UP YOURS

from
ROBERTO ROMEI ROTONDO

www.robertorotondo.com

 

2015

 

up kodaikanal

The bus trundled along the stony path hugging tight to the side of the mountain on its right with nothing in places but a few inches of dirt to the unguarded precipice on the left below.

A windowless vehicle.

I sat somewhat nervously at first but as the ride progressed I blended with the joyful chatter and laughter and confident ease of the locals on their way home.

A baby cries. The mother passes her child to me, and why not, as I was the closest to her, and proceeds to slip out her teat for her other babe to feed.

Meanwhile the music from the speakers up front is blasting full out, almost as loudly as the blast of the klaxon bleating at every turn.

A man in his thirties is chewing paan, spitting the red juices out the window. A spittle accidentally splashes my shirt. I tap him on the shoulder. A row of blood red teeth flash radiantly into a smile as his head bobs regretfully from side to side. Very sorry, very sorry. Do you have school pen for my child?

I stand to stretch my legs. I glance uneasily to the right.

Not to worry, yells out the driver. We’ve been this way a thousand times before.

Besides, if its our time there’s no preventing the karma.

There are dozens of little effigies dangling above his dashboard. So which is your god? I ask. Oh depending on my disposition, but my favourite is Kali. A devilish one, he says, giggling. Catch her in the wrong mood and she’ll chop your head clean off. Just like the wife, eh? Ahh, yes yes, absolutely correct, just like the wife. And yourself? Do you have a god? Yes, Jesus. And what does your god say? Oh, basically to treat others good and have a little faith. Ah, I like your god, I think I’ll put him up with the rest soon as I find an icon of him.

I think we need all the gods in the heavens, I tell the driver. It's very misty up ahead. Hard to see, don’t you find? Not to worry. I go by feel. Besides, we’re driving through clouds which means we’re there. Welcome to Kodaikanal.

 

up your zeros

So yet another painting, this time a Picasso, sold for 106 million, to someone for whom the cost is a mere single digit decrease in a multi-billion ever increasing numerical figure quantifying his monetary worth.

And so, for instance, imagine a guy with a full pail of sand throwing Sotheby a grain and gets his Picasso delivered at his palace.

And then you’ve got an artist who sells his painting for a mere 106 dollars to a guy whose pail is not only empty but mortgaged to boot.

Seen from this perspective the meaning of a painting’s “worth” takes on a completely different meaning.

Does it not?

 

up your health

I want to stay healthy enough to enjoy all those unhealthy things which make life worth living.

 

good cop bad cop

There's the rotten 10% in any group, whether priests, rabbis, gurus, psychologists, proctologists, coaches, teachers, and yes, even cops. Hiring policies?

You can never get inside a person's head from an interview.

No, there will always be bad cops. And besides, let's face it, you've gotta be a bit of a kook to consider a carreer as a cop anyway.

Warriors and enforcers, whether on the fields, on the ice, in the deserts and the skies, and yes, even in the ghettos, can't be expected to be chosen from an average population. Most have got issues, something to prove, whether to themselves or their loved ones or society as a whole. And whenever and wherever there is need for approval there is imbalance and fragility.

Which is why you don't ever mess with cops. Yes madame, thank you very much, is always your best bet. And let's face it, society needs them.

Give them a wide berth, let them do their job, swallow your pride and be respectful despite their attitude and they'll leave you alone.

Expect more and you're missing the point.

Get it!

 

up your gender, jenner

Regarding those at either extremity of nature's standard deviation curve, I look at it this way.

You are not normal? Not your fault.

But this does not license you to promote your life-style onto others, nor does it endow you with special automatic entry into institutions which have since time immemorial objected to your ways. And so, for example, if you are coprophagic, this does not entitle you to open a restaurant catering to those whose favourite delights are similar to yours. Or, assuming you enjoyed humping your goat (provided, of course, your goat offered every semblance of consent), this wouldn't give you right to suggest your sexual predilection as a legitimate life style to grade school children.

Same holds true for other types of deviant behaviour.

In short, do whatever the fuck you want, but do it in PRIVATE.

Meanwhile I cant even take a piss on a full bladder any more without getting fined for indecent exposure. (new city law = $1000 fine -- hear about it?). Before pissing ( uh! I mean passing) municipal ordinances of this sort city had better build urinals at every street block, damn it. .

What was that mayor? As a preventive measure against perverts whipping it out at school yards? Well, freaks like that ought to be neutralized and their trophies fed to the pigs.

But to make the innocent piddler pay for society's creeps doesn't seem at all right.

In fact it's perversely un-civic.

 

up your repetition

Like a good quip, catchy and to the point, that quickly generates upon repetition into an annoying cliche, so it is with simple tunes.

Should we therefore conclude complexity a necessary condition to all good art? Or might not the opposite be true, that the most excellent art is perhaps meant to be seen or heard but once, that all other renderings must be provided by memory and imagination alone?

Perhaps it's why the Sun likes not been seen, for fear we might grow tired of it too.

 

up your technique

Kant defined laughter as "an affectation arising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing." In other words the element of surprise arising out of a sensible contradiction, (i.e: a paradox) is at the root of laughter.

The aesthetic experience is very similarly constituted though not at a rational but emotional level. And so melody, which is at the root of all aesthetic experience, is asymmetric equilibrium, a balancing of sorts which, as asymmetric, is both a paradox and by necessity, unexpected.

While accustomed to thinking of melody as strictly musical we find it also in the plastic arts as well as poetry.

This joyful harmony characterizing all good art (as opposed to kitsch), while extremely difficult to attain is very often extremely simple in its constitution.

And so for instance, the difference between a memorable, touching melodic line and one leaving the listener indifferent, if not outright 'tuned off,' could be as simple as the difference between a major and a minor chord, a half note, a single fret, or a grace note acting as link between otherwise discordant musical phrasings.

Similarly, the difference between, say, a painting awakening in the gifted/knowledgeable viewer a sense of aesthetic appreciation and one which does nothing at all can be as plain as a lengthened line, or toned down colour, or diminished form. The same is of course true of poetry, where a mere word in the right place will suddenly engender an inspiring metaphor.

And so, despite opinion to the contrary, creativity has extremely little to do with technique and much with vision.

Which is why, though performers and critics abound, true artists are far more rare.

Which is why, in his unique ironical way, Nietzsche commanded that above knowing ourselves we first and foremost acquire good taste.

 

up your hair of the dog

My yoga instructor succeeded in eliminating my early morning hangover.

Had a few too many last night watching the game with the boys but decided to attend yoga practice regardless. I couldn’t even manage the child-pose I was so wasted.

And then Antoine suggests the most important things are often those we strive to shun, that recognition is in effect little more than an embracing of what we wish were not. An interesting paradox, I thought to myself, and experimented by seeing if I couldn’t somehow embrace my willies.

