CHANGING THE CALENDAR

 

trees in the rain

 

An image of John Lennon just now ran across the movie screen inside my head. I recalled seeing a headline a week or so ago of his son by his first wife telling the world John Lennon was not a nice man at home, that the kid never saw any love in him. John wrote songs about love, but didn't live the love he wrote songs about. Therefore, he was a hypocrite. What does that have to do with anything? King David wrote the most beautiful songs about love ever, period. He was a rogue. John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace, was a slave trader. I read in John Berryman's Dream Songs and see video of an interview with him, I don't see all his poems in him. I see just a man whose mind pieced together with words and rhythms some amazing compositions. I don't see suicide in his poems when I read them. I don't see suicide in Robert Lowell's poems either. How they ended their lives is as irrelevant to their art as the brand of tires on their cars. I felt a degree of sorrow for the kid who tried to be a star with his daddy's name and it didn't take. He sees his half-brother, Yoko's son, bathed in luxury, privilege and wealth as son of John Lennon. Julian was left out, never made it to stardom and evidently turned bitter. What a dreary old man he might be, "I'm the neglected son of John Lennon...he was a sorry-ass hypocrite," in the pub night after night.

 

 

 

The last two evenings being year's end and year's beginning, another turn around the sun, I decided to see my favorite movies. Last night's choice was Hero, a film by Chinese director Yimou Zhang. Hero is at the top of the list of the most beautiful films I've seen. This was the fifth or sixth viewing. It is billed an action movie starring Jet Li. The action is choreographed martial arts ballet in flowing clothes of colors that sound like a Chinese violin. It is an historical drama given a touch of fairy tale. Then today I chose to see another favorite film, King of Masks, a Chinese film by director Wu Tianming. A good Chinese story, a gentle roller coaster ride of the emotions, of an old man and a child he bought in the market to be his heir. He was the last to carry the traditional art of the mask, an entertainment of changing masks seemingly by magic. He needed an heir to pass his art form to and bought a little boy. Turns out he was cheated, the boy was a girl and he did not want a girl, the art could only be passed on to a boy. From there it goes round and round to a tear-jerker happy ending Chinese style. A story of everyday life realism with the sense of a fairy tale. Exquisitely beautiful photography in both films. 

 

 

 

Didn't do anything else to acknowledge the change of calendars. Haven't even put up the new calendar. Aimed to walk the dog today. Justin stopped by on his way to his deer stand and brought some hay up from the barn in his big pickup. He advised staying out of the woods today. Jan 1 is the last day of hunting season. Everybody was out. I said we'd stay on the road, in that case, and he advised blaze orange if I want to walk the road. Decided to let it go. Lead won't be flying in the woods from Saturday onward. A week ago, Justin killed the big bear living in this area. He estimated it 425 lbs, said the "cape" was 150 lbs. He wants to make a rug to hang on the wall. For a hunter, it's a good trophy. This was the bear he'd said earlier was going about in daylight. He said it means the bear was getting brave. A good one to cull from the sloth. I saw it on the back of his pickup within twenty minutes of being shot. I have a hard time with killing. I have no judgment of hunting. It's necessary, I know it, just don't care to participate in it. I also know my attitude about not killing is a minority of one. Justin knows I'm not a killer, he also knows I admire his skill with a bow and a gun. He brought the bear down with one shot. He said the bear came into view just as it turned dark, "A black bear is hard to see through a scope in the dark."

 

 

I've known Justin since he was a baby. We were friends in his childhood the same as I am friends with his baby, Vada. Vada is a feist, just like her daddy was. It's like the same kid, one a boy, one a girl. Vada is becoming a rowdy little kid. She and her daddy play rough and she loves it. It's in her horoscope. She got in trouble in pre-school; when she fights little kids her size, she hurts them. Her dance class had a recital a few weeks ago I'm sorry I missed. She ruled in it. Vada was the star performer and did it like she was born to the stage. Crystal told me after their trip to Disney World, Vada dressed up as Elsa was to walk behind Cinderella around a big circle of people clapping. Not Vada, Crystal said, Vada doesn't follow anybody. She walked around the circle holding Cinderella's hand. I would so love to see Vada grow up. She'll be out front in whatever she does. She is a balanced blend of her mommy and daddy. And her daddy will go crazy when he sees her drawn to rowdy boys. By the time she's in high school, she will have as many deer kills as the best of the boy hunters. She'll make all A's, be head cheerleader, play baseball and be homecoming queen.

 

 

photos by tj worthington

 

 

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THE NEWS IS THE BLUES

     winter trees by tj worthington

A few minutes ago I saw a headline that said, Cockroaches and traffic jams are more popular than Congress. It told me there had been some kind of survey. I felt like it was obvious, decided not to look at the article. Then I thought about the survey part and decided to take a look. It might have something interesting in it besides the obvious. It showed a clever graph in relation to percentages of what a test sample of people thought of varieties of subjects besides Congress. It came up 48% of the people tested preferred lice to Congress. And 38% like meth labs less than Congress. Corny bunch of statistics, but clever. It does make a picture. It's like the republican party playing all or nothing stakes with a pair of twos. I have to say that after watching the systematic dismantling of American Democracy by republicans over the last 32+ years, they do not represent their constituents.  If republicans are the party of the rich, they don't give a very good show for the people they represent. As the republican politicians represent the rich, they make the rich look dumber than I'd thought. Money and intelligence don't necessarily go together. They make it certain we understand clearly they do not represent us, the people that work for a living. Nor do they represent the middle class, the management class.

