If all of us people who make up this thing called society would agree voluntarily to forgo…
Why am I always attempting to mend society? Let it be. Let everyone swindle everyone and continue warring. But to myself I say: Try to find some small part of this general badness that you can blank, and just focus on that, till it’s your turn to die.
*
My grandparents lived in a fly-ridden house whose nearest neighbor was at least a mile away. My parents lived in a house that had only two flies in it, and all the neighboring houses were within shouting distance. My own house is an apartment that has no flies at all, and half of its walls are shared with the neighbors’ apartments.
My grandparents’ generation was dominated by the telephone. My parents’ generation was dominated by television. My own generation is dominated by the Internet.
I think I told this story already, but I’ll tell it again:
My grandmother’s name was Maxine. In her old age, she had a network of friends who would telephone each other, routinely, every morning: Z. would call Y.; then Y. would call Maxine; then Maxine would call W.; then W. would call his father George H.W.; and on and on, until everyone was accounted for. The idea of this daily chain of calls was to make sure that all the townsfolk were in good health. (The houses were spaced far apart, remember; so it wasn’t easy to make the rounds in person.) Thus, on the day when Y called Maxine & the line kept ringing because Maxine didn’t answer, Y instantly knew that something was wrong. It turns out that Maxine was just then experiencing a cardiac arrest: she had collapsed on the floor. So, thanks to this sequential phoning procedure, the townsfolk were able to order medical attention for my grandma, without which she would have surely died.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. (Genesis 3:4)
After dialing 9-1-1, which was the number for emergency services in ancient days, citizen Y proceeded to call the next link in the chain, citizen W (elite placeholder #43), & he said to him: “Hi, it’s Y; I’m calling on behalf of Maxine, whom God has attacked – give ear, my brother: this does not bode well for your upcoming kingship...” and so on & so forth.
As I said, I think I told that story already, in an earlier entry. Maybe years ago. I need to read over this journal and reacquaint myself with its contents, to avoid further embarrassment. I don’t want to be one of those writers who keeps repeating to you the same narrative every night, over dinner...
Wait—yes I do. I do indeed want to be one of those writers who keeps repeating to you the same narrative every night, over dinner. Ah, this brings up bad memories of my sweetheart’s grandmother...
I first met my sweetheart in the last quarter of the 20th century A.D. We met in church. Neither of us attend church anymore, because we both believe that the church’s Overlord is more like the Devil than God, as it is written in the Bible by the prophet Amos (5:20-23):
Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies!!! Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols!!!
Anyway, as I was saying: back when I first met my sweetheart, she was living with her grandmother. They shared an apartment. Now her grandmother was old and stricken in years, and she was descending into dementia. And I was working as an accountant for our family business, which was owned and run by my dad. But here’s the kicker: My dad was ALSO descending into dementia (yet, since he was relatively young to be the recipient of so divine a curse, his illness was labeled “early-onset”). Therefore my life was besieged by senile people: I’d spend the first half of each day with my senile dad; and the last half I’d spend with my sweetheart’s senile grandmother. Morning thru noon at work, I’d endure the repetitious follies of a double-strong authority (father AND boss), who had ever-worsening memory loss, yet would never admit it; then after leaving work, each evening I’d dine with my sweetheart, & her grandma would join us, & inevitably she’d send my sweetheart out on some errand, & as soon as it was just the two of us, me & grandma, alone at the table, she would tell me the same three stories over & over.
You’d think that after hearing them so many times, I’d have got her three stories by heart; but now that I’m trying to summon them up from wherever repressed thots go to get stashed, I’m ashamed how spotty my recollection is.
I know that one of her tall tales (I’m talking about my sweetheart’s grandma now) had to do with her birthday. Not the anniversary, no: I mean literally the day of her birth. She boasted of being a tiny, premature thing – as is said in the movie Eraserhead (1977), “They’re not even sure it IS a baby.” The doctors predicted that she would not survive infancy. But not only did she survive, she ended up infiltrating octogenarianhood. Then her final years were spent retelling the half-tragic gospel of her own advent to the forbearing ear of a captive surrealist. And when she’d get to the part where the medical experts’ prophecies were all proven false by her survival, she’d exclaim in a domineering quiver: “God proved them wrong, you see: He had a plan for my life!” And I’d always think to myself: “The trap was set long ago: God is bent on my torment.”
Another legend grandma would foist upon me is how she inherited her husband. I’m sure I’ll get the details all beclusterfuckt, but here’s how I remember it:
She had never even met her husband in person, before he proposed holy matrimony to her; for he was flying planes in World War Two when he somehow heard about Young Miss Eligible, so he sent her a letter from his airplane, which read:
“To whom it may concern: Greetings from Fighter Pilot Xian, codenamed Sharp-beak. I have heard a rumor that you are unwed, thus I ask thee to-day: Wilt thou serve as my chattel?”