Well wouldn’t you know it. Gone. Instantaneously. And my balance doing the tree pose -- seldom more stable.

I am still incredulous to it, but it bloody works.

If only I’d have known the trick earlier in life I'd have wasted fewer evenings staying sober.

 

up your cause and effuckt

There is no rationality in beauty.

Only fools invent reasons to the flower’s glory: to attract the bee they say. And if the flower had no scent and the bee would be attracted to it anyway they would invent some other reason for that too, perhaps suggesting the bee has some magnetic biochemical disposition to petals fluttering in the wind. Hot air. All of it. Any sensible peasant knows that.

Just stop and listen and see and smell beauty for what it is, and be content in the experience. “If I were but a nostril I should be happy as I’d have an opening to the World,” said Merleau Ponty.

Feel beauty.

No life has a reason. Being has no reason. Or, to adopt a biblical explanation, the wisest, in my view, closest to the truth, we were made for God’s pleasure. It is what it is.

Justice? There is no justice, and every attempt at levelling out the playing field through human imposed retributivist measures only creates more injustice. She’s smart and beautiful and you’re sporting more than a sufficient nose on your big dullard’s head. And so it is. No reason to it whatsoever.

Of course someone might try to convince you that, as the tree with the erraticly spread out branches draws more attention than the perfectly straight one, so does a defect enhance a human countenance. Perhaps, in some instances, assuming the defect is minor, but otherwise, again, a bunch of hot air, and the lass with the artichoke nose knows it, smiles, and takes in a long big breath. Why? Cause she can, that’s why. No, there is no sensible way to rationalize injustice. Which is why it is said that vengeance is of the Lord. And then there is love.

Ever hear of unconditional love? Or, to put it otherwise, to love for no reason whatsoever, not as my cat loves me, because he knows I’ll feed him, but for nothing.

To love for no reason. Can you embrace so much irrationality? Hope so or you’ll waste away seeking reasons which do not ON THIS PLANE OF BEING exist, and miss out on the show, on the Magical Mystery Tour we call LIFE. 

 

up your official charity tax deduction

I’m filing my taxes.
In the hood I’m known as Grub.
I’m always giving hand outs to the local strung-outs.
I ask no questions.
Those good enough to fool me into thinking they’re losers though they’re not ,well, what to say, good on them.
But for the most part I think I’ve got the field well pegged.
Anyway I do my fair share of sharing, or, donating, to put it in fiscal terms.
But no, I’ve no receipts to prove my Catholicism.

Can’t expect me to ask Joe Squeegee for a receipt every time I ‘throw the bum a dime,’ or, then again, perhaps I should?

If the government provided the less industrious among us a receipt booklet, not only would they (the street bums) offer an example of simple living to the greedy rest of us but also provide an opportunity for more people to give without concern about their monies ending up fattening some double-crossing Red Cross 6-digit-salaried CEO.

Truth is most fat-wad ‘donators’ don’t give two fucks who ends up getting their hand-outs; their only concern is tax write offs. In fact they never do dip their hands into their pockets. It’s all digitally done, very mechanical, all arithmetic, no heart, mostly executed by their chartered accountants; all very clinical.

But they do get tax write-offs. I don’t, damn it. No matter. Hell with ‘em all.

I speak to the simpletons of the world. The innocent. The wise. The clean in spirit.
I tell you this. You give a buck to a bum you’ve given a buck’s worth and you’ve given well.

What the bum does with it is no concern of yours. He can drink it, shoot it, blow it, name it, no difference. What is important is he’ll know there are good people out there willing to help him out.

After all, charity is not about quantity but care. And for most street kids and others alike it’s what they thirst for most. Care.

So give to them and fuck the feds.
No donation tax credits for me again this year?

As far as the feds are concerned I’m just another donationless tight-wad cheap fuck?

The hell with them. Who are the feds anyways? They don’t feel, they only calculate.

Jimmy down the street? He knows me. And that‘ll top a tax write-off off any day.

 

up your fall

Autumn wet grey afternoon.

A rustle beneath my feet.

The slippery swishing traffic grieves along the red leaf-laden boulevard.

Brief fitful winds puff up fragile fallen tree-wings.

Some spin and dance in whirly elegance then rest aground awhile then rise again.

A quieting muffled hush.

Then suddenly the scurry of a squirrel, and then not.

Two ravens shrill and dive within the branches' deep -- then rest observantly and still.

Sky naples-yellow through rusty maple trees ignites to orange-mellow.

A lone dark cloud whips fast across beneath a woolly silvery heavenly mantle beyond it up above.

Yet not a stir way down below.

And then another flutter and then none.

Nature’s last sporadic triggerings of tremulous excitement
before she spreads in white her peaceful frigid calm.

 

up your fear-not

Regarding the Catholic church’s position on contraception why is so much being stirred up out of nothing? The church preaches and teaches its fold to be 'natural.'

So when you’re banging the wife clock the cock, pull out a wee bit sooner, or stand on a pail while doing it and ask her to kick it when you’re on the verge, or whatever. In other words man, show some control, some balls, some imagination.

Of course if your too much of an unimaginative wuss and can't hold in then yes you’ve got 'artificial' options. You’ll not burn in hell?

You’ll not find no condom wearing Dicks in Dante’s Inferno, so where’s the worry?

Whether it's your mother, or your teacher, or your Church, or anyone who cares for you, they’ll always raise the bar, inviting you to comport yourself according to the very highest standards? But that’s as far as it goes.

Not wearing a nodder is not the eleventh commandment.

Yes, the Catholic Church is all about natural versus artificial.

Every happy-hat lefty should get this.

 

up your fish teeth

I hobbled along the stony slabbed waterfront where one of the fishers reeled up a two-footer. A trout, by the looks of it, though it might have been a salmon or even an overgrown sardine or a baby tuna perhaps. Not being an ichthyologist, I couldn’t quite be sure as to exactly what kind of fish it was, though it most definitely was a fish. Anyway, the fisher held the fish up by the gills, looked at it in the same way one might inspect a handkerchief after one has blown in it, or straight threw it, as often occurs with paper kerchiefs, or across it, as often occurs with small kerchiefs, or when the kerchief isn’t so small but the nose in question is enormous, or, which would indeed be most unfortunate, both a small kerchie and a cauliflower sized nose, and also depending on the various types of symptoms accompanying the cold, and, not unimportantly, also very much depending on the pulmonary force of the person doing the discharging, as well as the environment in which the nasal releasing is performed; after all, one would not quite expect a dainty mademoiselle of refined pedigree attending a dinner to blow with the same intensity and spirit as a pig-farmer at a he-ha folk festival, and so, having quite deliberately inspected the fish, the fisherman threw the fish my way. For you, he said. As the trout flopped about the pier one of the boatmen yelled out that I should lay my knee on it and pin the slimy thing down, which I did. The helpless creature panted for air, or whatever it is fish pant for when out of water panting , flashing a sharp set of pearly white teeth… Were the teeth extracted from the fish before their heads ended up boiling in the pot? Or were they left to slip off their gums straight into the broth for flavouring?

