Posts
To faithful longtime readers of Cinema Nocturne, I beg a little indulgence. I've been posting "Greatest Hits" from the old Workpadsite. I'm trying to drum up new business through Zimbio and other blog exposure sites, so I've been porting overfavorite posts from the old blog which I think might ring bells for a wider audience. I'm still thoroughly committed to thoughtful new content, though, and promise that CN will not become some kind of blogulous TV Land.
Anyway, here's a post from a couple of years ago. I've freshened it up in little ways, and edited in a more satisfying conclusion.
---
I subscribe to a few email discussion lists which most people would characterize as "New Age". In general, the people on these lists are intelligent and kind. But a number of the most vocal folks believe that some cosmic reckoning is going to take place on December 21, 2012. They have different ways of expressing it, but the most common story among them is that an army of angels, ascended Masters and benevolent aliens are going to descend on Earth on the fateful day and haul our sorry asses into the fifth dimension, where everyone is enlightened and noone is thinking of kicking a retired couple out of their home because they can't pay the mortgage.
I wish I could join them. But in the reality I inhabit, God, while eternally present, doesn't seem to operate with cosmic bailouts of this kind. Itt's been two thousand years since Christ went to the cross, and for all I know, it will be another two thousand before he comes back. Except in the way that he is present when we toiling mortals show some character and love one another even when it is the most difficult, when the incoming checks don't seem to match outgoing expenses and the people who run the country are evil or deranged. I don't doubt that somewhere in the richness of third dimensional reality there are at least helpful entities of all kinds: whether they be spirits, faeries, Ascended Masters, angels and what have you. But they're not waiting for some Grand Opening, some orchestra hit and calendrical spotlight to be focused. They come to us in our dreams, our walks in the park, our quiet reflective moments. In a sense, I suppose they've always been with us. But almost always, and even, Id bet my head, on December 21, 2012, it's we who will have to do the heavy lifting.
To some, I fear, this will seem a painful, even a spiteful thing for me to say. But in the exact center of my mortal years, I have very few truly mean bones in my body. It’s not my intention to burst balloons or pickle dearly held dreams in brine. All of these angelic aliens, the Ashtar Command and the wise benevolent Pleiadians I think of as beautiful, poetic. Why not frame redemption in the language of contemporary speculative fiction. It’s a damned site more enlivening than stories of women being stoned to death or the decapitation of saints.
The truth about me is that in certain moments I’d like to have faith in some Galactic Alliance, some archangelic paratroopers to blow the lid off this five and dime reality and give us a roaring good show of an apocalypse. But I’m a little like Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, the leper messiah who couldn’t believe in mystic healing and had to suffer depravity and death before the blasphemousLord Foul could be toppled from his dark throne. I have diabetes and HIV, and taking a daily regime of finely honed poisons tends to rob you of that kind of fantasy entirely --if it doesn’t do exactly the opposite.
Besides this basic intransigence, I think there’s something elegant in the human spirit surviving the End of the World, as it does every Winter Solstice, every Harmonic Convergence (remember that one?), every Millenium and every passing comet. I say: trust in the real power –your own-- not these endless anniversaries of terror and hokum. Don’t go into the Light, Carol Anne. Put away your childish things.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Big Sky and Ballyhoo
I wrote this after breaking with the Catholic Church last year. In many ways, I was a happy Catholic, but as a gay (or postgay) man and a freethinker I was starting to feel squashed and didn't much like the sensation.
---
In the hours since I've decided to break with the Church and once again investigate a broader spiritual landscape, I've had a feeling of exhilaration. I feel as if I've been standing in a room with a low ceiling for five years and I've just stepped outside to discover that there is a big sky, with stars and planets above. I'm not looking for another religion to join. I think that God is bigger than religion. Religions provide a structure,a model of Heaven to contemplate. But theologies, and especially Catholic theology, is so concerned with being self-consistent that I fear it makes up stuff just to fit the program.
For instance, I might buy the proposition that Jesus was born of a virgin. Well, why not? It strikes me as very mythological, like much of what is reported of the life of Jesus. But I'm willing to grant that in one, maybe even a few cases, the miracle of a virgin birth happens. Some sources also claim something like a virgin birth for the Buddha. But when I inquired of a friend who is a Jesuit priest whether Mary is still a virgin, he replied that she is eternally virgin. He didn't explain why such a thing would be, what decree might have been handed down to an adolescent Jewish girl by a mysterious God, he simply stated with finality that she is eternally virgin. That's systematic theology for you. I haven't read the books studied by my Jesuit friend, but I'm willing to bet that one of them frames virginity as an eternal metaphysical affair rather than the simple integrity of a mortal hymen: thus the Virgin Mother. Can't have Mary happy in Heaven, getting it on with St. Francis of Assisi, she's got to lay off the boys FOREVER.
