For Dreux.
...
You said a word that was a key
& the key found a scar,
& the scar touched a nerve,
& the nerve led to a memory,
& the memory was a night,
& the night was a crossroad,
& the crossroad was a dream,
but the dream had no sleeper.
My eyes opened on a wood,
in the wood was a garden,
in the garden was a bench,
on the bench I sat
& she sat with me;
we held each other,
while we fell to piece,
& the piece kept falling
until there was no bench,
until there was no me,
until there was no her.
My eyes opened on a heart-shaped face,
irises flecked with green,
red lips anxiously quivering.
You said a word that was a key,
& the word found a lock,
& the lock was a scar,
& the scar was a nerve,
& the nerve was a memory,
& the memory was a door;
through the memory was a path,
& the path went through me,
& the path was unlit,
but I heard you,
& your words were a light,
& your words were a tether,
& your words were a key.
...
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I have tried to resist sentimentality, to really struggle against it Simultaneously, this does seem to capture the materiality and the empirical experience of this particular moment. I'm reticent to even post this; it might communicate more than I wish to say, but all words are burdened with that potential. Structurally, there is a simplicity that I wanted to work with immediately, a simplicity that carries into rhythm. This might be as close as a I can right now to just a string of nouns attempting to communicate a story (word, memory, door, night, crossroad; wood, garden, bench, her; face, eyes, lips; key, lock, memory, door, path, light, tether, key).
In addition, there are two memories that became (or were revealed to be) intertwined. These women are distinct, but the memories were experienced in an odd unison (a sharedness that irritates for its suggestions about these rather different circumstances). That said, to capture the reality of that immediate experience, I have compressed them just as I experienced them.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Body, Image, Photography, Propriety
I have been seeing someone--in a romantic sense that is--for a few months now. She is sharp, playful, genuine, straightforward, and in many ways a complete delight. Only now am I no longer regularly surprised by the clarity of communication, the eagerness for understanding, and the affectionate space constantly expanded to make sense of each other's thoughts and feelings. In addition, she regularly pushes herself to try out the unfamiliar; in the commonplace by tasting unfamiliar food and drink, or by the more anxious such as posing for nude photography.
This, I might add, is what inspires my thoughts and has preoccupied them for a few days.
My immediate response to Dreux being interested was fairly neutral: if she's interested in it, then do it. This isn't surprising in that I pride myself in being supportive of my partners and friends, especially when it is clear that the goal; for Dreux this would be exploring some of the uncomfortable and anxiety-producing space that captivates here. It wouldn't be that different from trying rock climbing out or--if the mood took her and the morality were appropriate--a game hunt. She wants to know what that that world feels like for her, how might it feel for others. This is one reason, or I like to think anyway, that I am so captivated by her and that she is so concerned with high quality communication.
Up until Tuesday morning, this is more or less where I left my thoughts. That morning, Dreux was looking over the photographer's work: a gallery of women, nude and clothed, mostly in wooded settings, occasionally using some fabric or prop to highlight form and light in the image. It was perhaps only then that I realized there would be a photographer actually doing the photographer. I assumed--rightly, as it turned out--that the photographer was a man. The only other person I had considered up until this point was a friend of Dreux's, well-versed in modeling and actually making a career of it. Enough friends and friends of friends have done modeling that I shouldn't have been surprised, but I surprised myself by thinking exclusively of Dreux (with only minor consideration of her friend) as the agent in this photo shoot. The image, so to speak, got a little more interesting on Tuesday.
I admit that questions of trust come to mind. I trust Dreux, and because I do, I also trust the friend who arranged the photo shoot. Neither of them have worked with this photographer, thought that is more a matter of timing than anything. Where the question of trust, or perhaps distrust comes in, is why a photographer would work so explicitly in the female form as a medium for expression. Nudity, human form, the way light works over flesh, the interaction of curvilinear forms and the angular wooded settings, I can understand the richness of such a medium. What happens (or what happened in my mind as Dreux showed me the photographer's work) was the appropriation of these women's image by the photographer. I think Dreux reflected on this as she spoke with the photographer over the phone, realizing that these images of her would not be hers.
This distinction, being of but not owned by that person, is what is most interesting and problematic. There will be release forms and contracts, just as there might be for documenting a campus event for the newspaper in which the photojournalist uses an image to tell the story of the article. What is different--or perhaps elsewhere on the same spectrum--is that the photographer isn't a journalist, he (in this case, though I do not pretend to speak in an exclusive manner) is constructing an image, a piece, a world, an exhibition with these bodies--these women's bodies--who are not his. Rather, through contract and direction, through light on film, chemical baths and dark rooms with glimmering red lights, these women have given him their bodies for use.
I think that Dreux's initial concern when she raised the topic to me--though she has not been explicit in confirming this--is that I would have some sense of proprietary about her participation. I think many partners--I want to default to men, but doubt that it is an exclusively masculine trait--would be unnerved in some way in this situation, musing in some form of, "Your body is something intimately given, intimately shared. To give your image a way is a breach (maybe a challenge of annulment) of that intimacy." This could be thought of as a "sympathetic" explanation of practices that conceal women's bodies from public places. In some ways, I understand Dreux's reasons enough to know that this is not the case; she is exploring out of her own curiosity and pressure on herself to make herself uncomfortable, if it might provide insight or amusement.
