It's a jungle out there

My phone is dying.  I've just bought phones for everyone else in my family, so I'm trying to hold out for my own upgrade. The battery in my phone has about enough life left in it to get me from home to work most days, but I have to plug it in once I get there.  If I use it at all during the day, I have to make sure I charge it before it I leave.  I have a daily reminder to this effect to avoid those days when I'm ready to commute home and discover I have 12% battery left.  Some days, for whatever reason, I don't see the reminder.  I am on the train, reading emails or my book with music playing and then suddenly... nothing.   When this happens I find myself staring at the blackness of the screen in a state of conditioned expectancy for a bit longer than I should be.  I may forget or not bother to take the earbuds out of my ears.  Eventually, I look up and am faced with having to deal with the reality immediately in front of me.  If I weren't sitting on my ass within the confines of a train leaving this segment of my day in the hands of the transportation authority, I don't know what I'd do, but commuting is challenging enough.

When I look up, I realize that nearly everyone else has their eyes down in the direction of their laps.  Their batteries live.  It's comforting to think that in that moment I'm invisible, alone in a realm so removed from connectedness.  This unconnected realm-- there needs to be a word for it.  Meanwhile my fellow commuters are out there in connected reality, lost in their books, or their music or wandering the web. It gives one pause to contemplate it.  What are they all doing?  What fascinates them?  Some of them are using the down time to edify themselves, or "crossing stuff off the list" and "gettin' 'er done."  Most are no doubt frittering their time on a diversion.  Some are engaging with family, friends, colleagues on social media.  Some are trying to improve their lives, or fix the country, or save the planet.

Some-- you can imagine based on what could be interpreted as furtive glances about them between laser focused gazes back on their screens-- are getting into trouble.  Looking for satisfaction, looking for love, looking for fights.  Some are using the downtime to poke around the edges and dark spots, stimulating themselves with forbidden sensations.  This used to be impossible to do by yourself on a train underground.

The other day, my phone died in the middle of a search.  Believe it or not I was looking for a slur for British people to use in a joke I was writing in an email to my brother in the context of discussing the third bad middle brow British movie I'd seen in a month.  I had found a dictionary of pejoratives by ethnicity among the hits of my search, and on clicking on it, had just gotten a warning about the danger of the site I was going to when the screen suddenly went dark and turned my phone into an inert black mirror reflecting my quizzical face back at me.  My first thought was that I had breached some forbidden line and been busted and my rights to the web had been rescinded.  Served me right when I thought about what I was trying to do.  And then when I came back to my senses, I thought what if I had a heart attack at that moment and died, and the next person to access my phone were my wife or daughter.  What would they make of the fact that the last thing I was doing when I died was searching for ethnic slurs?  And why do I not already know a good bad word for British people?

I don’t know if it’s any consolation or if it mitigates things, but everyone using computers these days -- including me-- is a human, i.e., basically an ape.  The internet is horrible in terms of what it does do but it’s also amazing in terms of what it can do, so putting this powerful instrument in the hands of apes is going to result in weird search histories for everyone.   It’s frickin' bizarre when you get down to it.  Every ape is almost guaranteed to have shit on them in their search histories that other apes could take out of context and misconstrue right along with and next to the stuff that they could nail perfectly and perfectly construe.   It’s not just a case of “Nobody’s perfect ^_^”  It’s more like “Everybody is frickin' fucked up! < 8 0 “  Yes modern society contributes to that but I also think it’s part of the ape condition.  Not that anyone’s going to excuse anyone else on that basis—nor should they necessarily-- but I like to remember it from time to time.

Malagueña

Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony no 14: 2. Allegretto. Malagueña (words by Federico García Lorca, translated to Russian by Anatoli Geleskul), Anne-Karin Mikonaho, soprano.   It's from García Lorca's first major book of poetry, Poema del cante jondo, written in 1921 but not published until 1931.  Within five years of its publication, García Lorca was dead, killed by an anti-Communist death squad in the Spanish Civil War.  His work was banned under the fascist Franco until 1953.  Shostakovich, who himself had an ambivalent relationship with the Soviet regimes under which he lived and worked, included the poem, now called Malagueña, in his 14th Symphony, a song cycle based on poems of García Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Rainer Maria Rilke and Wilhelm Küchelbecker, featuring a male basso, a female soprano and a chamber orchestra with percussion.  The piece premiered in Leningrad in 1969.  Many recordings of the second movement are far faster than I like, but the below (an excellent recording referencing a Swedish-Finnish soprano who appears to be depicted in the thumbnail, backed by a suspiciously unnamed orchestra-- possibly the Malmö Opera) is just right.

The recording ends abruptly, on purpose.  In performance it leads directly into the third movement (Allegro molto, Loreley, based on a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire).

