Category: Uncategorized

On rap music

I said this to an African-American woman who was friendly recently. I prefer Eminem to many black rappers. I understand that he was very influenced by black rappers and from one of their joint songs he is best friends with Dr. Dre. I was a bit put off with N.W.A. at first but am beginning to think they were basically right.

There is a debate in literary theory whether rap music should be taken seriously or is just young men venting their anger.

That is a problem with all poetry. Is what is being said beautiful and meaningful or just people letting off steam?

On an article about drugs

Based on an article about drugs from a recent The Wall Street Journal article about illegal drugs. Here is the first paragraph:

“If the chief perils of a drug include its effects on the heart and mind, then in the view of many monarchs, coffee must have been the most dangerous drug humans ever produced. The sites of its consumption nurtured historical revolutions from Paris to Cairo. Charles II of England sought to ban coffeehouses (and the highly caffeinated political squabbles therein) for “Disturbance of the Quiet and Peace of the Realm,” while Frederick II hired unemployed veterans as Kaffeeschnüffler (coffee sniffers) to follow the aroma toward unpatriotic Prussians who violated the law in their preference for coffee over beer.”

I was born in a part of Florida that has serious addiction issues. It is interesting because of course coffee and alcohol are legal in the US, and CBD is now legal in most states. I have been taking some CBD and the anti-anxiety nutrient GABA the past few months.

I have left Florida but am thinking of writing a novel about a character who has trouble between balancing anxiety and addiction with moral action. I think addiction is mainly about not taking action.

Just a joke because still moving

“Fire” by yours truly

“I’m your Venus; I’m your fire: your pariah!”

“Oops, back to the dating website. But thanks for your time.”

–with apologies to Bananarama

On an article and a joke

Interesting article now in The Irish Times about an English journalist and novelist named John Simpson who has been a war correspondent for 50 years. He was tortured in Lebanon in 1982 while reporting on the Israeli invasion there. He is now BBC world affairs editor.

Simpson was not the only one to suffer at the time. From Wiki: “Early on a Sunday morning, October 23, 1983, two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members … during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers.”

He says the torture was physically brief but emotionally humiliating for much longer. He says he might have used stronger language against his torturer but just called him a “w—er.” He says in the article’s interview that he finds writing more cathartic for his pain than talking to a psychiatrist. Some therapists advise keeping journals.

Simpson’s new novel is called Our Friends in Beijing and deals with political intrigue during the Tiananmen Square violence that he witnessed. The novel is being published on the one-century anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s founding.

 

“Ode to Hand Sanitizer” by yours truly

Oh, hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer!

You have made me much the wiser.

Here comes Fauci with an analyzer.

“But doctor, I’m full vaccinated by Pfizer,

Even if blood-shot my eyes are.”

“That may be because you had too much Budweiser!”

“Maybe, but they say in vino fewer lies are.”

On organization and a few more Bierce definitions

Moving can be difficult, especially as you get older. I have hired moving companies and hotels. But packing is tedious, and I find it takes about two days with my amount of stuff. But it is life.

From Bierce:

“Restitution, n.  The founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.”

This makes me think of the “re-naming” controversy for public monuments. I don’t think there is anything totally objectionable for areas to honor soldiers who may have been on the wrong side of military conflict. I am politically conservative and think some universities over-compensate for historical wrongs.

“Retribution, n.   A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.”

There is more to the entry. It makes me think of James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the film based on it. There is a part/scene based on it where a priest (played by John Gielgud in the film) lectures adolescent men about going to hell, implicitly for masturbation or premarital sex.

“Revolution, n.  In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. Specifically, in American history, the substitution of the rule of Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.”

More to this entry too. It reminds me of the idea that some people considered the American Revolution against Britain a mistake, even though that is not what most children here are taught. As said before, Bierce was a U.S. Civil War soldier and was apparently very cynical about his own country’s government. “Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.” —The Who

Article response and a joke

From a recent The Wall Street Journal article:

“Serious scientists have not neglected the sauna, but many questionable health claims about it come from dubious research done decades ago. For example, there’s an oft-repeated claim that going to the sauna boosts your immune system and helps prevent colds in winter. The evidence for this comes from a handful of studies from the 1970s and 1980s that even a proponent called “mostly retrospective and poorly controlled.”

I am not a scientist, but it does seem good to me to put toxins out of your system through sweat, and if saunas help, good for you. I guess the problem is if you are on a lot of drugs or seriously alcoholic a sauna can also contribute to your death.

This is also an interesting issue to me because we seem to be taught from an early age that our minds are more important than our bodies. They are not. It is a balance.