Instead--and this is why it took looking at the gallery of other images to come to mind--I wonder about the proprietary attitude of the photographer. Who are these women--and as far as I could tell, these were exclusively women subjects--to the photographer? How does he maintain them as individuals, as subjects while necessarily appropriating their image and objectifying them? And if the question is "capturing" some "character" or "spirit" of the subject (stealing from phrases that come to mind, not any words of the photographer himself), then how is direction to the model defended? Is the model preserved as anything more than just a pretty suite of forms and light, a pleasant play of light?
Let me point out two things here: First, I have transitioned from referring to Dreux directly, to referring to "the subject" and "the model." This was unintentional, though not unsurprising given my analysis and the fact that the shoot is today. I clearly have some tension arising from questions--to me, significant ethical questions concerning photography and modeling--that I cannot here answer. I can put some distance between myself and my inability to know. Second, I have--and somewhat intentionally--assumed an unsympathetic if not hostile posture towards this photographer in particular and modeling in general. I recognize this, but have hoped to provide a transition from the photographer as a passive or entirely absent agent--in my early thoughts on the subject--to the arbiter of the entire situation. I am not exactly there, but have displayed some range of how the photographer might be perceived. Dreux, I am sure given the phone discussion and her own attention to self, will not allow herself to be pushed to perform outside of what she finds appropriate. (Phrasing that clunky sentence is difficult, as this is clearly stretching her comfort zone. Does this contextualization itself allow/encourage giving up more agency or less?)
What I'm left with are questions I still cannot answer. What I can do is project various identities onto the most unknown figure: the photographer. Rather than accept not knowing, or waiting to hear some explanations/defenses, I can project various images of my own onto him. The photographer develops--without further insights and information--into a reservoir for all the voyeuristic and coercive masculine traits that I want to disown and challenge.
I am sure that there are more concise and critical explorations of modeling, informed by feminist theory and the rest, but I have been playing with these ideas for a few days and wanted to get them down. In addition, I owe it to Dreux to give space to explain what has been in my head, as this could not easily be unpacked in a strictly conversational space. Given a "passive" photographer, I have little concern about Dreux's participation in modeling. Such a photographer doesn't exist; instead, I have an agent positioned in what feels like an ethically problematic space. Ethically problematic not because of propriety of a partner--who wants to preserve the intimacy shared between them and what feels pretty much juvenile--but because of the propriety of the photographer taking a person and sublimating the body into an image (or series of images).
Have I come upon any unexpected answers? Not really. But at least I have something to share with Dreux.
---
Note: This probably needs some editing, which I may do in the next few days or entirely postpone. This is just a blog after all.
This, I might add, is what inspires my thoughts and has preoccupied them for a few days.
My immediate response to Dreux being interested was fairly neutral: if she's interested in it, then do it. This isn't surprising in that I pride myself in being supportive of my partners and friends, especially when it is clear that the goal; for Dreux this would be exploring some of the uncomfortable and anxiety-producing space that captivates here. It wouldn't be that different from trying rock climbing out or--if the mood took her and the morality were appropriate--a game hunt. She wants to know what that that world feels like for her, how might it feel for others. This is one reason, or I like to think anyway, that I am so captivated by her and that she is so concerned with high quality communication.
Up until Tuesday morning, this is more or less where I left my thoughts. That morning, Dreux was looking over the photographer's work: a gallery of women, nude and clothed, mostly in wooded settings, occasionally using some fabric or prop to highlight form and light in the image. It was perhaps only then that I realized there would be a photographer actually doing the photographer. I assumed--rightly, as it turned out--that the photographer was a man. The only other person I had considered up until this point was a friend of Dreux's, well-versed in modeling and actually making a career of it. Enough friends and friends of friends have done modeling that I shouldn't have been surprised, but I surprised myself by thinking exclusively of Dreux (with only minor consideration of her friend) as the agent in this photo shoot. The image, so to speak, got a little more interesting on Tuesday.
I admit that questions of trust come to mind. I trust Dreux, and because I do, I also trust the friend who arranged the photo shoot. Neither of them have worked with this photographer, thought that is more a matter of timing than anything. Where the question of trust, or perhaps distrust comes in, is why a photographer would work so explicitly in the female form as a medium for expression. Nudity, human form, the way light works over flesh, the interaction of curvilinear forms and the angular wooded settings, I can understand the richness of such a medium. What happens (or what happened in my mind as Dreux showed me the photographer's work) was the appropriation of these women's image by the photographer. I think Dreux reflected on this as she spoke with the photographer over the phone, realizing that these images of her would not be hers.
This distinction, being of but not owned by that person, is what is most interesting and problematic. There will be release forms and contracts, just as there might be for documenting a campus event for the newspaper in which the photojournalist uses an image to tell the story of the article. What is different--or perhaps elsewhere on the same spectrum--is that the photographer isn't a journalist, he (in this case, though I do not pretend to speak in an exclusive manner) is constructing an image, a piece, a world, an exhibition with these bodies--these women's bodies--who are not his. Rather, through contract and direction, through light on film, chemical baths and dark rooms with glimmering red lights, these women have given him their bodies for use.
I think that Dreux's initial concern when she raised the topic to me--though she has not been explicit in confirming this--is that I would have some sense of proprietary about her participation. I think many partners--I want to default to men, but doubt that it is an exclusively masculine trait--would be unnerved in some way in this situation, musing in some form of, "Your body is something intimately given, intimately shared. To give your image a way is a breach (maybe a challenge of annulment) of that intimacy." This could be thought of as a "sympathetic" explanation of practices that conceal women's bodies from public places. In some ways, I understand Dreux's reasons enough to know that this is not the case; she is exploring out of her own curiosity and pressure on herself to make herself uncomfortable, if it might provide insight or amusement.