I think it's like this. Sometimes I think of God as a great elephant of a being, unknowable and wild. And religion wants to put that elephant in a tent and charge admission. Some religious paint the elephant in garish colors and tell the marks terrifying stories about him. Some try to make the elephant stomp on their enemies, or haul logs, or build castles with its trunk. But the elephant is not for taming. The elephant can't be bought and sold with ballyhoo. The elephant is free and wild and ultimately unknowable and if I'm going to find him, I'm going to find him somewhere beyond the circus tent.
---
In the hours since I've decided to break with the Church and once again investigate a broader spiritual landscape, I've had a feeling of exhilaration. I feel as if I've been standing in a room with a low ceiling for five years and I've just stepped outside to discover that there is a big sky, with stars and planets above. I'm not looking for another religion to join. I think that God is bigger than religion. Religions provide a structure,a model of Heaven to contemplate. But theologies, and especially Catholic theology, is so concerned with being self-consistent that I fear it makes up stuff just to fit the program.
For instance, I might buy the proposition that Jesus was born of a virgin. Well, why not? It strikes me as very mythological, like much of what is reported of the life of Jesus. But I'm willing to grant that in one, maybe even a few cases, the miracle of a virgin birth happens. Some sources also claim something like a virgin birth for the Buddha. But when I inquired of a friend who is a Jesuit priest whether Mary is still a virgin, he replied that she is eternally virgin. He didn't explain why such a thing would be, what decree might have been handed down to an adolescent Jewish girl by a mysterious God, he simply stated with finality that she is eternally virgin. That's systematic theology for you. I haven't read the books studied by my Jesuit friend, but I'm willing to bet that one of them frames virginity as an eternal metaphysical affair rather than the simple integrity of a mortal hymen: thus the Virgin Mother. Can't have Mary happy in Heaven, getting it on with St. Francis of Assisi, she's got to lay off the boys FOREVER.
I think it's like this. Sometimes I think of God as a great elephant of a being, unknowable and wild. And religion wants to put that elephant in a tent and charge admission. Some religious paint the elephant in garish colors and tell the marks terrifying stories about him. Some try to make the elephant stomp on their enemies, or haul logs, or build castles with its trunk. But the elephant is not for taming. The elephant can't be bought and sold with ballyhoo. The elephant is free and wild and ultimately unknowable and if I'm going to find him, I'm going to find him somewhere beyond the circus tent.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Holy Tobacco
Except in a few cases --heroin, cocaine, perhaps alcohol-- I reject the whole addiction model of abuse. And that is because I don't experience substances that way. I drink very occasionally, and enjoy it when I do, as when I have a glass of red wine with pasta at a Italian restaurant. Or when I smoke one or two French cigarettes after sushi. But sex? I used to have lots of sex with people I didn't know, and now I don't, and I didn't have to go to Sexual Addiction meetings to stop, although something somewhat more drastic did happen to me. I used to overeat, but now I don't, because I don't like the way I feel afterwards. This will seem very backward and annoying, very 14th century, but I mostly don't believe in addiction: I believe in gluttony.
Gluttony, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, will seem a surprisingly moralistic way to look at things, but I don't view people who overindulge as being either sick or depraved. Instead, I see "addicts" as people who consistently make bad choices. Actually, I see them as making one bad choice over and over again, and contrary to the rubrics of the 21st century, they're choices which they could choose not to make. Instead of glutting on tobacco, or sex, or whatever it is, they could turn the habit into something holy. I guess that what I'm really saing is that I don't believe in contemporary schematics of the soul, with its dependencies and co-dependencies, its addictions, its Big Books and its relapses. I prefer to accept the full responsibility for my behavior, not shunt it off onto some weird medical abstraction. I hate the way the language of contemporary medicine, with its zeal to enclose every human habit in its narrow envelope, has tended to pathologize every human pursuit. Oh, I'm addicted to sex. I'm addicted to alcohol. I'm addicted to Speed Racer. Shut the fuck UP.
I know the model has helped millions of people, and that's cool. If you want the addiction model, its yours and I won't try to take it from you. But don't push it on ME.
The most active ingredient of tobacco, nicotine, is said by many to be among the most addictive in the world. But I've never smoked more than three cigarettes in a row, usually not more than one, and that one about every other month or so. I bought a pack of Marselles roughly six months ago and it was just today that my sister bummed the last one. Vive le smoking!
Moreover, not only is my relationship to tobacco not the flower of some sinister pathology, I say that it is holy. It engages me in the sacred element of fire. As I walk down Broadway, I hold my lit cigarette as an emblem of my office as magician, and bless bus stops and doorways with the smoke.
So all your uncles died of emphysema and you're scared that you're following them into the grave. Man, I'm hip. But there are other issues to consider. I speak here of power, I speak of choice and I speak of enchantment.
