The Leather Apron Revival

Welcome, Stranger.

2007-10-31T06:41:00.000-07:00

Here lies the Leather Apron Revival, a short-lived, relatively cool blog that ran out of steam. Come, wander throughout its posts and ponder the life that was. Will it be revived again someday? Few have dared to guess. What is known is that there were some dudes, and they had some ideas, and they typed them sometimes. It sits here in silence, as the waves of time slowly wash over its shores, carrying what might have been back out to sea, where it can join with the ocean of thoughts, ideas, and new beginnings waiting to be fished out polished up, and used again; or some shit like that.

Peace,
Adam

The Zikomo Project

2007-07-09T04:42:00.000-07:00

It took awhile, but it’s finally begun: The Zikomo Project.

Here’s how it goes:

1) I meet a person or local organization (here in Malawi, Africa) and interact with them, in everyday settings.
2) I learn of a material need they have that is not within their current means of acquisition, the procural of which would help them to reach their goals for the betterment of themselves and of all Malawians.
3) I do a little bit of poking around to make sure that the person/organization is of a good character and would take full advantage of the procural of said material need to press ahead and work hard to make things better.
4) I submit a request via e-mail to the list of willing donors who trust me to connect them to such persons/organizations. The request lists a specific amount (ideally somewhere in neighborhood of $50-$75) for the specific material need.
5) Whichever donor responds first sends money that, through the wonder of technology, reaches me here in Blantyre.
6) The money is spent, posthaste, on the material need. The transactions are detailed in a ledger, and a photograph of the recipient(s) along with the purchased item(s), is sent to the donor, through the wonder of technology.
7) We all dance like TeleTubbies.

Here’s an example:

Innocence Banda, a 21-year-old man who plays football and likes reggae, wants to become a teacher. At present, however, he can’t afford to finish Forms (high school). He’s honest and personable, with good English skills. He works hard at whatever he does, but just can’t get ahead, since both money and opportunity are in short supply around here. He needs about $80 to finish his last semester and pay the exam fees to get his diploma. There’s no way he can get this since he doesn’t have a job and his family doesn’t have any extra money.
I ask a few people to confirm my perceptions of him as a good kid with solid work ethic. His teachers at school all concur that he’s the cat’s pajamas, as does Mr. Nkhukhu, the guy who introduced us.
I get the money from the project and give it directly to the school. Innocence gets himself a degree.

Here’s why it rules:

If it’s done right, it won’t create dependency on foreign money. While there’s a place for food aid, that’s not what this is about. It’s not about meeting day-to-day needs. This is about connecting individual Americans with individual Malawians, making one-time-investments in people so that they can be empowered to do their own thing, while cutting out in-betweener costs. Since my expenses as a volunteer are graciously paid by other sources, I have the time and freedom to divert all of the donated money to the place where it’s needed. There’s very little lag time, so we can meet needs NOW, ensuring that the all-important state of momentum is achieved. It also makes the giving real, almost grassroots. It helps to facilitate change where change always has to begin: with the individual. In small ways it can help to promote friendship and cultural understanding, too.

Here’s some other stuff:

I’m still a ways from my goal of having 40 people sign up. Maybe my e-mail appeals are too wordy. I have that problem, you’ll notice. But there are enough that have said yes that it’s time to start. I’d like to figure out how to make it so people can donate online, but I don’t know where to start with that. For the time being, people will be sending checks to the project’s accountant, who doubles as my mother, Diann. She’s so sweet.

If you, person reading this, are interested, please leave a comment. You won’t have to wait long before I’m saying all sorts of flattering things to get inside your pants-pocket for some dough. Seriously though, the poverty here is pretty extreme--most of my new friends live hand-to-mouth. You won’t regret it if you sign up.

So . . Yep. Here we go!

More on Modern Humanity

2007-06-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

Concerning the connection between self-destructive modern man and the self-help mediocrity of many Christian Churchgoers: perhaps Nietzsche, Kerouac, Cobain are rebelling against this problematic mediocrity but they are not our only models for living on the extreme (and I'm not sure why this is the only admirable response to mediocrity worth remembering in the first place). We should remember that Kuyper himself had a breakdown or two. If anyone gave up the harmony of the self to do more than one human should do, Abraham Kuyper is one. Which is why he and those who followed in his path reiterated the importance of maintaining balance in one's life.

But balance is not the same thing as mediocrity. Nietzsche chose to rebel against the Apollonian (harmonious) way with Dionysian life (although it should be noted that he himself never could live up to his own ideals as much as he'd have liked). You might interpret Nietzsche's bias against harmony as a desire to avoid mediocrity but, like it or not, the Greeks, Medievals and Moderns who tried to follow the Apollonian way are still remembered. History is not just a remembrance of those who follow the Dionysian way. Perhaps our culture is now more attracted by/entertained by the Dionysian (Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan etc.) but that says more about our culture than what is truly worthy to be remembered. VH-1 can say Madonna's "Like a Virgin" video was "an historic event" all they want, but it doesn't necessarily make it so.

So, my first point is that mediocrity and the Apollo/Dionysus framework Nietzsche used do not quite match up. My second point is that there is a striking difference between the self-destructive behavior of Modern humanity and the denial of the self that makes up the Christian life. We cannot equate the self-destruction of man-without-God with the putting to death of the sinful nature because the putting to death of the sinful nature is actually a self-restorative act. It returns us to right relationship with God, from which we gain our true identity. Any attempt to find one's self outside of God will be self-negating because a very big part of the self rests in its origin, its relationship to its author.

After the death of God and the rise of the autonomous individual, human beings have tried to explain their own origins within themselves, have tried to become the authors of their own story. There are certainly several different ways to try to ground one's self without God and modern man has tried them. We can see ourselves as animals that grow out of natural principles (paganism, i.e. modern secular science and Bjork) or we can dig deep into the origins of selfhood with Eastern philosophy and try to find meaning in the nothingness we find there (Kerouac and John Cage).
Modern mankind in the west seems drawn to Eastern religion and anything else that makes sense of the meaninglessness which pervades everyday life for them. This meaninglessness is a result of mankind's "freedom" from God's laws. Unfortunately, any understanding of the self outside of God is self-negation. I offer an example:

Meditate on yourself for five minutes and you will soon find your thoughts wandering, making distractions. Why does your mind do this? It's a defense mechanism. Your mind is bored with yourself. Why is your mind bored? Because there is nothing there. And even if you learn to concentrate after years of practice and avoid the distractions, as Eastern philosophy promises, you will still only find nothing. So what do we do? We find distractions to make us forget about the nothingness in ourselves. We form ideas, opinions, we try to create a self that is interesting to us. We develop romantic versions of the selves we wish we were: "I am an artist. I am a writer. I'm a dharma bum. I'm an actor. A philosopher." And how great we think we are for becoming these things. Lifetimes are lived with such distractions keeping us from the reality that we are really nothing in and of ourselves. But thanks to people like Nietzsche, Kerouac, Cobain, the Teacher in Ecclesiastes we have seen what happens when those distractions fail and people are faced with the monotony of their own existence. They turn to drugs, alcohol, women, shopping, anything to feel new and interesting again. And the result of such behavior is itself an expression of its origins: the nothingness from which the self springs without God.

Rant on Development

2007-06-18T03:26:00.002-07:00

An essay I read a while back, by Paulo Frere (who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a book that’s required reading for anyone pursuing a degree on anything to do with social science or development) has stuck with me for a long time now. Since I don’t have research-speed internet around here, I can’t look it up, but the idea was that we can and should never blame the oppressed for the plight that they are in. At first it seems obvious. Of course! Why would we blame them for their poverty? But the further into the society you get, the harder it becomes. There are a lot of really, truly lazy people around here. The birth rate is insane. There are babies EVERYWHERE--if you can hardly feed yourself, how come you keep havin’ babies? Sometimes an NGO will build a pit latrine for sanitation purposes and the people will refuse to use it because it’s not what they’re accustomed to. Is it really that hard to see some of these really obvious problems and, you know, do something about it?

And the answer, I think, is . . Yes. It is that hard. There’s always an antecedent for a problem like the aforementioned. The reason why no one’s been educated about the need for sanitary latrines stretches way, way back. The way the history of resources, wars, inventions, and the like has unfolded is, from a defensible point of view, the only reason why countries like the USA, India, China, and the EU have come out on top. Native American culture, for example, has been all but squelched by the American oppressors from Europe, as far as one can tell from driving around most of the USA. Why is it that European culture trumped the native culture? It’s ignorance to say that it was because we were somehow more pure, noble, or better. We had guns. We had maps. We had mass organized religion to justify things and rally public support. We arrived with the tools to run an indigenous culture into the ground. And what need had they, before our arrival, of such tools? We only had them because of countless previous wars, discoveries, the location of Europe as a hub of trade and commerce, and countless other factors that stretch back to the beginning of recorded history and beyond. Yet Columbus and his ilk thought themselves somehow “deserving” of the land they had found.

I’m fast coming to believe that this is how it is everywhere. You can’t say that Malawians aren’t at all accessory in their own poverty, but it’s just not right to blame them for it anymore than we blame ourselves for it. I’ve recently settled on a word that I like to use to pinpoint what I hate most about my own culture (and by that I mean, privileged culture): Entitlement. It’s not a new idea, but it pisses me off more and more each year. I grew up throwing things in the trash basket whenever I was done with them. Candy wrappers, leftover food, newspapers, batteries, outgrown clothes, even toys that I was sick of. Even today, there’s a little gnawing voice in the back of my head that tells me I have the right to create as much waste as I want, so long as I put the trash in the waste basket. As a country, we cannot fathom that we owe our wealth to the millions of others living in poverty, simply because we got it and they didn’t, due only to the winds of fortune that blew it our way. Why shouldn’t we pursue our own capital gains with fervor? After all, All-American Man worked since he was 13 in his daddy’s shop, strained for good grades at school, and put in long hours to get a good life for my family. His acquisitions and his company’s growth are the shining examples of what American hard work and freedom are all about.

Ohhh this kind of thinking gets me hot under the collar. I know guys here who are the only one of a family of about 15 who can get a job, and they shovel dirt from sunup to sundown for barely enough to feed 3 people, much less 15. Tell them you deserve it more than they. Go ahead, I dare you.

The problem is, they’ll believe you. The problem is, they DO want a handout. And the problem is, they will pose for that tear-jerker photograph so the glossy-magazine readers can think the third world is waiting with open hands for any white person to come and enlighten them about life, put bread into their hands, and worship the ground you’ve tread upon after you’ve gone. That’s The Rub. Africa is littered with failed projects and ill-conceived ventures started with a mindset of compassion without humility or conscientiousness. If you want to help the poor, you’ve got to use not only your money and your heart, but your head. There is so much that they can teach you. And if you’re not willing to learn more than you teach, you’re dead. But in the meantime, you can’t get caught up in things. Many people will adore you just for coming to them. They will think you have come to be a savior. Just your presence will uplift them. And that’s where one of the hardest lines I’ve ever tried to walk begins: learning from the oppressed and riding that wave of goodwill while keeping your wits about you to remember that you also have a responsibility to cast aside many of the wrongheaded ideas that come out of a buffeted culture.

Which reminds me of another fine line: between development and small-scale commercialism. Somewhere within all of this mess is a glaring fact: They are happier than we are, or at least the average person is. Do the polls. Talk to the people. Look at the faces. It’s true. So just exactly what are we bringing them? It can’t be happiness. Will better schools bring them happiness? I don’t know. But what I believe is that the ones who are suffering directly--that is, starving, ailing, or running mad in the streets--they aren’t happy. And they’re the ones who need looking after. They need looking after in the States just as much as in Malawi--which is why I see a lot of hypocrisy in people who diss welfare and then go to Africa to provide nothing less than that with their missions and clinics. And even those who aren’t directly infected with HIV or lying helpless at death’s door--those who are merely poor--the majority of them long for the things they’ve heard about elsewhere in the world. Things that we have. Things we have and at times revile, since “money can’t buy happiness.” So if I could venture to be a little pat on such a broad issue, why can’t we figure out that we ought to share our wealth (and by wealth I mean education, resources, technology, etc.) and they ought to teach us how to be happy? It’s good for us to develop a distaste for shiny objects. They really don’t bring happiness. Once we’ve done that, we can better assess what we really have to offer those who got dealt a bad hand.

And, to the chagrin of all, I’m not quite done yet. There’s another musing. It’s fast becoming a Westernized world, insofar as it seems everything new and intrepid either gets labeled as Western or had its origins in something invented by a Westerner. There’s a reason why I included technology in the list of things we ought to give them. Previously I’d have said that if they’re functioning perfectly well and they’re happy using their old methods for things like well-drilling, building, and fighting disease, then let them! But as we become more globally connected, it’s clear that the longer a certain society goes without internet access, the further behind they’ll be when the entire rest of the world is piped in--because that day is coming. Even global warming: the brunt of its effects are being borne by people in the third world, and which countries are creating the most pollution? Last I heard it was pretty close to a dead heat between the US and China. That’s not exactly Cameroon and Niger. And technology is going to be used to fight global warming--count on it. So, it would make sense that those most affected by global warming ought to be given the latest toys to fight it. Since the rest of the world is eventually going to have laptops, I’m in favor of No Child Left Without an iBook.

destroy all texts

2007-05-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

first, if you hadn't read it yet read adam's post below. and comment on it. then come back.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
so, here's my breath of life back into this blog. This past semester i took a Directing and staging theory class in which we studied the theories of directors/directing of the twentieth century. As part of this class, we were all asked to write a short manifesto on directing at the beginning of class, which i posted here in january, and at the end of the class, revise, flesh out, and rethink said manifesto in a longer manifesto. so here's my new revised version.

for clarity's sake, if you care, these are some of the people whose ideas i'm borrowing/expounding upon: Anne Bogart, Peter Brook,Antonin Artaud,Jerzy Grotowksi(ah, wikipedia, the scholar's one true friend.)

Manifesto For the Theatre of Destruction
Theatre, like all forms of art, is a living entity: it breathes, it moves, it grows; it ages, weakens, and dies; and out of the ashes is reborn. Of all the elements and ingredients of life, the most important is death. Death makes way for the new- the old give up their lives so the young can feed upon them and grow until they in turn also die to nourish the new. Each generation is born with the knowledge and experience of those who came before, but they must continue forward, finding their own paths. It is a violent, terrorizing journey of destruction and blind stumbling.

“Creativity is first of all an act of destruction.”- Pablo Picasso

Every act of creation involves an act of destruction. You have to kill the cow to eat the meat, break the egg to make the omelet. As artists and creators, we are not omnipotent, creating ex nihilo, everything we make comes from something else. The sculpture cannot be created without first cutting down the tree. Every creative act depends on an initial act of destruction.

“Distortion is a partial destruction and it is a necessary ingredient in making the vague visible.” - Anne Bogart.

There is always an argument concerning which aspect of theatre is the most important. For some, the playwright and the text are held in highest regard, for others the actor, still others are most concerned with the director and his mise en scene. They are all wrong. Far greater than all of these is the audience member. Every other element of the production receives its power only in relationship to the director, and they must therefore be utilized as tools to serve them. The script, the director, the actor, the stage, all exist for the sake of the audience.