I've not looked into it with fact-checker, but came across a statistic a few weeks ago saying Turtle McConnell's fortune six years ago amounted to three million. This year it's 24 million. Evidently according to tax records. I don't think the Senate pays that well. Except under the table. Good boy. Just say No. Of course, it's above-board, within the law. I trust the democrat party is preparing to defeat McConnell next election cycle. Boner too. They'll be replaced by just as bad or worse. So it really doesn't matter. It's not like they have the cream of the crop to pick from. It's more like they pick from the dregs. For one thing, to be a republican, you are expected to reject the scientific method, take your cues from Rush Limbaugh, demonstrate disdain for education, and call absence of intelligence patriotism. It goes past my understanding that the republican half of the Congress has been to college, some to law school. They do not represent American advanced education well. Did all of them pay somebody to go to school for them? Looking at the Congressional republicans as representative of the American people (I don't mean actively representing in Congress, but representing like a mirror image), we are a stupid bunch of self-centered goose-stepping ass-kissers that only lie when we speak. N'est pas?

I used to believe that when things got so bad, it would be a natural next thing for a turn about of fortune. Our government doesn't operate that way. It's done by propaganda. The republican party is not in danger of going away. Only in danger of not being able to get 51% until they come up with new strategies not based in the same lies. Artful propaganda will take care of it. When a certain kind of propaganda ceases to work, a new one steps into its place. It's a world created by the mind that is totally of the mind, changes as fast as flashing lights in Las Vegas, and the rules are rules of the mind with little to no relation to the world of gravity as we know it. They'll find a new line of nonsense to spin into the illusion of substance and get back the people they alienated. If they went away, just faded out, the democrat party would split the way churches split and we'd have the republicans again. There's no going away. In a way, I don't care. In another way, I do care. When I see that I do care, then I look at the situation as it is. I have no power and never wanted power. I have no money and never wanted money. In America power and money are the same. Which is to say, I am not a player. Therefore, it is not very mindful to complain that I have no power behind my voice where DC is concerned. All I'm doing is tapping into that mind game with my mind and riding it like a merry-go-round. John Lennon's voice comes to mind, I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round. I really love to watch them roll.

Wouldn't I do better to focus on the sculpture and the life of Constantin Brancusi? I'd do better to look through a world atlas with satellite images. If I really thought about the value of what I let my mind follow, I'd be ignoring the news and looking at a book of Larry Rivers images. I'd be reading essays and looking at pictures in the extraordinarily beautiful book, The ART of ZEN. I'd be reading essays by Ajit Mookerjee and looking at pictures in YOGA ART. I'd read again An ART Of OUR OWN, by Roger Lipsey, a view of the spiritual in 20th century art. Maybe instead of reading it straight through, I'll read it an artist at a time. Skip around like in a Cortazar novel. Julio Cortazar. It wouldn't hurt to reread him. He tells a good story. I could look at pictures by Kurt Schwitters and read about his life. Quite a character. I could read some more in a couple of books I have of David Hockney, one by him. I could finish Duchamp's biography. I could look at the Motherwell book or the Malevich book, pictures of minimalist art, Greek art, Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, Jasper Johns, Duchamp, Max Ernst, Gorky, Whistler. All this within reach of where I sit and I listen to the news like there is something to it. Considering that I have an unknown but limited time of future left in this body, why am I listening to the news? Why do I care about being represented by Virginia Foxx in Raleigh? She does not represent me in any way. I daresay she's never listened to Jane's Addiction.

The news really does bring me down. I hear about Israel blowing the hell out of Gaza and rockets. Syrian army targeting children, American republicans dismantling democracy viciously with hatred for the working poor, American aggression, sex crimes, kids killed at school. Surely, to balance the negative vibes of the events that get on the news, there is the same amount, at least, of events that are to our benefit. Media is not a place to go to find such. Internet maybe. Funny how we have to look for the good news. When we find it, it's boring. Who cares about a third grade girl in 4-H raising a show bull? I visit friends Justin and Crystal watching football on tv. After the games, I've come to like shows of the guys in Louisiana swamps catching alligators, and one called Moonshiners. Hillbillies on the one hand and Cajuns on the other. The Louisiana accent has subtitles on the screen. I like seeing regular people, the kind of people I know and live among, have come to value and appreciate, the people that don't pay attention to anything outside the immediate world of their neighbors, the people they work with and are kin to, the kind of people you find all the way up and down the Appalachian chain. I understand the Cajun culture of Louisiana is a world of its own, too. We have pockets of traditional and non-traditional music all over the country in rural areas and cities. What we have access by media to is music as product. The good news is that wherever you live, there are people playing traditional music of your region someplace. You may have to drive a ways, but probably not more than fifty miles. I drive forty miles to Woodlawn almost once a week for music that is worth every minute on the road.


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