Gluttony, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, will seem a surprisingly moralistic way to look at things, but I don't view people who overindulge as being either sick or depraved. Instead, I see "addicts" as people who consistently make bad choices. Actually, I see them as making one bad choice over and over again, and contrary to the rubrics of the 21st century, they're choices which they could choose not to make. Instead of glutting on tobacco, or sex, or whatever it is, they could turn the habit into something holy. I guess that what I'm really saing is that I don't believe in contemporary schematics of the soul, with its dependencies and co-dependencies, its addictions, its Big Books and its relapses. I prefer to accept the full responsibility for my behavior, not shunt it off onto some weird medical abstraction. I hate the way the language of contemporary medicine, with its zeal to enclose every human habit in its narrow envelope, has tended to pathologize every human pursuit. Oh, I'm addicted to sex. I'm addicted to alcohol. I'm addicted to Speed Racer. Shut the fuck UP.
I know the model has helped millions of people, and that's cool. If you want the addiction model, its yours and I won't try to take it from you. But don't push it on ME.
The most active ingredient of tobacco, nicotine, is said by many to be among the most addictive in the world. But I've never smoked more than three cigarettes in a row, usually not more than one, and that one about every other month or so. I bought a pack of Marselles roughly six months ago and it was just today that my sister bummed the last one. Vive le smoking!
Moreover, not only is my relationship to tobacco not the flower of some sinister pathology, I say that it is holy. It engages me in the sacred element of fire. As I walk down Broadway, I hold my lit cigarette as an emblem of my office as magician, and bless bus stops and doorways with the smoke.
So all your uncles died of emphysema and you're scared that you're following them into the grave. Man, I'm hip. But there are other issues to consider. I speak here of power, I speak of choice and I speak of enchantment.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Montel Williams Interviews Gollum
Montel:
Gollum, you've struggled with the ring for centuries. What was it like to lose it all instantly during that climactic confrontation on Mount Doom?
Gollum:
You know, Montel, I hated Tricksy Baggins at first. But I've really come to respect him.
I’m so sorry I bit off his finger, man.
Montel:
Really? You respect Frodo after biting off his ring finger and plunging into the volcano?
Gollum:
From where you're sitting, it might be hard to see. But it's all part of the healing process.
Montel:
Really? Do you think Frodo feels the same way?
Gollum:
I don't know. I send him letters. I pray for him, man. But he's, like, in the Grey Havens.
You don't write back once you're kicking it in the Grey Havens.
Montel:
So you're bitter.
Gollum:
Yeah, I'm bitter, man! I walked a hard damn road to get where I'm at.
Montel:
Don't you think Frodo walked a hard road?
Gollum:
Jesus, man. It's always Frodo this and Fellowship that. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it. I'm just saying there are other angles.
Montel:
What would you say if I told you we had one of the Fellowship backstage?
Gollum:
Oh my Valar. You're kidding me.
Montel:
Come on out, Fellowship member.
Gollum:
Tricksy Baggins? You found Tricksy Baggins?
Montel:
We couldn't get Mr. Baggins. But we think we have a special treat for you.
Gimli:
Hey Gollum.
Gollum:
I never new your name. I knew they had a dwarf.
Gimli:
Well, I knew your name, bud. You're famous! Come here!
(They hug awkwardly.)
Gollum, you've struggled with the ring for centuries. What was it like to lose it all instantly during that climactic confrontation on Mount Doom?
Gollum:
You know, Montel, I hated Tricksy Baggins at first. But I've really come to respect him.
I’m so sorry I bit off his finger, man.
Montel:
Really? You respect Frodo after biting off his ring finger and plunging into the volcano?
Gollum:
From where you're sitting, it might be hard to see. But it's all part of the healing process.
Montel:
Really? Do you think Frodo feels the same way?
Gollum:
I don't know. I send him letters. I pray for him, man. But he's, like, in the Grey Havens.
You don't write back once you're kicking it in the Grey Havens.
Montel:
So you're bitter.
Gollum:
Yeah, I'm bitter, man! I walked a hard damn road to get where I'm at.
Montel:
Don't you think Frodo walked a hard road?
Gollum:
Jesus, man. It's always Frodo this and Fellowship that. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it. I'm just saying there are other angles.
Montel:
What would you say if I told you we had one of the Fellowship backstage?
Gollum:
Oh my Valar. You're kidding me.
Montel:
Come on out, Fellowship member.
Gollum:
Tricksy Baggins? You found Tricksy Baggins?
Montel:
We couldn't get Mr. Baggins. But we think we have a special treat for you.
Gimli:
Hey Gollum.
Gollum:
I never new your name. I knew they had a dwarf.
Gimli:
Well, I knew your name, bud. You're famous! Come here!
(They hug awkwardly.)
Bo Knows
Bo knows who's got what. Bo knows where you're coming from. Bow knows why you hate that guy and why he's going to die of a heart attack next month. Bo knows where you've been and why you went there and why you're making sure nobody finds out.
Bo knows secret milks you can drink that will make you grow mighty. Bo knows the three little words that will stop the mouths of your enemies like clay. Bo knows what you did to the dog back then and what's buried in the garden. Bo wants you to win. Bo wants you to get ahead. Bo will tell you how, if you would just listen.