These questions and my missing socks were enough to keep my mind in a whirl for the better part of the week. For you see my socks had vanished. Now we all of course have had our socks gone missing in the course of our lives. But why of all my socks only the yellow ones. And why had they gone missing -- again.

And were the trout’s teeth left intentionally on its head for flavouring the fish head soup, as I had initially suspected, or might there not perhaps have been some other, more exotic, oriental reason for this strangest of culinary inclusions?

Were the teeth left in as a ‘hardening’ agent . . . for aphrodisiac purposes? Perhaps not as cherished as a rhino’s horn, or porcupine bezoars, or even pangolin flesh, or gecko’s skin, but certainly more accessible to mariners and way way cheaper.

Might this be why over the centuries sailors had acquired such renown as lovers? Is this why the most beautiful Canadian women live in the Maritimes?

Is the sailor’s celebrated virility attributable to fish teeth in his soup and not, as the literature would have us believe, from being months on end out at sea, womanless? In fact one might very well make the case that having been weaned on toothy fish soup our sailors’accented sexual prowess got the gals chasing after them boys so hard their only way out was sailing the high seas.

The more I contemplated the more questions popped to mind, though none as perturbing as the sudden disappearance of my socks. And why only my yellow ones.

From my bed where I lay, sleepless, I glanced searchingly into the offing.

The moon was long past the full, a beautiful round yellow moon, as yellow as my socks when quite suddenly I heard a screech in the night. I gingerly approached the window sill. And there he was. Don. My Chinese acrobat neighbour swinging from my clothes line. But of course, it now all made perfect sense . . . all those hours at the gym, honing his acrobatic skills . . . to steal my socks -- no doubt attracted by their colour to match his complexion? It would never have occurred to me had I not seen him with my own eyes.

And they say crosswords sharpen the mind? Rubbish. It's scrabble for me from here on out.

Or did the fisherman throw the fish at me cause he thought I might need a little toothy fish soup of my own to energize what he interpreted as an otherwise less than seaworthy masculinity?

Questions and more questions. Damn me and when I get to try linking words up.

And what if yellow socks, for some strangest of reasons, were as desirable to the oriental persuasion as the seal’s dried penis?

No. No bloody way. No more doing with word-link of any sort, no more.

Scrabble's out as well I thought to myself, sniffing at my last remaining pair of yellow socks.

 

up your reductionism

Husserl’s 'bracketing' (époqué) went further than merely eliminating 'accidentals,' hence the term transcendental reduction. He was more concerned with the mindfulness of experience, with presence, and whereever there is mindfulness and presence there can, by necessity, be no room for judgment (past experience, conceptual baggage of any sort). Which is why the artist, while in his phenomenological mode, does not see the tree as tree but as mere colour and form (not easy when drawing the nude).

In so doing the artist's experience is in no way obstructed by his notion of what a tree is 'supposed' to look like. Hence the word phenomenon -- that which appears as appearance. I suspect every woman who visits her gynecologist trusts that he too is in the phenomenological mode while visiting her.

2014

up your bombay dawn

It was a bumpy landing that I’d never experienced before. The plane skipped on the strip like a flat pebble on water. I attributed the ‘miss’ to the night and let it go at that, grumbling.

Must have been 30 Celsius and the sun wasn’t up yet. My shoes stuck, squishing off the tarmac with every step towards the main building. Inside hundreds of immaculately coiffed Indians all in white shirts, flashing radiantly welcoming smiles. I felt happy to be there.

And desks everywhere laden with tons of paper, dusty roped-up stacks of tawdry documents lying forgotten on the ground, stacked in shelves up behind and beyond. No, you didn’t want to get mixed up with the law, not in this bureaucracy; you’d be forgotten and left to rot. Everywhere paper. Forests of the stuff. These were, after all, the seventies. No computers to speak of. Only paper.

And crows as big as cats flying overhead. And a lady clad in all the colours of the rainbow walking straight and proud alongside her goat. This was a weird-wild place, no doubt about it. I’d hardly got there and I already loved it.

Soon I’m out and hustling for a cab. I arranged to share a ride with a couple of guys from my flight into town. It was an old Bentley, worn down but spacious and classy nevertheless. Being a Montrealer, with the worst streets of any big city on the planet and the most run-down taxis anywhere, this was an unanticipated treat.

It was still dark out but the first light of day was streaking the horizon. The roads were poorly lit. Shadowy figures lying beneath a tree. Homeless dogs running about, seemingly anxious and confused. And the occasional cow, scrawny and bony, chewing newsprint. An intellectual beast.

Look, said Dean, pointing to the left at a wall, some 8 feet in height, that seemed to go on forever. Squatting on it were dozens of people, one next to the other, their bare asses pointing our way, dumping. I gaped in disbelief. The cabbie, who until now had kept silent, said: squatters colony, as if to remind us that it wasn’t all like that, that this was an undesired anomaly, that he wasn’t part of that, that they belonged to another caste, on and on. He wouldn’t stop lecturing, explaining, justifying. But so what. I then thought to myself. No different from our shit-huts up north. So they’re short on sewage. No fault of theirs. It would all get fixed in time, modernized, sadly.

We rode on. And the sun rose higher, and there she suddenly appeared, the Bombay Bay looming in the distance, spreading out far beyond a thousand sails, masts and ships moored forever along the shore, the warm white-yellow light surrounding the city like a halo, the skyline a wonder of Hindi-Brit architecture, the eerie birds swirling up high and above the ubiquitous spires, and the magnificent colourful scent -- no other way to describe it -- as it smelled like everything at once. One does not know the nose until one goes to India -- tantamount to the severely daltonic discovering colour.

As we drove closer to town the streets grew populated. Cows halting traffic, the drivers calmly accepting the wait. People everywhere, some leaning against the side of a building chewing paan, their coal-red teeth betraying their habit, others sitting about in a small circle, taking breakfast on a banana leaf, and jittery monkeys pouncing the rooftops erratically like a thousand superballs let lose upon the earth from way up high,. The urban monkey is coy and agile. There she is. And now she’s gone. And the pungent smell of spice. Spice is everywhere. India is spice. Everything smells like spice. You cannot get away from it. You become it. Spice.

