State of the Union

Albert Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus,

“Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well.” Sophocles’ Oedipus, like Dostoevsky’s Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.’

‘One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. “What! By such narrow way--?” There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. “I conclude that all is well,” says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.’

‘All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him, combined under his memory’s eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.’

‘I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’

Karl Jaspers wrote in Existenzphilosophie

'What matters is that our life is guided by something unconditional which can only spring from the decision. Decision makes Existenz real, forms life and changes it in inner action, which, through clarification, keeps us soaring upward.'

Allen Ginsberg wrote in A Supermarket in California

'Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?'


Sting said, the best thing to do when approached by a drunken individiual is to say

'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun'

or at the very least recommends Shakespeare.


and Dante found himself alone in a dark wood. Frost contemplated the snowy woods...
and Reich sat alone in a box...Lennon went skywriting by word of mouth...


America, America, fight em there, fight em there, the yanks are coming, the yanks are coming...



what did you say Mr. Dylan? what does rhyme with orange?




do we really need another absurd hero?

and I said,

'pray for bogart dylan and the blues
its only one more day going by... '




'that's all folks'

‘AND WILT THOU WEEP WHEN I AM LOW?’

And wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so—
I would not give that bosom pain.

My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,
My blood runs coldly through my breast;
And when I perish, thou alone
Wilt sigh above my place of rest.

And yet methinks, a gleam of peace
Doth through my cloud of anguish shine;
And for awhile my sorrows cease,
To know thy heart hath felt for mine.

Oh lady! blessed be that tear—
It falls for one who cannot weep;
Such precious drops are doubly dear
To those whose eyes no tear may steep.

Sweet lady! once my heart was warm
With every feeling soft as thine;
But beauty’s self hath ceased to charm
A wretch created to repine.

Yet wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again;
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so—
I would not give that bosom pain.

August 12, 1808
Lord Byron

b. January 22, 1788

'mad bad and dangerous to know'

War…

All the Time

Dandy day…

Ah, Sisyphus has rested nimble fingers and finally the snow has begun to fall on the plain and everyone has been outside…even Harley & Memphis.

I have convinced them all that they have done a bang up job of imitating Jeremiah Johnson in their little neck of the woods.

Some days are a lot of work for the simple menagerie…all sleeping done lapping forepaws.

Simpatico

…a definition of higher wrought left of kindness to the right of hope as they would say.

I’ll manage a coherent thought in just a bit…I don’t know exactly where I am going with this yet, for the most part I do have a point. Today I feel like I am writing to write…not in that bad way that tends to be job oriented; but in the fashion of those moments in the old days. That is; the inspiration is too strong and too pure to let it fall into idle hands.

I may jump around a bit…

It has been a bit of an odyssey as of late. I’ve been shedding some of the old for some of the new, some of the new with some of the old…etc. I’m tired of talking about the war and I’m tired of warring with what is around me. … And yet dreams of late have not been too dark…

But

We are going to escalate the war for a bit. At the same time the policy makers are leaking out that by summer these folks will be coming home. All at the same time proving nothing of what we are really going to do or how to judge success.

This policy started previous to the elections; how there was going to be a big mind meld at Camp David and to be wrapped up nicely with the State of the Union address. Good News folks… we done something about the war...we plan on making it worse.

All this reminds me nicely of the song by Randy Newman called New Orleans Wins the War. It’s about the end of WWII but the folks down there thought that it was the reemergence of the south… ‘I knew we’d do it, we done whipped them Yankee’s!’

It’s the same sad story the same sad fact to go on quoting (Mr. Springsteen, this time). As I said awhile ago, to believe that we will leave Iraq is to really be wrapping oneself in a straight jacket and saying, ‘that’s all folks’ to your-self in backwards King’s English.

This would be preaching to the choir

On the other hand, I think there is unique position to set some new precedent. I think that this Congress has a lot of leverage. They can completely seal off the artic region of Alaskan wildlife preserves from drilling forever; they can attempt to fund the Iraqi government to build an army, to prop up the government and to allow our folks to come home.

All this with the backdrop of impeachment lingering… because really we can spend the money to protect the boots that are over there until the cows come home and not support a Surge of troops.

It’s up to the agencies who manage the money to spend it with an economy.

I don’t think that an actual impeachment would hurt any presidential candidate worth their salt if they are honest and not out for the presidency for simple ego. The merits of the candidate far outweigh the politics. That is something Mr. Kerry has never realized.

With that being said

It won’t happen. Because there is not a politician I have seen in recent years, save one or two who have really spoken about things in an honest way. It really comes down to waking up the American people (and that seemingly won’t happen until after the new American Idol is decided).

This would take an intrinsic awareness; a brutal honesty about the state of affairs…a criminal dissemination.

It’s more than to say that White Hope is for New Orleans to go to the Superbowl because somehow that would erase the racial epitaph that lingers in the souls of Caucasian guilt after Hurricane Katrina; yet not enhance a single thing. Perhaps even under the right circumstances; it might ignite the oily rags behind the barn door, and we’d be back to square one.

I’m interested to see the gauntlet that has been tossed down recently. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson each have a paradigm to break; we as a public also have something to see about ourselves. Not to mention who is on the Right this year...they too have challenges of ideology from the flank. It will be bold and bitter, this fight that waits ahead…toss in the war and there will be splits in families that will take a generation to heal.

It -ain’t -gonna -be -pretty…

On the other hand

I am under the influence of a dark star. My too long ago, is delegated to the rituals that have fast stolen my courage. Previously I have stead found ways to manipulate my conscience into believing the worst. My hope is my steps are slow and deliberate like walking across a rope bridge in a high cavern during a high wind.

A generation of nomads and gypsies are the songs of my heart; is it more than I can bear?

The Request of Happiness sits and laughs at the loss of tranquility as the lyrics slip silent knots from the main sail; where is the lucky bandit now, drifting slowly to port or starboard? Do those lost lands call? Am I to shed new skin, awaken the DNA to decide upon which fate to call my own?

I relish the wisdom of the gods.

What is it that I search for? What is it that I so demand? Or yet; what is it that you God are asking of me? I have forgiven my past; but it has yet to forgive me. Is the mansion balanced or hidden by the blade of grass?

I wait.

What would John Garfield do?