have you read this blog? I suppose you should get on it post haste. You can currently view señor Baker-Smith's demo reel, which does feature a great shot of one Rafael Capo García Rodón being executed by one Georgie Schaefer and myself.
Also, a certain gem finally dropped from the vaults of my A-number one-favorito producer on the planet. So GET ON IT PEOPLE!
Also, a certain gem finally dropped from the vaults of my A-number one-favorito producer on the planet. So GET ON IT PEOPLE!
Things to discuss
The weather is fast improving here in buttfuck, España. I officially have a gig scheduled on February 27th at this kick ass bar called Lyceo; they have everything you expect of a solid Spanish bar, aka coffee and treats during the day and a decent beer list/wine/liquor when the sun goes down. The beard experiment of 2009 looks a little like this:
NSFW I suppose
Look at that handsome Italian to my left, the extremely talented Domenico Cecere. More to come on this hombre.
NSFW I suppose
Look at that handsome Italian to my left, the extremely talented Domenico Cecere. More to come on this hombre.
2009/02/09
2009/02/08
oily fingers
Yes, the hot stove that is A-Rod's positive steroid report doesn't really do much for the disinterested fan; baseball became much more boring when it became inextricably linked to Republican values. The same principles have already destroyed my fledgling NFl fandom (The Eagles high-wire-choke-artist act has also worn thinner than a vegan at the Beachcomber in St. Simon's Island, Georgia).
Everyone in Spain is quite content to stay in bed til the early afternoon on Sundays. Today I got up at 9:30, and felt like I'd overslept for days; I've been making a habit lately of going to be earlier and getting up earlier. Pelirroja and I decided that we are cyclical creatures of habit, so these things are to be expected from time to time. Hopefully we'll have a lovely picnic today; the sun's warmth manages to counteract the brisk winds (on a great day the wind's blowing out and Huelva becomes an olfactory hitter's park as the factory's smoke heads towards the eastern part of the province, rather than right towards us capital denizens). We've got a Tortilla de Patata, some red onions, some red pepper, some cream cheese, some bread, hopefully some fruits, and plenty of activities to keep entertained. Just yesterday, Red made it across the slack rope line 4 times; that's some impressive shit, as my greatest gains have been no more than 2 or three steps.
If a dog's urine was the colors of the rainbow, Huelva might be the prettiest place on earth. Sometimes you have to really turn things on their head to find positivity; everyone here is always complaining about one thing or another. On the daily I hear Spaniards cry out, to nobody in particular, "Ay, qué frio..."(Ugh, such cold). On a completely unrelated note, I never quite understood how I was supposed to read a book like "The Enormous Room" by e.e. cummings if I had never studied French, several credible sources had recommended it to me as a great reference point for comparing WWI-era international relations with the age of access we are now living in; then, I got about 100 pages deep in to "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell, and probably because I live with a french woman, and because I'm relating more and more to the story of the privileged poor, it seems to flow quite nicely with his interspersed French as it appears as dialogue. My original problem with Cummings was that he felt he had the liberty to switch between English and French with no particular rhythm; as if it was written by decoding from a third distinct language that cannot be translated exactly in to just English or French. Like I said, rainbow...Ronnie James Dio's first band.
Everyone in Spain is quite content to stay in bed til the early afternoon on Sundays. Today I got up at 9:30, and felt like I'd overslept for days; I've been making a habit lately of going to be earlier and getting up earlier. Pelirroja and I decided that we are cyclical creatures of habit, so these things are to be expected from time to time. Hopefully we'll have a lovely picnic today; the sun's warmth manages to counteract the brisk winds (on a great day the wind's blowing out and Huelva becomes an olfactory hitter's park as the factory's smoke heads towards the eastern part of the province, rather than right towards us capital denizens). We've got a Tortilla de Patata, some red onions, some red pepper, some cream cheese, some bread, hopefully some fruits, and plenty of activities to keep entertained. Just yesterday, Red made it across the slack rope line 4 times; that's some impressive shit, as my greatest gains have been no more than 2 or three steps.
If a dog's urine was the colors of the rainbow, Huelva might be the prettiest place on earth. Sometimes you have to really turn things on their head to find positivity; everyone here is always complaining about one thing or another. On the daily I hear Spaniards cry out, to nobody in particular, "Ay, qué frio..."(Ugh, such cold). On a completely unrelated note, I never quite understood how I was supposed to read a book like "The Enormous Room" by e.e. cummings if I had never studied French, several credible sources had recommended it to me as a great reference point for comparing WWI-era international relations with the age of access we are now living in; then, I got about 100 pages deep in to "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell, and probably because I live with a french woman, and because I'm relating more and more to the story of the privileged poor, it seems to flow quite nicely with his interspersed French as it appears as dialogue. My original problem with Cummings was that he felt he had the liberty to switch between English and French with no particular rhythm; as if it was written by decoding from a third distinct language that cannot be translated exactly in to just English or French. Like I said, rainbow...Ronnie James Dio's first band.
2009/02/07
Zoomers
Hey!
It's been an interesting 2009 so far; Republicans are aging in Dog Years (light years?), Democrats don't seem to have paid any attention to the 2 plus years of campaigning that led to November 4th, The Knicks are in playoff contention (outside of Washington, EVERYBODY is in contention in the Eastern Conference), Free Darko book ages like a fine wine, it's cold as hell in my shitty apartment that I will be hopefully moving out of in a couple of days in to a baller crib a block and a half away. Yes, there was a new drop; Pro-Fil-Lactix Gratuite finally came to fruition.
It's only February, but I am personally very excited for the ridiculousness that will ensue in the coming months/lifetime.
Hope all y'all gainfully employed people are thanking your lucky stars.
Hope ye unemployed, especially in DC, are not enjoying the recent lift on gun bans too much.
Jimmy Fallon gets his own late night show; maybe we'll be seeing more of Paul Barman. As was once told to me, "09 is mine" is MC Paul B's catchphrase; he will be competing with panic, mcdonald's and jeans with adjustable waistbands for America's heart.
