Plagiarism

Here is an Allen Ginsberg poem that my brother read to me today. I found it as apt today as when it was written. That's right ladies and gentlemen, O faithful reader, we'll make a Literature student out of him yet. Pay the blue hyperlinks in the text no mind, they copy when I copy/pasted the poem (don't expect me to type this thing out).

America

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1935 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Working title...

When I title this, I find a particular smile creeping to my face. Mostly, if you were wondering, from the irony of it: This is an escape from any real work.

I've had a bit of writer's block recently. Things that are 500 words or fewer have been fine, but any sort of prolonged narrative has evaded me of late. So, my solution, is to finish a literary essay tonight. For those of you who both read this, and are not in constant communication with me (I have between one and three readers at any given time, and that description applies to two of you), I have been trying to write nonfiction. I wonder at my ability to write fiction in the spring. Most things that I've written in spring time over the past few years have been a touch to elegiac for my tastes, and I wonder if nonfiction memoir or essay is a better fit.

My habits are so closely linked to the seasons. I'm prolific in the summer time, a waste in the winter, carefully trimmed in my prose during the autumn months-- though I usually only churn out one thing that I'm particularly fond of-- and a wispy, emotional sack in the spring. Perhaps I should turn to poetry? Perhaps not.

Lists seem to be something popular on blogs. In no particular order, here are some of my favorite books I've read in the past year:

David Sedaris- Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.
Jo Ann Beard- The Boys of My Youth.
Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita*
John Updike- Pigeon Feathers*
The Touchstone Anthology of Nonfiction.
Michael Chabon- Wonderboys.


*Denotes a book that I haven't yet finished, but still endorse so far.

Oh god... I wake up prematurely and I start to blog? I feel like that there is something wrong with that. Maybe there is, and that explains a lot. For whatever reason, I woke up at around seven this morning and just couldn't get back to sleep. Some general miasmic discontent surrounds me this past week for whatever reason. I find myself wishing often that I could simply stop my life from progressing and remain in one instantaneous moment forever, reliving one single day of happiness. I suppose that we're gifted with a memory to serve us with those moments when the proverbial "winter of our discontent" hits, but it's never as sweet.

Jesus, that sounds depressing. In lighter news, I've been considering the idea of narrative recently, and the relationship developed by the producer of a piece of art (writer, painter, musician, etc.) and the consumer (listener, viewer, reader). These two parties form a narrative between the two of them. The artist supplies stimulus, and the consumer adds in portions of his or her life in order to create a narrative unique to two of them.

I recently went to an exhibit at the Weissman art museum, and saw an exhibit called The Pedicord Apartments. It is a walk-in exhibit, in which you're literally walking through a six apartment corridor, complete with carpet and a spiderwebbing of tape over a hole in the window. As you walk past each door, labeled A-F, you can lean in and a recording will go off, either of a dog barking, a woman laughing, a Cowboys game, a party... things like that. While the stated purpose of the piece is an exercise in voyuerism, I found myself adding in my own story to answer some of the questions that came up for me. "Why is the dog barking? Is there no one at home to get the door?" "Why is woman laughing so manically and nonstop?" The consumer will create an answer to these questions, built of past experience in his or her life inevitably. Looking at any painting, the viewer will guess at what might be happening. "Why is the Mona Lisa smiling?"

Each article of art, therefore, is only half of what art is: a narrative. All art is storytelling, whether it tells an epic or just communicates a feeling. An artist is successful if he or she can anticipate the sensations that the viewer or reader or listener will add into the piece. This is why artists learn to anticipate prejudices.

That's about all I've got today. I still don't feel any better. What's the Stone Temple Pilots song? Big Empty? See you all soon.

Why I don't like titles...

Okay, that is totally not what this blog is about. Although I don't. Like titles that is. I have never felt comfortable with any title I have ever chosen for any story, essay, or paper I have written. Just thought I'd share.

So... I wish that I had more to tell you, O faithless reader. I'm getting over a bout of something or another, and am currently Ibuprofened up a bit. Also eating Whoppers (the candy, not the Burger King creation), and I'm pretty sure that if I get any comments on this blog, it will be something to the tune of: "lolz i luv wopperz!!1" Please don't be that person.

