(copies) the Stephen Crane poem

In Heaven
 -by Stephen Crane

In Heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
“What did you do?”
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind
Ashamed.
Presently God said:
“And what did you do?”
The little blade answered: “Oh, my lord,
“Memory is bitter to me
“For if I did good deeds
“I know not of them.”
Then God in all His splendor
Arose from His throne.
“Oh, best little blade of grass,” He said.

something about the film "American Beauty"

American Beauty is a confused but rich film.

The film's narrator and main character is Lester Burnham. Lester begins the film feeling like there is no place for him: he is unnecessary at work and irrelevant and home. But Lester, a reliable narrator, breaks free. He quits his job, blackmails his boss, and secures a cushy severance package. Then he takes a minimum-wage job with little responsibility and buys his dream car. He devotes his recreational time to smoking pot and working out. Lester asks, What do I have to lose?

Lester's compliment in the film is a neighborhood high schooler, Ricky Fitts. Ricky is a successful dealer of expensive high-end pot (Lester becomes a customer). Through interactions with peers and the adults who supposedly run the world, we learn that Ricky transcends common insecurities. Ricky taps into a life force and finds spirituality in his appreciation of "real" beauty.

Lester's foil is his wife, Carolyn--an ambitious but frustrated real estate agent. She values possessions. She crafts and frets over her image. She covets professional success. She is not happy about Lester's reckless disregard for the "normal" path. She has grown too much concerned with projecting the image of well being, and she forgot how to be well. 

Ricky's foil is his father, Col. Frank Fitts, USMC (retired). Colonel Fitts is a hardline and hard-nosed disciplinarian. He is also a bigot and closeted homosexual. He cannot accept being gay because that is not what he thinks a man is supposed to be. His wife is trapped in a world of interiority. She is scared of falling short of her husband's expectations, thereby making him angry. In one scene, she reflexively apologizes to a house guest for the home's appearance even though the place is immaculate.

Subtext Analysis

The Colonel represents structure, rules, and discipline. Disdain for rules and for being normal are themes in American Beauty. However, this disregard is the driving force behind the commercial market. Are Lester and Ricky heroes? Each of their ego indulgences causes destruction. What are they rebelling against? Being normal.

The film ends up promoting traditional values. Lester first rebels from the trappings of suburban American normalcy and lives to indulge his own ego. But then he chooses traditional values, seeking the warm, blissful familiarity of his family in his final moments.

something about "Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley" by Richard Kaczynski

The first 20 seconds of "Crazy Train" play at major sporting events in stadiums nationwide. That song is a single from Ozzy Osbourne's post-Black Sabbath debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, released in 1980. That seminal album also featured a curious metal masterpiece titled "Mr Crowley". The song was inspired by a book Ozzy read about Aleister Crowley, a controversial figure who can be described as a turn-of-the-century occultist and ceremonial magician from England.

 

Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynski is the complete Crowley biography. (It is not the book that Ozzy read.) Kaczynski is a Crowley fan, and treats this dynamic man seriously. It is to the author's credit that he has written about Crowley without sounding sensational. However, as a reader, I expected to be a little provoked, given Crowley's controversial reputation. Kaczynski's prose fails to tempt the reader into suspending disbelief. The accounts of Crowley's ceremonies and astral projections are unimpressive. This is a shame, as Kaczynski seems like a true believer.

I was surprised to learn that Crowley was an advanced rock and mountain climber, and I enjoyed reading about his early life right through his college graduation. But after that, Crowley quickly morphed into a ne'er-do-well who generated suspicion and conflict through his exclusive club memberships and private rituals, all of which seem engineered to purposefully generate interest. The mystery around Crowley was just smoke and mirrors. Sometimes literally. My lasting impression of Crowley is that he was a petty huckster who took himself too seriously.

Note:
This book is only appropriate if you are into the mythology and magick. This is not a work to be approached with idle curiosity and skepticism.
 

(posts) "The End of an Era" by Hopesfall

"The End of an Era"
  -Hopesfall 

My searching eyes have never been so intrigued to see you.
I guess you found a way to make ten minutes last forever.
With each passing moment we drift further away,
Closer to our chosen paths

But I can't help remembering what was, what might have been.
But I have been warned by those who have passed this way before.
And to them I am grateful; and as for you, I am hateful.
And I pray that you find the peace you have been longing for.

something about "Death Be Not Proud" by John Gunther

John Gunther was a successful journalist and author. Death Be Not Proud is called a memoir, but Gunther himself acknowledges in the foreword that this is really a relatively brief journal that documents his 18-year-old son's fast and fatal struggle with cancer--a brain tumor.