It's been an interesting 2009 so far; Republicans are aging in Dog Years (light years?), Democrats don't seem to have paid any attention to the 2 plus years of campaigning that led to November 4th, The Knicks are in playoff contention (outside of Washington, EVERYBODY is in contention in the Eastern Conference), Free Darko book ages like a fine wine, it's cold as hell in my shitty apartment that I will be hopefully moving out of in a couple of days in to a baller crib a block and a half away. Yes, there was a new drop; Pro-Fil-Lactix Gratuite finally came to fruition.
It's only February, but I am personally very excited for the ridiculousness that will ensue in the coming months/lifetime.
Hope all y'all gainfully employed people are thanking your lucky stars.
Hope ye unemployed, especially in DC, are not enjoying the recent lift on gun bans too much.
Jimmy Fallon gets his own late night show; maybe we'll be seeing more of Paul Barman. As was once told to me, "09 is mine" is MC Paul B's catchphrase; he will be competing with panic, mcdonald's and jeans with adjustable waistbands for America's heart.
2009/02/06
Something to Ponder
Yes, I'm up early on my off day. Yes, I might have a gig in the future. Yes, I don't have my guitar with me to audition and it's missing the high E. None of these things really matter after I read this: Tyronn Lue is headed to the Orland Magic for Keith Bogans.
This basically puts two of the most inept, least athletically inclined, over the hill pg's in the league on the same team; I can imagine Ian Eagle haunting my sleep in the coming months with his lurid details of another late-season magic loss where they couldn't get the ball over the halfcourt line in the customary 8 seconds the referees (maybe not Donaghy) allow. Many of you know that this trade happened because Jameer Nelson tore his labrum recently; he was having a career year, and I'm a sucker for Naismith Award winners who don't suck (see teammate J.J. Reddick for the antithesis of Jameer Nelson). There could not be a more star-crossed pair of lovers in the Eastern Conference elite than former St. Joseph Hawks Delonte West and our man Jameer. This might sound strange the more I think about it, but it was really badass that he would bring his young son to games as a senior and then torch the other team for like 40 points; admittedly, I was watching on TV, but I did catch a live game against conference rivals Xavier (David West era) that was riveting.
So let's break this down, Meximan style, since you gotta sell what you know, and I know all about unathletic, undynamic distributors.
Before I get too salty, it's worth noting that Lue was one of the few free-agent pg's available with legit playoff experience (playing rotation minutes on a championship team is certainly respectable, and he did play quality defense against Iverson [except for the game 1 embarrassment] in 2001. There was talk in the off-season that former running mate, The Big Cactus (when you think about the line ask Kobe how my asshole taste juxtaposed to this desert nom-de-guerre, it's kind of funny, I guess...), Shaquille O'neal openly lobbied for him to sign with the Phoenix Suns; my guess is that Shaq saw Goran Dragic look like a poor man's Beno Udrih with no explosiveness.
Anthony Johnson is one of those NBA guys who just seems so fucking happy to be playing at all; this energy could be infectious if there was some dynamism to go along with it. Surely he is a capable ball-handler, but he lacks the quicks, the ups and the lateral range to defend a Mo Williams for 6 or 7 (likely 5 with the way things are going) games in a playoff series. I remember watching Johnson play under Byron Scott/Lawrence Frank with the Nets, and wondering where the hell Scoonie Penn or any other number of people who were good enough to play in the NBA were hiding. So, I don't dislike the guy at all, he just doesn't seem like an NBA player; I suppose, economically, someone who makes something near the veteran minimum is a great guy to have when he actually earns his salary.
So, maybe Turkoglu can continue his slashing big-man thing that he is slowly perfecting; minimal love from the Free Darko guys, which I never understood. Maybe Courtney Lee will outplay George Hill in the NBA finals. Maybe Dwight Howard still has no offensive game. Nonetheless, their point guard situation got solidifed with this trade; solidly terrible, that is.
On his way out to the frozen tundra of Milquetoast Milwaukee (The Good Land) is one of my favorite Kentucky alums, Keith Bogans. Dude became somewhat expendable with the signing of Pietrus in the off-season, but is a solid rotation guy; the sort of player that if you were ten rounds deep in a video game season draft, that you'd definitely pick him up and find a way to get him 8 shots a game. Without Michael Redd, the Bucks are in need of scoring; maybe it comes from Charlie Villanueva's breakout campaign, or Ramon Sessions will continue to hush the critics who say he isn't an NBA starter, maybe Luke Ridnour will come back from his most recent concussion and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Richard Jefferson will dive deeper in to his Keats anthology that VC slipped in to his bags when he was packing up after the trade. Joe Alexander, awkwardly peering over RJ's shoulder, will get a fresh back of the hand for his peeping tom ways.
FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK
This basically puts two of the most inept, least athletically inclined, over the hill pg's in the league on the same team; I can imagine Ian Eagle haunting my sleep in the coming months with his lurid details of another late-season magic loss where they couldn't get the ball over the halfcourt line in the customary 8 seconds the referees (maybe not Donaghy) allow. Many of you know that this trade happened because Jameer Nelson tore his labrum recently; he was having a career year, and I'm a sucker for Naismith Award winners who don't suck (see teammate J.J. Reddick for the antithesis of Jameer Nelson). There could not be a more star-crossed pair of lovers in the Eastern Conference elite than former St. Joseph Hawks Delonte West and our man Jameer. This might sound strange the more I think about it, but it was really badass that he would bring his young son to games as a senior and then torch the other team for like 40 points; admittedly, I was watching on TV, but I did catch a live game against conference rivals Xavier (David West era) that was riveting.
So let's break this down, Meximan style, since you gotta sell what you know, and I know all about unathletic, undynamic distributors.
Before I get too salty, it's worth noting that Lue was one of the few free-agent pg's available with legit playoff experience (playing rotation minutes on a championship team is certainly respectable, and he did play quality defense against Iverson [except for the game 1 embarrassment] in 2001. There was talk in the off-season that former running mate, The Big Cactus (when you think about the line ask Kobe how my asshole taste juxtaposed to this desert nom-de-guerre, it's kind of funny, I guess...), Shaquille O'neal openly lobbied for him to sign with the Phoenix Suns; my guess is that Shaq saw Goran Dragic look like a poor man's Beno Udrih with no explosiveness.