I spent this morning and yesterday morning writing my Senior paper, which might be a bit early of a jump start, but fuck you, I have nothing else to do that do anticipatory homework. In other news, I found my stapler. I also bought a copy of "Fiction on a Stick," which seems like a good reading prospect for a laugh and a half.

I'm done typing right now. Hope you loved it.

Fuck you*,
Derek




*Not really

Things that bother me...

Alright, so this title might be a little bit of a stretch. One of the things that bothers is me is when I forget my password to any given site on the internet, only to remember it months later (often in dream vision) as something similar to any number of passwords that I had been using at a given time. This one had to do with girls I had dated, along with the last four digits of their phone numbers (I've since changed it to something easier to remember, so don't bother guessing at it, as if you cared). Anyway, the point of this story is that every time I do something like that, I'm reminded of The Return of the Jedi ("It's an older code, sir, but it checks out."). I thought that someone out there might get a chuckle out of that.

Anyhow: I don't have a lot of reportable information today (or time, for that matter). Knee deep in my final papers at the moment, which is a fantastic time for me to remember my blog password... But I digress (This, you see, is a double entendre: meaning that I'm currently digressing in my blog and also that I'm digressing from doing my paper(s). Why do you people read this?). So, I guess I'll catch everyone up. I'm sick, which is another thing that bothers me...

Hell, here's a list:

When my fingernails don't grow uniformly
Sans serif fonts
You
Legal Pads
Final Papers
Midterm Papers
Grad Schools
Freud
College Students (specific brands of them, don't worry collegiate community, you're safe so far)
The collegiate community

That'll about do it, I suppose. If anyone knows anything good about Freud, Locke, or Shakespeare (in relation to either Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, or Timon of Athens) let me know, as I have no scruples.

Cheers,
Derek

The God Conundrum

Anyone out there in the blogosphere had their days interrupted by the mosquito-like buzzing that Jehovah's Witnesses recently? I did today.

Aside: This is not some tyrannical rant about people telling me their beliefs. If you want that, simply tune in Fox and watch the O'Reilly Factor. No, seriously. End Aside.

The point of this, as you may have been told from the above "aside," is not to demonize people for foisting their beliefs off on me, but rather to try to foist mine off on you. You see, as they talked to me more and more, I realized two distinct things. First, that they didn't really sound like they had thought too deeply about the things they were talking about; and second, that they sounded an awful lot like other people who had talked to me about the exact same things. I include, in this bunch, most theologians with whom I have talked, including my priests growing up. It is, simply put, drivel.

So. What is faith? Other than a good buzzword come election season, that is? Any one? If you said it is the belief that God, or whatever, exists even though you can't see Him/Her/It, you aren't wrong, but you are miles away from right. I've spent some time thinking about religion, God, faith, and what-have-you recently, and, although you may not believe it, I have found my answer in Nietzsche. The good man, god-hater though he was, defined what language is for us in his essay "On Truth and Lying in a Nonmoral Sense;" namely, a series of metaphors with which we can describe an object. For example, the screen that you see in front of you has nothing about it that makes it a screen, but rather simply the label that we attach to it. We say that it is a screen, therefore it is a screen. The same is true about every thing. I say that I read books, therefore I read books. If I say that I read rollercoasters, and you agree that I read rollercoasters, then I read rollercoasters.

What does this have to do with God? Well, directly, nothing yet, but when one thinks about this, one will realize that because objects do not exist in the manner we are comfortable thinking about them (remember, that even images are metaphors, therefore pictures are also metaphorical, not only language, as is touch and sound.) reality does not exist in the manner we are comfortable with, it only does because we say and believe that it does. A rock can just as easily fall up when I drop it as down, it only differs in which way I perceive it to go. There is just as much nothing about the direction "up" that makes it "up," as there is about a "screen" that makes it a "screen." There is a true object that exists to these words, but because of how metaphorical our reality is (i.e. perceived through metaphor), we will forever be unfamiliar with what the true object is.