“If you just let a play speak, it may not make a sound. If what you want is for the play to be heard, then must conjure its sound from it.” - Peter Brook

Each time a play is created, a text is used. Sometimes the text is literary, and existed before the play and after the play. Sometimes the text is spontaneous, called up by the actors from some unknown place and immediately lost once it has been spoken. Sometimes the text is visual, existing only as it is remembered in the body and in the mind. Each time a play is created, the text is shaped and guided by the Director and each time it is performed, it is re-interrepted by the actor and by the audience member. It is therefore absurd to place any last significance on the text itself, for it can never be repeated, never be the same.

“The Director takes liberties with the text. He cuts, he transposes .” - Jerzy Grotowski

The text does not belong to the playwright. It does not belong to the Director, nor to the actor. The text can only belong to the audience. Before the playwright, the text already exists. It is in the minds, in the bodies of the audience, it already belongs to them. The playwright merely takes the text and begins destroying it, deconstructing it. Before the playwright, the text has the potential for anything, for everything. The playwright makes choices, decisions, violates the text. Then he gives it away, gives it to the Director. The Director, aware that the playwright has already caused destruction to the text, is not afraid to visit further destruction on it. The text the Director received from the playwright is limited, but still very open to possibility. The Director must shape it, constrict it, tear it down until it can be contained with a space, held their by the actors. The Director and the actors together find the proper shape and space for the text to be contained in, then the Director gives the text to the actors. The actors hold the text for only a moment before they give it to the audience. This act, this giving away, is the final breathe of the life of the text. It dies as it is given to the audience so that the next text can be born out of its ashes.

“Risk is a key ingredient in the act of violence and articulation.” -Anne Bogart

How then must we enter into this process of destruction? How can the playwright choose which part of the text to destroy? How does the Director choose which text, and how to further destroy it? How do the Director and the actors decide which shape and space is best for the text? How do the actors find the how they can give the text to the audience. They must stand up, move around, examine the text, test it, probe it, prod it, and finally, eventually, they must step forward blindly, slashing away, hope the stick in their hands makes contact and the best parts of the text come tumbling out. The playwright grabs blindly at the ideas, pulling away a handful that must be trimmed into the text. The Director stands in as a surrogate audience, exploring the text with the actors, finding its shape. It is a terrifying process.

“From the point of view of the mind, cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.” -Antonin Artaud

The Director knows their role is that of a charlatan, a liar, a guide who not only does not know the territory, but is also blind. Every step forward contains the possiblity of utter success and complete failure. Every step forward is full of terror. There is no going back, they way back is forgotten, no more familiar than the way forward. The Director must lie, and believe their own lies while making sure that everyone else knows they are lying. The Director must decide which path to take, which way to turn without knowing where they are going or what will be there when they arrive.

“If good theatre depends on a good audience, then every audience has the theatre it deserves.” -Peter Brook

Peter Brook said “I can take an empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.” Who exactly was this man, and who was the “someone else” that watched him. The simple answer is, the man was the actor and the someone else was the audience. What separates these two? Is it the act of walking? What if the play is about someone sitting and watching? Is not then the “someone else” the actor and the man the audience? In truth, there is no actually separation between them. The actor is the audience and the audience is the actor. Likewise, the Director is the audience and the audience is the Director. The Director is aware they are not outside of the audience, knows that each play they create is as much theirs as the audience, knows that each time they direct they must ask themselves “why?” The Director also knows they must set themselves apart from the audience, or they will be unable to lead them through the darkness, and they will be unable to destroy. Though they are part of the audience, the Director, the playwright, the actor must all step out, at least for a time, and take their role to serve the audience.

These are the roles:
The Playwright creates a script
The Director creates a play
The Actors create a performance
The Audience creates a meaning

Theatre is communion, its purpose is to entertain: “To hold mutually; to hold intertwined” or “To maintain; to support; to provide sustenance for (a person)” (OED.) All of us then must engage, reach out, grab on tight, and hold ourselves in between the darkness and the light.

Grassroots Giving?

2007-05-11T02:50:00.000-07:00

Hallo there fallows. I hope someone’s still reading this occasionally these days.

As you guys know (well, maybe Chris and perhaps the occasional reader doesn’t know), I’ve gone to Malawi for some time--like 9 months-ish. I’ve gone in support of an orphanage that’s being built. Some friends of the family are doing it, so I just came along to sort of help where I could.

But here’s what I’m posting about. It’s an idea I’ve had for awhile, dating back to when I was in the Peace Corps in Bangladesh. It’s about money. I want people to give it to me.

Here’s the general idea:

Let’s say you like giving to charity. Perhaps there’s a tithe involved, if you’re a money-tithing Christian. Probably you’ve already got organizations that you give to, and that’s cool. They probably all deserve your money. And really, I don’t like the idea of stealing money from other charities by convincing my friends and family to give to me instead. But, I have an idea and I like it.

One problem, of course, with giving to nonprofits is the overhead. You’ve got to keep the lights on, and usually there are salaries to be paid. This is all well and good, to a degree. Some organizations are well-run and go totally on volunteer manpower. This is even better, but of course it’s hard to maintain because you need a constant influx of willing people and open pocketbooks. But in most cases, a certain percentage of your money goes to paying lighting bills and expense accounts. Usually it’s around 20%. But it’s a necessary evil. I mean, it’s not as if you can just hand the money out directly to a needy person to be used for a specific purpose at a specific time, under the auspices of a personally-known, unpaid, and responsible person who is personally acquainted with the needy person.

OR CAN YOU?!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Being really here and really interacting with the people, I see at least a few cases each week of someone who could really use some extra money--from $15 for new shoes, a meal, and a bus ride back home to his family, to $5000 to finish her exorbitantly-priced secondary degree. It’s not the systematic kind of change that’s needed to really “save” Malawi, but I like the grassroots feel of it. Buy local, give local. (Local in the sense that you know me. More accurately, give global.) It’s possible that your money might be better spent on a big organization that’s had to bleed and sweat for its reputation and solid infrastructure. But isn’t it an exciting concept to give almost directly to a real live person who really, truly needs it?

I was thinking along the lines of: I’d get people to commit, not to giving a certain amount, but to being on a contact list of some sort. And I’d issue a bulletin from time to time saying something like: “I met a guy named Theophilus (as I did just today) who’s smart, honest, and dirt poor. He has great ideas and a great mind, but homeboy only makes it to school about 3 days out of the week because the only school he can afford is about 15 km away, and he can only afford the minibus fare when money’s available from his uncle (read: scantily). I need $90 to buy this guy a decent bike. I’ve done my background checks, I know Theo personally, and I know this bike would be used to get him to school. Now someone cough up.”

So, ideally, one of the maybe 50ish people/couples on my list of middle-class Americans thinks it over and says, “Yes, Adam. I shall give. I canst afford to purchase 9 less cases of longneck Sam Adams this year. I canst afford to eat out 11 less times this pay period.” Theo gets a bike, and a conscience is assuaged with reasonably good cause.

Conceptually now. What do you think? Is it a flight of fancy or a reasonably feasible thing? Would you do it? I’m just putting out a fleece here. I really want to hear you guys’ opinions on this.

I have lots of things I’m thinking about in terms of humanitarian aid. Do you guys still want to keep this blog up? I think we should. I know I’ve been delinquent as the next guy, but how about some posts, bitches? I’m too lazy to learn about eco-power/simple living/rock history/film vs. theatre/gay rides on my own. By the way, Dane, did you still want to post?

Malawi’s great; love and kisses,
Adam

The Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kerouac Connection

2007-03-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

I had to reach past all the papers I have to grade to get to the books for this blog. I think I'm using this blog to procrastinate, but oh well. It's on my mind now, so I'll go for it. I was hoping to let these ideas simmer but now is as good a time as any to just throw these ideas out there.

So my class on rock'n'roll has me thinking about the connection between Nietzsche and punk music. There is definitely a similarity, but it's not just in the ideas but the lifestyles (which I guess are embodied ideas anyway). What is striking is that every person who follows this particular "life is art" philosophy in which they willingly sacrifice themselves for their own sense of individual freedom ends in self-destruction. Here are the best examples (in chronological order): Nietzsche (sexually transmitted mental breakdown), Jack Kerouac (alcohol-related self-obliteration), the Sex Pistols (commodified self-destruction trap), Kurt Cobain (also caught in the commodification of self-destruction). And here's the connection: all of these guys gained popularity (though not necessarily in their lifetimes) for living this wild and crazy fantasy of individual freedom from God, law, social norms, commitments, duty etc. And, not surprisingly, all met a similar end. On the flip side of their beautiful (beatific? beat?) lifestyle was alienation, despair, addiction, anxiety, horror.

Dostoevsky saw it coming. In a prologue to "The Brothers Karamazov", Konstantin Mochulsky points out that one of Dostoevsky's (Kirilov) characters in "The Devils" realizes that "If God doesn't exist, then I am God." Mochulsky says "In place of the God-man appears the man-god, the 'strong personality', who stands beyond morality, 'beyond the confines of good and evil,' to whom 'everything is permitted' and who can 'transgress' all laws...Dostoevsky made one of his greatest discoveries: the nature of man is correlative to the nature of God; if there is no God, there is also no man. In the man-god, the new demonic being, everything human must disappear"

This was all before Nietzsche! This passage on Dostoevsky set off for me a chain of thoughts linking Dostoevsky's observation to the demise of Nietzsche, (oh yeah Hemingway too), Kerouac, the Sex Pistols, Kurt Cobain. It's a theme very well described in NIN's The Downward Spiral which starts off with the magnificently grand claim "God is dead and no one cares. If there is a hell I'll see you there" and the idea that the crowd (the herd) can bring Reznor "closer to God", meaning closer to being God! But the ending of Reznor's desire to escape that God-shaped hole ends only in a man-sized hole in the side of the main character's head. The Downward Spiral ends in suicide.

Now I just finished Kerouac's "Desolation Angels" and I see yet one more example of what Dostoevsky was prophesying and Reznor was describing from his own experience.
I was fortunate in a way to have started reading this particular Kerouac novel before reading his earlier work because in "Desolation Angels" Jack is starting to realize the meaninglessness of all his wandering that was previously described with such hope and excitement. Kerouac's earlier adventures are clearly his way of trying to transcend the American social norms and laws that restrict individual freedom. Kerouac still believes in the God of his Catholic upbringing, but he turns to Eastern religion, which ultimately offers no solace. In fact, one friend of Kerouac's, William S. Burroughs, warned him: "A man who uses Buddhism or any other instrument to remove love from his being in order to avoid suffering, has committed, in my mind, a sacrilege comparable to castration." One of Kerouac's ex-girlfriends comments that "Through Buddhism, he could rationalize the void he had discovered within himself, but he could never accept it." She points out that "Desolation Angels" is particularly sad because Kerouac claims near the beginning that it's a book without characters. His loneliness is creeping in and he tries to avoid it by wandering or meeting up with his friends to chatter the silence away in drunken orgies of words and sex.

Now, as I'm about to read "On the Road", I will read his youthful reverie in the full context of his death. The end of Kerouac's life was essentially a descent into madness. The author finds meaninglessness in his books where he once hoped to find the most meaning. The book that made Kerouac famous for living this ultimate individualistic American fantasy of a life without commitments to others (Kerouac left his first pregnant wife in the lurch to pursue his journey) was also Kerouac's biggest trap: If he stopped this self-destructive on-the-road life he would no longer have anything to write about. His livelihood depended on his own self-destruction. Remind you of any of our punk heroes? This was the very same trap the Sex Pistols found themselves in and later Kurt Cobain!

So Dostoevsky was on to something. The fantasy of finding one's self (which becomes necessary in a world where God no longer exists) outside of one's commitment to others (family, society, laws, norms, God again--the ultimate "Other") leads to alienation, meaninglessness and self-destruction. And now the attraction of Eastern Philosophy to the Beats, the Hippies, and later movements in America is put into context for me as a search to validate the emptiness Americans feel from this individualist way of life. It is also interesting that though the Sex Pistols aren't Americans, they found their end on an American tour--San Francisco...and New York for poor Sid Vicious.

Perhaps the vast empty landscape of the American West that so draws Americans (as it did Kerouac, and as it awed Johnny Rotten on that disastrous tour) promises that we can start over somewhere else, but it may also be a (black) mirror image pulling us further and further into our own god-man emptiness. So here's what I'm left with at the moment (and I think this relates to our earlier discussions): it might be impossible to be beyond good and evil, as Nietzsche wants, without adequately replacing the God on which such laws exist. Since we have so many excellent examples of highly qualified people (Kerouac, The Sex Pistols and the rest) who destroyed themselves trying to replace God's law with their own law (or anarchist "non-law"), maybe we shouldn't be following their example. Maybe there's another way to transcend the law, and maybe that way is to open one's heart to the "spirit" of the law which is true freedom, true love and all that jazz.

"

We're all just a little bit lazy

2007-03-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

So, zeg, it's really hard to feed and water a blog even once every two weeks. And then there's the walking and the pooping. I never want a pet.

So some recent thoughts from the ever guilty mind of Laremy. I was reading once again in the lovely Orion magazine--another plug, you can check it out online by the way--and there were several articles that piqued my guilt. One in particular by Bill McKibben which contrasted our current struggles to save the planet with the equal rights fights in past generations. One of his thoughts was that the sad facts of slavery and bigotry and genocide etc. can be corrected in time. They are terrible and evil and many die unjustly, but we can fix it, and apologize, and maybe even give reparation. But can we undo the evil we have done to the earth? Might it be that our planet will be forever scarred by our mistreatment of it? Will any amount of change and apology ever revitalize our home?

Kind of a scary thought, eh? It made me think a lot about what people will be saying about us in 50 or 100 or 1000 years, depending on if we make it that far. It made me contemplate all of the evil people of the past, all of the Neros and the Hitlers and the slave traders; all of those people who we look at and say, "What barbarians, how could they do that to other humans?" We have come a long way in our understanding of human rights, but we have gone a long way from our understanding of need and our detest of greed. We now live in a world of systemic greed. It is so prevalent that it is almost inescapable. Consumers, everywhere, like a plague of locusts swarming over the malls and destroying everything in their past. And the shop owners smile at the end of it all because they made money. So they hit up the completely unsustainable system of production and transportation and the completely unjust system of slavery, I mean cheap labor, to fill up their stores again so that when the locusts return, tomorrow, we will be satiated. Until the next day.

I think that future generations will look upon our era on earth as one of the dark ages of history. One of the most gluttonous eras ever. Never before have this many citizens of the planet had this much power to consume. Never before have we done it with out even thinking about it. We are all a part of they system of greed. Which makes it particularly terrible to look in the mirror after hitting up the mall for a movie. I am disgusted with everyone there, and then with myself as well. The next morning I go to work and pedal a bunch of luxury caffeinated beverages to the hordes of locusts who come calling every morning, and when all the muffins are served, I smile.

The really crappy thing about the whole situation is that few people even in the environmental community recognize this. There was another article in said Orion condemning the fact that even the most ardent environmentalists still are part of the culture of consumption; the proof for this being that they use the language and logic of the system itself. Al Gore struts around with his graphs and charts about mean temperature and carbon levels as if by science he can convince the modernist enlightenment man to change his ways. There may seem to be a disconnect here in my logic, but follow for a moment. The scientific revolution was about quantifying, labeling, understanding, and making consumption more efficient. The language is in terms of thresholds, maximums and minimums. So environmentalists come along and use the same language. They try to convince us through science that the threshold for survival is much different than previous generations thought, but that it is still a threshold. We should consume less, cut down fewer trees, produce less carbon emissions, but only because that formula best fits the enlightenment ideal of constant growth.