Anthony Johnson is one of those NBA guys who just seems so fucking happy to be playing at all; this energy could be infectious if there was some dynamism to go along with it. Surely he is a capable ball-handler, but he lacks the quicks, the ups and the lateral range to defend a Mo Williams for 6 or 7 (likely 5 with the way things are going) games in a playoff series. I remember watching Johnson play under Byron Scott/Lawrence Frank with the Nets, and wondering where the hell Scoonie Penn or any other number of people who were good enough to play in the NBA were hiding. So, I don't dislike the guy at all, he just doesn't seem like an NBA player; I suppose, economically, someone who makes something near the veteran minimum is a great guy to have when he actually earns his salary.
So, maybe Turkoglu can continue his slashing big-man thing that he is slowly perfecting; minimal love from the Free Darko guys, which I never understood. Maybe Courtney Lee will outplay George Hill in the NBA finals. Maybe Dwight Howard still has no offensive game. Nonetheless, their point guard situation got solidifed with this trade; solidly terrible, that is.
On his way out to the frozen tundra of Milquetoast Milwaukee (The Good Land) is one of my favorite Kentucky alums, Keith Bogans. Dude became somewhat expendable with the signing of Pietrus in the off-season, but is a solid rotation guy; the sort of player that if you were ten rounds deep in a video game season draft, that you'd definitely pick him up and find a way to get him 8 shots a game. Without Michael Redd, the Bucks are in need of scoring; maybe it comes from Charlie Villanueva's breakout campaign, or Ramon Sessions will continue to hush the critics who say he isn't an NBA starter, maybe Luke Ridnour will come back from his most recent concussion and say, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Richard Jefferson will dive deeper in to his Keats anthology that VC slipped in to his bags when he was packing up after the trade. Joe Alexander, awkwardly peering over RJ's shoulder, will get a fresh back of the hand for his peeping tom ways.
2009/02/05
I Read Mooney's blog
how else could i end up here?
Which reminded me of this other cool site, that they link to; ubu web that features the 365 days project, a must have for all those in the samples game.
Another great website for greedy asshole like me who don't want to pay for sounds is the free sound project. Started at IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis), freesound is like any other online forum, except that it is full of original noises and recordings created by the users. check it out here
Which reminded me of this other cool site, that they link to; ubu web that features the 365 days project, a must have for all those in the samples game.
Another great website for greedy asshole like me who don't want to pay for sounds is the free sound project. Started at IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis), freesound is like any other online forum, except that it is full of original noises and recordings created by the users. check it out here
The Wall and the Books
(via The Souther Cross Review)
By Jorge Luis Borges
(translation from Spanish and comments by Gaither Stewart)
He, whose long wall the wand’ring Tartar bounds …
Dunciad, II, 76. (1)
I read, in past days, that the man who ordered the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China was that First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who likewise ordered the burning of all the books before him. That the two gigantic operations—the five or six hundred leagues of stone to oppose the barbarians, the rigorous abolition of history, that is of the past—issued from one person and were in a certain sense his attributes, inexplicably satisfied me and, at the same time, disturbed me. The object of this note is to investigate the reasons for that emotion.
Historically there is no mystery in the two measures. A contemporary of the wars of Hannibal, Shih Huang Ti, King of Ch’in, conquered the Six Kingdoms and eliminated the feudal system; he built the wall because walls were defenses; he burned the books because the opposition invoked them in order to extol former emperors. Burning books and building fortifications is common task to emperors; the only thing singular about Shih Huang Ti was the scale on which he operated. So some Sinologists would have us understand, but I feel that the facts to which I referred are something more than an exaggeration or a hyperbole of trivial inclinations. To enclose an orchard or a garden is common; not to enclose an empire. That the most traditional of races renounced the memory of its past, mythical or true, is no small matter. The Chinese had three thousand years of chronology (in those years, the Yellow Emperor and Chuang Tzu and Confucius and Lao Tzu) when Shih Huang Ti ordered that history began with him.
Shih Huang Ti had banished his mother as a libertine; the orthodox saw only impiety in his severe justice; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to erase canonic books because they accused him; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to abolish the entire past in order to abolish one memory: the infamy of his mother. (Not unlike another king, in Judea, had all the children killed in order to kill one.) This conjecture is worth considering, but it tells us nothing about the wall, about the second facet of the myth. Shih Huang Ti, according to historians, forbade all mention of the word death and searched for the elixir of immortality and secluded himself in a figurative palace, which had as many rooms as the year has days; the data suggest that the wall in space and the fire in time were magic barriers intended to halt the advance of death. Everything persists in his being, wrote Baruch Spinoza; perhaps the Emperor and his sages believed that immortality was intrinsic and that corruption could not penetrate a closed sphere. Perhaps the Emperor hoped to recreate the beginning of time and called himself The First, in order to be truly the first, and he named himself Huang Ti in order to be in some way Huang Ti, the legendary emperor who invented writing and the compass. The latter, according to the Book of Rites, gave things their true names; equally Shih Huang Ti boasted, in enduring inscriptions, that all things in his empire had the name they merited. He dreamed of founding an immortal dynasty; he ordered that his heirs should be named Second Emperor, Third Emperor, Fourth Emperor, and so on to infinity … I spoke of a magic design; it would also be possible to suppose that constructing a wall and burning the books were not simultaneous acts. This (according to the order we choose) would give us the image of a king who began by destroying and afterwards resigned himself to conserving, or that of a disabused king who destroyed what he defended earlier. Both conjectures are dramatic but lack, as far as I know, in historical basis. Herbert Allen Giles (2) relates that those who concealed books were branded by a red-hot iron and condemned to build the outrageous wall until the day of their death. This information favors or tolerates another interpretation. Perhaps the wall was a metaphor, maybe Shih Huang Ti condemned those who worshipped the past to a work just as vast as the past, as stupid and useless. Perhaps the wall was a challenge and Shih Huang Ti thought: “Men love the past and I can do nothing against this love, nor can my executioners, but some time there will be a man who feels as I do, and he will destroy my wall, as I destroyed the books, and will erase my memory and will be my shadow and my mirror and will not be aware of it. Perhaps Shih Huang Ti walled in the empire because he knew it was fragile and he destroyed the books because he understood they were sacred books, or rather books that taught that which the entire universe teaches or the consciousness of every man. Maybe the burning of the libraries and the construction of the wall are operations that in a secret way cancel each other.