Russian and Spanish lyrics are from http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=33305,

English translation and Russian transliteration are from
https://www.naxos.com/sungtext/pdf/8.573132_sungtext.pdf

Malagueña / Малагэнья
Federico García Lorca / Anatoli Geleskul

Смерть
вошла и ушла
из таверны.
Черные кони
и темные души
В ущельях

гитары бродят.

Запахли солью
и жаркой кровью
Соцветья зыби нервной.
А смерть
все выходит и входит
И все не уйдот
из таверны.

Translation:

Death walks in and out of the tavern.
Death walks in and out of the tavern.
Black horses and sinister people
wander the deep paths of the guitar.
And there’s a smell of salt and women’s blood
on the febrile spikenards* along the coast.
Death walks in and out,
out of and into the tavern walks death.

The original:

La muerte
entra y sale
de la taberna.

Pasan caballos negros
y gente siniestra
por los hondos caminos
de la guitarra.

Y hay un olor a sal
y a sangre de hembra,
en los nardos febriles
de la marina.

La muerte
entra y sale,
y sale y entra
la muerte
de la taberna.

For non-Russian readers who would like to sing along or compare the Russian to the Spanish:

Smert’ voshla i ushla iz tavernï.
Smert’ voshla i ushla iz tavernï.
Chyornïye koni i tyomnïye dushi
V ushchel’yakh gitarï, brodyat.
Zapakhli sol’yu i zharkoy krov’yu
Sotsvet’ya zïbi nervnoy.
A smert’ vsyo ukhodit
I vsyo ne uydyot iz tavernï.

~~~~~~~~
* "Febrile spikenards" is not only my new favorite insult, it's a direct translation of the Spanish "nardos febriles" in García Lorca's original.  "Соцветья зыби нервной," the Russian counterpart to this phrase in Geleskul's translation, translates less specifically but equally poetically as "nervously swollen blossoms."

Gag Reflex

When HBO aired a documentary version of Lawrence Wright's damning Scientology expose Going Clear a few years ago, the Hollywood Reporter published a 5-page response to the documentary from the Church.

Here’s a sample of the caliber of the response (links and footnotes mine):

Lastly, Lawrence Wright is obviously suffering from an acute case of jealousy of Mr. Hubbard and thus has tried to slander him out of spite. ... Mr. Hubbard was a writer—one of the giants of the Golden Age of pulp fiction, during the Great Depression. He was also the author of 13 New York Times bestsellers in the 1980s. Indeed, his works are published to this day in 50 languages and have sold hundreds of millions of copies, something Wright could only wish to accomplish. ... Mr. Hubbard was also a man who traveled the world and into the Far East, in the 1920s, studying and learning Eastern religions. And this at a time when most young men had never ventured beyond the boundaries of their own town. He was also a member of the famed Explorers Club and was awarded three expedition flags. He was also the youngest Eagle Scout in America at the age of 13, a licensed pilot at the advent of aviation, and a master mariner, licensed to captain any vessel on any ocean. In addition to all this, his greatest contributions to Mankind are his discoveries on the mind and spirit that form the Scientology religion. Millions of people around the world consider him their greatest friend for the help he has provided. ... He was recently named one of the most influential Americans* of all times in the Smithsonian Spring 2015 edition. 

One thing you have to give the Scientologists is that when they feel an official response from the Church is called for they are utterly guileless in their attacks.  They could put on a face of reasoned and measured but basically mild disagreement with their critics and confuse the hell out of everybody, but instead they come out in full lunatic mode. Are they so blind that they have no clue how this comes off?  Yes they are!

I was reminded of this by the response of AIPAC and establishment politicians and journalists to comments and tweets about the lobby's influence made recently by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.  For background (or a refresher) on what prompted Rep. Omar's comments go here.  For a reminder of why it is important to condemn Benjamin Netanyahu's right wing government and its deadly policy toward Palestinians in Israel go here.   As to the relevance of money to this topic, New York Op-Ed columnist Thomas Friedman (himself no Islamic Militant) has made much the same point as Rep. Omar about AIPAC's undue influence in American politics.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement arose largely on college campuses in protest of the injustice and deadly enforcement of apartheid policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza by the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right Likud party.  It was only in the context of Omar's tweets about it that I learned that 26 US states have already passed or decreed anti-BDS laws making support of BDS grounds for dismissal or termination of government contracts, a move which has already had consequences for dissenting individuals, notably in Texas  where it includes those receiving aid for the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.  In the United States of America!   Who let this happen?   This account of the successful stealth passage of legislation in California gives a flavor (apologies for the length, but it's instructive):

“We’re now at the point where, sad to say, the BDS movement has saturated the country to the extent that it is no longer so predictable—you can no longer focus on a discrete number of campuses,” LDB President Kenneth L. Marcus said at the StandWithUs conference.

Part of the idea behind moving the battleground to state legislatures is to find more favorable turf for the anti-BDS message, said pro-Israel activist Noah Pollak, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, who has supported the nationwide legislative effort.

“You don’t want to fight on your enemy’s terrain,” Pollak said, speaking alongside Assemblyman Allen at the conference. The “enemy,” he said, “picked out campuses for a reason.”

Victories in state legislatures could subsequently spread to college campuses, said Pollak.

According to Pollak, legislating against BDS tells its proponents, “While you were doing your campus antics, the grown-ups were in the state legislatures passing laws that make your cause improbable.” The laws are meant to dent the morale of BDS advocates, who enjoy a number of advantages on campus, he said.

Among those advantages, the Palestinian narrative of Israeli “oppression” and “racism” holds a certain intrinsic pull for some minority communities, allowing groups like Students for Justice in Palestine to build diverse coalitions around their cause.

Roz Rothstein, the CEO of StandWithUs, admitted that when it comes to building diverse coalitions, “we’re very bad at that.”

“The other side is doing it to a fault—that’s all they do,” she said.

In essence, recognizing that anti-BDS laws are things that only an AIPAC funded legislator could love, organizations such as the Emergency Committee for Israel have worked aggressively with legislatures, lawmakers and governors to get these laws on the books, in essence giving cover to fundees for putting the screws to contractors and individuals doing business (or, apparently, needing assistance from the government!) who either support BDS or would balk at waiving their right to support it.  What would formerly be widely condemned to failure as a clear violation of first amendment rights, is now all but assured thanks to years of  stealth appropriation of legislatures and courts by anti-democratic libertarian forces funded by the likes of the Koch Brothers, the NRA and AIPAC among others, whose common cause is purchasing victories for their singular causes that  would be defeated if they were voted on in democratic elections.

In light of their massive success without public support or consultation, it no longer behooves the victors of these sorts of battles to put a pleasant face on their accomplishments.  But with the recent return of the House to Democrats in November, in the wave that brought Ilhan Omar, Alexandia Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and others to Washington, there is change in the air and dissension in the ranks.  Hence both the novelty of a Congresswoman bluntly critiquing the anti-BDS movement and the lobby that made it possible and the reflexive over-reaction from the predictable quarters.  When Rep Omar lampoons the motivation of politicians in doing the bidding of AIPAC in exchange for political contributions, or questions aloud the ethics of requiring lawmakers such as herself to place the interests of Benjamin Netanyahu's government over those of her constituents as anti-BDS legislation explicitly does, it's important to listen to her words and not be lulled by the comfortably reflexive charges of anti-semitism that are blatantly obvious attempts to shut down conversation.

While anti-Semitism must be called out wherever it appears (as in neo-Nazi marches with Tiki torches, defacements of and mass shootings in synagogues, the expression of prejudice, hatred, discrimination and slander against the Jewish people), as Bernie Sanders has pointed out, good faith criticism of the government of Israel is not anti-Semitic and should be protected.  When the pro-Netanyahu lobby goes behind closed doors to take freedom of speech away from Americans without their knowledge or consent, rather than reflexively hurl disingenuous slurs against its critics to stifle the ensuing outrage, it should brace itself for what happens when those coalitions that the opposition have been building to a fault (an opposition that includes and is led in part by Jews) mobilize.  What happens is not anti-Semitism.  It's democracy.