And of course the early morning scrubbers, brushing their teeth with huge brushes, with thick bristles, brushes big enough to floss a camel, vigorously brushing, foaming at the mouth, walking about, holding their metallic water filled cups, sipping and unabashedly spitting out as though in a spit-the-farthest competition, loudly clearing their throats, inducing vomiting, as is the Hindu’s wont, part of their morning ablution ritual, a way of keeping it clean, of cleansing. They may wear tattered rags but they are a clean people. Always and everywhere scrubbing, washing and bathing. All kinds of people doing in public what we all do privately.

India is a public reality. It is an organism too concerned about survival, about the truth of life to worry over the niceties of western privacy. To the street-Hindu privacy is death. When he finds it, it is too late.. He is no longer wanted. Shunned. Even by his very own. He is contagious. Infected. A goner. And so he doesn’t t bother. He huddles up in his private spot, and dies, silently and acceptingly, as he must, for the sake of the rest, of the organism, of INDIA, an organic indestructible reality . Should a nuclear cataclysm, a global Armageddon occur, India would survive. The Hindu excels at survival. All other options are inconceivable to him.. His love and respect of life and of divinity too great for him to ponder over alternatives.

To the Hindu, that we are all merely passing by is a given. Everywhere the little statuettes of their gods, Shiva, the transcendent Lord who creates the cosmos, maintains it and destroys it over and over again, the ubiquitous Ganesh, the elephant god, the remover of obstacles, and Vishnu, one of the main deities, the perseverer and protector, and Kali, the Hindu goddess associated with empowerment, Shakti, and Hanuman the monkey god, and many many more, all fascinating and tremendous in their own way, making up the most colourful mythology the world has known, and of course Braham, the highest and indescribable reality. And before their many gods are offerings and burning incense and solemn prayer, and powdered drawings.

To the Hindu there is nothing eventful about a ceremony. The ceremony begins at dawn and ends at death. To the Hindu life itself is a ceremony, a thanksgiving and preparation for the other side.. All this, driving the streets of Bombay, and it was still only dawn.

We decided to stay at the Seashore Hotel. We were led to our room, a spacious opulence affording a spectacular view of the Bay. I was tired. We all were. One of the guys, Marc, rolled a joint. Copped a tola (the weight of a silver rupee), he said, from the bellboy. Ten grams for 100 rupees, a mere ten bucks. I lied down and fell asleep, the morning’s impressions running through my head kaleidoscopically, and the cabbie’s last words before dropping us off, that it isn’t as ugly and bad as you might suspect – those people are happy.

And in time, having spent several months in India, his words proved prophetic, though after only having been there for a mere few hours I already knew

And I still remember how everything smelled like spice, but then you grew used to it and it smelled no more, and you missed it.

up your sensitivity

Everyone finds it offensive to have their loved ones, their Saints, their God, their nation, their religion, their family, and yes, their Prophet satirized and ridiculed. The notion that Muslims alone are somehow privy to this sentiment is absolutely ridiculous. So no, in this regard, the difference between Muslims and non-Muslims lies not in their feelings towards disparagement, but in their reaction to it. While Christians and Jews put up and shut up, they, Muslims, slit throats and plant bombs.

So for the CBC to refuse showing cartoons of Muhammad satirized on the grounds they do not wish to disturb Muslim sensibilities is typical hypocritical CBC nonsense. The CBC are either afraid of the consequences or are pandering to Muslim viewership or both.

The CBC are vile opportunists.

I, as a Canadian and as a Christian, find it offensive that I should somehow be fair game to all sorts of insults in the name of free-speech while a select group of people should not.

Shame on the CBC.

 

up your melody

Led Zeppelin's incomparable Jimmy Page compacted melody -- the essence of music -- in the tightest ways possible. No other band or guitarist has approached that kind of purity of expression, or plenitude, or musical equivalent of singularity.

 

up your misplaced civility

There was a time when I could take the subway home after a long day hanging out at the pub, grab a seat, read the paper and relax, or even take a snooze for that matter.

No more.

Before every stop, at every stop and before leaving every station, I’ve got to be loudly reminded by the same automated speaker voice of the name of the same bloody station about to be left or approached. Very annoying.

Yes I know, all for the benefit of the blind. Or is it?

Do the blind who perceive sensory stimuli much more sharply then the rest of us visually un-impaired, who can feel thread so discerningly that the best darners are blind, who can read brail, whose attention to auditory cues is so refined as to identify a person walking far behind by the most subtle of scents, fragrants or otherwise, who can tune instruments as precisely as the most state of the art technological gadget out there, and on and on, do you think they, the blind, need be reminded of every next in line subway stop? I suspect most blind persons find this very condescending, and as damn annoying as the rest of us.

You want to assist the blind? Boost up their pensions. Now that I am all for. But to drive the likes of irritable me off the rails every time I hop a subway train? No, that isn’t civil.
And besides, since for every blind person out there, there are literally thousands of neurotics (i.e. normal folk), numbers alone should dictate that a bit of peace and quiet be provided, at least on the ride back home from wherever.

Enough to drive even the most balanced, measured and restrained of souls to drinking.

reader comment
The announcements aren't for the blind but but for people who are reading their newspaper or book and can't be bothered looking up all the time to get one's bearings, or someone who is seated in rush hour and can't see above the bodies and heads of the crowd and relies on the public announcements.

blogger riposte
Humans went about their day for millions of years without needing reminders.
Now even my elevator must inform me as to which floor I am on. There are only three damn it.
Staying with it, being aware, is healthy and civic.
In olden days one didn't need alarm clocks to get out of bed. And one certainly didnt forget to water his orchard, feed his cattle, or he might starve.
And mums certainly didn't forget their kids locked up in cars, or carts, or whatever other space.
I’ll admit, I would find it problematic memorizing a self-destructive tape à la Mission Impossible. But knowing where to get off?
Even sheep and goats know how to get to their barns unattended at sundown. And chickens have no problems finding their coup.

up your stink

Are you willing to sacrifice your nose for the environment? Because unless you stink, you see, you’re not a true greenie. Here are some of the reasons why. Just the basics facts, really.

The average cost of a ten minute shower in Canada is around $2. Fifty gallons of H2O down the drain.. That’s a lot of waste, and for what, to smell a little less for a little while longer?

Health concerns? None. It’s not unhealthy to stink. In fact it’s absolutely – you gotta love this -- ‘natural.’ Yes. You heard right. Natural: every tree-hugger’s favourite buzz word.
Additional costs? None. No additional medical costs out of the nation’s piggy bank. Not that environmentalists ever cared about costs of any kind. They are so generous they are willing to sacrifice literally thousands of jobs today for the possibility of a fraction of a degree increase in temperature a century down the road. Now ain’t that principle. Of course their largesse would resonate all the more if they themselves took a cut in their personal, tax-subsidized salaries, but that'd be stretching it, wouldn’t it? Every principle has its limitations.

But stinking? It wouldn’t cost a cent.