Bow is talking now. Bo says that you just have to sleep under thorns for three nights. Bo says you have to drink the secret milk. Bo says you have to find some things and bring them into the lunchroom with you, where all your workmates are stuffing themselves like swine. Bo is waiting for you. We're all waiting for you.
What to do now?
Just drink the secret milk.
Bring those things, the hot things into the lunchroom.
Count to twelve.
And you will finally know just what to do.
Bo knows secret milks you can drink that will make you grow mighty. Bo knows the three little words that will stop the mouths of your enemies like clay. Bo knows what you did to the dog back then and what's buried in the garden. Bo wants you to win. Bo wants you to get ahead. Bo will tell you how, if you would just listen.
Bow is talking now. Bo says that you just have to sleep under thorns for three nights. Bo says you have to drink the secret milk. Bo says you have to find some things and bring them into the lunchroom with you, where all your workmates are stuffing themselves like swine. Bo is waiting for you. We're all waiting for you.
What to do now?
Just drink the secret milk.
Bring those things, the hot things into the lunchroom.
Count to twelve.
And you will finally know just what to do.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Eyes of Brax
This is just a short invitation to you, Constant Reader. Because Workpad was such an unwieldy site, Ifound it difficult or impossible to engage readers directly, even when they had made incisive comments about a post. That will change with my defection to Blogspot.
I think you will find it much easier to make comments here, to read favorite back posts, and in general to make the mezzanine of Cinema Nocturne a site you can participate in and enjoy. And empowered by the tools I have at my disposal here, Iin turn look forward to reading and responding to reader comments and in general to being more like a colleague than a prophet declaiming from a mountaintop --though I will keep the staff and sandals on hand for really deserving subjects. So go on whorshipping your golden calves and I'll join you as soon as I've had some breakfast.
I think you will find it much easier to make comments here, to read favorite back posts, and in general to make the mezzanine of Cinema Nocturne a site you can participate in and enjoy. And empowered by the tools I have at my disposal here, Iin turn look forward to reading and responding to reader comments and in general to being more like a colleague than a prophet declaiming from a mountaintop --though I will keep the staff and sandals on hand for really deserving subjects. So go on whorshipping your golden calves and I'll join you as soon as I've had some breakfast.
Smoke and Mirrors
Though it's not so grand as some, I've always prided myself on the fact that the content on Cinema Nocturne is substantial. When I post, I usually have something to say, and while I occasionally repeat myself and have certain recurring themes, I don't have the sort of "This morning I had breakfast!" chaff you read on many blogs.- Ordinarily, it's not in my nature to be judgmental. But recently, while using the "Nexst Blog" tool here on Blogspot,I found that many blogs, maybe even most of them, don't really have much to offer. Graphically, many of these are astonishing. They've got wheels and whirligigs. They've got Roman candles. They've got ice cream snow and dancing iguanas. If you're new to the Web, and even if you're not, I can see how these would be diverting. Even though I don't see very well, I'm admittedly surprised by the styles that are possible and what can be accomplished through graphics and music. But the majority of these, I find, are smoke and mirrors. if they would put the dancing iguanas at the service of poetry, or a hard day at the plant, or their high schooler's funny graduation, that would be splendid. If, in other words, they were telling you something about their humanity, whether laughing or suffering, THAT would be worth my time.
But as for these tricks? What they mostly reveal is that their employer can read an instruction manual and follow directions. Doesn't anyone in this webjoint feel the way I do?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Shadows and Fog
I'm going to write something here which would probably be better left unrevealed, let alone confessed to potential thousands. And that is that tonight, I almost fell victim to a credit card scam.
Upon returning from my picnic, I found an email in my box claiming to be from a secret admirer. There was something ungolden about the email which in my mind lent it some credence, though I was wary. Anyway, I followed the link and entered some information in edit boxes including, stupidly, my card number. Clearly: not wary enough! Well, I was tired and at least half hoodwinked. Once I had completed the form I was lead to a congratulations screen and a "Members" link which, big sodding surprise, didn't work.
Well, I instantly dialed my bank's 24 hour customer service line and cancelled the card. But I followed up with a little email to the supposed yahoo address of my secret admirer, which, again no surprise Sherlock, turned out to be spoofed and bounced within five minutes of sending it.
None of this is in the least mysterious or bothersome. I was curious and flattered, and it is late, and the phony claimed to have an athletic build. It is not surprising that a gay man would go for a secret admirer who claims to have an athletic build. What is a little bit baffling is that the phony claimed to be a brunette rather than a blond, and to be 5 foot 6 rather than, say, 6 foot 4. Now THAT was the really artistic aspect of this little flimflam. If the pretender had claimed to be a Matt Damon lookalike, I would have instantly tossed the email. But 5 foot 6? Well, Christ, of course I had to look into it. I'm still a fool. But after all, who isn't a little bit of a fool for romance?
