It is too cute: one of my violoncello students gave me a hand-made card for Xmas. It is a square-shaped paper that folds open, so it has a front cover and an interior message. Here is its cover:
For those who are listening to this blog post over the radio, the card says "Merry Christmas", and there's a picture of an evergreen tree flanked by two wrapped gifts.
Now, before I show you the interior message of my student's card, I want to share my own copy that I made of the above; for I so loved my student's card that I created a duplication of it, using acrylic, gouache, watercolor and charcoal on canvas:
I used broccoli for my Xmas tree, and flaming cherubim for the wise men's gifts.
Now (back to my student's original creation) here's the inside of the card that my student hand-made for me — you open its cover and this is what you see:
It says "Hope you have a great Christmas", & then there's a pinko line dividing this proclamation from what lies beneath: another evergreen, and a secret message written in golden ink which says "Have a great Christmas".
So I also made my own version of this interior image; but I couldn't afford to mix actual molten gold into my oil paints, to mimic the latter, top-secret tiding; thus, as a substitute, I employed fine print, like the kind that lawyers use when they draw up legal contracts for transnational corporations. In this way, my copy remains true to its source image, for it still says, on the top half, "Hope you have a great Christmas", and, at the bottom, covertly and clandestinely, "Have a great Christmas":
You are right, mesdames: My greeting card looks like a ransom note — that's becuz of the puissance of its letters and figures (I could not peel the price tag off my tree). Plus I added a furnace fire near the lower right, to help remind you that the fine print is bursting with flames.
And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. (Genesis 15:17)
OK that's it for the intro. Now I'll compose this entry's main body text:
Dear diary,
I’m a fan of Todd Solondz. His latest film was released in 2016. That’s two years ago. That means it took me two full years to see it. People gave it bad reviews. Wiener-Dog is its name. I finally watched it, just last night, and I totally loved it. I have nothing more to say about it – I just wanted to note my admiration, for the record, to prove that I am on the right side of history.
Now I’ll spend the rest of this entry failing to avoid droning about my ULTIMATE XMAS EXPERIENCE:
Thank god I can name this entry “After [etc.]” What an ordeal! And all for nothing. Stress and anxiety for days, and then a silly little get-together, and then we all return to humdrum reality. Another day, another dollar. Except the U.S. dollar has long been extinct.
So this idea of colonizing a place that’s already inhabited — let me talk about it, but let me explain it too broadly and naively. (I’m only writing to help forget Christmastime.) OK so you got these guys on a boat. They come from Country A; they land in Country C; they think it’s Country B…
Already I’m bored with the concept of colonization. I only wanted to summon before my choir the idea of forcefully changing another group of people, and holding yourself morally justified in doing so, on the argument that your system of order trumps theirs. If this way of thinking is permissible, then shouldn’t we tender-loving peacemakers get in a boat, or a sieve rather, and sail to Bankster-Land, and take everything from its vaults, and colonize it? We could bring our civilization to those savages. Make love not war.
The realm of Finance is now a colony of Poetry. Thus saith Yahweh.
The problem is that pacifists are bad at fighting. It’s somehow not in our nature to beat the crooked world into shape. Cuz we pacifists’re always like “Is this beating really necessary?” as that word implies taking up arms against a sea of troubles.
I guess I can’t escape Christmas. I’m trying to talk about other things, but the nasty aftertaste of the holiday keeps distracting me. So I’ll give in; I’ll deal with this nagging impulse, in hopes that it will then go away.
Does anyone actually enjoy the Christmas event — I mean the family event, where family gathers? For it’s easy to enjoy the attendant hubbub, which, for weeks, precedes this event: the music that you hear playing in stores, and the lights and glitter and garlands — that stuff’s child’s play: even I enjoy all that. But the actual hours that you share with your tribe in one place: is that enjoyable to anyone?
I just don’t understand what we’re supposed to get out of Christmas. Is the idea that we’ll all come away with a renewed affection for the spirit of humankind? If so, then something’s amiss, cuz I leave Xmas wondering: “Why was I ever so worried about the potential for nuclear war? For, after thousands of years of Christian culture, this is the best we can do? Lukewarm semi-love?”