Not showering (and this is only a personal non-scientific theory, but a sensible one nevertheless) is good for both circulation and skin. Dirt would induce scratching, which would enhance the exfoliation process as well as blood flow, in turn rendering skin more elastic and naturally ruddy, thereby reducing usage of facial ointments, pomades and a whole variety of skin-care products, materials, lest we forget, all harmful to the environment. Also, the inevitable ensuing rise in the need to scratch-off occasional itches in far reaching parts of our body would serve as stretching exercises. No stretch would go wasted. Very healthy and ‘natural’ in-deed.

And with all the talk about humanity turning decadent, I’ll bet much of the kink infecting our society would inversely and proportionally diminish with increasing levels of body odour. But this is an aside.

We are here concerned with keeping it green. If ‘green’ be our mission, to STINK is our motto.

You want clean? Then ‘stink’ damn it. It’s small pain for so much gain. Besides, who is to say that in time you might even get to enjoy it, the stink that is.

So STINK UP or SHUT UP.

reader comment
Enjoyed this very much. Not 'sucking up.' You could put a certain talk show host to shame. Or maybe be his writer!

up your CBC on Ghomeshi

I never much cared for those who welcome all things new merely for the sake of change, or, to put it cynically, for the obsessive desire to topple tradition.

I would characterize ex CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi as one such “dude."

So when CBC gave him the boot I wasn’t in tears, though I do sympathize with the man as I feel he is the fall-guy for a movement bent on pre-emptively punishing any semblance of wrong done to the gentler sex.

Let me clarify.

Ghomeshi is into S&M (sadomasochism). Rough sex. I personally could never quite wrap my head around the supposed thrill in getting my testicles squeezed like a lemon. Nor has it ever so much as crossed my mind to inflict physical punishment of whatever kind on any of the many ladies whose fortune it has been to share the comfort of my bed (ah ah). But that is just me, isn’t it? Who am I to judge?

In a world whose primary mantra is “everything goes if consensual” then why not have someone tie you up like an Italian salami till you turn blue in the face and then, to make matters worse (or is that better?), insert the object of your choice into the orifice of your choice. I once read of a guy at an emergency ward with a toaster up his ass. One can only hope it was a rounded cornered piece of appliance -- and that it was switched off. In any event, if that can be passed off as ‘normal’ behaviour, however electrifyingly eclectic, so should consensual S&M.

I was watching Anthony Bourdain on CNN just a few weeks back. Seems most Japanese are into rough sex, and their society doesn’t seem to have suffered the worse for it. So S & M must be alright if consensual. And herein lies the key to the tale: consensual.

Did Ghomeshi’s gals engage in the dangerous games consensually? If yes, then the CBC had no business firing the guy. In fact, in so doing, the CBC indicted not only Ghomeshi but everyone indulging in S & M. Not too cool for a broadcasting institution whose mission has for years been to go out on a limb in defending all manner of sexual orientation.

And now, after an extended quiet period in her life, we have actress Lucy DeCoutere who, and only after the scandal broke, has come out testifying that Ghomeshi slapped her about while putting it out a bit, and that she hadn’t approved. Hmmmm? Was this before or after she squashed Jian’s balls? But this aside, are we to believe her? She is, after all, the same Lucy who played the part of Ricky’s wife on Trailer Park Boys, the gal whose favourite pastime was ‘cutting a little lose,’ as she was wont to describing it, hanging out at parties, getting pissed out of her ‘fucking’ gills, and why not, rubbing it up with whomever took to her fancy. Yes, that Lucy, the actress whose director thought her true to life persona so close to the role he never even bothered changing her name, which obviously suited her just fine?

So are we going to believe Lucy or Ghomeshi, who claims the other girl who snitched on him did so out of revenge for having been jilted? And what about the dozens if not possibly hundreds of other gals Ghomeshi might have ‘hit on,’ -- pardon the pun -- over the years. Why haven’t they also come out?

I don’t know who to believe. What I do know is until the whole truth is out Ghomeshi should not have been sacked from his post. The CBC acted out of fear of reprisals from the women’s lobby. It acted pre-emptively, cowardly and hypocritically.

Justice is the cornerstone of western thinking, regardless of political leaning. And western justice states that one is INNOCENT until proven GUILTY; and as a sparrow does not the spring make, neither does Lucy’s lament nor the anonymous clamour of the spurned lover make Ghomeshi a criminal. He might be a deviant, and most probably a "victim,' but no, not a criminal, at least not yet.

 

up your nihilism

ONLY A GOD CAN SAVE US NOW, was his epitaph.

And for as long as the sun shall shine upon this earth Heiddeger’s reminder shall resound as a warning to all and a blessing to some.

Heiddeger was too brilliant a thinker to shout in desperation.

To the contrary, his was a message of hope, a Zarathustrian cry in the wilderness, a message "for everyone and no one."

 

up your assisted suicide

The only people who should be assisted are those physically incapable to end it themselves. As for the rest, if they haven't the courage or imagination to do it on their own (which is what suicide etymologically means) they’re not legitimate candidates.

If the Japanese of old could perform hari-kiri (paradoxically transforming the act into a glorious event), surely us westerners should have enough “guts” to overdose on pills, a shot of heroine, or do the ultimate bungee jump with a joyous hurrah. The real McCoys, the Peter Moroses of the world (a personal friend who got it right first time) do not ask nor wait for superior court judges to pass the assistance law. We’ve turned into a society of pampered wormish wimp -- perhaps a good argument for total mass suicide. But who should we then ask to pull the trigger?

 

up your eye-poke-arsey

Old clocks running fast
Beggars consulting menus
Priests scheduling confessions. The guilt ridden sinner arrives late and slits his throat.

Billionaires preaching morality
Anarchists demanding rights
Querulous female cops in army get-ups bent on keeping the peace
Priapic pedophiles beat the rap as the psychologist applauds.

The rich abet the poor to fatten up still more . The poor man’s lard appeases wealthy consciences.

Newspaper eye-bites weave the mantra.
High-jacked grave digger seeks redemption
SPCA hires chicken thief.
Six digit salary CEOs running charitable organizations.

Dumpster divers, pan handlers, can collectors, grocery-snackers, skin carvers, drunks and then the buskers, posers, whores, transfags, pimps and sleeky vendors glad-handing everywhere seeking favour.

A helter skelter and factitious morality.

A damsel and her pit on a summery afternoon stroll along the boulevard, delicate long anemic ivory skim-milk-white fingers twirl the handle of a pink parasol.

String theorists shooting craps
A diaphanous moonlight veils the evening sky.
The rabbi scuttles hurriedly to Friday prayers then pays a routine visit to his local massage parlour.
And the cock-eyed Cyclops throws another stone, and misses yet again, and blinks, and the fortunate miserable wanderer winks then slinks.