Instead--and this is why it took looking at the gallery of other images to come to mind--I wonder about the proprietary attitude of the photographer. Who are these women--and as far as I could tell, these were exclusively women subjects--to the photographer? How does he maintain them as individuals, as subjects while necessarily appropriating their image and objectifying them? And if the question is "capturing" some "character" or "spirit" of the subject (stealing from phrases that come to mind, not any words of the photographer himself), then how is direction to the model defended? Is the model preserved as anything more than just a pretty suite of forms and light, a pleasant play of light?
Let me point out two things here: First, I have transitioned from referring to Dreux directly, to referring to "the subject" and "the model." This was unintentional, though not unsurprising given my analysis and the fact that the shoot is today. I clearly have some tension arising from questions--to me, significant ethical questions concerning photography and modeling--that I cannot here answer. I can put some distance between myself and my inability to know. Second, I have--and somewhat intentionally--assumed an unsympathetic if not hostile posture towards this photographer in particular and modeling in general. I recognize this, but have hoped to provide a transition from the photographer as a passive or entirely absent agent--in my early thoughts on the subject--to the arbiter of the entire situation. I am not exactly there, but have displayed some range of how the photographer might be perceived. Dreux, I am sure given the phone discussion and her own attention to self, will not allow herself to be pushed to perform outside of what she finds appropriate. (Phrasing that clunky sentence is difficult, as this is clearly stretching her comfort zone. Does this contextualization itself allow/encourage giving up more agency or less?)
What I'm left with are questions I still cannot answer. What I can do is project various identities onto the most unknown figure: the photographer. Rather than accept not knowing, or waiting to hear some explanations/defenses, I can project various images of my own onto him. The photographer develops--without further insights and information--into a reservoir for all the voyeuristic and coercive masculine traits that I want to disown and challenge.
I am sure that there are more concise and critical explorations of modeling, informed by feminist theory and the rest, but I have been playing with these ideas for a few days and wanted to get them down. In addition, I owe it to Dreux to give space to explain what has been in my head, as this could not easily be unpacked in a strictly conversational space. Given a "passive" photographer, I have little concern about Dreux's participation in modeling. Such a photographer doesn't exist; instead, I have an agent positioned in what feels like an ethically problematic space. Ethically problematic not because of propriety of a partner--who wants to preserve the intimacy shared between them and what feels pretty much juvenile--but because of the propriety of the photographer taking a person and sublimating the body into an image (or series of images).
Have I come upon any unexpected answers? Not really. But at least I have something to share with Dreux.
---
Note: This probably needs some editing, which I may do in the next few days or entirely postpone. This is just a blog after all.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Reflections on my birthday
I looked in the mirror and saw myself. I'm not sure of what I was looking for, but there I was looking back. I have, from time to time, been struck by an ability to see in a person that which will be. I'm not talking clairvoyance or premonition. Rather, there is that which will be that is evident in the that which is. Perhaps that has gone by other names in the past. I wanted to see, even in my less than ideal state, some image of what is coming that is not here already.
I remember Brita being "oh so excited" to watch Freaky Friday in which the teenaged protagonist gets to experience herself in fifteen or so years. At the end of the viewing--enjoyable if a little sillier than expected--she had a sort of anger and anxiety about it all. Brita was envious, or so I recall, of the protagonist getting to see one of the options laid out in front of her. I haven't spoken with Brita in some time, though she may follow the blog. I wonder now if she would want to see that person. I don't know. I mean, in many ways I wish I might tell a younger Caleb that all the anxieties of being young--girls/women (depending on the age), basic work, family, a sense of home--would be resolved. How many would be then kept guarded from that juvenile self?
The mirror showed myself: a wide face, a few gray hairs, slightly blood shot eyes, lips marred by wine. Nevertheless, there were no indicators of where this person might be going. I cannot see what I sometimes see in others: a potential placement in the world with clear attributes and directions. While I might calm the Caleb of ten years previous, I don't think I could calm the Caleb of only five years previous. He and I still share far too many misgivings about the world, about where he/I might be happy working, about he/I might be happy living, or with whom he/I might be living. It isn't an absence of possibility; rather, it is the overabundance of possibilities.
Tonight... Today, I get to enjoy the company of a dear friend, see a young woman I am infatuated with, enjoy the company of more than a dozen friends, play a game I get to throw myself into... And yet I am laden with ambiguities and delays that recall senior year more than hint at being a senior. I can spend ninety minutes discussing virtue, genius, direction, craft and so on, but that doesn't lay out what I might be doing in five, ten, twenty years any better than I could when u entered college (let alone high school).
Allow me to say that I am happy. I have divested myself of some emotional and academic weights, even tried to mend those gaps left behind. There are those hurdles--thesis work, roommate politics, work schedule, family responsibilities--still requiring my attention, though each provides its own lesson and potential boon. I am happy and maybe even a little relaxed compared to years before. What remains is the frustration of direction: while I may be able to find work once I complete my thesis, does it direct me any better than when I completed my undergraduate work? Am I any better situated?
I would not trade this deliberation and difficulty for anyone else's. There are those close to me struggling with their own crises that I do not envy. And then there are those that are years my senior dealing with the exact same. Where I am is my place, and I could be younger or older but still be here. I don't want to be excited for another board game or its expansion next year. I want to be excited to enter another stage of my life: a career I can delve into, a relationship with certainty and devotion (that is not said to undermine, but to outline where I am now), a place I might grow roots, or a home in which I might invest. At this point, none of these are clear and for that reason I am existentially concerned.