Upon returning from my picnic, I found an email in my box claiming to be from a secret admirer. There was something ungolden about the email which in my mind lent it some credence, though I was wary. Anyway, I followed the link and entered some information in edit boxes including, stupidly, my card number. Clearly: not wary enough! Well, I was tired and at least half hoodwinked. Once I had completed the form I was lead to a congratulations screen and a "Members" link which, big sodding surprise, didn't work.
Well, I instantly dialed my bank's 24 hour customer service line and cancelled the card. But I followed up with a little email to the supposed yahoo address of my secret admirer, which, again no surprise Sherlock, turned out to be spoofed and bounced within five minutes of sending it.
None of this is in the least mysterious or bothersome. I was curious and flattered, and it is late, and the phony claimed to have an athletic build. It is not surprising that a gay man would go for a secret admirer who claims to have an athletic build. What is a little bit baffling is that the phony claimed to be a brunette rather than a blond, and to be 5 foot 6 rather than, say, 6 foot 4. Now THAT was the really artistic aspect of this little flimflam. If the pretender had claimed to be a Matt Damon lookalike, I would have instantly tossed the email. But 5 foot 6? Well, Christ, of course I had to look into it. I'm still a fool. But after all, who isn't a little bit of a fool for romance?
Picnic
In an hour or so, I will be going to a family picnic with cousins from my mother's side of the family. I love many of these folks, at least the one's I know, and have no strenuous objections to hotdogs and hamburgers. But being blind, even "only" legally blind as I am, can put a terrible crimp in this sort of thing. Ordinarily, a person in a social situation scopes out the space for a conversational opportunity; perhaps someone else who is feeling at loose ends in the situation.
But when you can't see well, when the faces of other people are mostly lost to you except at pornographic range, the scope and advance structure breaks down, and you more or less have to hope that someone else sees how you are and draws you into a conversation. Of course, there is the third option, which was not open to me when my blindness began ten years ago, and that is to be very still inside myself, free of the monkey that jabbers desolation, and listen. This isn't always easy, and it's a little bit sideways from the mood with which you want to attend a picnic, but it's better than the alternative, which is to chew on the tablecloth and sulk. Also, I think I have something more interesting to talk about than a lot of what gets talked about at a picnic, and that is, without being a snob about it, that I have written one book and am writing another. It would probably be more compelling if I had published something, but at least I know that I haven't spent the ten years of my exile weeping.
Well. Not all of them, anyway.
But when you can't see well, when the faces of other people are mostly lost to you except at pornographic range, the scope and advance structure breaks down, and you more or less have to hope that someone else sees how you are and draws you into a conversation. Of course, there is the third option, which was not open to me when my blindness began ten years ago, and that is to be very still inside myself, free of the monkey that jabbers desolation, and listen. This isn't always easy, and it's a little bit sideways from the mood with which you want to attend a picnic, but it's better than the alternative, which is to chew on the tablecloth and sulk. Also, I think I have something more interesting to talk about than a lot of what gets talked about at a picnic, and that is, without being a snob about it, that I have written one book and am writing another. It would probably be more compelling if I had published something, but at least I know that I haven't spent the ten years of my exile weeping.
Well. Not all of them, anyway.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Spiritual Umbrellas
This morning, I started out with the idea of starting a Yahoo group. It was going to have a sort of Subgenius vibe to it, and I tossed McFnord a couple of ideas for themes. At first, I thought I would go with the Alien Overlord thing. I still find it amusing, even though McFnord reminded me that the vein had been mined to death. Same thing with zombies, which I also suggested. And what I found, as I sat there thinking up themes for my group, is that something is going on with me that extends well beyond Yahoo. It's there in the email I sent to Ivan Stang; my break with the Catholic church and a search for a more amenable spiritual umbrella.
One of the conflicts I seem to be dealing with right now is the very idea of rebellion. I've always been an outsider, both for reasons that I chose and for reasons that chose me. I feel like I'm looking for allies and collaborators in my life, although straightforward friendship is welcome, too.
The thing is, I suddenly feel like I've shed so many skins in recent months, that I'm coming to a place where I'm having to reacquaint myself with myself. For at least twenty years, I've thought that I knew myself pretty well. I know what my tastes are and can defend them if called to do so; the same goes for my politics. But that feeling of self-comfort was shattered when my health catastrophe struck and I lost the better part of my eyesight. Suddenly, I was angry at God and furious with myself. Rehashing old behaviors, especially sexual ones, I seemed to discover that I had been vain and silly, or worse. I was baptized in the Catholic church in the middle of this time, and it provided stability when I was one unstable cat.
But now I've stabilized and I can't live with the CC lies anymore. I don't need some red Papa in Rome to instruct me in moral clarity. I want for myself what I want for humanity: liberation from suffering, ignorance and control. For me, the way through all this change has always been to revert to the roles of the magician and poet. But now I think a third identity is in ascendance, and I think it might be the role of the comedian. I've been way too serious about things for way too long. That's why recent posts have been so much about little pranks and games. Also, I'm just so fucking tired of being this serious blind guy. Does any of this resonate with you, reader?