Psychedelic logic breaks the frigid silence with bad noise.

Sleepy felines mind the zone.
The mice were giving a lot of whingeing to the rats.
The mice were thinking the felines might have been fit to run on to the rodents.
But the cats weren’t having any of it.
They remained patiently indifferent.

Rain now coming down hard.
Jaundiced hands cling on to wet rail
I watch the flowing waters.
I miss the ocean waves. I sense they are inviting me to follow them along.
A mere illusion. But illusions help to keep the soul at peace. And then a slumpy fall and wrinkled skin and green monsters slurping down their bloody mead.

up my modus operandi

My inspiration could arise from something as trivial as a wet pebble on a beach, or a sulking donkey, or the rusty hull of an abandoned boat dry docked by the side of a lake, or even a young she goat frolicking about in the meadows.It’s all out there.

The palette of every artist is nature.

Themes? I am not as concerned with themes as I am with putting something together pleasing to the eye. If the work should invite viewers to revisit the seemingly ordinary with renewed interest, all the better. But this is purely incidental. I am not out to tell stories, provide morals, correct past wrongs or in any way change the world any more than the musician.

And as in music, whose beauty transcends significance, so with art. A painting need not mean anything for it to touch us. A piece of marble is beautiful not because we recognize something in it we can name, but because of its harmonious blend of colouring, texture and form. Art is in fact all the finer when it means absolutely nothing.

Style? When the artist leans too heavily on acquired technique style becomes imprisoning, and the work annoyingly repetitive.

Myself, I like changing it around. I am not a cookie cutter artist. When I become too comfortable in a genre I grow bored and go elsewhere. An artist must be an explorer, never for long content with his newly found abode, always pushing further, and absolutely never producing to please an audience . . . .or he’s no artist at all, at best perhaps a craftsman or a cook.

Which is why I prefer not to be pigeonholed stylistically.

What now? I am currently working on a series of aerial paintings. I was flying over the Prairies last spring. It was a clear crisp day. Not a cloud up in the skies. Below all was flat. Nothing recognizable. Not the silos, not the farms, not the produce of the fields, not the combines, trucks and barns. Nothing down under except for a seemingly erratic coloured patchy quilt, as only mother nature can weave. You asked for a source of inspiration? Well this was definitely one.

Where to next? I was thinking of going up to the Yukon . I love the sparse silent vastness of our Canadian hinterland, where light travels unimpeded towards ever distant sun-splashed horizons. And the way the skyline subtly blends with water and land in explosive hues of light vibrating colour. Yeah, I think I’ll be painting abstract north-scapes sometime soon.

 

up haute cuisine

Here we are most of us fat if not downright obese. Yet every other billboard adorning our streets and highways is an invite to dine out.

Cooking TV shows by the dozens from morning till dawn. The medics, to their credit warn of the dangers of overeating. But why aren’t the environmentalists out in full force on this one.

So you think bovine flatus shall pierce the ozone layer beyond repair? Obscured by farts is a tragic epitaph to be sure. A sad legacy our descendants will be loath to forgive.

Okay then, go tell it to the cooks who transform the helpless quadrupeds into irresistible slabs of haute cuisine and stop picking on the cows why don’t you.

Cooks? They promote gluttony is what they do. And the better they’re at it the worse.

So yes. Up Chef Boyardee.

And now I must go.

Got a little tongue and cheek on the boil needs minding!

 

up your translations

“The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original. ”

And of course Joyce was right.

And of course he was alluding to the musicality of language which by necessity gets lost in translation.

The hell with meaningful literature if it lacks musicality.

Which is why, for all my efforts, and I've given it three tries over the years, I can't for the life of me get past the first 30 pages of Marcel Proust’s English translation of A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu (Remembrance Of Things Past). Even in translation the work is as profound as anything you’ll ever read. But it reads dead flat.

So for all you guys losing it trying to enjoy the classics in translation, here’s my advice to you. Read only as far in as your patience carries you and no further.

Besides, it's not as though any people in particular had a monopoly on wisdom.

If it's meaning you’re after you’ll find it in just about any language, I am sure.

But if it’s the artistry, the musicality you fancy, then best go with the original.

Or, if your dead bent on reading foreign literature learn the foreign language.

Or if languages are not your thing then go right on ahead and read the bloody bit in translation, but don’t expect an easy flow.

Myself I’m hard at work on Le Passe Simple, that would be Past Simple in English, a misnomer at best as it’s anything but simple, or am I missing the beat?

 

up chaos

Scattered waters gather forming rivers.
Simplicity is the latest evolution of chaos.

 

up your pit bull

Just back from a pawn shop on old Craig Street, now Saint Antoine. In the old days most of us wanna be rock star kids used to hit the Craig Street pawn shops in downtown Montreal on a regular basis, scouting out the joints for a guitar that didn’t put your wrist out of place when holding down a bar chord. But them good old days are gone.

No, what I got myself today is a sturdy Gerber DMF Automatic, fast action switch-blade; the kind of knife that’ll get you in trouble with the authorities should you so much as flash it.

Thing is I don’t want no trouble, but you see, way I figure the only chance I got against a pit-bull attack is to stretch out an arm as bait go for the knife with the free hand , press the release button, switch the blade open and proceed to cut the beast’s throat straight clean. Pit bull attacks have been compared to shark-attacks: “pit bulls inflict more serious wounds than other breeds. They tend to attack the deep muscles, to hold on, to shake, and to cause ripping of tissues.”

A mere stab in the chest won’t do it. Pepper spray will only piss it off even more. No, unless you’re Crocodile Dundee you’ve gotta decapitate them mothers. OK, so you’ll probably never again have full use of your leg or forearm, but you’ll not be a cripple or a corpse.

In my exposed neck of town, it seems every second dog on the block is a pit. I’ve been lunged at twice in the last year alone. Fortunately both times the savage beasts’ owners were strong enough to hold back their drooling toothy monsters. Not so today.

“He never did this before. Must be your damn aftershave. He hates sharp smells,” she managed to yell out as her pet dragged her some twenty feet as I high-legged out of there. And that’s when I made up my mind.

The hell with the law.

If people can walk the streets with an unmuzzled beast by their side I‘ll carry a blade. The law is an ass? I am not.

As for those who blame the master for the dog being aggressive, may be so, but who gives a damn once my head’s bit off. What are we gonna do anyway? Have every dog owner undergo a psychiatric exam followed by a one year dog training course before granting Madame license to purchase her four-legged, foaming-at-the-mouth, witless body guard? Not very bloody likely. Until them pits, Rottweiler and the like, no less than tigers, lions, panthers, bears and crocodiles are banned from strolling city streets, I am carrying a Gerber.