In order to leave my mom’s house, you have to pass by the entryway to the kitchen, which is a door-shaped void in a doorless wall; so, when my brother and his wife were standing near the front of the house to leave, Colleen (that’s Paul’s wife’s name) espied the mountain of cookware overflowing the sink and exclaimed with concern “Oh! I feel that we should help you do those dishes, Rita!” (Rita’s my earthly mother.) And this remark, at first, caused pity to swell up in my soul on behalf of my mom; and I grew resolved to go help her complete her post-party cleaning, right then and there; but then I thot to myself “Wait a minute: this whole evening was instigated by mom (she even co-authored the original bill that was signed into law): she’s the one who summoned us all here, god knows why; and she chose willingly to perform all this masterful cookwork — she could’ve ordered fast-food meals for all, and presented us with an invoice for our portion of the festivities, and demanded that we properly dispose of our meals’ paper wrappings in the designated receptacles, and we’d’ve been every bit as content; honestly we’d’ve (or at least I’d’ve) been MORE content… not because the food woulda been any better (on the contrary, of course) but because our mutual stress level woulda decreased: both our stress as attendees of grandeur and my mom’s stress as hostess of perfection. Feasts are for people, not people for feasts – that’s what I think we should make our Jesus say.
So my conclusion is that feeling sorrow for my mom, on account of the huge heap of pots and pans that she must wash once the holiday concludes, is like pitying a bankster who gestures to a tall stack of paperwork while crying “Behold the cruel task that your loan has burdened me with.” For it was mom herself who inflicted us with this happy day; and nobody asked the bankster to compute his due interest and fees so convolutedly: we’d all be most glad, in either case, if the respective phenomena were to vanish outright. Then we could wake up and read newspaper headlines like “Physics Declares, in Unanimous Decision: Christmastime and Bank Loans Henceforth Shall Cancel Each Other.”
*
Sit down & shut up. Put yourself on hold. That’s what Christmastime tells me. Pause your passions for an evening while we all pretend to have been living properly. And the concept of “proper” shall be defined by the least imaginative among us.
Blessed are the numbskulls, for they shall inherit the holiday.
*
LACK versus HAVE. There are good and bad things about lacking family, and there are good and bad things about having family. I myself own only the bad parts of both, and none of the good. The bad part of lacking family is that nobody cares about you or helps you in life. The bad part of having family is that you must curb your enthusiasms to avoid offending this very family. You can’t just go out and impregnate all the priests in the universe: that’d be frowned on by your relatives; it’d be an embarrassment to your “loved ones”. They’d have to take your resultant “illegitimate” offspring, ship them overseas, & raise them as virgin-born saviors of newfangled cults.
Out of politeness, we avoid this act of mass impregnation. Yet what do we do instead? We dress like an English professor and stumble thru small-talk. We sip sparkling water with a dash of grapefruit juice and five percent alcohol, rather than imbibe absinthe like an actual Christ.
Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live—
(That’s from a poem by Emily Dickinson.) I was able to offset my Xmas annoyance, however, by listening to Thelonious Monk’s album Straight, No Chaser. Can you believe that this was my first time ever hearing it? I just put it on, and reclined there and listened from beginning to end, sobbing at its beauty.
Like a soul-warming shower in heaven after a bad stint on earth.
*
And we also watched, the night before last, the new movie from Lars von Trier. I’m obsessed with von Trier, and I like a lot of his films, and I’ve seen all the recent ones that are so offensive and risky and even tasteless, cuz I respect an artist who dares to dive overboard, especially when she seems to be genuinely searching for something. I even prefer questionable worth to known worth. And there are swathes of genius in even the worst of von Trier’s films; then, at his best, as in Dogville (2003), he’s pure genius from start to finish. So I’m an admirer, sometimes even a raving believer: I’m always hoping he succeeds; and I’m happy when he does, and I’m sad when he fails. So this latest movie mostly left me sad, cuz I think it’s one of his worst. Not on account of the grisly content alone, but because of the stance, the artistic attitude toward the material, the lack of inspiration… It’s got a fair share of scenes that reach the heights (like Lynch, von Trier moves me to say: I’d rather watch the best moments of his failed films than the best films of more “successful” directors), but if someone were to ask me “Should I watch this new von Trier film about the serial killer?” I’d urge them sincerely to re-screen Dogville instead: “If you haven’t watched Dogville, then go watch Dogville. And if you’ve already seen Dogville, then go see Dogville again.” It’s a shame, cuz all the actors in this latest film are brilliant (as expected; still, it’s worth praising them), especially Dillon. But the disturbing inhumanity is off-the-charts, while the reason for enduring it is barely existent. Plus it’s a spiritual crime to misuse Blake — the film references William Blake overtly and repeatedly, visually and aurally (via weak misreadings in the dialogue between the film’s characters) in a way that is just plain slanderous: either von Trier doesn’t know Blake’s work very well, in which case he simply shouldn’t have referenced him, or von Trier is maliciously smearing Blake’s far-stronger mind out of some urge like jealousy or non-urge like laziness. Blake is an immeasurably better artist than von Trier, and I say that as a mega-fan of von Trier.