A joke

“Item five on my daily check-list of things to do (or not):

Don’t masturbate!

It will ruin your physical and mental health and drive women into pornography.

Just be calm, drink lots of mineral water, and maybe read a book.”

On another Doom excerpt

“There were even breakthroughs on peripheries of the Russian and American empires. In 1892, Dimitri Ivanovsky first identified pathogens smaller than bacteria…” Niall Ferguson, page 155

I disagree that the US ever really largely was or is now at all an imperialist country. We protect international water ways and have a big military; that is true. And the country was imperialist for a few years in The Philippines and a small part of Latin America, but that has been over a for a long time. I think what Russia did in Eastern Europe was more significant. Russia actually controlled people’s lifestyles and caused emigration.

Milan Kundera, an emigrant from then Czechoslovakia, spoke of the tyranny of large countries over smaller ones. Well, he knows better than I do. But what the U.S. does in the world now is burden as much as a privilege.

 

Film adaptations of The Great Gatsby

Friend Jordan Baker on Daisy Buchannan: “I was the bridesmaid. I came into her room half an hour before the bridal dinner,; and found her lying on her bed as lovely as the June night in her flowered dress–and as drunk as a monkey.”

I guess the point here is that Daisy has made a mistake by marrying Tom Buchannan. Her real love was Gatsby.

There have been two film versions of the novel. I think they were both good but liked the actors in the first one better. I think Robert Redford had more gravitas as Gatsby than Leonardo de Caprio, and Mia Farrow was more beautiful and alluring to me than the latest actress. “Everyone in the world is a critic,” as my young niece says.

More on “Somebody’s Baby”

If you grew up in the 1980s as a teenager, Fast Times at Ridgemont High was an  important movie (both comedy and human drama), and this song by Jackson Browne was central to it. The song is basically about romantic affection, and I think it is used when the main character in the film  has her first fling with a man. I actually wrote a poem that used some of the song’s lyrics a few years back but discarded it. “Cutting-room floor”; haha.

It came to mind because there is a long arts article about another Jackson Browne song in The Wall Street Journal recently. The song is called “Doctor My Eyes,” and it is interesting because your eyes can actually physically hurt from stress or metaphorically from what you have seen or experienced.

Here are the lyrics of the former song:

Well just look at that girl with the lights coming up in her eyes
She’s got to be somebody’s baby
She must be somebody’s baby
All the guys on the corner stand back and let her walk on by
She’s got to be somebody’s baby
She must be somebody’s baby
She’s got to be somebody’s baby ’cause she’s so fine
She’s probably somebody’s only light, gonna shine tonight
Yeah, she’s probably somebody’s baby alright
I heard her talking with a friend when she thought nobody else was around
She said she’s got to be somebody’s baby
She must be somebody’s baby
‘Cause when the cars and the signs and the streetlights light up the town
She’s got to be somebody’s baby
She must be somebody’s baby
She’s got to be somebody’s baby ’cause she’s so fine
She’s gonna be somebody’s only light, gonna shine tonight
Yeah, she’s gonna be somebody’s baby tonight
I try to shut my eyes but I can’t get her out of my sight
I know I’m gonna know her, I gotta get over my fright
Well I’m just gonna walk up to her, I’m gonna talk to her tonight
She’s gonna be somebody’s only light, gonna shine tonight
Yeah, she’s gonna be somebody’s baby tonight
She’s gonna be somebody’s only light, gonna shine tonight
Yeah, she’s gonna be somebody’s baby tonight
Well just look at that girl with the lights coming up in her eyes

Songwriters: Kortchmar Daniel, Browne Jackson

“I don’t know what makes me write anything. Many of my songs are imagined. They come from somewhere. This song is not literally about going to the doctor to get my eyes fixed. It’s a little more glib than that,” — Jackson Browne in a recent WSJ interview about his successful early song “Doctor My Eyes”

It is an interesting song. I don’t really know much about Browne but really liked two of his songs. This one and “Somebody’s Baby,” which is used famously in the 1980s movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Anyway, the above quote makes a true point about creative writing, that sometimes it is just releasing energy and memory and a bit of imagination.

“Somebody’s Baby” is used in the film as the main character has a brief physical romance as a teenager before meeting a man she really likes. It is unclear in the film if she stays with the last man but at least seems happier.

Browne is right. I currently write some poetry, but it is hard to tell where it comes from. Sometimes it just seems like a combination of a bit of memory, a bit imagination, and grammar. It is almost involuntary for me.