Only persons who should object to this, other than the owners, are the plastic surgeons.

So take my advice, arm yourselves and your kids with a switch blade, or even a bloody pistol, for that matter. I’d rather have a thousand switch blade carrying gals walk past me than a pit bull brush against me any day.

And don’t wear cheap after-shave lotions, not ever, not in my hood.

 

up global warming charlatans

Just saw this guy on the BBC showing footage of melting icebergs warning viewers that if this tendency continues the Arctic will have all but vanished in some 1000 years from now.

So lets assume the global warming preachers are correct, and the Arctic will melt in 1000 years, and the Canadian prairies will dry up in a 1000 years, and coastal cities will get swallowed up by the seas in a 1000 years, and the air will be too hard to breathe in a 1000 years and, and, and . . . and how about all our tax money getting spent on all that whacky black hole quantum theory mult- dimensional bullshit.

If your so damn convinced we’re all gonna fry in a thousand years, and there ain't nothing we can do about it short of rubbing sticks together to build fires and go back to spearing buffalo for breakfast why don't you put all of your supposed genius at work and find a way for our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grand children to get the hell out of here, if and when the time should come, instead of badgering us with your nonsensical far-fetched theories about big bangs, multi-dimensional universes and the likes. Build a modern day arch. Get practical. It still takes me nine fucking hours to fly to Europe. You can't even forcast tomorow’s weather, and you have the audacity to tell me what it's gonna be like in a thousand years?

Also, ever ask yourself why Global Warming religionists never show footage of the Arctic in the middle of the winter, or even the autumn, but wait till late spring instead. EH!

 

up your self-righteous

Just heard Putin’s boys were out east in Harrisburg, PA., manifesting with American anti- fracking protesters.

Putin owns Gazprom. It's all about energy.

Italians are smart here. They buy nuclear created energy from France at 3-times production cost them but vote against nuclear at home. The only mega-nation on the planet without a slice of yellow-cake. As if radioactivity will stop at the Alps should anything abroad go wrong. And then the very same left wing no-nuke baffoons parade across the peninsula blaming the government for the crisis?

You wanna go back to the horse and buggy days? Ok. Learn how to milk a goat and make some stinky cheese, buy a hoe and dig, grow some eggplant and tomatoes, swap your Armanis for a pair of overalls and gather some manure, and when your done, go feed your pigs instead of buying your pork from the Slavs next door.

Either that or put up a nuclear plant, cut your hydro bills threefold, switch on the tele, pop open a bottle of cheap Albanian wine, be happy and shut the hell up.

 

up your ancient evenings

The history of the world is the history of self-interest and conflict.

International ethical rules evolve in response to conflictual afflictions, they are consequential to conflict and not the other way round.

If wars have taught us anything it is that a land belongs to a people only as long as they can defend it.

Just as I have no claim over a park bench or a fishing spot merely because I have been its sole user for the last two decades, equally I have no claim over a territory, regardless how long I've been tenting or hunting on it, unless I can defend it.

A notorized contract is worthless unless the authorities which make it binding can keep out the envious foe. Which is why nations’ defense budgets take up such a big chunk of their GNP spending. Which is why world maps are constantly changing. Everyone should be able to grasp this self-evident truth, even our political science students attending our prestigious universities at taxpayers’ expense.

And so for certain peoples to forever gripe over ancestral lands lost centuries ago to invaders from abroad is a bit ridiculous. Which is not to say every measure shouldn't be taken to accommodate those wishing to keep their traditions and language and teachings dynamically active within their communities.

But to forever be seeking apology?

It’s like asking your next door neighbour to apologize for having eloped with your wife . . . . and long ago to boot. Perhaps not very nice, but whacky nevertheless. And besides, should he tire of hearing you ask and apologize, all the while humping your ex, would you believe him?

No, apologies won't do. So why not cut the bitching and start the screwing instead, multiply the nations in big numbers, no less than a dozen kids per family, but you’ve gotta keep it as a family, or you’ll only breed disorientation, and that’s no way to make it home.

Us westerners have become a greedy bunch seemingly only good at firing blanks. So multiply, invade from within, and before long, you’ll constitute the majority and will have taken back what once was lost.

You see there’s more than one way to lose one’s ancestry, and more than one to get it back.

If western greed has robbed you of your lands, may western greed engender, generate its own downfall.

 

up the vertically challenged

I’m around 5'10, no one’s ever calld me a dwarf and I never gave my height a second thought, not even when I’s staying up in Sweden with the Norsmen.

And then I hook up with this guy Mike. Smart easy going guy we share similar interests, have similar tastes and get on good except he’s got this nasty habit of cranking up his neck whenever we’re chatting it up, stretching it to its maximum to get the additional 16th of an inch out to top our otherwise quasi-identical heights.

It’s all good when we’re sitting at the pub having a beer, or driving about or whatever, so long as we’re benched. But the moment we’re standing he gets as near me as possible, sticks out his chin for maximum leverage, and starts craning that fucking neck of his all the while sporting a little snicker as if to say "topped you again haven't I." So what d’you say to a guy like that? I mean it’s not like I’s hung up about my height, and besides, I’m not even sure he is in fact taller than me. It’s all a matter of millimetres really. Yeah I've thought about pulling up as well but that would be giving in to his obsession. It would only create more, how shall I say, tension?

I've hung out with midgets and giants. Never an issue. And now I've gotta have this guy check my heels whenever we’re out and about making sure I’m not sizing up.

This raises the word ridiculous to a different 'level.'

 

up the Ganges

She lay thin upon the pyre. There was a lull in the air. The sun melted scarlet at the horizon. The Ganges ran on.

A dead dog’s leg floated past the bathers. A topless buxom woman drank of the river, gargled then swallowed then spit.

A man knee-deep in water frantically rubbed his wet face with the palms of his hands. He then swam some ways, pushing a metallic urn used for the cleansing ritual.

The sound of water splashing and voices murmuring everywhere.

A dizzying sweetness filled the air like an atmosphere. A scent of incense and all else.

The ghats teemed with folk of all walks, both locals and pilgrims on their final journey, come from afar, everywhere life, people shaving, combing, grooming, smoking, massaging, drinking, eating, praying.

A blue boat drew past a pier by the pyre.
A wiry Hindu descended carrying a parcel wrapped in cloth.
Soon the chanting and a billowing smoke, a crackling fire, and a sending off into the early evening dimming distance where life’s vanishings resolve invisibly anew.

Indifferently solemn yet all in good form.
No big deal.
Just another day in the life on the Ganges.

 

up George W.

George Bush Senior's villa was some place to behold. More like a cosy castle with windows offering lush views of Venetian courtyards than one might expect of a Texas ranch.