So, I stray in my rantings...let me consolidate. We still live in the modern era, with all of the enlightenment paradigms defining every aspect of our lives. We have moved from a "taming the wilderness" to a "maintain the wilderness for future consumption" idea, but it is still nothing compared to the "live at harmony with the creation that we are only a piece of" idea that was ever present in pre-enlightenment civilization. We are all culpable in the greed of the enlightenment and we cannot even realistically dream of escaping it altogether. We will all be damned by future generations who will be forced to once again live in harmony with the planet, because we are making that future world all the more difficult to survive in. We need to stop allowing the language of science, freed of religion and subject only to human reason, to define the rules of our society; rules like you need to consume to be happy, all products should fail after a given time so that they can be purchased new again, don't fix it, buy a new one, eat like a king all the time, constantly entertain yourself, life is good when the economy is good, we need to save the planet, but not at the cost of growth in GDP, GNP, or GWP, the only happiness is found in constant growth and constant betterment.

And the real curse of it is that I know and I still can't change. It will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah and all those unthinking idiots at the mall than for me on the day of judgement. I realized the sin and failed to change it. They are at least living in naivete. I am a sad man.

And just to show how sad of a man I am, anyone see 300? What did you think? I was hoping it wouldn't be republican warpath dogma, but my hopes were dashed the 18th time I heard, "freedom isn't free." Man, they should put that on a bumper sticker or something.

Democracy NOW! (aka) Conversation with Steven Clemons

2007-03-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Here's something. It is an email conversation between myself and Steven Clemons, the author of the blog The Washington Note. You can read it at doubleyoo, doubleyoo, doubleyoo, dot thewashingtonnote dot com. I had a question and I couldn't imagine finding a reliable answer anywhere online. So I emailed this guy. I like his blog. He's fairly left-leaning, but he doesn't really spend his time trying to convince anyone to be such. He's a Washington insider and he shares things he picks up along the way. I don't read his blog a whole lot, but he appears to know what he's talking about. Chris introduced me to his blog.

Here's the conversation, slightly edited for brevity (I'm too lazy to get rid of all the little carrots):

ME:
>>>>> Hello Mr. Clemons--
>>>>>
>>>>> I periodically read your blog and always
>>>> appreciate
>>>>> the insider insights you provide about the inner
>>>>> workings of Washington. Kudos on your constant
>>>>> gardening.
>>>>>
>>>>> I call my Senators and Reps more than the
>> average
>>>>> person, leaving my plug for
>>>>> nonproliferation or against John Bolton or
>>>> whatever.
>>>>> Not unlike the average person, however, I feel a
>>>> sense
>>>>> of pride and accomplishment after each call,
>>>> though
>>>>> it's taken a piddly 1 minute out of my day and
>> is
>>>>> merely the start of what a responsible citizen
>>>> should
>>>>> do.
>>>>>
>>>>> My question, is this:
>>>>> Do these calls generally do any good? I know
>> each
>>>>> Congressman is different and I'm sure calls are
>>>>> handled differently, but generally speaking, am
>> I
>>>>> wasting even that one minute? Is my sense of
>> pride
>>>> and
>>>>> accomplishment as misplaced as it is smug? And
>> if
>>>>> calling really is ineffectual, what similar
>>>>> alternatives would you suggest?
>>>>>
>>>>> I know this is asking a lot and if you don't
>> have
>>>>> answers, I'll understand. Frankly, I'm
>> just
>>>> not
>>>>> sure who to ask. I can assure you that if you
>> give
>>>> me
>>>>> an answer I will in turn share the information
>>>> with my
>>>>> friends and blog readers so your time is not
>> spent
>>>> on only
>>>>> one person's dilemma.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Adam

STEVEN CLEMONS:
>>>> Adam - interesting question. Calls can matter --
>>>> but they don't always.
>>>> When a Senator or Congressman is weighing an
>> issue -
>>>> -and gets lots of calls
>>>> on a controversial subject, those calls go into a
>>>> tally, and they are always
>>>> noted in cases of which I'm aware. If the
>> subject
>>>> is not controversial --
>>>> and your call is a lonely one not accompanied by
>>>> others on some topic --
>>>> then it might not count if you are only talking
>> to
>>>> the receptionist. If you
>>>> get through to a legislative asst, then the
>>>> "lonely calls" that you just
>>>> want to raise an issue of concern that they have
>> not
>>>> heard a lot from other
>>>> callers about -- can help. Sorry to be
>>>> convoluted...but hope this helps.
>>>> Thanks so much for your note...and call me Steve.

***Ohhh, that was so nice. I thought that was nice, didn't you think that was nice?***

>>>>
>>>> Are you in DC?
>>>>
>>>> Steve Clemons
>>>> --
>>>> Steven Clemons
>>>> Sr. Fellow & Director, American Strategy Program,
>>>> New America Foundation
>>>> and Publisher, www.TheWashingtonNote.com
>>>>
>>>> 202-986-2700, ext. 307
>>>> 202-986-3696 fax
>>>> clemons@newamerica.net Email

ME (Steve's new buddy):
>>> Nice. Thanks. In the most recent case that made me
>>> think about this (earlier today, in fact), it was
>>> about the Reliable Replacement Warhead (I'm
>> registered
>>> in Idaho, and we've got a Rep and a Senator on the
>>> respective Energy and Water Appropriations
>>> subcommittees.). As I understand it, it's a pretty
>>> current issue, so at least my call will be on a
>> tally
>>> then, right? Or does it stand a decent chance of
>> being
>>> ignored since there's not a vote coming up right
>> away?
>>> In the future, if it's not a matter of a vote
>> within
>>> the next week or two, I guess I'll try to see if I
>> can
>>> get an assistant instead of just a receptionist .
>> . good, yes?
>>>
>>> Incidentally, I've called various Senators (like
>>> Chafee) to thank them for their stances from time
>> to
>>> time. Think that gets through?
>>>
>>> I live in Chicago. But I do like DC. Better metro
>>> system.
>>>
>>> Thanks again.
>>> -Adam

STEVE:
>> I do think your calls got through to Chafee -- they
>> were enormously
>> important.
>>
>> The RRW is a huge concern of mine -- call everyone
>> about it. Most Members
>> have heads in sand on the subject.
>>
>> The chief progressive lobbyist on this is a close
>> friend.
>>
>> steve

ME:
> By the way, mind if I post some of this e-mail
> conversation on my joint blog? The readership is small
> and it's not a serious political blog or anything--more of a
> slacker's writing group--but this is the kind of stuff
> I like to post.

STEVE:
Happy to have you do so -- just clean up any language or grammatical
errors
for me as I'm rushing through this and didn't edit. Best, Steve

***END***

I'm still wondering if he meant "language" as in curse words (he didn't use any) or "language" as in language. And for the record, his grammar was well.

But anyway, from when I tagged along with my little peace lobby group to "lobby days" last year, I do recall that there were several young intern-y types at the offices I visited, but also one or two clearly assistant-y types who obviously had more clout.

Congress Switchboard (from whence they can transfer you to any Rep or Senator's office): 202-224-3121

The Offering of Images

2007-02-14T00:02:00.000-08:00

(R. Ashley)

take a ride

2007-02-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

I don’t know if this is worth committing to paper, but I’m thinking about it, and I usually do better when I have some paper to spill ideas onto.

One thing that Matt taught me is that rules have not only limitations but freedoms. He used the example of loud hours. At school, in the dorms, there were specific hours that students could be loud, that is, play loud music, watch movies loud, yell, etc. Some students were up in arms about this rule. “How dare you regulate my loudness!” they’d scream. Matt always had this calm answer for them, “If everyone was allowed to be loud whenever they wanted, I would have no opportunity to sleep, study, and eat in peace.” The idea of a rule as not a restriction, but rather a freedom. Also, that if rules are tossed out, more limitations are created. Without loud hours, it becomes the lack of peace.

I’ve recently read that the Equality Ride 2007 is driving over to Dordt on March 8 and 9. Their cause is Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transsexual rights in college communities that restrict them. They drive onto campus and do something; I’m not sure if it’s just making their presence known, or if they hold debates. They have a facebook group explaining why they are going to Dordt, citing the student handbook.

I think it’s a good thing to challenge people on why they believe what they believe. I also think it’s good to cause a little bit of a raucous on a pretty comfortable, although cold, campus. What I’m not sure of is what exactly this group wants to happen. It seems like a logic problem to me.

It’s called denying the correlative, or a false dilemma. Wikipedia, uses this example, “Either all apples are green, or some apples are not green. But what about apples that are both green and red?”

By causing a scene nothing is going to happen. No homosexual (not looking to change) would voluntarily go to Dordt if they had read the handbook. This ride is only then bringing the handbook to light, and preventing people who support it from attending Dordt.

This is getting really hard to finish because I simply think that both of the parties involved are wrong.

Dordt is wrong because it assumes that every student is a Christian. The ride is wrong because it assumes that to be a Christian homosexual is acceptable. There is a middle ground. To be a Christian means to love, everyone, whether they are black or while or male or female or homosexual.

Let’s say that I’m a video editor. If I wanted to have someone help me on a project, who knew nothing about editing, it would be really dumb of me to fire them after one day because they aren’t doing things right. Although, if I hired someone who had a resume saying that he had experience in this field, I may fire him after one day if he is incompetent, because he is supposed to know what he is doing.

The same goes for Dordt. They can’t fire a student if they don’t have the background or the knowledge of the way things are to be, you must love them--love first, teach second.

As for the ride, they are assuming that their brand of Christianity is the only brand—a brand that ignores parts of the scriptures. A brand that misunderstands the loving-teaching marriage, that only loves and never teaches.

Bring it home.

If Dordt struck the part from it’s handbook that the ride is up in arms about what would be the consequences? Teachers could sleep with students outside of marriage. That would likely result in some favoritism. It could also provide a community that accepts all types of people, murders, pedophiles, or thieves. Who could all do what they wanted with the community because everything is acceptable.

So that’s a little over the top, and a little reactionary, but the point is this, why ignore just some of the scriptures when you can ignore them all? Yes love. Love the pedophile. Love the thief. Love the murderer. But don’t tell them that what they are doing is right. Teach them the ways of Jesus, a way of loving all. Then need to want to be like you, to be like Jesus, and then the best teaching can begin.

(a jack maatman disclaimer: i view this writing as thoughts in process. i don't wish to prescribe any action or direction, but this is how i'm feeling right now. please give me feedback.)

Making Other Arrangements

2007-02-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

Hello, all. I'm back from some random self-induced hiatus. I wish I had a good excuse for what I was doing, like teaching an interesting class or something, but turns out I don't. It's just February and I am unmotivated. I am, however, building a guitar from one of those Martin kits, so that's fun. But anywho, let's blog.

This blog is inspired by three things. The first two are recent blog entries by Matt and Adam about our future (Perhaps at this point I could make the request that Matt give a summary for his blog, which is to say I am having trouble connecting the dots with all the power-point slides and bringing them to a concluding statement). The third inspiration is the ever popular Orion magazine. (Perhaps at this point I should put in a plug for reading Orion and also Harper's as these two magazines are generally awesome. I usually read them cover to cover, which is rare for any magazine).

Anywho, the article is entitled "Making Other Arrangements" and can be read here. It is sort of a description of how we as a country may "go down like Raging Bull" as Adam puts it. It is an exploration of a world without petroleum.

I love these imagination exercises. It's like the point where distopia and utopia meet--at least for crazy commune farm-boy Laremy over here. The basic premise of the article is that we have achieved peak oil production. Soon, it will have to end. There will no longer be cheap transportation, cheap electricity and heat production. It will no longer be cost effective to import crap from China. It probably won't even be very cost effective to import stuff from California. Going to Europe will be the rarest of rare treats, and we may need to take a boat. Canals and rivers, lakes and oceans will be en vogue for transportation again. Riverfronts of cities will be the hot-spots. We will have to rely almost completely on wind and solar power, which means our energy production--especially in places like the north east where we have the most population density--will not be able to match current levels. Power hungry institutions--basically anything housed in a sky-scraper--will no longer be cost effective. Anything big will die off (including our ridiculously huge government) while the small scale subsistence communities will once again be the norm.

This is the dream of James Howard Kunstler. I don't quite know if I can believe it. The essayist paints a picture with ease that would take the researcher a little more trouble. Could we not fuel our current consumptive habits on wind alone? Was the mid-West really locked in a "fierce" drought when he wrote the essay? Let's just say that Kunstler has a knack for hyperbole.

But I love it anyway. I love to daydream about a world that is again provincial. I like to dream about my community, my clan. What do I want my village to look like? What do I want the cheese to taste like and the beer to smell like. What do I want the bread and the music to sound like. Think back to medieval Europe or 19th century Appalachia. So many different tastes and sounds and traditions were developed in the incubators of isolation. Now we have one tradition, one music, one beer, one cheese. Sure, we have a lot, but if you don't open Christmas presents on Dec. 25 the other kids laugh at you.

Kunstler also seems to ignore the whole "Oh, look at me, I'm Hugo Chavez" angle, which is what Adam fears, and I do as well. I guess the best we can hope for is that it will all end up like a settler's game, where you know you shouldn't trade your ore to Adam because he's going to win, but you do it anyway because you really want that next settlement. In other words, hopefully we all run out of oil at the same time. Then we can sort of jolt our way into a post-oil world together, without multi-national conglomerates and overweight governments constantly screwing all of us over and dominating our conversations.

Wind: Part 2

2007-02-06T10:55:00.000-08:00

the new post got inserted two back.

2007-02-05T08:46:00.000-08:00

just a simple redirect. be sure to check for new posts below they may blow you away.

Rock'n'roll Review

2007-02-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

I just finished teaching an interim course called "Hearing God in Rock Music" at Trinity Christian College, which is why I haven't been too active here. The course was 4 hours long every day. When I wasn't eating or sleeping or driving, I was searching for rock songs on iTunes or previewing rockumentaries or reading rock history books. One of the more exciting elements of the class, from my perspective, was this idea I had of tracing the rock spirit from its roots to the present day not in words, but with the music itself. So I compiled an 8 hour long playlist starting from slave songs, moving through Creole Jazz, Urban Jazz, the Blues, Gospel, R&B, Country, Rockabilly, the birth of rock'n'roll, the British Rock revolution, Acid Rock, Punk Rock, New Wave and finally early to mid-90's rock. I learned the most from this exercise of compiling music because I could actually hear the movement of the music. It was like a time machine that moved through 70 years of American musical history in 8 hours. Here are a few of my thoughts after studying rock'n'roll these last few weeks.

First of all, the slave songs were not entertaining. They weren't meant for entertainment. Many of them move very slowly. The beats are kept with the human body or with the tools the slaves might have been working with. They are soulful moans that sluggishly count off the hours of hard labor. They were sometimes used to get verbal revenge against their masters. Often the African traditional songs would be adapted to biblical lyrics to appease their owners, but might have hidden messages. This is the strange mix between what could be called the primitive "pagan" spirit and the Christian "gospel" message that is still foundational to rock today. As the slaves became Christianized, you can still hear what the whites would consider "pagan", but what's really going on is that the body, the physicality of human life is being re-introduced into the square, intellectualized sound of the white, European religious music.