So, von Trier, I now address you directly, because I know that you’re listening:
I love you, but please leave off from trifling with shock art; return to your Land of Opportunities trilogy. As Whitman is “mad for the atmosphere to be in contact with me” (“Song of Myself” sec. 2), the U.S. is mad to receive your divine judgment upon itself.
*
Sorry about that. Just had to do a bit of eternal maintenance.
If my train goes off the track,
Pick it up & put it back.
But now I’m all disoriented... What was I supposed to be talking about here? — Oh yes: shoes.
I wish I had a pair of new shoes. Nice shoes. I wish I had wardrobes and wardrobes of nice new shoes.
*
I guess I’ll end with another quote from David Graeber’s Debt. This is from the beginning of Chapter Nine “The Axial Age (800 BC – 600 AD)”:
For most of the great urban civilizations of the time, the early Iron Age was a kind of pause between empires, a time when political landscapes were broken into a checkerboard of often diminutive kingdoms and city-states, most often at constant war externally and locked in constant political debate within. Each case witnessed the development of something akin to a drop-out culture, with ascetics and sages fleeing to the wilderness or wandering from town to town seeking wisdom; in each, too, they were eventually reabsorbed into the political order as a new kind of intellectual or spiritual elite, whether as Greek sophists, Jewish prophets, Chinese sages, or Indian holy men.
Before I continue this quote, I wanna tell why I find the passage so interesting. I’ve always loved art & poetry, so it follows that I identify with the prophets and with ancient religious scriptures, because religion prophecy sophistry holiness and wisdom-teaching are all basically artistic-poetic pursuits. But so is working as an auto-repair mechanic; so is ditch digging and carpentry. There is no type of labor that is not essentially artistic and poetic. Even banksters are poets, or at least they’re parts of the massive poem that is finance. (The LORD himself admits: “Finance is a colony of Poetry.”) So maybe banksters are more like words than compositions, more like paint than paintings.
But Graeber’s book shines a light on an idea that’s been bothering me lately: I keep asking myself “Why do you, Bryan, who care solely for Poets & Prophets, now dedicate so much of your time to studying the Art of Money?” Or for “Money” you could substitute “Politics”. Or just change all these terms to “Power”, cuz that’s what it is, in the end. I’m trying to say that I’m deeply concerned with the ways that POWER changes and moves and grows or gets volleyed about. It’s like electricity, too. That’s why we call it a “power switch” — the thing that turns on the light bulb in your brain.
Alright so admittedly I can’t explain why this quote, which I still haven’t finished quoting, means so much to me; but, here below, I’ll give the rest of it nevertheless. In the initial sentence of the chapter, Graeber notes that the phrase “Axial Age” was coined by the philosopher Karl Jaspers. Graeber continues to reference Jaspers in this part of his text, tho Graeber later explains how he revises Jasper’s concept: he enlarges it.
The result, Jaspers argued, was the first period in history in which human beings applied principles of reasoned inquiry to the great questions of human existence. He observed that all these great regions of the world, China, India, and the Mediterranean, saw the emergence of remarkably parallel philosophical trends, from skepticism to idealism — in fact, almost the entire range of positions about the nature of the cosmos, mind, action, and the ends of human existence that have remained the stuff of philosophy to this day. As one of Jaspers’ disciples later put it — overstating only slightly — “no really new ideas have been added since that time.”
Before copying the next sentence, which begins a new paragraph in Graeber’s text, I want to mention an idea that many might find too obvious. For me, there is no such thing as “too obvious”. I believe in stating and restating, very clearly, for purposes of bolstering clarity and friendliness, the things that are obvious. So here is the obvious thing that I want to make note of:
The names Zoroaster and Zarathustra represent two different pronunciations of the same name, sort of like Jesus and Joshua, or Jehovah and Yahweh. Nietzsche chose to center his infamous dithyramb (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None) on this Z-named figure for apparently the same reason that Jaspers employed to set the starting date of his Axial Age (of which, in what follows, Graeber explains why he himself has chosen to relocate the end point).