Are these strictly cultural concerns? Do the lifestyles of my parents and siblings construct illegitimate rules? Am I just aspiring for some status quo? Is the expansion of my film library as legitimate as the birth of the first daughter in my family since my sister less legitimate? (The last is clearly a jest, though I raise it for hyperbolic and playful, though not solely absurd reasons.) I am posed at the still young age of twenty-six with, What do I want out of my life? And secondly, though just as importantly, How can I achieve it?
I remember Brita being "oh so excited" to watch Freaky Friday in which the teenaged protagonist gets to experience herself in fifteen or so years. At the end of the viewing--enjoyable if a little sillier than expected--she had a sort of anger and anxiety about it all. Brita was envious, or so I recall, of the protagonist getting to see one of the options laid out in front of her. I haven't spoken with Brita in some time, though she may follow the blog. I wonder now if she would want to see that person. I don't know. I mean, in many ways I wish I might tell a younger Caleb that all the anxieties of being young--girls/women (depending on the age), basic work, family, a sense of home--would be resolved. How many would be then kept guarded from that juvenile self?
The mirror showed myself: a wide face, a few gray hairs, slightly blood shot eyes, lips marred by wine. Nevertheless, there were no indicators of where this person might be going. I cannot see what I sometimes see in others: a potential placement in the world with clear attributes and directions. While I might calm the Caleb of ten years previous, I don't think I could calm the Caleb of only five years previous. He and I still share far too many misgivings about the world, about where he/I might be happy working, about he/I might be happy living, or with whom he/I might be living. It isn't an absence of possibility; rather, it is the overabundance of possibilities.
Tonight... Today, I get to enjoy the company of a dear friend, see a young woman I am infatuated with, enjoy the company of more than a dozen friends, play a game I get to throw myself into... And yet I am laden with ambiguities and delays that recall senior year more than hint at being a senior. I can spend ninety minutes discussing virtue, genius, direction, craft and so on, but that doesn't lay out what I might be doing in five, ten, twenty years any better than I could when u entered college (let alone high school).
Allow me to say that I am happy. I have divested myself of some emotional and academic weights, even tried to mend those gaps left behind. There are those hurdles--thesis work, roommate politics, work schedule, family responsibilities--still requiring my attention, though each provides its own lesson and potential boon. I am happy and maybe even a little relaxed compared to years before. What remains is the frustration of direction: while I may be able to find work once I complete my thesis, does it direct me any better than when I completed my undergraduate work? Am I any better situated?
I would not trade this deliberation and difficulty for anyone else's. There are those close to me struggling with their own crises that I do not envy. And then there are those that are years my senior dealing with the exact same. Where I am is my place, and I could be younger or older but still be here. I don't want to be excited for another board game or its expansion next year. I want to be excited to enter another stage of my life: a career I can delve into, a relationship with certainty and devotion (that is not said to undermine, but to outline where I am now), a place I might grow roots, or a home in which I might invest. At this point, none of these are clear and for that reason I am existentially concerned.
Are these strictly cultural concerns? Do the lifestyles of my parents and siblings construct illegitimate rules? Am I just aspiring for some status quo? Is the expansion of my film library as legitimate as the birth of the first daughter in my family since my sister less legitimate? (The last is clearly a jest, though I raise it for hyperbolic and playful, though not solely absurd reasons.) I am posed at the still young age of twenty-six with, What do I want out of my life? And secondly, though just as importantly, How can I achieve it?
Monday, September 3, 2012
Poem: "Hub, Stems, Circles" or "From Iron to Tomatoes"
Iron arteries & steel cells trace
through the nation. Ley lines of artifice
& industry, loads of coal, aluminum, timber;
the burden of utilitarian titans visecting town,
city, neighborhood; bifurcations of old choices
cemented, leaden, and transgenerational.
Every six minutes a train passes through town,
the equivalent & consistency of light piercing
the emptiness of the sun to earth; a fractal
equation of heavy, breathing life combusting
hydrocarbons, ancient but refreshed,
made new with the labors of the living.
Wheels cut through my transit, my day, my
circuitousroutes along their own stems
leading toward--and out from--some inexorable
hub, through which my late Apalachian
childhood nights return to me, that body
laying unsleeping in an old wood house swept
off by floodwaters but still remaining
rooted there & in memory--made firmer by
its rattling constitutoinal forbears, the
lives lost in timber & stone but resurrected,
like memories thundering in on the steely clouds.
In my daytime dreaming I discern not the
architect but the architecture, the texture
of that revolutionary movement, the vast arch
marked by breaths, heartbeats, sleepless nights,
the smiles & caresses of lovers, the doubleshifts
& empty bottles & freshly cleaned kitchen counters
awaiting spills of wine & the aromatic bleeding
of late summer tomatoes.
through the nation. Ley lines of artifice
& industry, loads of coal, aluminum, timber;
the burden of utilitarian titans visecting town,
city, neighborhood; bifurcations of old choices
cemented, leaden, and transgenerational.
Every six minutes a train passes through town,
the equivalent & consistency of light piercing
the emptiness of the sun to earth; a fractal
equation of heavy, breathing life combusting
hydrocarbons, ancient but refreshed,
made new with the labors of the living.
Wheels cut through my transit, my day, my
circuitousroutes along their own stems
leading toward--and out from--some inexorable
hub, through which my late Apalachian
childhood nights return to me, that body
laying unsleeping in an old wood house swept
off by floodwaters but still remaining
rooted there & in memory--made firmer by
its rattling constitutoinal forbears, the
lives lost in timber & stone but resurrected,
like memories thundering in on the steely clouds.