I don’t know why of all people I should suddenly find myself his guest when I never even much liked the guy, but there I was, being poured wines and liqueurs in posh surroundings with none other than President Bush and his predecessor President friend Ronald Reagan himself

The two of course referred to each other as Mr. President but it was evident from their demeanour they were as close as peas in a pod. They chatted to one another for some time, talk to which I was not privy, state matters no doubt, but were otherwise cordial to me.

Myself, I was engaged admiring what appeared to be miniature Etruscan sculptures when I heard a swishing sound followed by a quick good bye and good luck by a rather agitated President Reagan hurrying for the exit door. Some beedy-eyed guy also lived with the President, but he rather kept to himself, looking over my way from time to time, smiling radiantly, quite content sipping champagne in these rather extravagant settings, hitting golf balls into the citadel below through bay windows adjacent to the library, each successful strike followed by a short self-approving yep-grunt accompanied by a mischievous snicker. Think nothing of it, he never did like Reagan much, did you George, said President Bush chuckling, who then proceeded to his chamber for his afternoon nap, though not before inviting me to make myself at home and not hesitate to fill my glass, which I must have done several times over for all I remember after that is being down in the gardens below with a terrible headache surrounded by a sea of Titleist balls and President Bush Junior wearing a T-Shirt with I love golf printed on it.

And now that it's over and done and my head has cleared and though most particulars escape me I find myself suddenly liking Old man President Bush, which only goes to show that the imaginary world does affect wakeful reality more than we might suspect. As for President George W. Bush Junior, I still think he's a nasty belligerent prick.

 

up Sir Felix of Weston

. . . unfortunately most never really got the chance to know the brilliant side of Felix, his uncanny ability at interpreting life situations, politics, theology, literature, people, name it, with the perspicuity of the philosopher/poet, and the unintentional innocent wit which alone is the mark of all great poets. Though I doubt he ever read a book cover to cover, there are few he isn't acquainted with enough to intelligently expound upon. And the best of listeners and easy at conceding position whenever reason prevailed.

If Felix lied he only lied to himself, and always out of pride. He could leave you stranded alone at a stadium if he found a better seat for himself but could also crumble over at the slightest touch like the beautiful autumn leaf he was. Which is why, despite his psychotic drivellings, Felix could write. I can go on. It’s too damn bad. I’ll always love Felix, but short of shoving pills down his throat, I’ve had it with him. I wish I were wealthy and could then send him a ten million dollar cheque courtesy of Mum (the Queen), for his services to the crown. But I’m just another Sancho whose grown tired and weary of picking Quixote up off the floor.

 

up meaning

If phenomenology has taught us anything it is to cleanse ourselves of all pre-conceived notions to fully engage in an aesthetic experience. To see the same over and over again and to never see it twice the same as it in fact never is twice alike as both we and the thing before us are ever changing.

The instinct to possess things by naming them is indeed strong and hard to undo. And yet who among us hasn't picked up a pebble on a beach, or an autumn leaf, or admired a fiery sky at sundown or the rusty hull of an old abandoned boat dry docked somewhere, and admired the colourings, forms, textures without desire or need to give the experience a name or meaning?

 

up capitalism

International capitalism, or the border-free world, or anti-national non-protectionism, in short, globalization, as it has come to be known, was supposed to bring people together, liberate markets and by extension, man, from the shackles of domestic monopolies. The international historical compromise? Well not quite. All it has done, aside from having provided ubiquitous tax havens for the filthy rich, is given mega-nations with mega-economic clout license to do as they please to their neighbouring smaller ones with impunity. International free market greed has all but rendered ineffective that balance of power between nations which more than anything had served to ensure, since the days of the Caesars, security for the little guys (e.g. Ukraine). It's a mess. Internationalism doesn't work. The weak pay the brunt of the cost of the One World Image Mirage.

 

up music

An earworm is a self-inflicted punishment for shunning silence.

 

up André Gide

Read Gide ages ago . . . .a brilliant writer, a modern day Wilde with rather similar inclinations.
Don't remember particulars but I do recall his writings leaving me with an awkward sense of dangling on the abyss between perversion and purity . . . .making the imponderable ponderable, like that Canadian film Kiss, a mind-boggling film which remains to this day etched on my mind as if I’d seen it yesterday.

Don't know about the Arabs living their art, but they do appear to live their folklore moreso than we westerners do, or do they? Is not all their singing and dancing in effect little more than appearance, with Dionysus well guarded behind a 500 year curfew few dare publicly break; all they are left with is a lame Apollonian flaunt, .a kind of jesting which could never reach the ecstatic sensuality of Greek Tragedy when pain transforms itself into joy at that precarious edge where morality dares its bounds. And of course Arab women not being allowed to partake in the flaunt makes their dance all the more farsical, although I doubt André much minded their absence -- might in fact have suited him rather nicely.

 

up art criticism

Art is that which touches you without you having to touch it . . . . a defintion which finally does away with all of them fucking cooks trying to pass off as artists.

 

up socialism

Separating the wheat from the chaff should be a no brainer. Unfortunately socialism is not grounded on common sense but on a delusional notion of egalitarianism, precluding selection of any sort. Blaming teachers is missing the point, especially when teachers themselves are not appraised according to worth but seniority and popularity.

No, selection is a privilege enjoyed exclusively by those who can afford it: institutions such as Manchester United, Barecelona F.C., or The Metropolitan Opera House, or The Royal Bank of Canada, to name but a few. Of course these are not socially based but entrepreneurial realities.

No, our 'youth' is too cheap a commodity to be 'selected.'

 

up wimpy soccer ballers

So they lose one in seven years to injury. Miners, construction workers, carpenters, seamstresses, and probably poets and artists, too, from hypersensitivity and anxiety, not to speak of pimps and whores and all good people without much expectation and little precaution, all these lose at least as many and don't enjoy the ones they don't half as much as do their millionaire (billionaire) heroes. No one worries over the nobodies, eh. So why all the fuss ? Ali lost his mind, Senna and Villeneuve their lives. That’s the risk you take for money and glory. And then there’s the Napoleons, Alexanders and Caesars of the world. No sorry. I dont feel one bit sorry over 20 year old illiterate billionnaire footballers getting a banged up knee or a bruised toes from time to time. Play the game like a man. I got banged up as a kid, as I am sure you did, too. It’s a manly sport, not a pansy poof show for strung out pensioners on a dream.

And as for hockey players they should remove their helmets. Jacques Plante killed hockey. Let’s Worsley up the game. And if every five years or so someone loses a tooth, or even an eye so be it. You like stats? Well check your stats then tell me who suffers more injuries, working class joes getting paid a pittance or our millionaire heores who give us mortals oh so many headaches while out playing, having themselves a great time.

.

 

 

YOUR COMMENTS

Email (optional)
Author or Title

 

All works © Roberto Rotondo

 ;