The tenacious wall that in this moment, and in all moments, projects its system of shadows across lands I will not see, is the shadow of a Caesar who ordered that the most reverent of nations burn its past; it is likely that the idea itself touches us by, over and above, the conjectures it allows. (Its virtue can be in the opposition to building and destroying, on an enormous scale.) Generalizing the earlier matter, we could infer that all practices have their virtue in themselves and not in some conjectural “content.” This would be in agreement with the thesis of Benedetto Croce (3); as already Pater (4), in 1877, contended that all the arts aspire to the condition of music, which is nothing but form. Music, state of happiness, mythology, faces shaped by time, certain twilights and certain places, try to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have lost, or want to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation, which does not happen, is, perhaps, the esthetic act.
1. Dunciad by Alexander Pope in which the poet referred to his many enemies as dunces. This satirical poem of 920 lines, in three books, describes the king of dunces and a nightmare world of universal darkness in Pope’s gigantic lampoon of writers, books and booksellers, attacking those who write for pay. At one point there is a sacrifice bonfire of the books. This sort of literary reference and source is used by Anglophile Borges throughout his work.
2. Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935), renowned British diplomat and Sinologist.
3. Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), Italian literary historian, critic, philosopher, wrote: “Art is not the addition of form to content, but expression, which does not mean communication but is a spiritual fact, and ethics is conceived as the expression of the universal will, of the spirit.”
4. Walter Pater (1839-94), English writer, essayist, aesthete and art historian, famous precisely because his life is so shrouded in mystery, whom Henry James called “the mask without the face” and the kind of literary source Borges plants in his strange tales. Here Borges quotes Pater that “all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music.” I found on line this anecdote which is revealing of the nature of Pater, and thus of one side of Borges:
In 1894, the last year of his life, Pater was invited to meet Mallarmé, who was then lecturing at Oxford. Mallarmé taught English in a lycée; Pater’s French was excellent; but the two connoisseurs of intimation apparently thought it too vulgar actually to speak. According to one account, they “regarded each other in silence, and were satisfied.”
Translator’s note: This typical Borges interpretative chronicle/ historical reflection (neither short story nor essay!) is included in Antología Personal (Personal Anthology), the version I have translated here, the first edition of which was published by Editorial Sur in 1961 and for which Borges wrote in the Prologue that his “preferences dictated this book.” It appeared again in English in Everything and Nothing, New Directions, 1999. I chose to translate this tale/account because it is shorter and, perhaps, less well-known than others; secondly because it is typical of Borges’ works in which he playfully drops unfamiliar names and references in his veiled recounting of people and place and times, which only at first appear obscure or meaningless; and thirdly because of the writer’s prologue to the volume.
As fate would have it and in Borges style, I saw in a May issue of the best of the “NY Times in Italian,” the article “Walls Raised Against the Enemy, A Long History,” which cites the first such wall as Shih Huang Ti’s Wall of China, an article intended to demonstrate that they never work, not in Berlin nor in Israel nor in Baghdad. Nor will it work on the US-Mexican border, I would add.
Tracing the references and my close reading of the Prologue is to elucidate to a limited degree the Borgesian world. If you try to pursue diligently all Borges’ literary pointers you have to be prepared to enter an infinite labyrinth in which one thing leads to another and then another, inexorably and without end, so that you do need the proverbial ball of string to find your way out. Though with contemporary web search engines this labyrinth is only a few clicks away, while I was clicking and longing to exit I imagined Borges instead in one of his libraries, finding, tracing and investigating such sources of inspiration by following his own instincts, pulling down tome after tome from the labyrinthine spaces filled with semi-illuminated shelves that he must have loved and hated.
Toward the end of this exercise, once the translation was finished and the names pinpointed, I returned to his Prologue to the book in which he refers to Benedetto Croce as he does in “The Wall and the Books.” Borges: “Croce opined that art is expression; from this exigency, or from the deformation of this exigency, derives the worst literature of our times…. I at times have also searched for expression; now I know that my gods no longer concede me anything but allusion or account.”
Creative writers can well understand him. On a similar tack Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) says that, “every work of art is a game played out at the worktable. Nothing is more harmful to creativity than the passion of inspiration. It’s the fable of bad romantics that fascinates bad poets and bad narrators. Art is a serious matter. Manzoni and Flaubert, Balzac and Stendhal wrote at the worktable. That means to construct, like an architect plans a building. Yet we prefer to believe that a novelist invents because he has a genius whispering into his ear.”
By Jorge Luis Borges
(translation from Spanish and comments by Gaither Stewart)
He, whose long wall the wand’ring Tartar bounds …
Dunciad, II, 76. (1)
I read, in past days, that the man who ordered the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China was that First Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who likewise ordered the burning of all the books before him. That the two gigantic operations—the five or six hundred leagues of stone to oppose the barbarians, the rigorous abolition of history, that is of the past—issued from one person and were in a certain sense his attributes, inexplicably satisfied me and, at the same time, disturbed me. The object of this note is to investigate the reasons for that emotion.
Historically there is no mystery in the two measures. A contemporary of the wars of Hannibal, Shih Huang Ti, King of Ch’in, conquered the Six Kingdoms and eliminated the feudal system; he built the wall because walls were defenses; he burned the books because the opposition invoked them in order to extol former emperors. Burning books and building fortifications is common task to emperors; the only thing singular about Shih Huang Ti was the scale on which he operated. So some Sinologists would have us understand, but I feel that the facts to which I referred are something more than an exaggeration or a hyperbole of trivial inclinations. To enclose an orchard or a garden is common; not to enclose an empire. That the most traditional of races renounced the memory of its past, mythical or true, is no small matter. The Chinese had three thousand years of chronology (in those years, the Yellow Emperor and Chuang Tzu and Confucius and Lao Tzu) when Shih Huang Ti ordered that history began with him.