Rock'n'roll would not be what it is without the invention of Jazz in New Orleans. The early Jazz was really wild. It was party music and the French Catholic-influenced blacks were free to make such music only because this wasn't a Protestant moralistic/"Puritanistic" region of America. As you follow the rhythms of New Orleans Jazz to Chicago, Kansas City and New York, you hear the craziness of Creole Jazz get toned down a bit. It becomes more sophisticated for the whites and blacks in the Northern cities. You can clearly hear in the running basslines what will later be the bass lines of early rock'n'roll.

A couple of observations about changes during the 30's and 40's. You can hear how the transistor radio affected songwriting because music suddenly becomes "radio friendly", designed more for entertainment. Gospel songs on the radio have a jazzy groove to them, even those sung by white folks in the South. The phrase "Rock my Soul" used in one particular song shows that the word "rock" originally had Christian connotations but it's only a matter of 20 years before the word becomes slang for sex. The black rhythm and bluesmen had something to do with this, as well as Ray Charles and the birth of "soul" music, which was basically gospel music with "love" lyrics. You can hear the Rolling Stones' juvenile male sexuality and an impending sexual revolution rising in Muddy Water's "I'm a man. That spells M-A-N." The higly charged sexual atmosphere of this "race" music must have been very exciting to pubescent white boys and girls because when Elvis brought that same sexual energy to the radio, they went nuts.

The birth of rock'n'roll can be traced to a few musical things that R&B guys were doing. Basically, rock'n'roll is just a wilder version of R&B. It's louder, more distorted. It's an attitude. It has the ecstasy of pentecostal worship services and sexual orgasm. It breaks strings and pushes beyond the thresh-hold of recording equipment. The structures seem the same as R&B but when you put "Saturday Night Fish Fry" next to "Rocket 88", you can really hear the difference. "Rocket 88" was recorded by Ike Turner's band after their guitar amp fell off the back of their pick-up truck. Sam Phillips put a ball of paper in the broken cone and cranked up the distorted sound in the mix at Sun Studios and rock'n'roll was born. Other early rock recordings had this accidental character as well. There are many stories of rock'n'roll break-throughs that happened in between recording sessions as the band was just "playing around'.

What happens next, then? After the fresh wildness of rock, Elvis gets commodified as a circus attraction with matching products for sale, Dick Clark cleans up rock's image with clean-cut teeny-bopping boy bands and rock is dead in America. But all the while the post WWII teens of England are going to the blues for inspiration and coming up with a new form. I was shocked to hear the difference of British rock. It no longer has the "roll". It's very angular and driving. Many of the songs rise to a fevered pitch and convey a grandness that is definitely more European. Or the young bands go crazy on their instruments because they are obviously just huge fans of the blues and that's about all they care to do.

The combination of folk and English rock is picked up by the Vietnam era political movement and rock becomes the music of a generation. This cannot be sustained however and already in 1967-69 a new breed of anti-hippy rock'n'roll is coming out of the mid-West. Detroit's MC5 and Iggy Pop and The Stooges are not satisfied with the hippy movement and it shows. They give birth to Velvet Underground inspired noise and ugliness that will soon become the Punk Rock of 1970's New York. The sexual revolution becomes very explicit in the 70's and drugs and excess go along with this. The destructive nature of the "anti-movement" becomes most clear when the British politicize Punk in the form of the Sex Pistols. The band is bound to fail because its whole career is based on self-destruction. For awhile, labels supported the destruction financially but punk music is inherently not a sustainable business, especially when shows are canceled, bands break up, violence ensues and artists die of drug overdoses. Punk's little brother, New Wave, proves to be more sustainable and you can really hear its influence on much of the 80's rock sound. But Punk rears its beautifully ugly head once more in the form of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. But if it's truly punk, we all know where it's going in the end...and that's exactly what happened. The 90's gave way to this strange "loser" mentality that proved to be oddly "marketable". It becomes somewhat false though when the self-proclaimed losers are at the top of the charts.

So, where are we at now? The irony of the early nineties gave way to the sincerity of Rage Against the Machine and later Red Hot Chili Peppers. The punk attitude continues under the surface and shows itself occasionally in rap and hip hop. I hear the late 70's New Wave in alot of the new indie bands, but my suspicion is stronger than ever that true rock'n'roll always seems to have this difficult religious conflict between what is considered "devilish" and the genuine purity and ecstasy of Christianity. This tension was clear in Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimi Hendrix (called his music "electric church music"), the Rolling Stones, Patti Smith, U2, The Pixies (Frank Black was a big fan of CCM originator Larry Norman!), Kurt Cobain and dare I say Eminem.

It is exciting to me that many of the new rock that I find most interesting and most in keeping with the early spirit of rock have been dealing with this tension--Pedro the Lion, the Danielson Familie, Me Without You. I wonder if part of the reason alot of new bands are less exciting than the old rock is because they haven't tapped into this tension that will continue as long as Western Culture still has Christianity in its past and present.

an extra 10% intellectual

2007-01-31T20:12:00.000-08:00

in order to make up for my alleged absence i am going to be an extra 10% intellectual and informative. for this i hired a consultant to create me this slide show about wind power. . .

the second half is to come.

Noam Chomsky

2007-01-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

What I've read of him doesn't amount to much. But when I do read, I get the impression of a guy who's really, really, really smart and ridiculously well-read on world politics.

So it's this article that I just read and it actually seems to provide fairly concise summary of what's the most messed up about politics in America these days and why so much of the American public doesn't "get" what so much of the rest of the developed world does.

This article is an interview and it's pretty long--but if you can spare the extra 20 minutes I recommend reading it. To summarize, poorly: The rhetoric of spreading democracy is a fallacy. The U.S. in recent history supports new democracies only insofar as they directly serve its interests. We supported Saddam through many of his atrocities until he broke rank, then we found a reason to take him out. When that reason (WMD's) gave out, we changed the rhetoric to "spreading democracy" to Iraq, when in fact, true democracy there would not serve our interests (hence the prolonged occupation)--indeed, the purported "free elections" were opposed by us until massive protests by Iraqis forced us to agree to them, and then out the other end of the propaganda machine comes "look, we've accomplished our mission for free elections." We've supported far-right religious organizations and governments that we now label extremist and terrorists. Nearly every expert on terrorism and intelligence has concluded that this and previous administrations' actions merely provide the exact circumstances needed to help terrorism flourish: hypocrisy, attempts to isolate instead of engage ideologically divergent regimes, and violent solutions (ie. Bombings and invasions) to political problems.

"To take merely one illustration, the most detailed scholarly work on Jihadis, by Fawwaz Gerges, reveals that the Jihadi movements harshly condemned the 9/11 crimes, and offered a real opportunity to isolate the perpetrators and significantly reduce or eliminate the threat. Instead, the Bush administration responded with extreme violence, particularly the invasion of Iraq, providing a great gift to the terrorist "vanguard' by mobilizing support for them. The same renowned clerics who were issuing fatwas denouncing al-Qaeda were soon issuing fatwas denouncing the US and calling for resistance against it, thanks to Bush."

Chomsky follows with a very compelling deconstruction of a few recent examples of U.S. military actions reputed to be "saving" in nature: Kuwait, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. He explains how Western actions not only provoked the conflicts themselves, but at times exacerbated the problems and are only perceived in the Western world as righteous military engagements because of propoganda. In Iraq, the real needs and desires of the Iraqi people are routinely ignored or defied. Give a look at the last few paragraphs, which speak of the Nuremberg trials and some scary parallels. Not that long ago the world hanged people for doing things that aren't far off from what we're doing now!

Okay, that's the end of the summary.

I do try on a semi-regular basis to hear opinions from the right side of the aisle as well as the left. I think the right-versus-left is a smoke screen for the real problems. But the more I move around and learn about history, the more I see the prognostications of the hippies and the tree-huggers coming true. Just plaing coming true. The "center" in America appears to be pretty far to the right of the rest of the developed world or something. As evidenced in that survey I posted a few days ago, the decent rep we've been riding for a few centuries now seems to be eroding. Right now the popular opinion is against Bush because things he's bungled have been laid bare. But what about all of the crap perpetrated by Reagan, Clinton, or even Dubya in his first term? Were we this pissed then? No. And we're going to lapse into apathy again once the powers that be can placate the public over Iraq.

This is why I get so frustrated with News in the U.S. I like Barack Obama, don't get me wrong, but if I see another front page wasted on predictions about his '08 campaign when there are literally hundreds of more worthy, REAL stories, I'm gonter go crazi. We're not getting real news. Even in some of my favorite newspapers I have to wade through five stories about unimportant yet strangely engaging crap before I get the real dirt I'm after.

Okay, so this has been a summary followed by a rant. That's all I got right now.

manifesto destiny

2007-01-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

i don't know if its my turn, but i do know that i post on thursdays, and since its already friday, let me get my butt in gear. Not that i have much to say,but i thought i would follow up a little bit on thoughts about theatre (i know, but i'm in school for theatre, its all i have time to think about). So this is the first draft of a Manifesto I had to write for my Directing and Staging Theory class.

Darkness and Light

in the absence of the light that was, the darkness is more overbearing.

in the absence of the song that was, the silence is more stifling.

in the dark silence, the audience sits alone, more aware of their loneliness.

They are uncomfortable, cold, tense. An audience member, slowly becoming less sure of the presence of anyone else in the theatre, shifts in their seat, testing the silence. Another audience member, suddenly hopefully of companionship, coughs in reply. They are both immediately and unequivocally silenced.

“shhh....

....asshole!”

The voice comes from the audience, but it is not an audience member. It is a plant, a lone actor in the audience. He is there to make the audience uncomfortable. He is there to draw them into the action. He is there to force them to be members of the cast, to be silent critics, to be voyeurs. He is alone, but he is surrounded. An actor is never alone, never in solitude.

Theatre is communion, its purpose is to entertain; “To hold mutually; to hold intertwined” or “To maintain; to support; to provide sustenance for (a person)” (OED.) The Director’s purpose therefore is to shape a performance into a metaphoric hand that will reach out and grab the audience. How can he do this? By lying, by pretending to know the way, by faking it over and over and over again until the director actually starts to believe his own lie is the truth. This is all the director can do. This does not imply that the director is trying to trick the actors or the audience. Rather, he should let them know he is liar, proclaim his fallibility from the beginning. Yet even after he has made this confession, by merit of his position they follow him and venerate him. As Peter Brook says “ he does not ask to be God and yet his role implies it.” The director is ever the con man, the scammer, the improviser, and the impostor.

How then, with all this against him, is a director to proceed with any expectation but failure? If he is indeed as Brooks says, “a guide at night who does not know the territory,” how can he assume to set out? I believe he must surround himself with competence, other who may or may not know the territory, who can tie themselves together to keep each other from falling, or to all fall together. This is essential, for I believe that not only is the director a “guide at night” but he is also blind, or at best his eyesight is poor and failing.

The best way to proceed then is to breathe deeply, collect yourself, and step forward, out into the darkness, into the fear and the pain and the long journey, then step again, and again, and again. And somewhere in the darkness, in the cold, reach out and grasp the audience, and hold them tightly between the light and the dark, between the sounds of life and the silence of stage, and hope, and pray that they leave better, or worse for the wear.

Aberration

2007-01-24T08:25:00.000-08:00

I know that I don't post until Sunday, but I've got something to throw out--if any of you slackers are still reading, that is. (Where's the love, by the way?)

In some respects, the U.S. has got to go. We suck on the environment, we're pissing off the Muslim world constantly, and we're riding that Capitalism pony way, way too far--not that the U.S. is alone in this. It's not so black and white, of course, but I think that less U.S. influence in today's world would be a good thing.

Several people I respect predict major conflict within our lifetimes stemming from the increasing corruption and internal decay of the U.S.'s "system," which started long before G.W. Bush was even a twinkle within a twinkle within a twinkle of a father's eye.

For my kids' sake, I'd rather see the U.S. go down like Raging Bull than Scarface (that is, fade from the international spotlight than go down like a true fallen superpower, in a spray of bullets and mayhem). Which is why I'm rather intrigued by people like Venezuela's Chavez (hoping he and his buddy Ahmadinejad don't go overboard) , and more to the point, this poll (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0123/p99s01-duts.html -- the hyperlink function is not working right now for some reason), which was the impetus for my writing this post.

So. What do you think?

Beyond Beyond Good and Evil

2007-01-15T06:10:00.000-08:00

First of all, I haven't really read Beyond Good and Evil. I started the real book, and just a bit ago I read a summary. Since I don't have internet (I'm in a half-hour early at work), I'm composing a rant based off a real-time argument between Grant and I.

Turns out I'm pretty much in agreement with Nieautschschzye on this one (I refuse to spell that name and since this is a rant I don't have time to look it up). Truth is more fluid and like a sculpture, the best way to get an idea of it is to look at it from several viewpoints. Language is too rigid because it ascribes one meaning that can't really be changed once the word is uttered. Likewise, there just isn't a good explanation that I've run into for how it is that everyone's so damn convinced that they've got the right idea. I just can't reconcile the truth and beauty of this person that I know with the viewpoints of this other truthy and beautiful person I know. Once again I come back to my thesis that the things that lead us away from contradiction are the things that get us all messed up. Okay, Grant, so this isn't exactly what our conversation was--though I'm having a hard time remembering what it really was as opposed to my memory of it.

So when it comes to good and evil, I'm thinking that while most of us here would admit that we have a hard time discerning, I'd take it one step further and say that our very ideas of what good and evil are are a bit screwed up, and that good and evil probably share a lot more ground than we've been led to believe. Yin and Yang is cliche these days and I must admit I've not actually studied the concept, but I think I'm kind of on board with it. I can't remember why this seemed to bother Grant so much. Grant, you'd better weigh in immediately.

The example that somehow came about, and that we agreed would make a nice centerpiece for a discussion, went something like this: Let's say you're in a band and you're also in touch with a great agency that's doing good things for AIDS orphans in Africa (Let's say your name is, Oh, Gradam). You want to buy an amp. You could buy one for $302. You could also buy one for $342. The latter is oh-so-slightly better than the first. You also know that you could well donate the forty extra bucks to your darling agency. Is it wrong to buy the latter amp? You might make slightly better music and therefore make people's lives slightly better, one might suppose. And you just might rock. So is it right to buy the amp?

I remember us also talking about Was there good that came from the bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki? Probably, methinks. So . . . where does that leave us?

We kept coming back to the idea of good and evil being at war as opposed to them being merely tugging at one another, in a constant state of flux like taffy on a taffy stretcher. As I understand you, Grant, you're thinking they're at war. I'm thinking that at the Garden of Eden when our eyes were opened to recognize good and evil, it doesn't mean we came to understand them. You can see a dalmation and a tire and not realize they're part of the same fire truck.

That was the worst metaphor ever. And yet I love it so dearly.

I really hope you people will weigh in on this, since this is a hastily-composed post meant only to initiate the topic.

Time to get to work.

Time (a repeat of what is below just to make sure that you see it)

2007-01-11T13:43:00.000-08:00

Oh, so, where was I. Oh, yeah. So here is the continuation of my last post. I started it before Christmas break, and am finally getting around to finishing it. Sorry about that…

So, to continue with the Heideggerness. Or not. Time is, of course, a theme for Heidegger, but I am done with him for a while. My time rant comes from a different source.

I was reading the latest issue of Harper's and ran across an interesting article. I would recommend all of you reading it, but in case you don't, let me give you a brief synopsis.