In my daytime dreaming I discern not the
architect but the architecture, the texture
of that revolutionary movement, the vast arch
marked by breaths, heartbeats, sleepless nights,
the smiles & caresses of lovers, the doubleshifts
& empty bottles & freshly cleaned kitchen counters
awaiting spills of wine & the aromatic bleeding
of late summer tomatoes.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Poem: Pass the basket
I have been dabbling in poetry again, and not just haiku. Here's one I cobbled together, though I admit it is still rough. It shows I have been thinking of Ginsburg and Gary Snyder lately.
...
Pass the basket
& draw on your mothy pockets
with those anesthetized hands;
the cool gift of ungiving.
What gems & fruits
might feed our musicians,
our lost poets, our hoarse sidewalk prophets?
What fuels the awoken spirits
& the half-assed Buddhas, the part-time messiahs?
Judas & Jesus are looking for a cup of coffee outside the bar;
Tanto & the Ranger have been turned away from the Shelter,
walking the streets staying warm with a bottle of Wild Turkey;
Penelope sings for her love in the coffeeshop,
& Ulysses is lost from his crew in the Ponderosa pines.
The empty basket passes for the tithe
to the unbelievers, the pagans, the uncertain übermensch.
While Clark Kent spends his off hours
scratching bad poetry for Lois
who will never read it
because she is out to dinner with an internet-inspired bad date.
And the empty basket pays the bus fare, the gas money,
most of a train ticket back home.
The kids all dream of the Village,
the basket houses full of honest child faces
& the City becomes Montreal, Paris, Austin upon waking.
Through the day they walk on stilts, wear papier mâché masks, picket for Truth--
not knowing what Truth or whose Truth,
just the word like a crisp, Braeburn apple in hand--
& they hold out hats, upturned & empty.
So we pass the basket,
not for the beer or the cuppa,
not for the gas or the tickets,
not for the falafel or dogs,
not for the hotel room or the camping permit;
yearning for full moon silver coins
& the paper to scrawl out the ghosts tucked tightly in our pens and brushes.
...
Inspired, in part, by No Direction Home; also to those with only cars, hotel rooms, and parks to sleep on or in in Flagstaff. May creativity and godliness find multifarious forms and suprising manifestations of painful beauty.
...
Pass the basket
& draw on your mothy pockets
with those anesthetized hands;
the cool gift of ungiving.
What gems & fruits
might feed our musicians,
our lost poets, our hoarse sidewalk prophets?
What fuels the awoken spirits
& the half-assed Buddhas, the part-time messiahs?
Judas & Jesus are looking for a cup of coffee outside the bar;
Tanto & the Ranger have been turned away from the Shelter,
walking the streets staying warm with a bottle of Wild Turkey;
Penelope sings for her love in the coffeeshop,
& Ulysses is lost from his crew in the Ponderosa pines.
The empty basket passes for the tithe
to the unbelievers, the pagans, the uncertain übermensch.
While Clark Kent spends his off hours
scratching bad poetry for Lois
who will never read it
because she is out to dinner with an internet-inspired bad date.
And the empty basket pays the bus fare, the gas money,
most of a train ticket back home.
The kids all dream of the Village,
the basket houses full of honest child faces
& the City becomes Montreal, Paris, Austin upon waking.
Through the day they walk on stilts, wear papier mâché masks, picket for Truth--
not knowing what Truth or whose Truth,
just the word like a crisp, Braeburn apple in hand--
& they hold out hats, upturned & empty.
So we pass the basket,
not for the beer or the cuppa,
not for the gas or the tickets,
not for the falafel or dogs,
not for the hotel room or the camping permit;
yearning for full moon silver coins
& the paper to scrawl out the ghosts tucked tightly in our pens and brushes.
...
Inspired, in part, by No Direction Home; also to those with only cars, hotel rooms, and parks to sleep on or in in Flagstaff. May creativity and godliness find multifarious forms and suprising manifestations of painful beauty.
Warming isn't cheap: Wild fires, climate change, and taxes
This is in reflection based on this article: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/20/501081/connecting-the-dots-how-climate-change-is-fueling-western-wildfires/
It is hot in Flagstaff these days. I'm not saying it is sweltering 90s and humid like I'm used to in the Midwest summers, or the 110s and 120s one might expect in Phoenix. I'm saying that like the rest of the West, we're experiencing global warming.
And it isn't cheap.
The raging wildfires in the American West are astonishing. They are the partial result of a dry winter and early loss of snow. The forests are drier than they ought to be and that great big western sky is pretty cloudless, though you may get billowing smoke in certain regions. And even when the storms do come, the parched forests are going to be less able to manage lightning strikes, flitting embers, and stray anthropogenic sparks. But what we're seeing is, in some startling ways, horribly anthropogenic. We are turning up the thermostat.
So we're sending out courageous firefighters, recruiting more planes, and evacuating more communities in order to save lives and protect habitats. Unfortunately, we are also protecting old habits. Month after month, year after year we're seeing hotter and drier weather (in the West, while other regions like Minnesota are experiencing deluges, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/20/503301/hell-and-high-water-as-record-sw-wildfires-rage-duluth-is-deluged/) that ultimately comes out of our pockets.
What do I mean? Well, those firefighters are government employees, funded through taxpayer dollars, and the necessity to pull in more planes and other equipment shows how ill-prepared this system of protection is for climate change. (This in the context of a conservative stance of shrinking government and a liberal politics that seems to stand on sand rather than soil and bedrock.) So these stopgap measures are going to hit government pocketbooks hard, and the state governments as well as the federal are seeing more moths that dollars.
