Ennui

It had been a long time since I felt the fragrance of summer: the scent of the ocean, a distant train whistle, the touch of a girl's skin, the lemony perfume of her hair, the evening wind, faint glimmers of hope, summer dreams.

But none of these were the way they once had been; they were all somehow off, as if copied with tracing paper that kept slipping out of place.

--Huraki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing

That's how it is sometimes, isn't it? We experience a pale shade of wonder, something that points to another time, a memory of something, bigger, brighter, stronger, accompanied by a sort of longing, nostalgia, wanting to reach and grasp again, yet unable. One stands outside oneself, an observer, regretfully detached, and there seems no escape from this ennui. Where did my heart go, one wonders? Oh, yes ... it's that part of me that is aching. 

Mesothelioma Link

I have added a link to Mesothelioma Cancer in the upper right portion of my page, as you an see.

 

Mesothelioma Treatment Community of TreatMesothelioma.org is dedicated to the assistance and guidance of asbestos and mesothelioma victims around the world. We exist to not only inspire hope during these unbearable times but to also provide palliative care and comprehensive information through our website, resources, and educational videos. By being the largest resource for mesothelioma treatment options and complementary therapies for cancer, we are designed to help guide patients and their loved ones toward the answers and support they need to improve their quality of life, prognosis, and life expectancy..

Icons

I never much cared for statues and monuments. Still don't. I can remember, as a kid, riding in my parents' car through downtown Portland and seeing the statues that stood at some of the street intersections. They were always covered with bird shit. It seemed a sad sort of way to treat dignitaries from the past (whoever they might have been). Better to have not stuck them up there in the first place, and let the shit fall more unobtrusively where it may.

I remember there being two or three statues on the grounds of the university I attended as well. Who knows what figures they were meant to honor? People ignored them. They were just there. Who cares? I suppose they could be useful if there had been room on the base of the monument to set a spell, or have a quick cigarette, or a sandwich, or a Twinkie, or kiss a girl--but then, those things would have had nothing to do with the statue anyway, and everything to do with anything else.

Somewhere in the mid 1990s, I visited Washington DC, and still suffer a mental exhaustion at the memory of being dragged from this famous monument to the next and the next, each a tourist trap, each just sitting there, or standing there, immensely drab in the humid Maryland July, each standing dumbly by, posing for the next obligatory photograph which would soon be eternally tucked away in a laptop folder, never, most likely, to be seen again. And in the meantime, miraculous things were occurring all around us. The cherry trees were in blossom. Pink petals fluttered down from the branches. The park blocks, which stretch from the capital area right up to the rows of ramshackle apartments in the hood, lay cozily in the shade of trees with a history their own, grand, tall, spreading trees that had stood watch through the decades, and given, as well--beauty, shade, shelter. Homeless people meandered beneath the leaves from chance to chance, hope to hope, hands out, wrinkled palms open. Stark red cardinals flashed from branch to branch. And there we were, our backs turned to the world, staring at grand chunks of stone.

I am willing to bet that if Charlottesville's statue of Robert E. Lee had been knocked over by a falling tree in a storm, no one would have thought much of it. If it had been shattered too badly, I doubt whether it would have been replaced anytime soon. There are more important things to think about, more important things to do. People have more pressing concerns to think about.

Or do they?

Some speak of honoring our history. I can't help but wonder what is honorable about the prosecution of a war that ended in more casualties than all the American wars put together. Should we not rather lament such a costly inability to seek and achieve peace in our own family?

Some have turned these dumb statues into living causes, forcing those who can no longer speak to stand now as icons for racism, bigotry, hatred, white supremacy. Do these people, so loudly waving the banner of Lee, know anything about the actual man. No. They don't.

If history itself is to be trivialized by ignorance, then yes, tear down the statues, every one of them. And in as far as no man among us now, or ever before, has ever been anything other than flawed and weak, full of hatreds and jealousies, greed, self-interest, tear down the memoriam of every member of the sad and fallen human race. And plant olive trees instead. And let no man blight that hallowed land.

My Practical Paradise

So, I started up a new blog on Wordpress. I will continue, of course, to maintain Jim Dandy. The new blog will be devoted more to travel and life in Indonesia and the entries will tend to be longer and more detailed.

Wordpress is a challenge for me - a very powerful platform meets a very weak mind. But I've made a first entry and trying to learn the ropes of the site capabilities. 

So can see the blog here: mypracticalparadise.com

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Well, here’s a movie everyone ought to watch – especially our fearsome leaders, from President Lock-n-Load straight on down the line through all the warmongers and fake patriots and cozy, rich old men who think themselves courageous for sending young men to die.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, from the novel by Ben Fountain, is about war, bullshit, and how the two most often go together hand-in-hand. It’s the greatest show on earth, Monday Night Football for the chest beaters, the big talkers, the ravenous press, live TV stars, brass bands, cheerleaders, businessmen and weapons contractors, hotdog and ice cream sellers, fireworks, the ultimate halftime show for everyone who doesn’t actually have to slog through the real thing and see friends die and gaze upon the face of a foe as his life drains away, leaving, finally, only the pale, parting glimmer of a surprised and fearful soul – just another man, after all.

This film did not do well at the box office, largely because, as stated by a reviewer in The Guardian, it did not “resonate well” with American viewers. Ironic, that. It didn’t resonate well with the soldiers, either. The real war, that is, the real soldiers, not the Coke and Karmelkorn version presented by entertainment machine back home.

The End Again

Well, once again, the tinfoil hat Christians are sounding the alarm for the imminent end of the world, to be heralded by the coming total eclipse of the sun. As evidence that 'this is it', they cite the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:29:

"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken."

But here's the problem, folks. A total eclipse is not a particularly rare event. It happens approximately every 18 months somewhere around the world. And always has. Which must mean, according to this standard of evidence, that the world has always ended every 18 months, give or take.

Moreover, if one will bother to read the remainder of the passage, he will find that it ends thusly:

"Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

Did ya'all get that one? At an hour you do not expect. The eclipse can by no means be considered unexpected.

No one, not even the Son, knows the time or the hour, Jesus said. So I guess the end-of-the-world enthusiasts are saying that they are privy to information not available to Christ.

Of course, these things are, and have always been, silly. The only pertinent eclipse in this matter is the all too common total eclipse of the brain when ignorance is brought to bear on scripture.

Tongues

Sometimes, the mind is filled with a deafening silence, roaring with words that cannot be formed, groanings which cannot be uttered. These are the tongues of the heart, of which we would make words, yet have no language. The bridge is out. The chasm is bottomless. One speaks, therefore, of not speaking. One speaks of the deafening, grievous silence, aware that all that is more than that, and all that is so very sorely needed, is unreachable by any means. We cannot say what we must, for it is hidden from our lips, a stranger to even the smallest of words. This is the dire, unutterable anguish. This is the obliteration of narrative, which only the passage of time can restore.