The article "Clash of the Time Lords" began by talking about leap seconds. I guess it seems that every now and again our year isn't 365.25 days, but instead 365.25 days and one second. This happens every 7 or so years, and the reason for the need for the leap second is two fold. First off, the earth is actually moving slower than it once did. 400 million years ago, a day was 22 hours long. Which leads right into the second issue. What do you mean a day was 22 hours long? Wouldn't a day, by definition always be 24 hours since an hour is 1/24th of a day? No. At least not over the last 40 or so years since the invention of the atomic clock. Some nerds somewhere discovered that cesium atoms oscillate at a perfectly steady pace. So steady, you could set your clock to it. So they did. And in 1967 it was declared, at the thirteenth General Conference on Weights and Measures that a second is not 1/86,400th of a day, but rather 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a cesium atom.

But not everyone likes this new definition. Basically, there are now two sides in this debate. We have the physicists and the astronomers. The physicists claim that beyond a shadow of a doubt, a second must be objectively defined. It must remain constant. All sorts of modern technology is based upon this, after all. Everything that is run by GPS depends on the age old formula that distance=rate x time. But this only works when time is not variable. “In GPS, an accuracy of 10 nanoseconds (ten one-billionths of a second) corresponds to a positional accuracy of about 10 feet.” So imagine if our smart bombs and our airplanes and every other GPS device get off the clock. It could be crazy.

But then what is the alternative, the astronomers ask. Darkness at noon, after a while. But it won’t matter, because the atomic clock says it’s time to eat lunch. It is basically one more step—perhaps the final one—in getting Western Civilization weaned off our child-like addiction to the natural world. It started with these little things we wear on our wrists and the time zone. It obviously is not sun-noon in Chicago and Omaha at the same time, but according to our clocks it is. It’s just easier that way. And so we have that much less connection with the world in which we live. Why not a little bit more.

The leap-second may seem like a viable alternative to this problem, but many claim that it is untenable and must be abolished. Every time a New Year’s Eve rolls around where they must use it, everyone gets a little scared. You have to reprogram every computerized locational system in the world. And you have to hope you did it right, so that that 757 flying over the Atlantic actually arrives in New York when it thinks it does, and isn’t somewhere over Greenland. Heaven forbid someone actually look out the window of those things. So there are several proposals, none of them liked by many. One is to put off the leap second for the next 700 years so that it is a leap hour. Just sort of gather them all up. But that isn’t without its problems either. No one knows what the world will be like in 700 years. It probably won’t matter. We will all be barbarians again having no idea what a leap second even is.

So anywho, there is another chapter in the conflict between science and real life. Between science and creation. If you don’t mind me exhorting a little, it reminds me of a sermon I recently heard about the Wise Men and their us of both general and special revelation (the creation and the Word). And I got to thinking, how many of us would actually notice a star in the east today? Few. And how many of us are in tune at all with general revelation? One of the reasons, I think, that atheism is on the rise is because we are in tune only with that which man has created. Cities and cars and computers and cell phones and coffee and processed food. Show me a farmer who doesn’t believe in God. This is what all those “stupid” primitive people had, and still do have, a sense of the divine that is inspired by the world in which they live. We are stuck with the philosophical divine or the evangelical “Because it says so right here in the Bible” divine. And leap seconds and every other disconnection between man and the world is just one more step away from God’s first book of revelation.

The Devil's Music

2007-01-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

Starting next week, I'm teaching an interim course on rock music. It's titled "Finding God in Rock'n'roll" or something like that. It's basically a two week exploration of the history of rock'n'roll with an emphasis on listening skills, taste development and the main themes or patterns that keep cropping up over the years.

It's somewhat easy to find evidence of rock's gospel roots in the early days. Many of rock's founding fathers--Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Phillips, are well within the Southern Bible belt ("IT'S THE BELT OF TRUTH!" shouts the Danielson Familie) and are borrowing the ecstasy from black gospel music. But, they are also taking the masculine sexuality of Muddy Waters and other blues musicians, which is partly why teenage girls were so excited by people like Elvis. This masculine sexuality gets picked up later by female musicians as well. An exciting trend, but also somewhat dehumanizing I think.

I'm reading an intriguing book on the history of the punk movement called "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk". The mystery of the story of punk is that these self-aggrandizing, debaucherous, mostly criminal, eternally adolescent drug addicts deserve to be locked away. Many of them seem to have no sense of any relationship to society at large. If they think they have any responsibility to others, it's only a big "fuck you" to any authority figure--yeah, pretty childish. And yet, the music is sublimely playful, full of joy and naivete. Lou Reed is sucking cocks in seedy clubs around New York but when he sings "her life was saved by rock'n'roll", he sounds like a kid untainted by the evil realities he's surrounded by--drugs, death, back-biting jealousies, megalomaniacal power-hungerers, thievery etc. I can't believe it's the same person I've been reading about!

I am saddened by the women groupies who are treated as sexual slaves/maids cleaning up after these undeserving rock stars. But I am equally fascinated and get caught up in the excitement of the lawless behavior that is celebrated throughout the late sixties and seventies. These people are living a fantasy, really, and there's a temptation to think that despite the physical and emotional repercussions, at least they had some interesting experiences. At least they have some funny stories to tell.

The issue that STORY has become the great idol of our society aside, I'm wondering if the wildness of rock'n'roll can remain while still keeping certain societal standards of decency and responsibility as artists. When Iggy Pop used to vomit on stage from taking too many Quaaludes or drag audience members onstage by their hair in a drunken stupor, that must have been wildly entertaining...like a car crash is entertaining. But can we have the excitement of the car crash without the real blood and guts, without the death that accompanies it? It would probably be as lame as the A-Team's once-per-episode miraculous death-free 5 car pile-ups.

It seems like people have learned lessons from the wild sixties and seventies. Certainly the abuse of drugs and alcohol has lost its former mystique. It looks more and more to our society as a sign of sickness instead of the free-wheelingness and "liberation" of the sixties. That's a good thing, maybe. At least it's more truthful. But...we can't lose the danger in rock music. Rock has to continue to find the fight in itself. Nirvana found it in a bloated music and media industry. Maybe it can still be found there. I think there is also a fight to be found in the lack of emotional quality in music. And this is what I'm trying to prove: that, ultimately, the greatness of the music of the punk movement is that it had captured that feeling, that wild energy of the 50's, which those guys had caught in the gospel and blues music, which they must have gotten from somewhere else, which was prophesied by Nietzsche, which (despite Nietzsche's claims) can be traced to the apocalyptic Jesus, which was also apparent in the cult of Dionysus, and could be heard in the first cries of the human voice, maybe even before human speech.

In a famous dialogue between Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Phillips just before Jerry Lee recorded the vocal for "Great Balls of Fire", Jerry Lee articulates the tension between the devil and Jesus in rock'n'roll. Sam Phillips tries to get Jerry Lee Lewis to see the potential of serving God with rock music, but Jerry Lee Lewis doesn't see how this could work. "I have the devil in me", he says. And the devil and Jesus can't be in the same place at the same time. Maybe there's some truth to that. But let's be clear about what belongs to the Devil and what belongs to Jesus. I have a hard time giving up the greatness of rock'n'roll to the Devil, no matter how much immorality and debauchery has accompanied it throughout it's 50 or so year history.

The handshake drugs I buy downtown

2006-12-31T22:11:00.000-08:00

Hello again. Happy New Year's.

First of all, with the aid of a friend, I have arrived at the conclusion that the following word should be added to the American lexicon:

Bonocity (noun):
The quality or propensity to resemble Bono in appearance, word or deed, especially in acts of flamboyance, dramatic exhibitions of passion, or earnestness tinged with vanity. Example: Some call Madonna's adoption a publicity farce, others praise it as true humanitarian work, while most recognize its Bonocity and regard it as "mostly good, but a little 'Mneah.'" -- New York Times or something.

Anyway. What I'm really posting about is orphanages. To catch you guys up, I've decided against going to Zambia with Peace Corps and will be instead going to Malawi for a shorter period of time to help lay the groundwork for a new Children's Village (leaving March-ish). So I am just beginning what will hopefully be an immense research project about sustainable orphanage projects in Africa. I'm going to let you into my brain on the topic so far, and share a little bit on two things that I've read so far.

My brain: Aid in Africa is hardly working. The problems are getting bigger, and while a few things show improvement, most things don't. AIDS is spreading, the environment is more and more screwed, and people are still starving even though there's enough food in the world to feed everyone. What's more, the best-intentioned projects and aid missions often go awry and many do more harm than good. It's not pessimistic, it's true. Some of this is because of our arrogance, some because of our ignorance, and some just because it's a mad world. We need to see results--before and after pictures, runny noses and distented bellies before, big smiling green eyes and pressed school uniforms after. It's something called results-based management. The short-term gains are the ones that get the funding, because they produce photo-ops that donors love to see.

In the words of the first thing I read, a case study (somewhat slanted in promotion of the organization Orphans in Africa, but helpful nonetheless), "The aid money is simply a short-term fix to a much larger problem. Money is thrown at the symptoms of a much deeper disease. Funds are given to provide minimal healthcare, for food, and for other necessary entities. While these funds do fulfill some of the Africans’ basic needs, these subsidies do not teach them how to avoid healthcare problems or how to pull themselves out of the poverty that leaves families without basic life necessities." None of this should be news to someone really hoping to go to Africa and do something worthwhile. It can cause a lot of disillusionment to discover or encounter these phenomenae for the first time. I'm sure there are some who will say that it's impossible for Westerners to to anything good in Africa.

My ideal right now is the handshake: I am working on the assumption that it would be possible for me to research and prepare to go to Malawi to do one thing--exchange a smile and a handshake. I'd need to do my homework and learn the customs associated with greetings, how to arrange such a meeting, how not to make a bad impression, etc. And it wouldn't really do any easily measurable good. But it would be a simple thing that would in a small way to more good than harm. Somewhere between failed aid projects and the successful simple handshake is where I'll be when I go. Obviously there will be more than a handshake, but one of my top priorities will be to keep it simple; to keep it humble.

Here's my last quote on the subject: “Africa is the most intensive recipient of foreign aid of any continent on the globe…Yet Africa’s growth in output per person has declined from 1.5 percent per year in the 1960s and 1970s to zero in the 1980s and 1990s. Meanwhile, foreign aid to Africa increased from seven percent of its income in the 1960s and 1970s to sixteen percent in the 1980s and 1990s.” -- William Esterly, a spokesman for the Center for Global Development

It must be sustainable or it may not be worth doing.

So. Save Our Souls is a German organization not affiliated with a particular faith. They invest in "Children's Villages" throughout the world. A children's village consists of a number of houses (perhaps ten, no more than fifteen) in a group, with a "mother" for each house. Between 7 and 10 orphans live with a mother in a house. The mother is always a carefully selected woman, who receives 3 months of training followed by one year of in-service training before she assumes her role. She is expected to live with the children for at least one generation, and this is considered her career (by the way, she gets 3 days vacation per year). Youth workers, the village director (a man), "aunts", child development professionals, and local residents assist the mother in bringing the children to a place of development where, by age 21, they move out on their own into the greater society. Each child's cultural heritage is observed, regardless of which religion or tradition, with the exception of really crazy-bad things like genital mutilation.

Not having yet visited such a children's village, this seems like a practical, sustainable model worth emulating.

More to come on this topic.

Time

2006-12-18T20:16:00.000-08:00

"Living Machines" a.k.a. Bioremediation

2006-12-12T22:05:00.000-08:00

The transformation is almost complete. We have moved into our Airstream, the 12 kWatt solar system is on order (RVs tend to run on 12v systems which lend themselves very nicely to solar PV systems as one can avoid the costly converter), and now the final piece of the puzzle. . . The Living Machine. It will not be long now before we are entirely off the grid. Muh . ha . ha . ha . ha. ha. . .

Ok, so only parts of that last paragraph are true. We are, in fact, living in an Airstream and they do lend themselves well to solar power, but we have neither ordered a system nor begun construction on a Living Machine. But that is not to say that I haven't seriously considered them.

Basically, Living Machines take the waste water from a building, run in through a number of anaerobic, anoxic, and aerobic tanks teeming with plants and bacteria, as well as animals (i.e. fish, snails, clams, etc) in the later stages, to produce clean reusable water. Many of these systems produce water that is safe to drink but, because of the psychological barrier, it is more likely used to irrigate the yard, or even be piped back to flush the toilets with. The concept was created by John Todd (or mother nature if you want to go that route) and his company, Living Technologies, designs and builds them all across the globe. The systems really are a work of art, integrating plants and animals into a garden like setting that serves the community both visually and monetarily (as many of these systems are more affordable than the alternatives).

These systems range in size from a school of 300 students in Toronto to a factory in Australia that can handle 100,000 gallons of water a day (approx what a town of 2,000 people would generate). The systems often start out similar to a septic tank but without the common ground pollution that accompanies them. From that storage tank the material is transferred to a translucent anoxic tank (no dissolved oxygen). This low oxygen environment allows for more rapid breakdown of the sludge. From there the water is transferred to oxygenated tanks that have as many as 200 species of plants suspended in wire baskets. While the plants do serve the system directly, their roots create a home for countless bacteria and micro-organisms that do the real work. Along this chain of tanks any solids that do build up in the bottoms are often cycled back to the beginning of the system. During this point of the system you may begin to see fish and snails among the plants (some snails have been found that can remove and break down heavy metals). These are often the most popular parts of the system, and lend themselves very well to education and volunteer participation. John and his company realize the importance of educating our youth. The more excited they get about these ideas the better off our future may be.

(The ammonia count found in the water coming out of these systems is often 1/100th of what the Federal Government says may be allowed back into the ground water, and without using any of the smelly chemical processes that we have begun to depend on and place out where we don’t have to see or think about)

At present his company requires a minimum group of 5 households to begin the planning and building stages (i.e. the Airstream is out for now), but there has been some talk of smaller systems for personal use. Sites that have integrated these systems have seen a drop in water use by as much as 80%. Do you remember the biological loops that I mentioned (or meant to mention) in my last piece? Well, you can’t get much tighter than that.

To top it all off this forces communities to begin to be more intentional about what they are putting down their sinks and toilets, and starts forcing us to ask questions like: Are there soaps that I could use that would provide food for these systems and still get my dishes clean? Are there better choices for toilet paper? Do I really need my laundry detergent to be bright blue?

it's a cold and it's a broken

2006-12-10T22:44:00.000-08:00

Love is on my mind. All different kinds of love.

Let it be my thesis that the topic of love is unique in that things postulated about it are rarely really wrong, but they are thrown into an ocean of other postulations that all make sense in their own way.

I figure the best place to start is with the Greek notions and stray just a bit from there:

Eros: This is the one most often associated with passion and sensual desire--hence the word Erotic. It's also thought of as the desire to be possessed and be possessed. I think about it as a more of a survival-of-the-species kind of love. It seems to be one that people are forcibly compelled by. Plato thought of it as an appreciation of the beauty inside a person. He also didn't consider physical an attraction necessary for this--hence the word Platonic referring to friendships without sexual attraction.

Philia: This one is less passionate. It's heady and responsible. We have this kind of love for friends, parents, a community, even a business. It requires reciprocation on the part of the other, and this one is more Aristotle's baby. It can be regarded as a very noble, and especially loyal type of love. It would be too much of a reduction to call it "friendship." It also includes love of one's self. It arises out of necessity and similar circumstances. I'm really liking the distinction of this one.