Shih Huang Ti had banished his mother as a libertine; the orthodox saw only impiety in his severe justice; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to erase canonic books because they accused him; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to abolish the entire past in order to abolish one memory: the infamy of his mother. (Not unlike another king, in Judea, had all the children killed in order to kill one.) This conjecture is worth considering, but it tells us nothing about the wall, about the second facet of the myth. Shih Huang Ti, according to historians, forbade all mention of the word death and searched for the elixir of immortality and secluded himself in a figurative palace, which had as many rooms as the year has days; the data suggest that the wall in space and the fire in time were magic barriers intended to halt the advance of death. Everything persists in his being, wrote Baruch Spinoza; perhaps the Emperor and his sages believed that immortality was intrinsic and that corruption could not penetrate a closed sphere. Perhaps the Emperor hoped to recreate the beginning of time and called himself The First, in order to be truly the first, and he named himself Huang Ti in order to be in some way Huang Ti, the legendary emperor who invented writing and the compass. The latter, according to the Book of Rites, gave things their true names; equally Shih Huang Ti boasted, in enduring inscriptions, that all things in his empire had the name they merited. He dreamed of founding an immortal dynasty; he ordered that his heirs should be named Second Emperor, Third Emperor, Fourth Emperor, and so on to infinity … I spoke of a magic design; it would also be possible to suppose that constructing a wall and burning the books were not simultaneous acts. This (according to the order we choose) would give us the image of a king who began by destroying and afterwards resigned himself to conserving, or that of a disabused king who destroyed what he defended earlier. Both conjectures are dramatic but lack, as far as I know, in historical basis. Herbert Allen Giles (2) relates that those who concealed books were branded by a red-hot iron and condemned to build the outrageous wall until the day of their death. This information favors or tolerates another interpretation. Perhaps the wall was a metaphor, maybe Shih Huang Ti condemned those who worshipped the past to a work just as vast as the past, as stupid and useless. Perhaps the wall was a challenge and Shih Huang Ti thought: “Men love the past and I can do nothing against this love, nor can my executioners, but some time there will be a man who feels as I do, and he will destroy my wall, as I destroyed the books, and will erase my memory and will be my shadow and my mirror and will not be aware of it. Perhaps Shih Huang Ti walled in the empire because he knew it was fragile and he destroyed the books because he understood they were sacred books, or rather books that taught that which the entire universe teaches or the consciousness of every man. Maybe the burning of the libraries and the construction of the wall are operations that in a secret way cancel each other.
The tenacious wall that in this moment, and in all moments, projects its system of shadows across lands I will not see, is the shadow of a Caesar who ordered that the most reverent of nations burn its past; it is likely that the idea itself touches us by, over and above, the conjectures it allows. (Its virtue can be in the opposition to building and destroying, on an enormous scale.) Generalizing the earlier matter, we could infer that all practices have their virtue in themselves and not in some conjectural “content.” This would be in agreement with the thesis of Benedetto Croce (3); as already Pater (4), in 1877, contended that all the arts aspire to the condition of music, which is nothing but form. Music, state of happiness, mythology, faces shaped by time, certain twilights and certain places, try to tell us something, or they told us something that we should not have lost, or want to tell us something; this imminence of a revelation, which does not happen, is, perhaps, the esthetic act.
1. Dunciad by Alexander Pope in which the poet referred to his many enemies as dunces. This satirical poem of 920 lines, in three books, describes the king of dunces and a nightmare world of universal darkness in Pope’s gigantic lampoon of writers, books and booksellers, attacking those who write for pay. At one point there is a sacrifice bonfire of the books. This sort of literary reference and source is used by Anglophile Borges throughout his work.
2. Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935), renowned British diplomat and Sinologist.
3. Benedetto Croce (1866-1952), Italian literary historian, critic, philosopher, wrote: “Art is not the addition of form to content, but expression, which does not mean communication but is a spiritual fact, and ethics is conceived as the expression of the universal will, of the spirit.”
4. Walter Pater (1839-94), English writer, essayist, aesthete and art historian, famous precisely because his life is so shrouded in mystery, whom Henry James called “the mask without the face” and the kind of literary source Borges plants in his strange tales. Here Borges quotes Pater that “all art constantly aspires toward the condition of music.” I found on line this anecdote which is revealing of the nature of Pater, and thus of one side of Borges:
In 1894, the last year of his life, Pater was invited to meet Mallarmé, who was then lecturing at Oxford. Mallarmé taught English in a lycée; Pater’s French was excellent; but the two connoisseurs of intimation apparently thought it too vulgar actually to speak. According to one account, they “regarded each other in silence, and were satisfied.”
Translator’s note: This typical Borges interpretative chronicle/ historical reflection (neither short story nor essay!) is included in Antología Personal (Personal Anthology), the version I have translated here, the first edition of which was published by Editorial Sur in 1961 and for which Borges wrote in the Prologue that his “preferences dictated this book.” It appeared again in English in Everything and Nothing, New Directions, 1999. I chose to translate this tale/account because it is shorter and, perhaps, less well-known than others; secondly because it is typical of Borges’ works in which he playfully drops unfamiliar names and references in his veiled recounting of people and place and times, which only at first appear obscure or meaningless; and thirdly because of the writer’s prologue to the volume.
As fate would have it and in Borges style, I saw in a May issue of the best of the “NY Times in Italian,” the article “Walls Raised Against the Enemy, A Long History,” which cites the first such wall as Shih Huang Ti’s Wall of China, an article intended to demonstrate that they never work, not in Berlin nor in Israel nor in Baghdad. Nor will it work on the US-Mexican border, I would add.
Tracing the references and my close reading of the Prologue is to elucidate to a limited degree the Borgesian world. If you try to pursue diligently all Borges’ literary pointers you have to be prepared to enter an infinite labyrinth in which one thing leads to another and then another, inexorably and without end, so that you do need the proverbial ball of string to find your way out. Though with contemporary web search engines this labyrinth is only a few clicks away, while I was clicking and longing to exit I imagined Borges instead in one of his libraries, finding, tracing and investigating such sources of inspiration by following his own instincts, pulling down tome after tome from the labyrinthine spaces filled with semi-illuminated shelves that he must have loved and hated.
Toward the end of this exercise, once the translation was finished and the names pinpointed, I returned to his Prologue to the book in which he refers to Benedetto Croce as he does in “The Wall and the Books.” Borges: “Croce opined that art is expression; from this exigency, or from the deformation of this exigency, derives the worst literature of our times…. I at times have also searched for expression; now I know that my gods no longer concede me anything but allusion or account.”