I have plenty of reasons to ride a bike rather than drive (which, I admit, has been a failing of late), to avoid petrochemical-intensive foods (commercial meat, non-regional produce, and highly processed food products), and aim for other lifestyle changes to reduce personal carbon emissions. Even on the personal and communal scales, we are going to have difficulty buffering ourselves against these radical ecological changes. For those who don't know--and I recognize that for some this is threadbare and even trite--we get the word ecology and economics from the same Greek root: eikōs, or "home." What we don't pay for now in terms of efficiency, industrial paradigmatic shift, and cultural transformation--with the final goal of a sustainable culture, politics, and biosphere--we are already being forced to afford through emergency services, amelioration, and adaptation/maladaptation. We're paying for climate change right now, not in five or ten or fifty years, but right now.
And I want to be positive. I want to spin something exciting and beautiful and visionary out of all of this. Maybe another day. Now, I think we need to take a look at what is in front of us: short, dry winters; premature springs; dry and bipolar summers; and the perturbations of millenia-old growing seasons. I'd like to say a petition or a presidency can do it, but it demands some radical challenges to the legitimacy of the contemporary American politics, not just in rhetoric and subject, but in involvement and demands.
Douglas Adams remarked, "I love deadlines. I love the sound they make as the go by." Well, we seem to be hearing plenty of those and they're not for publishing stories or books. We have already spent our stipends and now are running on cigarettes and coffee and ramen noodles. If we don't get to some serious work soon, I think we'll just be down to the cigarettes. Or maybe we'll stick with the ramen, instead.
It is hot in Flagstaff these days. I'm not saying it is sweltering 90s and humid like I'm used to in the Midwest summers, or the 110s and 120s one might expect in Phoenix. I'm saying that like the rest of the West, we're experiencing global warming.
And it isn't cheap.
The raging wildfires in the American West are astonishing. They are the partial result of a dry winter and early loss of snow. The forests are drier than they ought to be and that great big western sky is pretty cloudless, though you may get billowing smoke in certain regions. And even when the storms do come, the parched forests are going to be less able to manage lightning strikes, flitting embers, and stray anthropogenic sparks. But what we're seeing is, in some startling ways, horribly anthropogenic. We are turning up the thermostat.
So we're sending out courageous firefighters, recruiting more planes, and evacuating more communities in order to save lives and protect habitats. Unfortunately, we are also protecting old habits. Month after month, year after year we're seeing hotter and drier weather (in the West, while other regions like Minnesota are experiencing deluges, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/20/503301/hell-and-high-water-as-record-sw-wildfires-rage-duluth-is-deluged/) that ultimately comes out of our pockets.
What do I mean? Well, those firefighters are government employees, funded through taxpayer dollars, and the necessity to pull in more planes and other equipment shows how ill-prepared this system of protection is for climate change. (This in the context of a conservative stance of shrinking government and a liberal politics that seems to stand on sand rather than soil and bedrock.) So these stopgap measures are going to hit government pocketbooks hard, and the state governments as well as the federal are seeing more moths that dollars.
I have plenty of reasons to ride a bike rather than drive (which, I admit, has been a failing of late), to avoid petrochemical-intensive foods (commercial meat, non-regional produce, and highly processed food products), and aim for other lifestyle changes to reduce personal carbon emissions. Even on the personal and communal scales, we are going to have difficulty buffering ourselves against these radical ecological changes. For those who don't know--and I recognize that for some this is threadbare and even trite--we get the word ecology and economics from the same Greek root: eikōs, or "home." What we don't pay for now in terms of efficiency, industrial paradigmatic shift, and cultural transformation--with the final goal of a sustainable culture, politics, and biosphere--we are already being forced to afford through emergency services, amelioration, and adaptation/maladaptation. We're paying for climate change right now, not in five or ten or fifty years, but right now.
And I want to be positive. I want to spin something exciting and beautiful and visionary out of all of this. Maybe another day. Now, I think we need to take a look at what is in front of us: short, dry winters; premature springs; dry and bipolar summers; and the perturbations of millenia-old growing seasons. I'd like to say a petition or a presidency can do it, but it demands some radical challenges to the legitimacy of the contemporary American politics, not just in rhetoric and subject, but in involvement and demands.
Douglas Adams remarked, "I love deadlines. I love the sound they make as the go by." Well, we seem to be hearing plenty of those and they're not for publishing stories or books. We have already spent our stipends and now are running on cigarettes and coffee and ramen noodles. If we don't get to some serious work soon, I think we'll just be down to the cigarettes. Or maybe we'll stick with the ramen, instead.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Counters and Alternatives: Jokes and Wisdom
All my friends have like
ideas, half-joking; we're
elder, fools, shamans.
...
I am in a quiet, reflective place. Somewhere between Rochester, Minnesota and my departure for Flagstaff from Lincoln, Nebraska, I came down with a cold. It hushed my voice and dampened my head, but my mind is heavy with magic stories, dream places, the afterthoughts of part-time strangers. I have read through the first 100 issues of Hellblazer (many of which are reread)--the comic of working class sorcerer John Constantine--and am finally jumping into Vurt by Jeff Noon--a drug-addled British cyberpunk Manchester dreamscape. During my travels I listened to Jennifer Eagan's A Visit From the Goon Squad (on Flagstaff to Independence, Kansas) and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; both of which practice a multiple-perspective, sometimes schizotypal examination of an event, a person, a family, a life. I am struck with a deep appreciation for narrative histories, even of the fictionalized sort. These multi-faceted tellings, these textured explorations of experience, of reality, always seem rooted in a magic of the moment, an understanding that language is brilliant when it points to its failure to share that which is its goal.
