I’m in Mississippi and I’m reading Tolstoy on how despicable
he found Shakespeare to be. He claimed to have completely read his oeuvre three
times, so he’s not just be talking out of his mouth. Mississippi Pubic Radio is
all talk. So I’m reduced the reading this because there’s no classical or jazz
to listen to. Mississippi has the largest churches and the stupidest people in
this country (not that they are related or that there are not big churches and
stupid people elsewhere – there are, there are a lot of them). I am starting to
feel stupid. I think I’ll go look for a big church. Back to Tolstoy, he does
give Shakespeare some credit, he says that he had a certain technical skill
which was partially due to his having been an actor. I’m not actually reading
Tolstoy but an essay by George Orwell on Tolstoy’s pamphlet in which he pisses
on Shakespeare’s leg. Orwell doesn’t agree with Tolstoy. But I have some
sympathy with Tolstoy. I find Shakespeare incredibly boring to read. I actually
liked him in high school (Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice). I tried
reading him recently and found him boring. Must be because I’m down here in
Mississippi. It’s not their fault. The latest theory on obesity – it’s due to
the microbial flora in the human gut. Antibiotics and hormones as part of the
food chain have dramatically altered the human gut flora according to recent
research and that maybe the cause of the our obesity epidemic (of which
Mississippi has the nation’s highest incidence). Don’t blame in on Southerners
and don’t blame on ignorance and don’t blame in on the Republicans (but it
would be OK with me if you did). It’s not their fault. Blame in on factory
farming if you must. I’m fat and I’m stupid and I’m proud. Big billboards
proclaim the nearest gunshow (Feb 14-16 in Hattisburg). Get an assault weapon.
Buy lots of ammo. I haven’t seen a drive-up gun shop but there’s probably one
around here somewhere. “Wanta due a drive by? Well drive right up. No need to
wait. Title loans made on the dot.” Drive a pick-up truck (hay, wait a minute,
I drive a pick-up truck). To buy wine in this state you gotta see a man in a
steel cage and even then all he’s got is Gallo in a jug and Franzia in a box.
Most cultures have a complex system of rituals, rules and
traditions that limit who can take which drugs, under what circumstances, and
with what preparation. An exception is modern Western culture where prohibition
means that such natural protective systems cannot develop – Susan Blackman –
Consciousness: a short introduction, 2008 p104
“Are you Leprechauns by any
chance?”
“No, we just take on the appearance of whatever will blend
in” (although I didn’t think they blended in here very well).
“So can other people see you then?” I was worried that the
other folks at the bar might thing I was talking to myself
If you’re worried about it we can erase their
memories for you.”
“No that’s OK. They all think I’m weird anyway. They won’t
think any different of me after this.
You don’t mind if I think of you as Leprechauns?”
The generic name we prefer is
‘little people’”, Psmith said.
“We are not really Psmith and
Jones, Jones said.”
“So I could call you guys
anything I want. I think I’ll stick with Psmith and Jones.”
“It’s all the same to us, but we’ve found that
‘Little People’ works best.”
“Are there always two of you. You sort of remind me of
Mormon missionaries, I said. They were wearing black suits, black ties and
white shirts but had on no shoes. Their feet, I notice (I look under the table)
are hairy and they both smelt like wet dogs.
They had just come in form the dessert, Jones told me. “Which desert would that be, I had to ask.”
There was no desert within a thousand miles of here.
“The Sahara”, Psmith replied.
Then it hardly seems appropriate for you gust to have
wearing suits out there in the desert, I added.”
“You didn’t ask what we were
doing in the desert, Jones said.”
“No I didn’t, I replied. I give
up on trying to make any sense of this.”
“Good, said Psmith, so now we
can get down to business.”
“Brass tacks, Jones said. We got something we want to run up
the flag pole and see if you salute.”
“Oh come on boys, do you have to
mouth off every cliché in the business manual.”
“We find that it help”, Jones
replied.
“And I suppose that before you
guys leave you’ll tell me to have a nice day”.
“We usually do”, Psmith said.
“We have a manual,” Jones added.
Common sense always speaks too
late – Raymond Chandler – Playback. 1958
Scott sat down beside me. “That guy Psmith really puts it
away for a little guy,” he says to me.
Psmith and Jones have disappeared.
“You know him?”, I asked.
“Seen him around. Him and that
other little guy.
“Little People”, I said.
“Yeah,” Scott replied. “Strange little guys. And Mormon
missionary too, I understand. I didn’t
know they were allowed to drink.”