Agape: The one that gets a lot of airplay because of its use in the Bible, mainly describing God's love for people or for the church. It can be extended to an understanding of love for all of humanity. It's considered a self-sacrificing kind of love, found in all of the quotable lines: "Love thy neighbor as thyself," "Greater love hath no man than this . . . " etc. It combines elements of the previous two into a passionate, enemy loving, extremely high kind of love. Some will say it's impossible and illogical. I'm inclined to think they might be right, but as an idea or construct I figure it's worth chasing.

Storge: Also called "affection," this one usually refers to love within the family. I found it interesting to find it called Affection so many times, because my concept of affection doesn't generally jive with the way I think about my family. However, I think it's apt when I really think about what the word really means. In social psychology, storgic love between partners is one that arises out of long friendship (bad sex, probably).

For each of these, I can think of a marriage where one was the most prevalent.

I don't think it can be over-stressed that our concept of love in the contemporary pop-music kind of way is really, really new to planet earth. The idea of having sexual attraction, passion, commitment, and selfless concern all bundled up into a package and "felt" all at once is loaded and probably wouldn't make sense as little as 500 years ago. I think it weighs on us as a society. It's too much to ask, and only after having illusions forcibly wrested from us after having "gone through some tough times" with the object of our love do we settle into something. I can recall a conversation with a girlfriend from several years ago. We both adamantly stated that "real love" is a decision, not a feeling. I think we had a good point, but were being just as reductionistic about love as the most diabolical N-Synch lyricist. It seems that the tumult and confusion and elusivity of love is of utmost importance to appreciate.

A simple boiling down of Buddhism's concept of love, ripped from this website, goes as follows:

The definition of love in Buddhism is: wanting others to be happy.
This love is unconditional and it requires a lot of courage and acceptance (including self-acceptance).
The "near enemy" of love, or a quality which appears similar, but is more an opposite is: conditional love (selfish love).
The opposite is wanting others to be unhappy: anger, hatred.
A result which one needs to avoid is: attachment.

Ouch. While it's true that "attachment" is one of the no-no's for a good Buddhist for everything, not just love, I'd say that it's been a huge part of my relationships. I also appreciate seeing conditional love as the opposite of real love.

I also found some stuff about love in the Shi'ite (Muslim) doctrines:
Love, in Shi'i doctrine, includes three interrelated categories: Love for God, love for the Prophet and his Household, and love for the faithful.

And then there's Freud's thoughts:
1) The combination of sexuality and tenderness; 2) Eros (for procreation); 3) Eros plus the Death Instinct (yikes) 4) The energy of the libido, which can be directed at the rest of the world or at a person of one's interest.

What I like about that is the idea of sexual energy being used for something other than sex. Perhaps it's a misnomer to think of it as purely sexual energy, but I think there's something about the libido that drives creativity, perseverence, and a collection of other abstract nouns that I can't come up with because it's 1:44. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example, have a lot of sexual energy in their music. Heck, who doesn't, really?

Lately I've been thinking about love between a man and a woman (man-man or woman-woman to cover my bases) as helping the other person accept who they are, and learning how to accept the assistance of another person in accepting yourself. Kind of hard I think.

I also think it's important for a girl to have a nice rack.

more of the same but not: a three day (lifetime) rant

2006-12-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

it may be the case that we’ve all grown sick of this film theatre technology thing, but i think there’s more in there yet. We started with Grant’s rant (hey that rhymes) on film, Lar shifted the discussion to technology and packaging, and now its my turn, and since its my prerogative to lead this discussion for now, i choose to venture into the realm of theatre.

Disclaimer: you are getting an essay on theatre from a practioner of theatre, an essay on water from a fish. read at your own discretion

so, the 64,000 dollar question: what is theatre? Well, it depends on who you talk to, i guess. The fact is that people have been doing theatre for at least 2,500 years (that we know of) and probably longer than that, each culture with a different approach, a different methodology, and a different aesthetic. I will try to boil it down to a very basic definition, so for my (our) purposes in this discusssion, theatre is: a perfomative art involving two groups: Actors performing for an Audience.
Lets break that down even more. First, I said theatre is a performative art. That is true, but also not complete. There are many performative arts that are not theatre-rituals, sports, concerts, performance art, so what sets theatre apart from these performative arts? should theatre be separated from these performance arts? There is now a field of study called performance study: it concerns itself not only with theatre, dance, ritual, etc, but really every aspect of life, from the ritual of putting on your shoes in the morning to the ritual of laying dead people into the ground. How does theatre distinguish itself from these?
Lets go back to my definition. I said theatre is a performative art with two groups: actor and audience. This differs from ritual, were the performative art is not given for an audience, but the audience is directly participating in the performance. Thus a ritual is a performative art with only one group, the actors, being led by a priest/shaman/minister. I would also like to differentiate between performers and actors. I would like to define actors as someone/thing portraying/playing a role, while a performer is someone who is partaking in a performance as themselves. This definition then distignuishes theatre from music concerts and sporting events.
You may have noticed that I did not mention anything about directors, sets, theatre buildings, or stages. That is because I believe they are not an essential part of theatre. Though in our modern, western idea of theatre, we expect those elements to be there, the reality is, in the over history of theatre, those things are pretty new. The idea of a director is really only about 100 years old, sets are maybe 5-600 years old, dedicated theatre building are about the same, and the stage (as we concieve of it) has been around for a long time, but the idea of a 4th wall, a separation between stage and audience is only 150 or years old.
What I’m getting at is that the majority of Modern westerners have a pretty limited concept of what theatre is/has been/can be.

I want to talk more about theatre and its relationship to film. Previously i said it was comparing apples to oranges, but perhaps that is a bad analogy. A better analogy would be comparing a baker to a sushi chef. Both make food. both use a similar language and knowledge in the making of food. both use similar tools, both go to culinary school, and both work in kitchens. However, the two have very separate skills set and methodology for creating their specialties. A professional sushi chef could probably bake a cake, and a professional baker could probably make a tuna roll, but if you want some blowfish, you’re probably gonna want a sushi master to make, not a baker.
Theatre and film have many similarities. They use actors to tell stories, they have a similar language, a similar aesthetic, and lots of crossovers; but i still feel that there is a larger gap between the two then is immediately obvious.

I think what causes us to think they are the same or at least very similar is the fact that film actors and directors often work in theatre and vice versa. It is easy to assume then, that acting for the stage and acting for film is closely related, if not the same. i think, however, that the techniques for acting on the stage and techniques for acting on film are vastly different. Film actors have made forays onto the theatre stage, but when they do, they use a different set of skills. some are good at both, depending on the style, but most excell much more at one or the other. I can speak more on this later, if you are interested, but not i want to respond more to some other people’s thoughts:

Film is, no doubt, theatre without spatial or temporal constraints. if you mean that the actually performance of a play has spatial and temporal constraints, then i agree, film is better at overcoming the constraints of a specific performance. However, if you are meaning that the medium itself has spatial or temporal constraints, then i have to disagree. Or at least, i don’t believe that film has less spatial or temporal constraints than theatre. Both are only as limited as the audience makes them.

I agree that theatre has elements that film does not. But film encompasses more of the many art forms which art forms are you speaking of here? I can’t think of any art forms used in film not used in theatre. maybe you can speak more to this

Also, camera angles allow the audience to see things from different perspectives. I think this is something theatre can also do quite well, although most mainstream commercial theatre productions don’t play with it as much as they could. If you look at the work of Jerzy Grotowski, for example, you can see more of the potential of theatre for playing with perspective. He plays with setting and the interaction between audience and actor alot. In one production, the audience members sit at a banquet table while the action of the play occurs on the tables. In another, a large wooden cube was constructed. The actors acted out the play within the cube, while the audience watched through small slits around the top of the cube, forcing them to become voyuers. Also, if you look at the work of Julie Taymor, or anyone with a training in shadow puppetry, you can see how theatre uses puppets and masks of varying sizes and scales to create filmic wide shots or closeups. In fact, a lot of people think that early film makers borrowed heavily from the vocabularly of shadow puppetry for making films. Check out Lotte Reiniger.

And the use of montage, cutting from one shot to the next to further story and to create unlikely and often unconscious associations is an interesting exploration of the dream state. I’m gonna agree with you here. This is where film really excells. Film is about the director and the editor. Theatre is about the actor, and in some genres, the playwright.

I am a theatre person, whatever that means. But I also really like film and television. And I think both are vitally important for different reasons. Its just a matter of each medium to find what it excels at to push the boundaries as far as it can. In my opinion, there is nothing worse than a play that tries to be a film or a film that tries to be a play (although, i’m not able to think of any examples of the latter, buti’m pretty sure it would be awful.)

a 45 minute rant

2006-12-04T23:26:00.000-08:00

I will give myself 15 minutes as well. It seems fun. Plus, that is all the time I have…it’s been a late night of baking Sinterklaas goodies for tomorrow and I must sleep soon.

But I also want to do so to carry out the feel of this discussion and to continue the discussion. This mostly because I have a lot more questions to ask. This perhaps isn’t the essence of what we are trying to do here, but I am being a little Socratic, I guess, and hoping that you all will continue the discussion and give me the answers.

This string of questions is a continuation of Grant’s last post and the ensuing discussion, and of my further recent Heidegger readings. What is film? What is the stage? What is the relationship between the two? How does technology affect this relationship? What are the goals of each? How does technology affect these goals? What is technology? Who cares? That was sort of the Uzi version of the Socratic method, but those are the sorts of questions I want to ask.

And let me just make a few other statements. First off, I think Adam is quite the little genius. I’m pretty sure that his “I think the more popular film becomes, the more relevant theatre will be” comment pretty accurately describes what Heidegger is trying to say in his essay on technology. Also, I think that there are very “reformational” overtones to what Heidegger is saying (don’t worry, I know we copied him). Ideas like allusivity in art are brought forth in Heidegger’s statement that art is “bringing-forth of the true into the beautiful.” I can think of no better definition of allusivity in its Seerveldian sense or of a good poem or a good play—or a good film for that matter. Doesn’t Billy Collins just drip of this? Bringing forth the true into the beautiful. Wow, I really like that.

But I digress...What is film? What is the stage? What is the relationship between the two? I don’t know and don’t really even want to venture an opinion. But I will because really, I won’t be wrong, I’ll just be an asshole. My previous explanations of film were obviously brief. Film is, no doubt, theatre without spatial or temporal constraints. Not that theatre actually has these constraints…they just must be imagined away a little more. I think that the two are in reality very close of kin. The closest. I think they are both art forms, even if they are simply meant to “entertain.” I think they both strive toward a goal of bringing forth the true into the beautiful. Or ugly as often the case is, but nonetheless, allusive. But how can we really understand the difference?

Consider this quote from Heidegger’s technology essay, “That challenging (of technology) happens in that energy concealed in nature is unlocked, what is unlocked is transformed, what is transformed is stored up, what is stored up is, in turn, distributed, and what is distributed is switched about ever anew.” And another, “The forester who, in the wood, measures the felled timber and to all appearances walks the same path in the same way as did his grandfather is today commanded by profit-making in the lumber industry, whether he knows it or not. He is made subordinate to the orderability of cellulose…”

So my 15 minutes is long up, but I haven’t really gotten to my point yet. I, in my ever vigilant “I hate the man and all the greed implicit in the man’s actions” state of mind had my ears perked here. Of course, I can’t explain this essay in a line, but two should suffice…technology is, according to Heidegger, a way to bring into being that which is not currently in being. Art is technology (and was in Greece) as well as modern technology. But modern technology has—due to it’s basis in mathematical physics (there is a game of which came first here)—an ordering sense about it. Who begat whom I don’t know, but modern technology summons out of the earth everything that is, tests it’s abilities in the laboratory, orders its power and stores it up for future use.

What seems to me is occurring isn’t so much a downfall of science and physics as an exact mathematical discipline or of controlled experiments to unlock the secrets of nature, but rather an intermingling of economics—doing the least with the most—and science. There is no pure science today. It is all bought and sold. Why do chemistry PhD students get buko assistanceships at any university they attend? Why are our universities so overwhelmed with engineers and science nerds? Why do we demand a certain level of mathematical knowledge out of our second graders? Because science mixed with capitalism produces technology that makes money. I should say that this isn’t Heidegger’s claim at all, but rather my own which is implied by various statements he makes.

The first quote I gave was in a discussion about hydro-electric dams on the Rhine. The river is harnessed, ordered, kept in storehouses, and sold. The same is true of the woodsman in the second quote.

And just look at those words in the first quote. Do they not really get at the essential difference between film and stage? Energy (acting) is unlocked (which also happens on stage and is perhaps the essence of art), but then it is transformed via cameras and mics and whatnot into celluloid or 1s and 0s, what is transformed is stored up in warehouses for blockbuster, best buy, and netflix, which is in turn distributed to chumps like us, where it is switched over anew via lasers and processors and tubes or liquid crystal displays.

Is that not the key difference between film and stage? That science with a certain economic propulsion has taken the stage, stored it up, and distributed it?

That is perhaps a little too sarcastic. But I don’t really have the time or energy to come to any other conclusions. Let me end with this. Heidegger quotes a poet who says the following “But where danger is, grows, the saving power also.” His conclusion is that technology which was viewed by the Greeks as both fine arts and handcraft is by modern people only thought of as the later. We moderns or post-whatevers need to marry the two again in order to not loose track of where technology is going. I think this can be done in two ways. Either as Adam says…in other words, through an emphatic support of the live stage where visceral reality plays with truth and beauty, or through the production of film that understands it’s goal is to use technology to convey truth into beauty in an innovative way. I think we as a tiny little community understand and appreciate both of these aspects of a second understanding of technology. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that most Americans see neither as important. Which is why the makers of the best films and those whose lives are on stage rarely see the financial compensation that is received by those who let themselves be transformed, stored up, distributed, and retransformed indiscriminately. That was more like 45 minutes.

Mental Projection Experiment

2006-11-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try this experiment. 15 minutes of lightly edited free-form thinking about film. Think of it as a projection of my mental goings-on in written words on the screen. Ready...go:

The film image is holy, like Jesus as the incarnate image of God. At least that's what Andrei Tarkovsky believes. When you watch his films you feel his Greek Orthodox worshipfulness in the slow movement of the camera, the reflective timing. It's akin to the first images of film that I saw this week--the first ever moving images of Thomas Edison and Lumiere. There is such a magic and wonder in those images. We look at them and imagine what it must have been like the first time photographs "came to life". That's how Tarkovsky's films are. A stark contrast from our friend, Paul Schrader, the Calvin grad who wasn't allowed to watch movies, play cards or dance until he was 17. Now what kind of images does a person like that make? Well, he makes dark, gritty, seedy images that seem kind of dirty. He makes movies like Hard Core, Taxi Driver, and Auto Focus. He still thinks film is kind of dirty. And he likes seeing his characters taken from places like Grand Rapids and thrown into the underbelly of our world. Oh, and I forgot to mention Last Temptation of Christ. Jesus coming down from the dignified cross to mingle with sex and children. I like both Tarkovsky and Schrader for different reasons. But film is more than that. It is holy and it is human. It is also operating on our unconscious. This is David Lynch's territory. He...six minutes have past...that's not a very long time in terms of the mechanical clock...but it feels long psychologically...ok...just keep going...see the experiment through to the end. Don't give in to the temptation to just type words to fill space and waste time. So...He... David Lynch sees film as a dream. I didn't really get this until I saw Eraserhead and realized that everytime you see the opening of curtains in a David Lynch film, you're entering a dream-state. Remember the red curtains in Twin Peaks? Remember the "Silencio" section in Mulholland Drive? And so then I started looking at Lost Highway, the strange narrative where a character changes into a different person while in prison and then has to be released--you can't keep a person in jail if he's no longer the same person you put in jail in the first place. So the film is all in his head. And in David Lynch's head. And in our heads. It's a nightmare. It's what Hitchcock was getting at in Vertigo. When the beautiful blond says "You'll never have me", we are struck in the face with an ominous sound, the closing of a door. And we're trapped in our dream-like state. Fortunately, for us, we can wake up out of this dream. Lynch lets us off the lost highway after a couple of hours. But I still want in. I go back to it over and over again like a person possessed. I mean obsessed. I really really like film. And it gets under my skin more and more every year, the more good films I see. I think it's the single greatest invention in the last century (maybe since the mechanical clock) and the greatest art form. Times up. I'm going to keep going. P.S. Inspiration needs a mechanical clock to tick tick tick at the periphery of your vision on the computer screen or attached to the wrist. But it's a good thing to ignore too. I prefer to follow the timing of film, to jump from one scene to the next, to move about in time at the slightest new association that arises in my conscious or subconscious. Film will be my clock. Film will be my clock.