For Jaspers, the period begins with the Persian prophet Zoroaster, around 800 BC, and ends around 200 BC, to be followed by a Spiritual Age that centers on figures like Jesus and Mohammed. For my own purposes, I find it more useful to combine the two. Let us define the Axial Age, then, as running from 800 BC to 600 AD. (Or, if one must be even more precise, we should probably end it in 632 AD, with the death of the Prophet.) This makes the Axial Age the period that saw the birth not only of all the world’s major philosophical tendencies, but also, all of today’s major world religions: Zoroastrianism, Prophetic Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, & Islam. (Obviously Vedic Hinduism is earlier; I am referring to Hinduism as a self-conscious religion, which is generally seen as having taken shape in reaction to Buddhism and Jainism around this time.)
The attentive reader may have noticed that the core period of Jaspers’ Axial age — the lifetimes of Pythagoras, Confucius, and the Buddha — corresponds almost exactly to the period in which coinage was invented. What’s more, the three parts of the world where coins were first invented were also the very parts of the world where those sages lived; in fact, they became the epicenters of Axial Age religious and philosophical creativity…
I repeat: I find this very interesting. So Religion shared a twin birth with Money-Money-Money. This is what this makes me dream: Mammon shares a birthday with the LORD, like Jacob and Esau. And we don’t know which one came first, and which Achilles was born clutching the other Achilles’ heel. And Cain slew Abel, but which one’s which? You got hunter-gatherers and then you got farmers (agricultural communities). You’d think that the Hunter Gracchus would’ve killed the chamois, not the other way around. It would not be my own first thought that the Boatman or Burgomaster assassinated the Hunter. But look what happened to the Gracchus. What’s worse: hitting your mark, or not being able to conclude?
P.S.
I just wanna tell what we did yesterday, because it’s weighing on me. We had to replace our sink and vanity in the upstairs bathroom. This is the first time I’ve ever attempted anything like this. Now the water lines in the upstairs bathroom don’t have individual shut-off valves, so I had to turn off the water at the main line, which means that the whole house was left without running water while I attempted this repair. So I tore the sink top off, and I tore out the vanity. Then I was left with two water lines needing shut-offs; & I had earlier purchased two shut-off valves which are the standard size that fits most homes. But when I tried to put them on my upstairs bathroom’s pipe-ends, they did not fit: they were too small. So I hastened to the hardware store; and I brought along, for reference, the old parts that I had removed. Now this hardware store had a nifty chart near the section where the purchasable shut-off valves were displayed, and this chart had actual screwable pipe ends affixed to it, so I was able to take one of the old ends that I removed from my upstairs bathroom and screw it to the chart (that is: screw it to the provided sample): thus I discovered that the fixture that I removed was the next size up from the most popular size. Therefore I purchased shut-off valves of that next new larger size; then I went back home.
I grew hungry at this point. I mean, I felt a craving for nourishment. It’s a physical sensation. (You’ll understand what I’m saying, if you ever manage to get yourself born.) My stomach began to feel needy like an empty red dish, and it wanted to be filled with something digestible, like puppy chow for men. — Additionally I began to feel slightly scared; because the running water for the entire house was inoperative; yet if I were to turn the water supply back on, so that I could use my kitchen appliances to make lunch, then the water from the exposed pipes in my upstairs bathroom would gush out and flood the world in a universal catastrophe: much worse than the current climate chaos that our globe is experiencing.
So I knew that it was my topmost priority to install these shut-off valves: I had to get these stoppers ON; or else I would never be able to eat, and thus I would die. (And when you die, you find yourself in heaven; and God lives in heaven; therefore heaven is an undesirable place.) Howbeit, when I slid the next new larger-size ferrule upon the end of each pipe in the upstairs bathroom, like a ring on a finger, the valves would not wed. Do you understand my gripe? First they’re too snug; now they’re too loose! So I felt like Goldilox in the story where she breaks into the house of the 3 Female Grizzly Bears, because she tries out all of their food and clothing and pleasure-toys, but they all prove to be either too big or small. Too hot or cold. Too communist or fascist. Not Republican-Democrat enough: not one bit centrist (which is to say, in the U.S.A., far-right). So what I ended up doing is using the brazen rings from the old shut-off valves and combining them with the outer casing of each new valve. Then I turned on the water for the house and worried till now.
I’ll let you know if I ever finish installing the new sink in the upstairs bathroom. At present, it’s still just two lonely pipes jutting from the wall, and they drip occasionally; but I keep intermittently tightening them, and the rate of dripping seems to be diminishing. So I almost have hope. But you know what they say: Hope killed the cat. So it’s lucky that I’m no cat but a Tyger of Wrath who’s more curious than hopeful.
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