Creative writers can well understand him. On a similar tack Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) says that, “every work of art is a game played out at the worktable. Nothing is more harmful to creativity than the passion of inspiration. It’s the fable of bad romantics that fascinates bad poets and bad narrators. Art is a serious matter. Manzoni and Flaubert, Balzac and Stendhal wrote at the worktable. That means to construct, like an architect plans a building. Yet we prefer to believe that a novelist invents because he has a genius whispering into his ear.”
La Muralla y los libros
Leí, días pasados, que el hombre que ordenó la edificación de la casi infinita muralla china fue aquel primer emperador, Shih Huang Ti, que asimismo dispuso que se quemaran todos los libros anteriores a él. Que las dos vastas operaciones –las quinientas a seiscientas leguas de piedra opuestas a los bárbaros, la rigurosa abolición de la historia, es decir del pasado– procedieran de una persona y fueran de algún modo sus atributos, inexplicablemente me satisfizo y, a la vez, me inquietó.
Indagar las razones de esa emoción es el fin de esta nota. Históricamente, no hay misterio en las dos medidas. Contemporáneo de las guerras de Aníbal, Shih Huang Ti, rey de Tsin, redujo a su poder los Seis Reinos y borró el sistema feudal: erigió la muralla, porque las murallas eran defensas; quemó los libros, porque la oposición los invocaba para alabar a los antiguos emperadores.
Quemar libros y erigir fortificaciones es tarea común de los príncipes; lo único singular en Shih Huang Ti fue la escala en que obró. Así lo dejan entender algunos sinólogos, pero yo siento que los hechos que he referido son algo más que una exageración o una hipérbole de disposiciones triviales.
Cercar un huerto o un jardín es común; no, cercar un imperio.
Tampoco es baladí pretender que la más tradicional de las razas renuncie a la memoria de su pasado, mítico o verdadero. Tres mil años de cronología tenían los chinos (y en esos años, el Emperador Amarillo y Chuang Tzu y Confucio y Lao Tzu), cuando Shih Huang Ti ordenó que la historia comenzara con él.
Shih Huang Ti había desterrado a su madre por libertina; en su dura justicia, los ortodoxos no vieron otra cosa que una impiedad; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso borrar los libros canónigos porque éstos lo acusaban; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso abolir todo el pasado para abolir un solo recuerdo; la infamia de su madre. (No de otra suerte un rey, en Judea, hizo matar a todos los niños para matar a uno.)
Esta conjetura es atendible, pero nada nos dice de la muralla, de la segunda cara del mito. Shih Huang Ti, según los historiadores, prohibió que se mencionara la muerte y buscó el elixir de la inmortalidad y se recluyó en un palacio figurativo, que constaba de tantas habitaciones como hay días en el año; estos datos sugieren que la muralla en el espacio y el incendio en el tiempo fueron barreras mágicas destinadas a detener la muerte.
* * *
Todas las cosas quieren persistir en su ser, ha escrito Baruch Spinoza; quizá el Emperador y sus magos creyeron que la inmortalidad es intrínseca y que la corrupción no puede entrar en un orbe cerrado.
Quizá el Emperador quiso recrear el principio del tiempo y se llamó Primero, para ser realmente primero, y se llamó Huang Ti, para ser de algún modo Huang Ti, el legendario emperador que inventó la escritura y la brújula.
Este, según el Libro de los ritos, dio su nombre verdadero a las cosas; parejamente Shih Huang Ti se jactó, en inscripciones que perduran, de que todas las cosas, bajo su imperio, tuvieran el nombre que les conviene.
Soñó fundar una dinastía inmortal; ordenó que sus herederos se llamaran Segundo Emperador, Tercer Emperador, Cuarto Emperador, y así hasta lo infinito...
He hablado de un propósito mágico; también cabría suponer que erigir la muralla y quemar los libros no fueron actos simultáneos.
Esto (según el orden que eligiéramos) nos daría la imagen de un rey que empezó por destruir y luego se resignó a conservar, o la de un rey desengañado que destruyó lo que antes defendía.
Ambas conjeturas son dramáticas, pero carecen, que yo sepa, de base histórica. Herbert Allen Giles cuenta que quienes ocultaron libros fueron marcados con un hierro candente y condenados a construir, hasta el día de su muerte, la desaforada muralla.
Esta noticia favorece o tolera otra interpretación. Acaso la muralla fue una metáfora, acaso Shih Huang Ti condenó a quienes adoraban el pasado a una obra tan vasta como el pasado, tan torpe y tan inútil.
* * *
Acaso la muralla fue un desafío y Shih Huang Ti pensó: “Los hombres aman el pasado y contra ese amor nada puedo, ni pueden mis verdugos, pero alguna vez habrá un hombre que sienta como yo, y ése destruirá mi muralla, como yo he destruido los libros, y ése borrará mi memoria y será mi sombra y mi espejo y no lo sabrá”.
Acaso Shih Huang Ti amuralló el imperio porque sabía que éste era deleznable y destruyó los libros por entender que eran libros sagrados, o sea libros que enseñan lo que enseña el universo entero o la conciencia de cada hombre.
Acaso el incendio de las bibliotecas y la edificación de la muralla son operaciones que de un modo secreto se anulan.
La muralla tenaz que en este momento, y en todos, proyecta sobre tierras que no veré su sistema de sombras es la sombra de un César que ordenó que la más reverente de las naciones quemara su pasado; es verosímil que la idea nos toque de por sí, fuera de las conjeturas que permite. (Su virtud puede estar en la oposición de construir y destruir, en enorme escala.)
Generalizando el caso anterior, podríamos inferir que todas las formas tienen su virtud en sí mismas y no en un “contenido” conjetural.
Eso concordaría con la tesis de Benedetto Croce; ya Pater, en 1877, afirmó que todas las artes aspiran a la condición de la música, que no es otra cosa que forma.
La música, los estados de la felicidad, la mitología, las caras trabajadas por el tiempo, ciertos crepúsculos y ciertos lugares, quieren decirnos algo, o algo dijeron que no hubiéramos debido perder, o están por decir algo; esta inminencia de una revelación, que no se produce, es, quizá, el hecho estético.