“They’re Little People. They are
not Mormons,” I said.
“Then what are they”, he asked,
“beside being little, that is?”
“I’m not sure. I know they’re not Mormon. But I do believe
they are missionaries,” I told him. “They are defiantly on a mission”.
“Are there more of them?” Scott asked. “There’s no circus in
town so that can’t be it. Is there a little people’s convention?. I know,
they’re remaking the ‘Wizzard of Oz’.”
“I don’t think so”, I replied. “ Sometimes there are more
and somethimes there are less but there is never just one.”
Socialism is, essentially, the
tendency inherent in an industrial civilization to transcend the
self-regulating market by consciously subordinating it to a democratic society
– Karl Polanyi
I nuzzle a Poppy Jasper and listen to country music at the
Zeitgeist. It’s a biker bar with a beer garden. It could have had a Death &
Taxes but I’m not in the mood for a dark ale, not just yet anyway. The waitress
is on roller skates. The have porta-johns around the beer garden. There is a
big hairy biker wearing colors chowing down on a burger. He’s a big guy but it
still takes both of his fists to shove the burger into his mouth. He says he has
a burger and two pitchers a day. I don’t doubt it. And I don’t banter with
anyone wearing colors. I’ve read my Hunter regarding Angels. One of the gals on
roller skates asks for a Churchill and a Stella. “Oh, your so wonderful.” Dirty
glasses are hauled in from the garden in stacks two to three feet high. They
are washed and refilled and back out they go. It’s an endless cycle. One of the
wheeled ladies glides in behind the bar. “This is not really a roller skates
day,” she says. I not sure that I know what she means. A guy at the end of the
bar asks for a ‘jar’. “Don’t the it sell by the quart?” I ask. “All I know is
that they call it a jar and it saves me a trip to the bar,” he replies. “And
its not as expensive as a pitcher,” and he returns to the patio with a jarfull.
“I love chocolate chip cookies….life is so good….oh, really…right on…that’s
awesome”. The bar fare here is minimal – burgers, brats and fries. It’s the
beer and the comradeship that brings em in here. Big charcoal grills sizzle. Big
mamas, little mamas, all kinds of mamas and their daddies. This is the only
beer garden that I’m aware of. This is not a back yard bar-b-que town. It’s too
rainy, foggy, dreary. Not a lot of good
Christian fun. It’s not that kind of town, thank God. I kinda like the place.
But I don’t want to get too comfortable here. That’s the easiest way to get
into serious trouble. I have two beers and I move on.
The best of places
Are the places
Where you grow older
Without having to get
Any wiser
If you do
You gotta move on
You lose you’r place
If you get
wise
Some people say, “How can you live
without knowing?”. I do know what they mean. I always live without knowing,
that is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know – Richard Feynman –
The Meaning of It All
Supposedly short term memory can hold only seven items at a
time. It’s the same as the number of items in a group that you can recognize
without counting each one. Are the two abilities – seven items in short term
memory at a time and seven items in a group - related? Does seven times seven
mean something?
For the age group 30-50 health costs rose by more than 75%
(faster than even that of the elderly) between the years 1987 and 2000. The
main causes were depression, angioplasty, diabetes, hypertension and
musculoskeletal injuries
The chairs lifted from the porch to
the table, and the sorghum set out, and the butter, sugar, salt, pepper, a
spoon straightened, the lamp set at the center; the eggs turned; the seething
coffee set aside; the meat reheated; the biscuits looked at; the straight black
hair, saturated with sweat and smoke of pork, tightened more neatly to the head
between four black pins; the biscuits tan, the eggs ready, the coffee ready,
the meat ready, the breakfast ready – James Agee – Now Let Us Praise Famous
Men, 1939 p90
What is difficult to measure is
excluded
In a modern city if you have noting
to do (and if you’re not broke and on
the street), it’s tough to find people to do nothing with – Martin Amis –
London Fields
Fly by wire
Live
In a remote
Corner
This world is
A world
This world is
Live
For those who
Think young
It’s on auto mode
Nothing gets done
If it’s out of tune
Space is
out there
Muscles need
Exercise
Or atrophy sets in
The gray cells
Need to be
Entertained
Subscribe
Live
young
A whole life long
There are also, in the world, a number of phenomena that you
cannot beat that are just the result of general stupidity. And we all do stupid
things, and we know some people do more than others – Richard Feynman – The
Meaning of it All
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