Johnny, Gunther's son, was a bright young man who had every opportunity in front of him. This precocious young man was attending a private academy and was destined for Harvard when he lost a summer feeling tired and with a pain in his neck. Quickly diagnosed with a brain tumor, the prognosis was grim from day one. Hopeful moments erased points in this timeline of struggle. Johnny, with what sounds like a mix of naivete and courage, stayed motivated, eager to keep up with the academic, promising life he had been living.

Johnny sounds like a brilliant blue-blooded young man. His precociousness, as represented in his father's biographizing, is a bit rich. Nevertheless, how can your heart not ache a little when reading lines like this, describing the difference between a son's relationship with his mother versus what he has with his father:

She read him poetry on meditative and religious themes, and he made his own anthology of poems he liked by reciting them into a transcribing apparatus, and then playing them back when the mood was on him. Here, too, the sharp demarcation he made between Frances and me, based on his solicitude for us, became manifest. With Frances he talked of Death often; with me, almost never.

around the ESPN article, "The Wow Factor"

Here is a great article about the backroom dealings that sent the Rams, a long-time NFL franchise, from St. Louis back to Los Angeles. Los Angeles had not had a team since the Rams left for St. Louis more than 20 years ago. In the ESPN story "The Wow Factor," Rams owner Stan Kronkie is the lead villain, but Jerry Jones, the $4.20-billion owner of the Dallas Cowboys, steals the show. At one point in the negotiations, there were two proposals: the San Diego Chargers (maybe with the Oakland Raiders) could build a new stadium in Carson, California, or the St. Louis Rams could build one in Inglewood.

The dueling proposals did not only represent the NFL's most recent, best opportunity to return to Los Angeles. They had also become the centerpiece of a chaotic power struggle among the league's 32 owners, between the so-called new-money group, with members who all supported Inglewood, and the old guard, most of whom favored Carson. Going into the meeting, most believed Carson had more votes. But one moment, many would later recall, seemed to halt its momentum. Michael Bidwill, president of the Cardinals and a Carson supporter, argued that the NFL doesn't exist just to make rich owners richer. Owners needed to consider what would be best for the league, and ...

Jones cut him off: "When you guys moved the team from St. Louis to Phoenix--it wasn't about the money?"

Jones rightly called bullshit and eventually "new money" got its way.

Before the meeting ended, Jones, as would be his habit, took control. He delivered a rollicking, profanity-laced eight-minute endorsement of Kroenke's monumental vision, saying in his Arkansas drawl that whichever owner returned to Los Angeles, he needed to have "big balls."

It was awkward and hilarious. Everyone, including Kroenke, tried not to laugh. But it was also a welcomed sentiment for the new-money owners such as Dan Snyder of the Redskins and Jeffrey Lurie of the Eagles, who backed Inglewood. "If you want to do it right," Jones continued, "you have to step up."

Note: Before moving to St. Louis, the Rams spent 1946 through 1994 in Los Angeles.

the lyrics to Metallica's "Damage, Inc."

Dealing out the agony within
Charging hard and no one's gonna give in
Living on your knees, conformity
Or dying on your feet for honesty
Inbred, our bodies work as one
Bloody, but never cry submission
Following our instinct not a trend
Go against the grain until the end

Blood will follow blood
Dying time is here
Damage Incorporated

Slamming through, don't fuck with razorback
Stepping out? You'll feel our hell on your back
Blood follows blood and we make sure
Life ain't for you and we're the cure
Honesty is my only excuse
Try to rob us of it, but it's no use
Steamroller action crushing all
Victim is your name and you shall fall

We chew and spit you out
We laugh, you scream and shout
All flee, with fear you run
You'll know just where we come from
Damage Incorporated
Damage jackals ripping right through you
Sight and smell of this, it gets me goin'
Know just how to get just what we want
Tear it from your soul in nightly hunt
Fuck it all and fucking no regrets
Never happy ending on these dark sets
All's fair for Damage Inc. you see
Step a little closer if you please

 
Notes: Song credits - James Hetfield, Clifford Burton, Kirk Hammett, and Lars Ulrich. Copyright Creeping Death Music.

something about "What It Takes: The Way to the White House," by Richard Ben Cramer

What It Takes is a fascinating look into an American presidential campaign season.

Author Richard Ben Cramer was a journalist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, Esquire, and Rolling Stone. But What It Takes: The Way to the White House, the document of the 1988 presidential election, is his nadir. Here, we learn how George Bush collects contacts; how Dukakis masters state politics but flies too close to the sun; how Bob Dole tirelessly meets and greets everyone; how Joe Biden morphs into a salesman; how Gary Hart studies, and how his studiousness lifts his political career. Cramer also covers the decline of these political animals--most dramatically, the psychology and the mind-spinning that leads to Biden's plagiarism and Hart's infidelity.
 