Por Jorge Luis Borges
Indagar las razones de esa emoción es el fin de esta nota. Históricamente, no hay misterio en las dos medidas. Contemporáneo de las guerras de Aníbal, Shih Huang Ti, rey de Tsin, redujo a su poder los Seis Reinos y borró el sistema feudal: erigió la muralla, porque las murallas eran defensas; quemó los libros, porque la oposición los invocaba para alabar a los antiguos emperadores.
Quemar libros y erigir fortificaciones es tarea común de los príncipes; lo único singular en Shih Huang Ti fue la escala en que obró. Así lo dejan entender algunos sinólogos, pero yo siento que los hechos que he referido son algo más que una exageración o una hipérbole de disposiciones triviales.
Cercar un huerto o un jardín es común; no, cercar un imperio.
Tampoco es baladí pretender que la más tradicional de las razas renuncie a la memoria de su pasado, mítico o verdadero. Tres mil años de cronología tenían los chinos (y en esos años, el Emperador Amarillo y Chuang Tzu y Confucio y Lao Tzu), cuando Shih Huang Ti ordenó que la historia comenzara con él.
Shih Huang Ti había desterrado a su madre por libertina; en su dura justicia, los ortodoxos no vieron otra cosa que una impiedad; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso borrar los libros canónigos porque éstos lo acusaban; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso abolir todo el pasado para abolir un solo recuerdo; la infamia de su madre. (No de otra suerte un rey, en Judea, hizo matar a todos los niños para matar a uno.)
Esta conjetura es atendible, pero nada nos dice de la muralla, de la segunda cara del mito. Shih Huang Ti, según los historiadores, prohibió que se mencionara la muerte y buscó el elixir de la inmortalidad y se recluyó en un palacio figurativo, que constaba de tantas habitaciones como hay días en el año; estos datos sugieren que la muralla en el espacio y el incendio en el tiempo fueron barreras mágicas destinadas a detener la muerte.
* * *
Todas las cosas quieren persistir en su ser, ha escrito Baruch Spinoza; quizá el Emperador y sus magos creyeron que la inmortalidad es intrínseca y que la corrupción no puede entrar en un orbe cerrado.
Quizá el Emperador quiso recrear el principio del tiempo y se llamó Primero, para ser realmente primero, y se llamó Huang Ti, para ser de algún modo Huang Ti, el legendario emperador que inventó la escritura y la brújula.
Este, según el Libro de los ritos, dio su nombre verdadero a las cosas; parejamente Shih Huang Ti se jactó, en inscripciones que perduran, de que todas las cosas, bajo su imperio, tuvieran el nombre que les conviene.
Soñó fundar una dinastía inmortal; ordenó que sus herederos se llamaran Segundo Emperador, Tercer Emperador, Cuarto Emperador, y así hasta lo infinito...
He hablado de un propósito mágico; también cabría suponer que erigir la muralla y quemar los libros no fueron actos simultáneos.
Esto (según el orden que eligiéramos) nos daría la imagen de un rey que empezó por destruir y luego se resignó a conservar, o la de un rey desengañado que destruyó lo que antes defendía.
Ambas conjeturas son dramáticas, pero carecen, que yo sepa, de base histórica. Herbert Allen Giles cuenta que quienes ocultaron libros fueron marcados con un hierro candente y condenados a construir, hasta el día de su muerte, la desaforada muralla.
Esta noticia favorece o tolera otra interpretación. Acaso la muralla fue una metáfora, acaso Shih Huang Ti condenó a quienes adoraban el pasado a una obra tan vasta como el pasado, tan torpe y tan inútil.
* * *
Acaso la muralla fue un desafío y Shih Huang Ti pensó: “Los hombres aman el pasado y contra ese amor nada puedo, ni pueden mis verdugos, pero alguna vez habrá un hombre que sienta como yo, y ése destruirá mi muralla, como yo he destruido los libros, y ése borrará mi memoria y será mi sombra y mi espejo y no lo sabrá”.
Acaso Shih Huang Ti amuralló el imperio porque sabía que éste era deleznable y destruyó los libros por entender que eran libros sagrados, o sea libros que enseñan lo que enseña el universo entero o la conciencia de cada hombre.
Acaso el incendio de las bibliotecas y la edificación de la muralla son operaciones que de un modo secreto se anulan.
La muralla tenaz que en este momento, y en todos, proyecta sobre tierras que no veré su sistema de sombras es la sombra de un César que ordenó que la más reverente de las naciones quemara su pasado; es verosímil que la idea nos toque de por sí, fuera de las conjeturas que permite. (Su virtud puede estar en la oposición de construir y destruir, en enorme escala.)
Generalizando el caso anterior, podríamos inferir que todas las formas tienen su virtud en sí mismas y no en un “contenido” conjetural.
Eso concordaría con la tesis de Benedetto Croce; ya Pater, en 1877, afirmó que todas las artes aspiran a la condición de la música, que no es otra cosa que forma.
La música, los estados de la felicidad, la mitología, las caras trabajadas por el tiempo, ciertos crepúsculos y ciertos lugares, quieren decirnos algo, o algo dijeron que no hubiéramos debido perder, o están por decir algo; esta inminencia de una revelación, que no se produce, es, quizá, el hecho estético.
Por Jorge Luis Borges
2009/02/04
An amusing charlatan
Brilliant non-fiction is difficult to get in sustainable doses; this might be why I feed at the river bed of the op-ed sections every morning. Brilliant fiction still has its moments from time to time; J.K. Rowling dealt with her book deal almost as brilliantly as Charles Dickens seems to by releasing the story chapter by chapter. The brightness of the light that shines from these kinds of pieces can often be so blinding, in the case of the potter books, that some find it harsh and, frankly, unbearable; read one choose your own adventure, you should probably have gotten the point (I must own dozens...).
The light that flickers between off and on in the bathroom where I'm forced to blog could be interpreted as a sign that no amount of petty, lazy thievery goes unpunished.
Continuity, a continuación, is a rare commodity in this day and age. You can't blame so many people for voting for 'Change' as their rallying cry; a tad more gallant than, "we're just not ready for a Black President." Hesitance is an intriguing part of the human condition, as intriguing as any other part, at least.
Does anyone else feel like we're all just sort of sitting and waiting to evolve?
The light that flickers between off and on in the bathroom where I'm forced to blog could be interpreted as a sign that no amount of petty, lazy thievery goes unpunished.