One of the conflicts I seem to be dealing with right now is the very idea of rebellion. I've always been an outsider, both for reasons that I chose and for reasons that chose me. I feel like I'm looking for allies and collaborators in my life, although straightforward friendship is welcome, too.
The thing is, I suddenly feel like I've shed so many skins in recent months, that I'm coming to a place where I'm having to reacquaint myself with myself. For at least twenty years, I've thought that I knew myself pretty well. I know what my tastes are and can defend them if called to do so; the same goes for my politics. But that feeling of self-comfort was shattered when my health catastrophe struck and I lost the better part of my eyesight. Suddenly, I was angry at God and furious with myself. Rehashing old behaviors, especially sexual ones, I seemed to discover that I had been vain and silly, or worse. I was baptized in the Catholic church in the middle of this time, and it provided stability when I was one unstable cat.
But now I've stabilized and I can't live with the CC lies anymore. I don't need some red Papa in Rome to instruct me in moral clarity. I want for myself what I want for humanity: liberation from suffering, ignorance and control. For me, the way through all this change has always been to revert to the roles of the magician and poet. But now I think a third identity is in ascendance, and I think it might be the role of the comedian. I've been way too serious about things for way too long. That's why recent posts have been so much about little pranks and games. Also, I'm just so fucking tired of being this serious blind guy. Does any of this resonate with you, reader?
Fairy Stones and Mystic Trains
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attacked ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Watched the glittering of sea beams at the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost like tears in rain..."
--from "Blade Runner"
Like Roy Baty, the christiate android from the movie, I've seen things most people wouldn't believe. There's one particular time when I saw a bunch of things during the course of a day or so. I'm not actually sure how long it was --I lost track of time. No, I wasn't on acid; who cares about acid trips? Everyone sees wild stuff on that shit. I might have been crazy, that I will admit. But this stuff sort of hangs together in a way that you don't expect from the shattered imaginings of the mad.
When did all this happen? Well, I got arrested for a public disturbance and they threw me in the Hole because I wouldn't put on their fucking jail uniform; especially after Seattle PD had tasered me to the ground. So I wound up in a tiny ten by ten cell with a water fountain, a toilet and a hard damned pallet. But I didn't rest.
Instead, I saw things, went places.
For instance, the cell became a Maglev train, like the ones they have in France. I could get upfrom my pallet in what had been a tiny cell and walk up and down the aisles and sit in different chairs. I know this sounds crazy, and it probably is, but I was told more or less that this was a train for magicians and that Sir Anthony Hopkins liked to ride on this particular one. I was told not to disturb him with my conjurations or there might be trouble. I met the magician who seemed to be in charge. He appeared to me as a line drawing in the air. He made me agree to certain rules and I shook hands with him in a particular way which sealed the agreement, even though the hand he offered me was intangible. At one point, I offered a sloppy handshake and the image in front of me comically wrinkled its nose.
"No!" he said. "This sloppy hand jive won't do. This is serious business!"
In the end, he told me that I had been on the train before and that he always had a good feeling about me, a sense of trust and seriousness.
It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination, at least in the way most people understand such things. I was in some anteroom of our bread and butter reality. Dreaming has a certain texture to it, and a certain fragility. When you wake up, the dream fades. But this resides in my memory in the same way a visit to the grocery store or a bowling alley does.
Other things happened to me, many things, and I'm only relating the ones that are the easiest to describe. At one point I rode a floating stone piloted by a fairy sorceress. She told me that it was crucial we make it to our destination and that I must be impeccable. But I failed her test in some crucial but unknowable way and fell from the flying fairy stone. She told me woefully that she had thought I might be the Merlin energy returned to Earth, but that Ihad tricked her and now she would die, powerless and crippled. I apologized, I begged her to tell me how I could fix things. But this sort of test, when failed, is not the sort of thing one can fix and she told me so. She said that I might be a good magician, but that I was not a great one. It might be the purest arrogance on my part, but I can't tell you how this stung. It was as if the Jews hadseen the Messiah approaching but he turned out to be Bozo the Clown.
The last incident I will relate is in some ways the most puzzling to me, though on the surface it was less fantastical than the first two. I rode another fairy stone to a location which was described to me as the interior of a different world than Earth. This time, I didn't fall, but arrived at a location which seemed to be a transformed bversion of my cell. Instead of a toilet and cot in a tiny room, the space seemed to go on for miles and was covered in these tall stone mushrooms. While climbing over one of these, I slipped and fell, bashing my nose. That's when the door opened and a man and a woman came into the room-world. The woman took a towel to my bloody nose and soaked up the mess. When they were sure that I was going to be all right, they left again. And when I finally got home from the jail, my nose was clotted with dried blood.
I had some other adventures, but some of them seem to have faded from my memory and I can only sketch them out in the barest details. For instance, I played some sort of game with a prince of the underworld. When I offended himn in some mysterious way, he left me in a closed stone room from which it was impossible to escape. Obviously, I seem to have done so, but the terror of being walled up alive is still with me to this day.