Remix

2006-11-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. What say we go to every other week? Something like:

1st Sunday: Adam
1st Tuesday: Matt
1st Thursday: Grant
2nd Monday: Lar
2nd Thursday: Ethan

(Chris has said he can't go for the scheduled thing. He'll throw something into the mix every now and then.)

That should leave plenty of time for responses, but still some structure.

Sound good?

money money money money...money

2006-11-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

We seem to be going down a little environmental course here, which is a good thing. It is good to open up the discussion about what the studies show and who is to blame and where we should be going. But something seems to be missing. What can I do? What can poor kids like ourselves (I presume the rest of you are “poor” by American standards as well). I am not in the market for a new car, electric or otherwise, and I hopefully won’t be for several years. And so much of the cradle to cradle stuff is only a hypothetical argument at this point in the game—great stuff to drive toward, but hardly accessible. So what can we do?

There are of course, a lot of options, but what I am going to propose is quite possibly the simplest. A lot of the info comes from the book Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth, and is based on the fact that the first R is reduce.

If you haven’t heard of this book, the author Jim Merkel begins by promoting the idea of footprint, or how many acres of earth it takes to support your lifestyle. The average American requires 24 acres (he has formulas and numbers to figure all this out). If the world were completely equal, each person would have 4.7 acres—and that’s just people and not other animals who have a right to space as well. After going into detail about the footprint idea, Merkel sets about the challenge of convincing Joe 24 acre to pare down his lifestyle so that he uses about 1/5 the amount of resources that he previously did.

The most obvious way to look at this is to look at money. If I spend less, I will most likely consume less. Consider this chart Merkel includes in the book:

$100,000+ 40-60 acres
50,000-100,000 30-50 acres
30,000-50,000 35-40 acres
25,000-30,000 20-30 acres
20,000-25,000 18-22 acres
15,000-20,000 14-20 acres
10,000-15,000 12-18 acres
5,000-10,000 5-15 acres

There is obviously some leeway here. If you spend more money to buy locally, you will have used less of a footprint because there isn’t as much transportation cost involved. The same could be said of buying organic or making other more expensive but less consumptive choices. But in reality, everything you buy is tied up into a larger web of consumption. I don’t know if any one else checked out that report that Matt gave us a link to, but if it showed one thing it is that every purchase we make has a much wider ecological footprint than we often assume. It may be better to buy a locally produced (American) SUV that will last for 20 years with fewer repairs than a hot new hybrid that was made in and subsequently transported from Japan. And that is just the tip of the iceberg that that 500 page document talked about (don’t worry, I didn’t read it all).

So let me get to the meat (or perhaps the rice) of what I am trying to say. The connection between footprint and money has more to do with spending than earning, so I am not so much concerned with how much you earn. But I am concerned with how much you spend. After reading this book—and before actually, one thing running a small business does for you is teach you the importance of keeping tight books—I made a strong effort to keep track of all my spending in an old fashioned ledger. Becca and I keep all our receipts and keep track of all our spending for the year.

It makes you stop and think. Looking back on a month and seeing that the two of us spent $400 on coffee and cigarettes and booze makes one look twice. Was that really necessary consumption? How much of my footprint is going to produce luxury items? The food budget and gas budget can often be the same way. Did we really need to go out for sushi twice last week?

I don’t know how many of you keep track of your spending, but it is a great exercise in fiscal responsibility (as politicians always say). And from there, it makes it easier to do a little fiscal fasting, to tie this in to what Adam discussed. What did we spend on clothes last year? Do we really need to continue spending that much? Maybe we should set our sights lower next year.

Tightening your belt can seem like such a “Dutch” thing to do, but really it has just as much to do with being a responsible fellow human as it does with saving for the future. When we spend less, we consume less. When we keep track of our spending, we spend less. We make choices to eat lower on the food chain because rice and beans are cheaper than chicken, but also because it takes less land to produce. We choose to bike rather than drive because it costs less, but also because it saves some gas for someone else who may need it. Spending less is a moral decision and a selfless one. No, it is less than that—spending less is a less selfish decision. It doesn’t take a super-Christian to see that there are so many who can’t even make these decisions. They live on less because they have to. Spending less isn’t selfless, it is only less greedy.

Some fasting

2006-11-12T21:04:00.000-08:00

So. Fasting. It can help your system to detoxify, give you a little jump start, clear your mind, heal diseases, even ease allergies. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen, Paracelsus, and Hippocrates all used and believed in fasting therapy. It's recommended throughout history, and heck--animals even do it naturally when they're sick. It's good for many aspects of health, and really can be a perfect way to lose a little bit of weight. A friend of mine literally dropped his love handles with a couple of weeks of healthy eating followed by a week-long fast.

It's considered a discipline in many religions. In the Muslim tradition, during the holy month of Ramadan, a "good Muslim" is forbidden to eat during the day. At sundown, directly after prayers, a "snack" called Iftar is eaten. Iftar usually consists of special foods made mostly during Ramadan specifically for this occasion. When I was in Bangladesh, Iftar was mostly deep fried foods made of potatoes, beans, eggplant and some sweets. Man was Iftar food good. Often during Ramadan people stay up at night and sleep more during the day. (Hence sort of defeating the purpose of a daytime fast if you ask me, but . . . whatever.) Special emphasis is placed on giving to the poor during Ramadan. Indeed, the very purpose of the holy month was to remember the poor. Ultra-pious Muslims don't drink water during the fast, and some even say one should not swallow one's own saliva.

In other traditions, of course, fasting is just about not eating for a while, or drinking only fruit juice. There are a million varieties, I've found. The most popular are the water fast (drinking only water), the Detox or Cleanse fast (adding in lemon juice, maple syrup/honey, some herbs), the juice fast (fruit or veg juice--this one is less intense and still helps a lot with detox), the raw foods fast (only raw fruit, veg, maybe some nuts and baked chicken or fish), and the vegetarian diet (which is what it sounds like) I'm laying out the kind of fast I want to do, and here's what I've settled on:

-About a half gallon of water a day
-Fresh lemon juice squeezed into it a few times (cleans out your digestive systerm)
-Cayenne pepper (helps the circulatory system)
-Garlic
-Just a little bit of flax seed meal (it's pure fiber so it helps you poop out those toxins)
***A little bit of maple syrup or honey in your drink helps keep those blood sugar levels at a reasonable level to keep you from passing out or functioning at a lower level.
-Very little exercise--it'll just burn muscle.
-No caffeine, alcohol, drugs, etc.
-A hot shower or two each day, scrubbing well to clean the toxins off of the skin.

It takes about 4-6 days for the hunger and dizziness to pass, after which one usually feels a certain mental clarity and stable feeling. A nice "detox fast" like the one I mentioned above is recommended about every 8 months.

To be sure, you can get skin rashes or even boils, feel lightheaded, have trouble with your stools, be a bitch (irritable), get nauseous, or even have real live medical problems that would require hospitalization. Naturally some websites say you should only fast after consulting your doctor. Meh.

I also ran across something called Ayurvedic Body type, an Eastern medicine concept of 3 different doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. If your fast isn't quite so hardcore--ie., you're still eating some foods--considering which body type you are can guide your food selection. Of particular interest to me was how these characterize people. It's like a Type A versus Type B sort of thing, only with different criteria. I took 3 quizzes for my own Ayurvedic body type, and found that I'm a definite cross between Vata and Pitta (which is okay: some people are split between two). If you'd like a little primer on this stuff, look here for a simple little page that tells about it. There are a million different foods recommended for each body type, so I'll just reference that page here instead of listing them in this post.

Fasting is a good time to focus on stuff that usually gets left behind: Thinking, meditating, cleaning, sitting in the sun, breathing fresh air. And when you break a fast, you should break it gradually, starting with just fruit, then a few vegetables, some tame solid foods like rice and beans, maybe some bread, and only after you've been really kind to your now-tiny and sensitive stomach for at least a day or two can you go back to eating like you used to.

Here's a page on this that's really long, but chock full of good stuff.

Much more out there on this topic. But consider it, especially if you don't always eat great or have some sort of health problem.

2006-11-12T03:29:00.000-08:00

who killed the electric car?

2006-11-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

okay, so i'm sure, since everyone on this blog is hip minded and up on things, you are aware that recently a film came out called "who killed the electric car" and that it is about the scandal surrounding GM pulling the EV1 from production and things of that nature. Some of you have probably seen it. Some of you probably know more about this subject than I do. But i like to write about things I don't know alot about, so that i can learn more about them. And I have discovered that this electric car thing goes way deeper than i thought.
So:
Electric Cars are usually refered to as BEVs (battery electric vehicles, as opposed to ICEs or internal combustion engines.) nothing groundbreaking there. But here's something interesting: electric cars are more energy efficient than all internal combustion engines. Gas powered engines are about 25% efficient, diesel engines are 40%, and electric cars are 95% efficient. Something else i didn't know: most electric cars are capable of acceleration performance exceeding that of conventional ICE cars, and they can now travel hundreds of miles on a single charge (sorry for the ambiguity, i'm taking most of this from wikipedia)
Other interesting facts:
the first "crude electric carriage" was invented by scottish businessman Robert Anderson sometime between 1832 and 1839.
France and Great Britian were the first nations to support the widespread developement of electric vehicles
Prior to 1900 many speed and distance records were held by electric cars
April 29 1899, Camille Jenatzy reached a top speed of 105.88 km/h (65.79 mph) in he EV La Jamias Contente.

Good ol' tommy edison standing next to an electric car in 1913
early electric cars were marketed to women because they were clean and quiet (just like women are suppose to be, am i right? am i right?)
i apologize for that.

so why didn't the electric car catch on? Three reasons: the electric starter, the radiator, and henry ford. These made the ICE much cheaper and more practical than EVs
The electric Car pretty much dissappeared by the 30s and it wasn't until the 80s and 90s that advances in technology made it possible to produce affordable efficient electric car.
so why aren't we all driving electric cars now? Turns out the patent for NiMH (Nickel-metal Hydride) batteries is currently owned by you guessed it, Chevron. Which means that the most practical batteries for powering EV are controlled by an oil company. They no longer allow anyone to use NiMH batteries except in Hybrid Vehicles which are at least 50% powered by gasoline.
Most european countries give tax exemptions and special priviledges to people who own electric cars, only california and arizona do the same
the saturn EV1
The big problem with electric cars is the range per charge: most can't go further thatn 120-ish miles without re-charging. The good news: newer developements in Lithium ion batteries give them ranges equivalent to ICE cars. The Bad News, Lithium Ion batteries use hazardous chemicals to be made.
From what i can find, it seems like their are lot of electric vehicles available and many more scheduled for production.

i can't speak about the "cradle to grave" impact of electric cars, but according to
driveclean.ca.gov, electric vehicles reduce pollutants by more than 90 percents when compared to the cleanest conventional gasoline powered vehicles, even when factoring in the emissions from power plants generating the electricity to charge the vehicle, and by driving an electric car for a 30-mile commute, you can reduce gasoline consumption by an estimated 750 gallons annually.

so there's a lot more out there on electric cars, and i really didn't address the whole controversy of the removal of the EV1 from the market and all that, so i'd love to hear more.

The Enemy

2006-11-09T13:06:00.000-08:00

Recent political activity has me all fidgety and combative lately. It's not uncommon for me to carry on one-sided conversations with my television, but I find myself shouting out retorts to various talking heads much more around election time. Political dialogue leaves me feeling kind of lonely, not in a "woe is me" pity-party kind of way. I just feel like my point of view is under-represented. Supposedly our society has opened up the great dialogue to all the marginalized groups that have been ignored for so long, but I find myself asking "Where is the voice of my people?" The frustration is increased when I realize I don't even know who my people are.

I find myself in some strange no-man's land where certain well-defined categories such as Republican, Democrat, Terrorist, American, Christian, Academic, Artist, Punk, Goth etc. are used to identify people. It must be admitted, such labels often serve their purpose very well. I'm not so narrow-minded to think it's possible to move about in this world without putting names on things. We absolutely can't resist naming things because the very things themselves demand to be gathered together under some kind of classification (mountains, tree, animal, human being etc.). I don't really have a problem with being labeled--in fact it would be quite a relief to be able to use a few choice words in describing myself. I often envy those who have the luxury of always voting with their party, of calling themselves a doctor or a lawyer or a nurse, of agreeing with all the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

Probably one of the biggest perks of fitting a specific label is being able to share a common enemy. The Conservatives have their Liberals. The Terrorists have their Infidels. America has its evil-doers. Christianity has its anything-that-isn't-Christian. It's great to be able to blast the enemy with a group of friends and laugh derisively at the stupidity of the other side. But when I hear the different groups stating their case, I often find myself going "Now she's got a good point there" and "Well I'd never thought of it that way". As a result, I am denied the sublime pleasure of having that particular enemy because I see my own limitations in the other group's strengths and I see the strengths of my own group (which is yet to be determined) in the other group's weaknesses. Is this what Jesus meant by "Love your neighbor as yourself"? or is this the truth of Kit's "It takes all kinds" in Terrence Malick's Badlands? Or is my uncertainty merely the result of a liberal education that says exploring cause and effect relationships is the way to uncover the truth of any situation in any and every field of study?

Let's explore the liberal education possibility. We should begin with the conflict between Fundamentalism and Liberalism since it is one of the great conflicts in America and I think we can see its expression not only in the Right-wing Republican vs. Liberal Democrat division but also the terrorist vs. infidel equation. The high point of the Fundamentalism vs. Liberalism drama is of course the Scopes Trial where Christians got stamped as unscientific ignorami and Liberals became the harbingers of a God-less culture based on human Reason. Liberalism, first in the form of Liberal Theology, spread to every area of academic life in America, which meant that other ways of knowing like intuition, religion, art were put aside in favor of scientific cause and effect knowing. Technological advances seemed to support Liberalism's idea that all things scientific are good for society and the scientific method could then be trusted for psychology, economics, politics, history as well as religion (which now could be defined as an object-to-be-studied rather than a motivating force in all human activity).