Continuity, a continuación, is a rare commodity in this day and age. You can't blame so many people for voting for 'Change' as their rallying cry; a tad more gallant than, "we're just not ready for a Black President." Hesitance is an intriguing part of the human condition, as intriguing as any other part, at least.
Does anyone else feel like we're all just sort of sitting and waiting to evolve?
Yowza
After some marathon work, I got the tracks for the highly-illegal, and highly awesome "Free Condoms" finished. I'm happy to report that I make a lot of non-traditional appearances on vocals, play a bunch of backwards guitar, sample the fuck out of my library, and just try to provide a good time for the kids.
PG-AR
Quick Diversion
For all those interested in the super-deluxe Ryan Welsh addition, drop me a line at alex.sugiura@gmail.com
Extra special thanks to Newhouse, Taka, Vladmir Nabokov, Fyodor Pavolovitch, Lewis Hyde, The Folks, Maximillian, Stepsel, Rosa, The Country of Italy, Finnish-American Ex-Pats, Virginia and the Sevilla crew, El Treviso, The World At Large.
In Other News, "Ryan Anderson and Brook Lopez were the first rookie tandem for the Nets to lead the team in scoring in the same game since Brian Scalabrine and Jason Collins scored 16 apiece at Toronto on April 14, 2002."-ESPN.go.com
If that can happen, then anything is truly possible.
PG-AR
Quick Diversion
For all those interested in the super-deluxe Ryan Welsh addition, drop me a line at alex.sugiura@gmail.com
Extra special thanks to Newhouse, Taka, Vladmir Nabokov, Fyodor Pavolovitch, Lewis Hyde, The Folks, Maximillian, Stepsel, Rosa, The Country of Italy, Finnish-American Ex-Pats, Virginia and the Sevilla crew, El Treviso, The World At Large.
In Other News, "Ryan Anderson and Brook Lopez were the first rookie tandem for the Nets to lead the team in scoring in the same game since Brian Scalabrine and Jason Collins scored 16 apiece at Toronto on April 14, 2002."-ESPN.go.com
If that can happen, then anything is truly possible.
2009/02/03
Rabbit Season! Duck Season!
Oh David! Feeling a tad saucy on this most recent op-ed piece about "Ward 3" folk. It seems he has crawled inside an intellectual nutshell and declared himself king of infinite space. Where the fuck was this kind of commentary for the last 4 years buddy?
A brief letter to David Brooks; Copy and paste this with your own thoughts, if you feel encouraged to do so as I am going to today.
Dear Mr. Brooks,
I am an avid reader of the NYT op-ed section and have been following yourself as well as several of your colleagues on a daily basis. I truly appreciate the service that you elite journalists provide on issues that people aren't necessarily talking about, or attempting to play Devil's Advocate against public sentiment/ignorance. For your more left-leaning counterparts, the last 8 years have been a painful deluge of plainly obvious American hubris and arrogance; it is chilling to contemplate how inert so many citizens felt, while watching a politics of fear spread throughout the land. In 2004 at Oberlin College, some, including myself, waited in line for 4+ hours just to vote, because they cared enough to respect the process. Now that Obama and the liberal grandeur that comes with this honeymoon 100 day period is upon us, I respect your wishes to play the gadfly, in fact, I'm thrilled that you have taken it upon yourself to try and see through the new smoke-screens and shining lights that the current administration attempt to draw our attention to while they try to get down to the real issues facing the administration. A culture of change is ESSENTIAL, with the implicit knowledge that history has a funny way of repeating itself; there will always be an elite "class" (in a world where we are being told class capitalism is the manner by which society is maintained, then we shall refer to ourselves on this basis), some distinction, some cleavage of society, that separates those in power and those who are having more "power" exerted on to them. SO PLEASE, do not take this opportunity to bely those in power for who they "really are", cut through the crap man, speak from the heart! There lies tremendous potential for those on the losing end of the 2008 election to see how much more we can get accomplished when dissention has a positive goal in mind. At least present the facts in a manner that don't have liberal readers closing the window three paragraphs in. Let's face it, after the election, even during, you seemed to phone in half of those articles, now more than ever you have to work harder at making a case for what you really think is at stake; amongst the elite, amongst the masses and perhaps, if time allows, a perspective on why you write in the first place.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and perhaps respond.
Sincerely,
Alex Sugiura
A brief letter to David Brooks; Copy and paste this with your own thoughts, if you feel encouraged to do so as I am going to today.
Dear Mr. Brooks,
I am an avid reader of the NYT op-ed section and have been following yourself as well as several of your colleagues on a daily basis. I truly appreciate the service that you elite journalists provide on issues that people aren't necessarily talking about, or attempting to play Devil's Advocate against public sentiment/ignorance. For your more left-leaning counterparts, the last 8 years have been a painful deluge of plainly obvious American hubris and arrogance; it is chilling to contemplate how inert so many citizens felt, while watching a politics of fear spread throughout the land. In 2004 at Oberlin College, some, including myself, waited in line for 4+ hours just to vote, because they cared enough to respect the process. Now that Obama and the liberal grandeur that comes with this honeymoon 100 day period is upon us, I respect your wishes to play the gadfly, in fact, I'm thrilled that you have taken it upon yourself to try and see through the new smoke-screens and shining lights that the current administration attempt to draw our attention to while they try to get down to the real issues facing the administration. A culture of change is ESSENTIAL, with the implicit knowledge that history has a funny way of repeating itself; there will always be an elite "class" (in a world where we are being told class capitalism is the manner by which society is maintained, then we shall refer to ourselves on this basis), some distinction, some cleavage of society, that separates those in power and those who are having more "power" exerted on to them. SO PLEASE, do not take this opportunity to bely those in power for who they "really are", cut through the crap man, speak from the heart! There lies tremendous potential for those on the losing end of the 2008 election to see how much more we can get accomplished when dissention has a positive goal in mind. At least present the facts in a manner that don't have liberal readers closing the window three paragraphs in. Let's face it, after the election, even during, you seemed to phone in half of those articles, now more than ever you have to work harder at making a case for what you really think is at stake; amongst the elite, amongst the masses and perhaps, if time allows, a perspective on why you write in the first place.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and perhaps respond.
Sincerely,
Alex Sugiura
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