What about the word "God." What does that one mean? I mean it, this is an honest question, you have to define what God is. I hope that you can't do it, because if you can, you're either lying or a Baptist. Our conception of God is forever going to fall short, as our conception of any object falls short, but on a far grander scale. If God exists, in whatever version you want Him to (I'm going to use the words "God," and "Him" here so I don't have to add further disclaimer to nonChristians. It's simply shorter than "Allah," "Buddha," et al. Very sorry.), he does so in a manner that we will never slightly comprehend. I'm reminded of Book Four of Paradise Lost here, as Milton fallaciously tries to reconcile to himself what a divine conversation between God and angels would be like, and God sees the future and decrees that although Man will Fall, he will also be Redeemed. By believing in a unilateral God like this, (that is, one who is all-powerful, all-existent, and all-knowing) that God limits Himself. If God knows what will happen in the future, then He also knows what His reaction to the future will be, therefore limiting his own power. God cannot be all-powerful and all-knowing at the same time, for it presents a logical conundrum as evidenced.

So: what does this mean? Nothing really. I'm serious here, it means nothing. First it means that God cannot exist logically if He is these aforementioned things. But if God exists, He does it outside of the realm of our understanding. There is nothing to say that he exists in a fashion in which knowledge, power, or existence are even available. By caricaturing God into this petty Zeus-like image, perched in his lofty throne in the clouds, we demean what God is more than any heretic. That's what faith is. It is the belief in the one thing that is truly and forever incomprehensible to Man. By this here, God must both exist, and not exist. It simply depends on the subject on whether or not they say he does.

Understanding Iraq through Il Principe

Read the newspaper again today. Quick show of hands: any one else made that mistake recently? Looks awfully like the newspaper yesterday, doesn't it. Nothing seems to change, not really change. Things still seem to go the way of the dodo, and in a rather spectacular fashion usually. Here's a summation for those of you who are less than prudent newsaholics: John Edwards- adulterer; Russia and Georgia- at war; Iraq- quagmire. Seem familiar?

I hardly profess to being an expert on world happenings, but this struck a chord with me, so much so that it seemed like an adequate sort of thing to discuss for a first blog in this, the most wonderful of creations, the Internet. Of those three things, two of them actually happen to be newsworthy, for which I do commend my friends at the floundering STrib. As you may have guessed, they are not the ones that have to do with famous sex lives; they are the ones that have to do with world events. I thought that I might talk about them through the pane of a recent discovery of mine: "The Prince." In this essay, Niccolo Machiavelli talks about the difficulties in holding onto captured territory, and methods for which to do so effectively. Please bear in mind that he is writing, in Italian, some five hundred years ago, for a certain Medici, and not to the audience of today (seventh grade education, attractions to flashing lights, Larry King Live, et al.).

First, he talks about the laws and customs of a principality, and how and when one should change them. He claims that it is difficult to hold a region in which the customs and laws are unfamiliar to you, and yours to them. We wonder why Iraqis don't hasten to the bells of the Western revolution. Have Americans really begun to believe their own propaganda? A race of people doesn't grow up "hating freedom." The United States' notion of what "freedom" is seems extremely limited, insofar as it doesn't allow for a country to choose it's own system of self-governance. For purposes of my discussion, we can choose to refer to Iraq as a "hereditary principality," as it really was that until it's regent was deposed. It is stated, and rightly so, in this essay that this sort of region will be the most difficult of all to hold. As a citizenry begins to see the hereditary family as "belonging" to the throne, or rulership (read: Divine Right of Kings), they will see anyone who usurps that person as a transgressor. To continue to rule a hereditary principality, a brilliant leader is not needed, but simply an adequate one, and under Saddam Hussein, "at least the trains ran on time." (As quoted to me once by an old Spaniard in regards to Franco's regime.)

Further, since the hereditary rulers are seen as belonging where they are, any usurpation will fall if met with any significant challenges (of which there have been more than a few). Machiavelli writes that if the usurper has any of such difficulties, it is likely that the principality will fall right back into it's old owner's hands. As they have exterminated the hereditarily vested family (and rightly so), we see the conflict that exists today: a people accustomed to harsh reality seeking strict moral enforcement wherever it can find it, in this case, fanatical Islam. It shouldn't surprise the American military that this has happened, but rather it should surprise the American people that there was ever any question in regards to the outcome of their action.