Now I didn't go to a secular university so presumably I should not be affected by this Liberalization of the academic world. But I think it's precisely because I went to a school that sees itself somewhere between these two conflicting ideologies in America that I have inherited the same sense of ideological homelessness. I do see America as split between these two Spirits. Many Americans are comfortable being within one or the other, but I am not.
So who are my people? I'm not always entirely comfortable with those in my own denomination or Reformed heritage. And even if I was, I don't see tangible evidence of them in our media culture. This vacuum is filled, then, by voices both Christian and non-Christian, but I think I could probably categorize them this way: they are the ones who resist the totalizing embrace of science. And they are often found in art, postmodern philosophy, Christian mysticism, rock'n'roll, non-academic discourse, film etc. And they are not wimps about it. They don't just lay down their beliefs to be run over by the dominant ideologies of culture. They fight the big battles.

One of my favorite writings of Martin Heidegger is his "The Question Concerning Technology" in which Heidegger tries to reveal the essence of technology in a post WWII world where technology had done its worst. Heidegger himself had been a member of the NAZI machine and you can sense his personal struggle with his own past and the condition of Europe at the time. What is so exciting about the essay is that he is tackling a problem as old as Western civilization and he's not afraid to challenge even the pillars of Aristotle's fame (the 4 causes). The essay begins by looking for the essence of technology within technology itself but ends up finding only ambiguity. Ambiguity, according to Heidegger, is the best possible place to end...because it is also a new beginning. Heidegger shows that science is not the alpha and omega in a world ruled by technology. We are still baffled by our own existence...and this is something we must always remember and always practice. Because as soon as we have achieved certainty about who we are and what the world really is, we have bought our own lie. It belongs to the realm of art to constantly remind us of the ambiguity of reality, to preserve the sense of wonder that science tries to explain away.

I'm not certain that Heidegger is "the voice of my people", but his voice is at least comforting for those of us in the no-man's land. It allows me to sit with the ambiguity of not quite fitting in a certain category. I also admire his life-long grappling with what it means to be human. I think there's something confessional about his work. And a confessional attitude is something that needs to be retrieved in America. I wonder what would happen if Liberalism were confessional, truly honest with itself. Would it recognize its own causal relationship with its enemy, Fundamentalism? There certainly would not have been a Fundamentalist movement if it weren't for the rise of Liberalism in the church (there probably wouldn't be a Kuyperian movement in the Netherlands either, for that matter). "If you need someone to blame, throw a rock in the air, you're bound to hit someone guilty."

So, I'm just going to leave it at that. You should be thankful I didn't give you the extended version about why I think Heidegger's essay is so great. Oh, and just because I made a half-assed defense of ambiguity does not mean I'm not willing to clarify a point here or there.

opportunistic design

2006-11-07T23:02:00.000-08:00

Being a student of Energy Management I have heard countless theories of future energy production, proposed effects of current energy production, and one too many Bush jokes over the past 7 weeks. I have heard about how we have reached “peak oil” and I have also heard about how we will never run out of power; I have heard how we are foolish not to bottle the natural methane that is uncovered and burnt off during oil drilling; I have heard how both nuclear and hydrogen are the way of the future (these are different camps if you didn’t guess that); I have heard argued that hybrids are better for the environment since they burn less gasoline and I have heard how the “dust to dust” cost of a hybrid is 50% higher than their non-hybrid counter parts. A large part of me is a believer in the free market and I feel that many of these things will play themselves out in the future. That was until someone started telling me about how much oil is subsidized by our government and how that makes for anything but a free market (so much for that pocket ace).

While I do not want to tell you for certain whether we will all drown or freeze in the next forty years, I do want to tell you a little about what William McDonough & Michael Braungart have to say in their book Cradle to Cradle.

This book is not just a proposed direction for the future it is a step in that very direction. No, it is not printed on 100% recycled (i.e. down-cycled) paper it is printed on a synthetic 'paper,' made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers. Side note: In order to recycle paper we must bleach away the ink (typically containing heavy and toxic metals) and add stabilizers (as the pulp is weakened by the process) which is only delaying its return to the ground and in a worse state once it does get there. This book is more than that; it is different that that. The material this book is printed on is not only water proof (nice party trick) but can be used to create another book at the end of its life without weakening the material. McDonough envisions a synthetic material that can be washed of its ink with high temperature water leaving both the ink and ‘paper’ to be used again. This material, along with others like it, would spend countless cycles in the production world never ending up in the ground. Electronic companies would sell “life cycles” instead of products. Customers would buy a tv for a set period of time (10,000 viewing hours for instance) at the close of which it would be returned to the company, who would be responsible for deconstructing the unit and reusing the metals and plastics in their future models. No longer would recycling plants be forced to find a use for packaging that, left alone, outlives its contents by 100 years or more (laundry soap for example), or high tech metals covered in paint forcing them to melt it with the low tech metals surrounding them, rendering both degraded (cars for example). Companies would design their products with the full life cycle in mind (from cradle to cradle).

Along the same lines the “monster hybrid” that cloth and clothing have become (part organic and part synthetic; shoes are one of the worst) leave us with an item that can neither be safely burned or buried and has no useful function at the end of its life. He sets up the cherry tree as an example of what this half of our manufacturing world could be like: the tree each season creates its own food, surplus food (fruit), covering, cooling, as well as an environment for other life. When the leaves and uneaten fruit fall off each autumn no one speaks a word about waste or pollution (while some may speak of nuisance). We all recognize that these items have served their purpose and are part of a greater system. Yet somehow we sit at tables where it is common to hope for: using something just one more time before we throw it ‘away’, creating ‘fewer’ chemical compounds that future generations will fear, and releasing ‘less’ toxic substances into the air and water systems that we have no idea how to ever get back out.

Some good friends had a baby a couple months back and Baby Bandstra was over visiting last night (she was kind enough to bring her parents along as well). At one point in the evening she had a small carpet fiber hanging from the corner of her mouth and instead of wondering if it taste bad and laughing (as I might have if I had found her eating a small insect) I wondered if the dyes and synthetic materials would make her ill, if future tests would find chemical compounds in her muscles and bones, or if her newly forming neurons would be effected by the toxins. Toxins that will certainly still be kicking around when she is old enough to have children, if she is ever able to.

dualistic duel

2006-11-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

It all began in a rather mundane way. Walking home after a long day of pouring lattes I noticed something hanging from my doorknob. Thinking it was the usual political tripe the local candidates have been passing around (Did you know that John Astel cares more about immigrants than our own soldiers?) I was going to toss it, until I saw the picture of the harlequin riding the beast with seven heads and ten horns.
It was a tract from the local chapter of the Jehovah’s Witnesses describing true religion and false religion. Frankly, I think they were right about a lot of things, i.e. true religion practices love for one’s neighbor etc. (Jehovah’s Witnesses are pacifists). And something else struck me…true religion does not teach that when the body dies the soul goes to heaven. In other words, according to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, there is no dichotomy of body and soul in the human person.

Suddenly I was transported back to C1whatever and I heard the voice of Wayne Kobes, “You are a body, you are a soul. You do not have a body and a soul.” This was our theology 101 class at Dordt, and one of the main things that the professors were trying to get us to question was whether or not there was a little too much Plato in our traditional form of orthodox religion.

I am still asking those questions, and am asking them of you as well. What do we make of all this body/soul talk? It doesn’t help that I listen to too much bluegrass/Americana music or that out of my circle of Annapolis friends, one person may believe in Christian reincarnation and another believes pretty firmly in ghosts.

So I did a little more digging, since that seems the goal of this little project. The real question about the division between body and soul obviously comes up when discussing death, the afterlife, and what—if anything—happens in between. It is also tied up in discussions about fallen man and immortality. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, believe that there is simply one thing, human, and upon death the whole thing dies only to be resurrected upon the last day for judgment (144,000 get into heaven, a “great crowd” of believers get to live on the new earth, and unbelievers are obliterated). That seems like a pretty simple solution to the problem, and one that I think Kobes and other more contemporary Reformed Christian thinkers would give some credence to (not the bit about the 144,000).

But that is a long ways from orthodoxy. There have been many sorts of beliefs about the body and the soul in orthodox Christianity, and they all seem to be pretty tied to a Platonic form/matter sort of ideal. One sect in the early church, the Manicheans, believed that God created the soul and the devil created the body—this was the crew St. Augustine hung out with in between the making out with girls in church phase and the crying in the garden phase. And although those church fathers that the Reformed tradition celebrates—people like Augustine and later John Calvin—denounced this heresy, what the placed in its stead still seems pretty Greek.

I pulled out the old Institutes of Calvin for a closer look on what he had to say on the issue of the soul and the body. To counter people like the Manicheans, he claimed that both the body and the soul are utterly tainted by sin and in need of redemption. He also claimed that at the time of the resurrection, our own current bodies will be raised up and rejoined with our souls. What happens in the interim Calvin would not say—one nice aspect of Calvin was his refusal to speculate on things the Bible does not speak directly to.

In looking elsewhere in the institutes to places where Calvin talks about the creation of man instead of the resurrection of man, I found some more amusing insights. “Furthermore,” Calvin writes, “that man consists of a soul and a body ought to be beyond controversy.” This was, by his time, an assumption quite beyond. It is interesting to note that he does go on to discuss one area of “stupidly blundering” in waywardness is interpreting the word soul or spirit as breath, which is exactly how the Jehovah’s Witnesses explain it. Also interesting to note, the person who used this book before it came into my possession (Luke Schelhaas) has the word “Platonic” written in several places on the page and “dualism” in several others.

But it is hard to get around this dichotomistic ideal. After all, those of us who have been brought up in the church generally regard this body/soul split as a very real thing, and Calvin has plenty of Scripture references to back his claims. It is only recently that people have started to think more holistically about the human person in regards to both a normative way to live a life and a way to view the afterlife. In my limited experience, it seems that in certain circles the harps and gold streets and constant praise of Heaven has been replaced with the perpetual tending of a new Eden on a new earth. Humans were made for the world, and the world for humans, goes the logic, so it wouldn’t make sense to claim that this world is not our home, which had been the opinion for a long, long time.

Perhaps this doctrine of unity, of describing my self as a body and as a soul comes out of a theology of plenty. Does liberation theology express such a fondness for the world in which we live? Do the poor of this earth claim there is no heaven for their soul? To those in prison for their faith not tell guards they can harm their bodies but there soul is secure? Perhaps to think of it this way is indeed heresy, and Calvin was right?

I’m sorry if I bore those who aren’t Christians or are perhaps almost-Christians or something, but this is something that I have been thinking about lately. And frankly, I think the ideal of the body/soul is so engrained in American culture that it is inescapable to have some opinion on it from whatever religious background you come to this conversation. So, comment away.

My First Stab - AIDS stigma in Africa

2006-11-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

I was going to try and post about the real "Leather Apron Club" that Ben Franklin founded but couldn't find quite enough info quickly about it. So, while it's a bit of a downer, my first post is about AIDS stigma in Africa, since I'll be leaving for Zambia on the Peace Corps come January 1, 2007.

Ahem.

About 25 million people in Africa have AIDS. There are all kinds of statistics about percentages (anywhere from 2% of the population to over 30% in some countries has AIDS) and prognostications about what things will be like by 2010. As you'd imagine, none of them are favorable. But percentages and prognostications are easily available. What I'm interested in right now is starting to learn about how to fix it.

A lot of initiatives all over the continent have been successful at lowering the risk and effect of HIV infection. Unfortunately, the toll taken by AIDS is so taxing that even with all of the aid and resources devoted by the rest of the world, it's still spreading and the epidemic is growing. Last year 5 million people became infected--an all time high.

Why is it spreading so fast when all you have to do to prevent it is wear a condom or abstain from sex? One of the reasons is the stigma that surrounds becoming infected. This little essay is just a quick exploration of a few findings on that subject.

In South Africa, one of the nations with the highest percentage of infected people (as well as one of the nations most vulnerable to severe outbreaks), it's estimated that less than 10% of infected people know they are infected. It's bad to have AIDS, but it's worse if everyone in the village knows. The stigma surrounding the disease is absolutely immense. Many businesses won't hire you if you have AIDS, and utilize covert and sneaky methods for finding out if you are infected. It is known as a disease only carried by people who are immoral. It is also popularly known as a punishment from God. Cut'n'pasted from PLoS Magazine (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020247):

"Under the influence of western missionaries, many African Christian organizations still promote evangelical formulae in which, it is taught, creation was originally good, but then the “fall” of humankind occurred, which is bad, and finally, redemption is available only for the chosen. This theological approach warrants valorizing or stigmatizing people as “saved” or “sinner,” “pure” or “impure,” “us” or “them,” and it strengthens the broader social stratifications within which stigma flourishes. What is weakened is the opportunity to apply healing insights from the rich Christian legacy of compassion, liberation, and hope [20]."

A few things that struck me: In South Africa, the obituaries never mention AIDS, even though every day there are scads of entries for people in their 30's and 40's. And get this: Research by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that among girls 15 to 19 years old, 70 percent in Somalia and more than 40 percent in Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone had never heard of AIDS.

In some dialects, a sexual disease is translated, "'woman's disease." Women often bear the brunt of the blame for the disease, and hence they get tested even less than men. About 58% of those carrying the disease are women. Even some moves by governments to curb the spread of the disease bear the marks of severe discrimination. In 2001 in South Africa the king announced a five-year sex ban for women of marriageable age. Young women may not wear pants and must wear a tassel signifying their virginity. This ruling is being promoted as an anti-AIDS move. Probably the most stark--and famous--example of stigma as it relates to women that I came across is the 1998 stoning to death of South African community volunteer Gugu Dlamini after she publicly disclosed her HIV status on World AIDS Day.

Now I understand why it was such a big deal for Barack Obama, on his recent trip to Africa, to make a highly publicized trip to a testing facility. As Common would say, "Knowing is beautiful." Shedding stigma and getting tested for infection is a mammoth and essential task for Africa today.

***

There is SO MUCH to learn about AIDS stigma in Africa, I've not even scratched the surface here. I'll probably post more about this down the road. But for now, there's my first post.

The Concept

2006-11-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

Here's the gist:

Learning is good. Conversation is good. Accountability is good. Community is good. Some of us miss having more of these in college, some of us are better with a few than others, some of us are sorely lacking in one or two, and some of us just want to share what we've got while sharpening it at the same time. But we all like these things. Information is ridiculously available these days--you could educate yourself about anything from lobster fishing to Tokyo night life with nothing more than a computer and a little cable that plugs into your wall. Or a library card. Possibly a few tapes of Jeopardy! reruns.

So the learning part is easy--or at least it's easily accessible. But we all live in different situations and the other three good things come a little bit harder. That infrequent, occasional late-night conversation over coffee or beer just doesn't cut it.

So, let's get together, set up a schedule, and share what we find. Every week on your respective day, do a little bit of research, write something up, and post it. We'll read it and if a dicussion arises, well that's just nice. Write about anything you want to, so long as you care about it and you've done a bit of research. It could be a piece about a book you've been reading, a paper you're working on, something related to your career, or just something you're curious about.

Right now, Adam's got Sunday, Lar's got Monday, Matt's got Tuesday, (skip Wednesday for now) Grant's got Thursday, Ethan's got Friday, and Chris has Saturday. If anyone else is interested in contributing, just let someone know.

The blog name, by the way, is a reference to the "Leather Apron Club," Ben Franklin's weekly pub meeting where he and his friends did something similar to what we're doing here, except they didn't have mouse pads.

Here we go. Let the sweet semi-academic goodness begin.

Test Post

2006-11-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

This is a Test Post.