~~~~~

*  Technically he was on the Smithsonian's listicle of the top 10 most significant Religious leaders in American History-- a list that also included  Ellen G. White.  (I know, who?) The list was one of 10 counterpart lists of ten names in ten arbitrarily chosen areas compiled to be sold at supermarket checkout stands, and to give an indication of the scholarly rigor with which the lists were compiled, it also included Mary Pickford (Pop Icons), George W. Bush (Presidents), William M. "Boss" Tweed (Outlaws), Sarah Palin (Women), and Hulk Hogan (Athletes).

Four Remains

Speaking of poetry ...

{insert palate cleanser}

The day after my father retired from his job as an itinerant business machine salesman, he and my mother divorced.  It was a friendly divorce that my father had agreed to though it was not what he would have preferred. The next day, having already sold the house where they raised their four now adult children they moved into new homes, in new towns north of where they'd been and twenty miles apart from each other; my mother in a quaint cosy village close to her neighbors and close to town, my dad in a rustic cabin surrounded by a thick wood that kept the house obscured from the road and situated at a comfortable remove from neighbors.  My parents continued to see each other regularly but developed lives apart.

Always a bit of the odd man out in my house growing up with his love of both country music and opera, a flirtation with a wacky, conservative brand of politics and a fondness for talk radio, my father seemed to thrive in his new life.  He got a part time job working a counter at a dry cleaner's, and learned he had a knack for dealing with the public.  Never outgoing, but always a bit of a character and an eccentric, he found himself welcome in the rather artsy town closest to him.