In my mind rested but restive mind, these connections are clearer than I will make them. I am entertaining the possibility of Tarot cards. I am intrigued by them in at least two clear ways. First, the tradition of the Tarot represents a way of evaluating and taking in the world that I appreciate even in my inability to understand. Tarot, like alchemy and the I Ching and other alternative wisdom traditions, relates some sort of synchronicity, reflectivity, and/or intertwining of the self with the greater structure, being, and/or perception of the world. Though the logic--a term I use loosely and anachronistically--remains elusive and unclear, the axiom that we are in and of the world is deeply satisfying to me. If in the process of making one's experience more understandable, one also comes to appreciate the world in a novel way, even if it is only through articulating uncertainty and strangeness, then I am captivated. (Note: I am not interested in divination or predictive uses of Tarot; divination, though it has a long tradition, strikes me as a misapprehension of such practices except under specific circumstances.)
Second, Tarot provides a counter-structure to knowledge and knowing compared to the one with which I am "comfortable." The rhetoric(s) of "capitalism" and "democracy"--by which I mean very specific, politically and temporally situated concepts--are deeply troubling. Capitalism has the troubling ability to claim counter-narratives and commodify them. Democracy has been used to validate and valorize the use of violence and the appropriation of public funds for militaristic ends. Theory and practice that go beyond and counter to such stifling structures of knowing are of crucial significance. Despite that, I think it is important to consider how such work may still allow space for hegemonic politics; with that in mind, capitalism and a disempowered democracy can continue to infiltrate such important work.
What strikes me as so important here is that an empowering counter-rhetoric around identity, political economy, spiritual and applied ecology is possible through working with both of these "intrigues" simultaneously. If we are to either deepen or contradict practical, praxical economy and politics, we have the challenge of thinking beyond the boundaries with which we are comfortable. I am not interested in rehabilitating sick institutions or ameliorating their impacts, though I think that those will be intermediate outcomes of such work; rather, I am interested in fostering (also read as "planting," "tending," "preparing") replacement institutions and clearing ("opening up," "contesting," "developing") the space in which such [counter]institutions can dwell. If these are to be both powerful and relatable--something we both want and can do--then they must be rooted in a deeper relationship of the human person to the world. This human person is porous in environmental, social, psychological, intellectual, spiritual, and--in the spirit of these alternative wisdom traditions--cosmic ways.
So why the haiku? Well, it is derived from a few text messages I sent to my friend Sam Bradley. It seems that all of my friends expect free drinks now that I work at a wine bar, though they only expect in "half-joking" ways. What does this mean? Well, I identify three roles (though there are many more, and synonymous names for these three) in which wisdom and jest are intertwined: the elder, the fool, and the shaman. The elder may chide and condescend, but offers pearls of guidance and truth that the jokes and stories may allow to stick. In oral traditions, the elder (sometimes maternal, sometimes paternal, sometimes both) is the primary individual(s) responsible for passing along stories and histories that communicate personal identity. The fool (when well articulated and not simply the ridiculous or obscene) provides a mirror through which we might see the self or society (as individual; the society: an everyman; the outcast: drunkard; the authority: royalty or the Church; and so on) in insightful ways. It is by providing a foil of the norm, appropriate, or normative that we can see the truth of who and what we are. (This is highlighted by how the fool and the shaman are sometimes analogous in certain cultures, such as some northeastern First Peoples of North America/Turtle Island, though I am not able to be more specific.) And third, though not finally, is the shaman who provides an intermediary between human, ecological, and spiritual worlds. (Note: These are definitely overlapping and co-constitutive categories for many if not most cultures; how they exist as such, though requires specific and sympathetic analysis.) The shaman demonstrates knowledge in counterintuitive ways to the cultural norm, though such practice is validated by the in-betweenness that such roles explore. Plants', animals', and places' spiritual significance may be identified through medicinal use or magical qualities. Shamans provide insight into the experiences of spirits, places, animals, and plants that support the well-being of the community even if the reasons did not fit with the understanding of the community, such as by "listening" to waterways and precipitation or--as Aldo Leopold puts it--"thinking like a mountain" to appreciate the relationship between wolves, mule-deer, and the mountains.
If I want to take these roles and insights seriously, it means stepping beyond normative behavior. It means exploring and dwelling in the in-betweenness where the shaman finds tense, dynamic, and insightful home. I think of Slavoj Zizec, whose uncouth enthusiasm and diction makes him a sort of jester in the court of political theory, in the theatre of theory, as it were. He crosses the edges of the socio-cultural norm (where trash and human waste go, the analysis of gender and perversion in film, the demarcation of imagination in the political) to show us the rather narrow limits of our society, politics, and psychology. I work hard to appreciate the wisdom that I do not understand from others, but the practice of it strikes me as absurd or nonsensical. It is important to me to break such habits and I know of no clearer way than to practice counter-habits.
...
And as an afterthought, I plan on writing for this specifically (reflections, essays, poetry, etc.) at least once a week.
ideas, half-joking; we're
elder, fools, shamans.
...