What's my answer for all of this? I was a little bit crazy, I suppose. But I think it's the madness of shamans and magicians, the crack in the teacup that can open up lanes to the land of the dead. I just know that I have spoken with fairies and stood accused in a court of monsters, and that all, all, all of it was real.
--from "Blade Runner"
Like Roy Baty, the christiate android from the movie, I've seen things most people wouldn't believe. There's one particular time when I saw a bunch of things during the course of a day or so. I'm not actually sure how long it was --I lost track of time. No, I wasn't on acid; who cares about acid trips? Everyone sees wild stuff on that shit. I might have been crazy, that I will admit. But this stuff sort of hangs together in a way that you don't expect from the shattered imaginings of the mad.
When did all this happen? Well, I got arrested for a public disturbance and they threw me in the Hole because I wouldn't put on their fucking jail uniform; especially after Seattle PD had tasered me to the ground. So I wound up in a tiny ten by ten cell with a water fountain, a toilet and a hard damned pallet. But I didn't rest.
Instead, I saw things, went places.
For instance, the cell became a Maglev train, like the ones they have in France. I could get upfrom my pallet in what had been a tiny cell and walk up and down the aisles and sit in different chairs. I know this sounds crazy, and it probably is, but I was told more or less that this was a train for magicians and that Sir Anthony Hopkins liked to ride on this particular one. I was told not to disturb him with my conjurations or there might be trouble. I met the magician who seemed to be in charge. He appeared to me as a line drawing in the air. He made me agree to certain rules and I shook hands with him in a particular way which sealed the agreement, even though the hand he offered me was intangible. At one point, I offered a sloppy handshake and the image in front of me comically wrinkled its nose.
"No!" he said. "This sloppy hand jive won't do. This is serious business!"
In the end, he told me that I had been on the train before and that he always had a good feeling about me, a sense of trust and seriousness.
It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination, at least in the way most people understand such things. I was in some anteroom of our bread and butter reality. Dreaming has a certain texture to it, and a certain fragility. When you wake up, the dream fades. But this resides in my memory in the same way a visit to the grocery store or a bowling alley does.
Other things happened to me, many things, and I'm only relating the ones that are the easiest to describe. At one point I rode a floating stone piloted by a fairy sorceress. She told me that it was crucial we make it to our destination and that I must be impeccable. But I failed her test in some crucial but unknowable way and fell from the flying fairy stone. She told me woefully that she had thought I might be the Merlin energy returned to Earth, but that Ihad tricked her and now she would die, powerless and crippled. I apologized, I begged her to tell me how I could fix things. But this sort of test, when failed, is not the sort of thing one can fix and she told me so. She said that I might be a good magician, but that I was not a great one. It might be the purest arrogance on my part, but I can't tell you how this stung. It was as if the Jews hadseen the Messiah approaching but he turned out to be Bozo the Clown.
The last incident I will relate is in some ways the most puzzling to me, though on the surface it was less fantastical than the first two. I rode another fairy stone to a location which was described to me as the interior of a different world than Earth. This time, I didn't fall, but arrived at a location which seemed to be a transformed bversion of my cell. Instead of a toilet and cot in a tiny room, the space seemed to go on for miles and was covered in these tall stone mushrooms. While climbing over one of these, I slipped and fell, bashing my nose. That's when the door opened and a man and a woman came into the room-world. The woman took a towel to my bloody nose and soaked up the mess. When they were sure that I was going to be all right, they left again. And when I finally got home from the jail, my nose was clotted with dried blood.
I had some other adventures, but some of them seem to have faded from my memory and I can only sketch them out in the barest details. For instance, I played some sort of game with a prince of the underworld. When I offended himn in some mysterious way, he left me in a closed stone room from which it was impossible to escape. Obviously, I seem to have done so, but the terror of being walled up alive is still with me to this day.
What's my answer for all of this? I was a little bit crazy, I suppose. But I think it's the madness of shamans and magicians, the crack in the teacup that can open up lanes to the land of the dead. I just know that I have spoken with fairies and stood accused in a court of monsters, and that all, all, all of it was real.
The Ancient Swindle
I'm against patriotism, at least what passes for it in the USA. People here do a lot of bullying, a lot of mindless flag-waving, mouth the talking points of Bill O'Riley and Carl Rove and call themselves patriots. But you can't carry patriotism on a bumper sticker, you can't get it from mouthing the bird droppings of Ann Coulter and you can't even get it from voting for your favorite candidate every two years. Real patriotism comes from people who spill their lifesblood on foreign soil: granted. But the patriots of 1776, who politicians parrot and claim to emulate, were largely statesmen, editors and intellectuals. They published daily or weekly broadsides in which they voiced opinions about the nascent state and often scandalous reports of their political enemies. They spread the word that a new order was coming, something bright and new and quite separate from England.