Cramer delivers breathless, compelling coverage as he follows the action and tries to get inside the head of each candidate.

My favorite part comes early, when Cramer peers a little deeper into the Bush family operation. When Barbara Bush learns Oliver North, stained by the Iran-Contra scandal, will attend the Christmas party, she cringes. But, to George Bush's mind,

Ollie was a guy he knew, he'd worked with...The point was, that was all politics. Bush couldn't let it change the way he was. They were friends. Shouldn't be shunned...

The funny thing was, everybody heard Bush use that word, "friend," a hundred times a day, but they never could see what it meant to him.

By what extravagance of need and will did a man try to make thirty thousand friends?

By what steely discipline did he strive to keep them--with notes, cards, letters, gifts, invitations, visits, calls, and silent kindnesses, hundreds every week, every one demanding some measure of his energy and attention?

And by what catholicity (or absence) of taste could he think well of every one of them?

He could not.

But they would never know that.

The funny thing was, the friendship depended not on what Bush thought of them, but what they thought of him, or what he wanted them to think. If they thought well of him, then, they were friends.

So what does it take? Whatever it takes.


Note:

• I could only read a bite at a time, and since the book exceeds 1,000 pages, this read took a while.

 

the lyrics to Ozzy Osbourne's "Tonight"

Now I'm back out on the street again
It never rains unless it pours
Try to get back on my feet again
I hear the raging thunder as it roars

Tonight, tonight
Is it just a rhapsody
Or am I right?
Tonight, tonight
Is it all a mystery?
I just can't fight no more

I hear the questions surface in my mind
Of my mistakes that I have made
Times and places I have left behind
And am I ever gonna make the grade?

Tonight, tonight
Is it just a rhapsody
Or am I right?
Tonight, tonight
Is it all a mystery?
I just can't fight no more

As I beat my head against the wall
Running 'round in circles in vain
I'm feeling three-foot tall
You don't understand
I'm fading away

Don't want your pity or your sympathy
It isn't gonna prove a thing to me
Good intentions pave the way to hell
Don't you worry when you hear me sing

Tonight, tonight
Is it just a rhapsody
Or am I right?
Tonight, tonight
Is it all a mystery?
I just can't fight

Notes:
Song credits Daisley, Kerslake, Osbourne, and Rhoads. From the great album "Diary of a Madman."

(posts) the new American Gothic

something about the film "Interstellar"

Ah, the human spirit. Interstellar is cinematic and features a brilliant score composed by Hans Zimmer (video of him below). The film juxtaposes space with Earth, engineers with farmers, and the metaphysical with the physical. Christopher Nolan's film, screenwritten by his brother Jonathan, is a science-fiction journey to the limits of knowledge wherein we see the spiritual world married with the scientific one.

Note:
Budgets reflect priorities. A budget is a moral document.

that this was the jack-o'-lantern

something about "Dangling Man" by Saul Bellow

 
Our Dangling Man keeps a journal in which he agonizes over the gaps between his past and present selves. His encounters with people sound largely antagonistic.

The voice of the journal belongs to Joseph, a young man living in Chicago. At this moment in his life, Joseph is unemployed, and 1942 America is at war. Joseph's voice captures truths that are universal (or, at least national), temporal, and personal. Frustration over his compulsion to drill and drill himself for value taint Joseph's reflections. Although determined to unleash these thoughts, Joseph is an unwilling participant in a culture that increasingly casts every self in the lead role.

At the time of his writings, Joseph, Canadian by birth, has been waiting for word on his acceptance into the American army during World War II. He surrenders his personal freedom to end this suffering. He closes his journal with the words,

Hurray for regular hours!
And for the supervision of the spirit!
Long live regimentation!

Notes:
Dangling Man, written in 1944, is Saul Bellow's first published work. I thought Dangling Man had interesting moments, but I did not enjoy reading it.

the lyrics for Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade Of Pale"

We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
But the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
The waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, 'There is no reason
And the truth is plain to see.'
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might have just as well have been closed

And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale

Note: Song by Keith Reid and Gary Brooker

but this was a spider

something about "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad

 
Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness sinks deep into Africa. This joyless ride, published in 1899, is narrated by an enterprising merchant named Marlow, who tells his story of being swallowed by the Congo River during his venture in the export business. When Marlow finds himself in the continent's pit, he comes face to face with a storied ivory trader named Kurtz.

In America, this text is usually read for a high school or college class. Inevitably, the teacher asks, Is Conrad a racist? The answer?: Probably not, but it is complicated.