I am in a quiet, reflective place. Somewhere between Rochester, Minnesota and my departure for Flagstaff from Lincoln, Nebraska, I came down with a cold. It hushed my voice and dampened my head, but my mind is heavy with magic stories, dream places, the afterthoughts of part-time strangers. I have read through the first 100 issues of Hellblazer (many of which are reread)--the comic of working class sorcerer John Constantine--and am finally jumping into Vurt by Jeff Noon--a drug-addled British cyberpunk Manchester dreamscape. During my travels I listened to Jennifer Eagan's A Visit From the Goon Squad (on Flagstaff to Independence, Kansas) and Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; both of which practice a multiple-perspective, sometimes schizotypal examination of an event, a person, a family, a life. I am struck with a deep appreciation for narrative histories, even of the fictionalized sort. These multi-faceted tellings, these textured explorations of experience, of reality, always seem rooted in a magic of the moment, an understanding that language is brilliant when it points to its failure to share that which is its goal.
In my mind rested but restive mind, these connections are clearer than I will make them. I am entertaining the possibility of Tarot cards. I am intrigued by them in at least two clear ways. First, the tradition of the Tarot represents a way of evaluating and taking in the world that I appreciate even in my inability to understand. Tarot, like alchemy and the I Ching and other alternative wisdom traditions, relates some sort of synchronicity, reflectivity, and/or intertwining of the self with the greater structure, being, and/or perception of the world. Though the logic--a term I use loosely and anachronistically--remains elusive and unclear, the axiom that we are in and of the world is deeply satisfying to me. If in the process of making one's experience more understandable, one also comes to appreciate the world in a novel way, even if it is only through articulating uncertainty and strangeness, then I am captivated. (Note: I am not interested in divination or predictive uses of Tarot; divination, though it has a long tradition, strikes me as a misapprehension of such practices except under specific circumstances.)
Second, Tarot provides a counter-structure to knowledge and knowing compared to the one with which I am "comfortable." The rhetoric(s) of "capitalism" and "democracy"--by which I mean very specific, politically and temporally situated concepts--are deeply troubling. Capitalism has the troubling ability to claim counter-narratives and commodify them. Democracy has been used to validate and valorize the use of violence and the appropriation of public funds for militaristic ends. Theory and practice that go beyond and counter to such stifling structures of knowing are of crucial significance. Despite that, I think it is important to consider how such work may still allow space for hegemonic politics; with that in mind, capitalism and a disempowered democracy can continue to infiltrate such important work.
What strikes me as so important here is that an empowering counter-rhetoric around identity, political economy, spiritual and applied ecology is possible through working with both of these "intrigues" simultaneously. If we are to either deepen or contradict practical, praxical economy and politics, we have the challenge of thinking beyond the boundaries with which we are comfortable. I am not interested in rehabilitating sick institutions or ameliorating their impacts, though I think that those will be intermediate outcomes of such work; rather, I am interested in fostering (also read as "planting," "tending," "preparing") replacement institutions and clearing ("opening up," "contesting," "developing") the space in which such [counter]institutions can dwell. If these are to be both powerful and relatable--something we both want and can do--then they must be rooted in a deeper relationship of the human person to the world. This human person is porous in environmental, social, psychological, intellectual, spiritual, and--in the spirit of these alternative wisdom traditions--cosmic ways.
So why the haiku? Well, it is derived from a few text messages I sent to my friend Sam Bradley. It seems that all of my friends expect free drinks now that I work at a wine bar, though they only expect in "half-joking" ways. What does this mean? Well, I identify three roles (though there are many more, and synonymous names for these three) in which wisdom and jest are intertwined: the elder, the fool, and the shaman. The elder may chide and condescend, but offers pearls of guidance and truth that the jokes and stories may allow to stick. In oral traditions, the elder (sometimes maternal, sometimes paternal, sometimes both) is the primary individual(s) responsible for passing along stories and histories that communicate personal identity. The fool (when well articulated and not simply the ridiculous or obscene) provides a mirror through which we might see the self or society (as individual; the society: an everyman; the outcast: drunkard; the authority: royalty or the Church; and so on) in insightful ways. It is by providing a foil of the norm, appropriate, or normative that we can see the truth of who and what we are. (This is highlighted by how the fool and the shaman are sometimes analogous in certain cultures, such as some northeastern First Peoples of North America/Turtle Island, though I am not able to be more specific.) And third, though not finally, is the shaman who provides an intermediary between human, ecological, and spiritual worlds. (Note: These are definitely overlapping and co-constitutive categories for many if not most cultures; how they exist as such, though requires specific and sympathetic analysis.) The shaman demonstrates knowledge in counterintuitive ways to the cultural norm, though such practice is validated by the in-betweenness that such roles explore. Plants', animals', and places' spiritual significance may be identified through medicinal use or magical qualities. Shamans provide insight into the experiences of spirits, places, animals, and plants that support the well-being of the community even if the reasons did not fit with the understanding of the community, such as by "listening" to waterways and precipitation or--as Aldo Leopold puts it--"thinking like a mountain" to appreciate the relationship between wolves, mule-deer, and the mountains.
If I want to take these roles and insights seriously, it means stepping beyond normative behavior. It means exploring and dwelling in the in-betweenness where the shaman finds tense, dynamic, and insightful home. I think of Slavoj Zizec, whose uncouth enthusiasm and diction makes him a sort of jester in the court of political theory, in the theatre of theory, as it were. He crosses the edges of the socio-cultural norm (where trash and human waste go, the analysis of gender and perversion in film, the demarcation of imagination in the political) to show us the rather narrow limits of our society, politics, and psychology. I work hard to appreciate the wisdom that I do not understand from others, but the practice of it strikes me as absurd or nonsensical. It is important to me to break such habits and I know of no clearer way than to practice counter-habits.
...
And as an afterthought, I plan on writing for this specifically (reflections, essays, poetry, etc.) at least once a week.
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