And grandma answered immediately via telegram (which was like the old world’s system of instant text messaging): “Congratulations on your successful courtship.” So Sharp-beak replied:
“Thank you. You will not regret your decision. When you meet me, you will like me (in the event that I am allowed to land this bomber). I will treat you with kindness. And, if the war ever ends, you & I shall purchase a house & beget two daughters. Let us always keep a spare room prepared for traveling missionaries. Tho I warn you: I will have not much to say during meals. If you’re looking for exuberant conversation, better move to the city – the SINFUL city – out east, or overseas, where I’ve heard that the movement of Dada is sweeping the Art World. I’m just a simple midwestern churchgoer.”
*
But is it true that my sweetheart’s grandparents believed that their country was fighting to overthrow fascism? I wonder how many of the people from that generation held this stance. (It’s an arguable perspective, is it not?) Their lives occurred under a twofold shadow: war and church. The church gave them purpose, or made them feel that humankind was moving at least vaguely in a direction of betterment. Or that their actions as individuals mattered and might bring about much-needed change. And war seemed fitting, given the intellectual climate.
But did they really believe that they were helping to improve life on this globe, by aiding & abetting Baptist missionaries? It’s true: they did dedicate a room of their house for this: they would offer food & shelter to any missionaries who passed thru their town. Somewhere out there, Tristan Tzara was mock-howling his manifestos, but my sweetheart’s grandparents chose to follow Saint Paul instead. (Mine own did not: All my grandfolks were drunkards.) And yet, to be fair, they probably hadn’t heard of Tzara or Breton. Ernst or Duchamp. Truth and lies both take time to fly, but it seems that lies are a little faster than truth. Or, rather, much faster… unless they’re a good lie, like a sublime poem by a mortal deity; then they remain on the ground. Even IN the ground, forever. But bad lies fly fast.
Good and bad. I’m still caught in the dichotomy that I want to move beyond...
Benito Mussolini first used the term in 1915: that’s what an encyclopedia just told me, in its entry on “Fascism”. It’s a word that’s thrown about frequently nowadays. Did Mussolini coin it? Why is it so hard to agree on a proper definition? It reminds me of God. The word “God,” that is; not the actual cadaver.
Endnote
In today’s entry, I couldn’t struggle free from the muck of the past: I labored thru a rerun memory about my own grandmother and then fell into the murky domain of my grand in-laws.
Now I wonder: What will the future ages say about this recent ugly era, the age of 2016, 2017, 2018 and ????
I don’t own any biological children, so there will be no grandchildren to hate me (unless your own grandkids hate me – but you’ll need to begin their “education” early)...
Again I wonder: What will be the defining trait of this present age? What have we invented? Church and war were already here, before we were born. War was invented by Mother Nature, and church was invented by the First Dishonest Atheist. Plus the rebel-poet attitude was in effect way before Jesus, altho Jesus rejuvenated it. But then Saint Paul propagandized Jesus into “Christ”...
But now Christ is dead, Paul is dead, and Mussolini is dead. And just a couple prezzes after the aforementioned number forty-three, we have Mr. Swamp himself, who appeared at the bottom of his abode, awaiting us with open arms like the Kraken, once his environment drained away. But he doesn’t have any fresh ideas. Evil, be thou my good – Milton’s Satan already said that. All the current movies are half-hearted remakes. Nobody’s gonna be able to do fascism as well as the master. Why not attempt to devise a NEWFANGLED bad?
*
During the asterisk, I read another encyclopedia entry. Under the heading “Benito Mussolini”, there was the following quote attributed to his Doctrine of Fascism – I want to emphasize that I’m stealing the exact excerpt from some other, far better editor, but not only out of laziness; I really found this interesting:
Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.
The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.
. . . everything within the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state.
Fascism is a religious conception in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raises him to conscious membership of a spiritual society. Whoever has seen in the religious politics of the Fascist regime nothing but mere opportunism has not understood that Fascism, besides being a system of government, is also, and above all, a system of thought.
If we wished to follow this “system of thought”, to adhere to it faithfully, what would we do? Our pal Benito’s definition evokes, for me personally, the notions of church (of course), the bifurcated monopoly of U.S. politics (Republicans vs. Democrats) that is hyped like a pro (scripted) wrestling match by the plutocratic media (like the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals), as well as the stranglehold that corporations have achieved upon the populace of this planet over the ages.
My prematurely senile father taught me, whenever I encounter the phrase “the state”, to think of oppressive government, as opposed to private business enterprise. But the latter, in these latter days, taking the form of transnational corporations, has usurped “the people’s” government: like a tick, it’s sucked away all the blood from its host.
*
I’m outta time now, so I gotta stop. And my blotting utensil is broken, so I can’t delete any wrong turns from my reckless ravings, therefore I ask the gentle reader to take my words lightly, loosely – or, better yet, disregard them entirely. All I know for sure is that I know nothing. Except one thing, but I’ll never reveal what that is. (I wish I could, but that’s life.)
Before quitting, however, I wanna share a brief con from St. Paul’s 1st epistle to the Corinthians, which came to mind while delighting in the outburst above. Bambino Benito cries “Everything in the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside of the state.” And St. Paul adds:
For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:27-28)
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