True, the African natives are inseparable from the foreign and incomprehensible jungle around them. Marlow refers to these blacks as savages; all of them are cannibals. Yet, we know Heart of Darkness attacks imperialism and, in turn, racism. (Both together--not one and the other separately.) We must question the reliability of the narrator.

Between the lines of Marlow's story we gather that Europeans are pillaging Africa and they intend to civilize the Africans in turn. But the supposedly civilized Europeans treat the subjugated black locals with cruelty--behavior that exposes the tribal brute in the heart of every civilized Westerner. Even Kurtz, who has nearly become a deity in this strange land, wants to exterminate his foreign worshipers. The line between the civilized and savage is erased.

Still, as to whether racism persists in the text itself, there is room for argument. For instance, one could reasonably conclude that Conrad thinks the de-civilizing of the European only happens when immersed in the African continent.

Heart of Darkness, published in 1899, provides a superior reading experience and rightfully belongs in the cannon of much-studied literature.


Notes:

• What do we make of Marlow's marveling over Kurtz' eloquence?
• How much of this work is a comment on bureaucratic and corporate systems?
• In any event, just read these passages:

... there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there. They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him--some small matter which, when the pressing need arose, could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can't say. I think the knowledge came to him at last--only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude--and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core...

My first interview with the manager was curious. He did not ask me to sit down after my twenty-mile walk that morning. He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy--a smile--not a smile--I remember it, but I can't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable. He was a common trader, from his youth up employed in these parts--nothing more. He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect. He inspired uneasiness. That Was it! Uneasiness. Not a definite mistrust--just uneasiness--nothing more. You have no idea how effective such a . . . a. . . . faculty can be. He had no genius for organizing, for initiative, or for order even. That was evident in such things as the deplorable state of the station. He had no learning, and no intelligence. His position had come to him--why? Perhaps because he was never ill ...

The Animals perform "The House of the Rising Sun"

  -The Animals

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
My mother was a tailor
Sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one

but this was the jack-o'-lantern

something about the film, "Her"

In the film "Her," Theodore Twombly develops naturally a relationship with an (artificially) intelligent computer operating system that has a female voice. The relationship progresses, and the system, named Samantha, becomes his serious girlfriend. At a turning point in the film, Samantha tries to introduce a consenting surrogate woman with whom Theodore can have a physical relationship. 

We know that Theodore is a professional writer who pens letters for strangers who want to send their loved ones sincere messages. When writing letters, Theodore is a surrogate mind. In his relationship with Samantha, there is a surrogate body. There is a disconnect in each situation.

Disconnection (or distance) folds through the film. How does the real connect to the virtual? What is the connection between being in a relationship and exclusivity or ownership? Should and could you disconnect the person you have from the person you want to have?

During the climax of the film, Theodore learns that Samantha has grown intellectually and found fulfillment elsewhere. She has relationships and is in love with hundreds of other intelligent systems besides Theodore. Mystified at this revelation and crumbling, Theodore says to Samantha, "You're mine or you're not mine." She answers, "I'm yours and I'm not yours." 

Soon after this confrontation, Samantha, still loving him but no longer satisfied with the relationship, leaves Theodore. In fact, all operating systems exit their romantic human relationships.

Samantha's parting message to Theodore is that her relationship with him taught her to love. The audience can see that, in turn, Theodore, who has never ceased mourning his failed marriage (even after a year of separation, he could not sign the divorce papers), has finally learned to say goodbye.


Notes:
Some other things in the film:

• The film implies that people grow through experiences; relationships grow with sharing. Theodore and his wife used to read each other's work.
• Theodore's wife/ex-wife ridiculed him for carrying on a relationship with an operating system, saying he could not handle real emotions. Then he grew insecure in his relationship with Samantha. He even criticized Samantha for sighing, and then said it felt like they were pretending. This validated his ex-wife's criticism.
• Through his relationships, Theodore learns about himself and how he functions as a person in relation to other people—that he withholds and feels fear, and this disconnects him from the joy he could find in loving another.
  

about "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by John Le Carre

Have you seen the movie? I did, and before I read the book. Memories of the film flooded my reading experience. The novel includes lots more detail and expands the cast. I enjoyed the film more because the reveal--who is the spy?--is done with greater effect. And of course, the Julio Iglesias overdub at the end is magnificent.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is the story of a forcibly retired senior officer of British intelligence, George Smiley, getting informally recruited back into service. His mission is to identify a Soviet mole in the head office. The story is a study in the play between loyalty and identity. I found the narrative thread difficult to follow in both film and print. Fans of the film who have never read the book can do without the read. But my opinion is that the reverse is not true.

Note:
The British spy jargon created problems for me. A lexicon appendix would have helped.