He had been an only child, the only son of immigrants, a child also of his times: the great depression, World War II, the post-war boom that never quite boomed for him the way it had for others.  He grew up in the suburbs of New York but after struggling with a floor sanding business, he took the family on a vacation to Maine, fell in love with it, bought an old farmhouse to fix up and there we stayed.  He was a homebody, who spoke fluent Swedish and devoured facts about the world but never traveled.  But after 7 years of retirement, my mother talked him into taking a trip to Sweden that summer by himself to meet his relatives.  Reluctantly, overcoming deep insecurities and a heavy kind of Lutheran guilt at the indulgence, he finally agreed to go.  He had an amazing time.

When my mother picked him up at the airport in Boston on his return, he was pale and appeared to have lost weight.  He didn't recover after several days, and she made him see a doctor, where he learned he had advanced myeloma and not long to live.  When he asked how long, the doctor told him he didn't need to make any big purchases of firewood.  Winter was four months away.

He started transfusions, and began to finish things up and to say goodbye. I saw him over the summer and had planned to come up and see him again for what I assumed would be the last time over Labor Day.  I would take off from work the Friday before the holiday, drive up from the mid-Atlantic, pick up my brother in New York City and we'd be in Maine by evening.  Two days before, we got the news that he didn't make it.  My mother was with him, in his cabin in the woods, when he died.  The call came late Wednesday night. Knowing I had a scheduled vacation day on Friday, I foolishly went to work as usual on Thursday, telling no one about my news to avoid having to chat about it.  I wasn't particularly close to my father.  We all had difficult relationships with him though he mellowed in his final years. While he was sentimental about some things and had a good heart toward strangers and those in need, toward us he had a temper, and was critical and impossible to please.  He had no self-esteem, and had a way of making us feel we were in the way of other people when we were in public.  We grew up feeling that we were a source of great shame for him, a failing.  But Thursday was a sea of pain.

On Friday, I left early in the morning as scheduled,  stopped in New York for my brother and we got to Maine early enough to watch the waves roll onto the beach at York as twilight descended.  We continued up the coast to my mother's.  The next day we were at my father's.  Seeing his car in the driveway, his groceries in the fridge and the cupboards,  his dishes in the dish-rack, his mail in a stack, the little temporary messes he'd left here and there from whatever activities were in progress when the disease finally stilled him that if he were still around, he'd have cleaned up immediately, the only thing missing to animate the scene was him.  The interrupted quality of it brought home for me that death is really just the absence of life.

As we went through his stuff, there were his bird books and nature journals, his radios and pipe collections, his tools and sanding equipment from his life before business machine sales.  Every book had his name in thick black marker on an endpaper along with the date he'd come into it and who had given it to him, and was crammed with little newspaper clippings and hand-written notes.  He didn't talk to himself; he wrote to himself.  An inveterate law-giver, here everywhere were his little signs: LOW OVERHANG - WATCH YOUR HEAD!  TURN OUT LIGHT WHEN DONE - Thx!  DOUSE THAT BUTT!!  NO TRESPASSING - THIS MEANS YOU!!! 

Sometimes the signs were so ridiculous you could only roll your eyes:

PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON ALL FOURS - Thanx alot!  

The first time we saw it, in the side porch, it was just one of those absurd Dad enigmas that were familiar because they had played such a part in the background of our youth.  But in the basement workshop, a second appeared.  PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON ALL FOURS - Thanx alot!  What the hell?  Was he writing signs for his dog now?  It must have had a meaning for him.  In the garage, there it was again:  PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON ALL FOURS - Thanx alot!  One more was found over a workbench in the shed. As we made our way through his things, it became a refrain, a mysterious message from beyond, a presence.

When I returned home from Maine, the odd words echoed around in my brain for days, and then I wrote this: 

Four Remains

PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON ALL FOURS
- Thanx Alot!

--The wording of four signs handwritten on cardboard and posted by my father at various times, in four different locations on his estate 

Please do not walk on all fours.
Your ass is getting fat.
To those you contort to let pass you
Do not give too much to look at.
Better to lean tall and thin--
Less seen--
As a shadow on a wall. Obscure,
But not dark.  Less contrast please!
Thanx alot!

Please do not walk on all fours.
Are you a baby or a man?
Please don't drool and stop that blubbering;
Don't need need need;
Don't shit in your pants.
The world does not exist to please you.
No one else is going to feed you.
You alone made your circumstance.
Thanx alot!

Please do not walk on all fours.
Do not squat, gnawing on a bone.
If you do not belong it's because your race is new.
Therefore, look up, rise up, climb, arise,
Move up from where you came.
Your hands are needed.  They effect change.
They help, they rake, they write, they make.
Stand up.  Evolve.
Thanx alot!

Please do not walk on all fours.
Do not walk facing the grave--

Thanx alot!