Today's patriot seems to come by his stripes by beating up queers and swigging beer. Mouthing Bush and Rush. Trashing their Muslim neighbors. And so on. The patriotism of today, excluding the service of soldiers whom I honor though I suspect them of being taken into an ancient swindle --that pernicious scheme by which evil old men con young men to do their dying for them-- is ludicrous and cheap. I think we should discard "The Star Spangled Banner" as jingoistic 19th century bollywog and replace it with "This Land Is Your Land" as our national anthem. Despite all this, I rather like our flag with its fifty stars. If you tilt your consciousness just a little to the side, it can look like a prophecy of Earth's inclusion in a celestial democracy, just one world of suffering peoples in a universe of many.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Brainwarp
It's bringing on major brainwarp, but I'm gradually learning how to run a blog on this here site. It is much more flexible than Workpad, although I will grieve losing out on the often(if not always) helpful webmaster there.
At the risk of annoying the readership, folks can always look at my posts at the old site by using the following URL:
I will be setting the Cinema Nocturne DNS to point to blogger, and in the near future, everyone will again be able to follow the thrilling exploits of Bill the Cranky Blind Poet at:
Notice the name of the actual site is effaced from this address, for your convenience and for peculiar lexical gratifications of my own.
Salut!
Summer Reading
If you've followed this blog at the Workpad site, you will have read that I am currently enmeshed in a mad, mad love affair with a new gadget of mine, a miraculous device called the Victor Reader Stream. Previously, I had borrowed exhausted cassette tapes from the Washington State Talking Book and Braille Library. Except for the cassette failures and frequent malfunction of the 1970's tape machines, it was an adequate way to keep abreast of one's reading if you didn't happen to know Braille. But in the end, all those breakdowns and tape failures wore on me and I gave up on books for a few years.
Then I acquired a Victor Reader Stream. This device enables you to download books in digital format and read them at various speeds and volumes, and depending upon the size of the SD card you eploy and the size of the books you read, you can store four or five dozen books. It's a portable Alexandria, and in fact, I have labeled my SD card "Alexandria" in honor of this fact.
This device has saved me hours of time wasting with online multiplayer games. I have read WAR AND PEACE, THE DIVINE COMEDY of Dante and now THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien's mythological basis for THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It's simply an astonishing bit of technology, and once you master the telephone keypad it's practically witless to operate. Besides some newer fantasy titles, including Suzanne Clarke's JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL, my wee Alexandria currently houses BLEAK HOUSE, HARD TIMES, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, THE GREAT GATSBY and numerous other classics.
It almost makes you want to go blind, doesn't it?
Then I acquired a Victor Reader Stream. This device enables you to download books in digital format and read them at various speeds and volumes, and depending upon the size of the SD card you eploy and the size of the books you read, you can store four or five dozen books. It's a portable Alexandria, and in fact, I have labeled my SD card "Alexandria" in honor of this fact.
This device has saved me hours of time wasting with online multiplayer games. I have read WAR AND PEACE, THE DIVINE COMEDY of Dante and now THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien's mythological basis for THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It's simply an astonishing bit of technology, and once you master the telephone keypad it's practically witless to operate. Besides some newer fantasy titles, including Suzanne Clarke's JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL, my wee Alexandria currently houses BLEAK HOUSE, HARD TIMES, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, THE GREAT GATSBY and numerous other classics.
It almost makes you want to go blind, doesn't it?
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Quasi Introduction
In truth, I have been writing a blog called "Cinema Nocturne" for four or five years now. You can see it at:
http://www.cinemanocturne.workpad.com/
Because I seem unable to gain access to CN and the webmaster is not being very helpful at that point, I am seriously considering bringing all of my content to Blogger. Besides, it's time for a change, and though I'm legally blind I've found Blogger to be fairly easy to navigate with my screen reader. Also, referral sites don't seem to capture posts made at Workpad and I'd like to expand my readership which, though smart and faithful, is relatively small.
Readers of Cinema Nocturne can expect to read posts from a progressive postgay perspective with leanings towards the poetical, the magical and outré. Also, I am legally blind and sometimes come at things from a cranky disability angle. Finally, I've written one novel, for which I am currently trying to get literary representation, and am working on my second novel, which for various reasons I think might turn out to be more commercial. In the meantime, I do this blog, and thrive on reader participation. I welcome brickbats where I've got them coming and will cough up apologies when they're called for.
Welcome to the latest incarnation of Cinema Nocturne.
http://www.cinemanocturne.workpad.com/
Because I seem unable to gain access to CN and the webmaster is not being very helpful at that point, I am seriously considering bringing all of my content to Blogger. Besides, it's time for a change, and though I'm legally blind I've found Blogger to be fairly easy to navigate with my screen reader. Also, referral sites don't seem to capture posts made at Workpad and I'd like to expand my readership which, though smart and faithful, is relatively small.
Readers of Cinema Nocturne can expect to read posts from a progressive postgay perspective with leanings towards the poetical, the magical and outré. Also, I am legally blind and sometimes come at things from a cranky disability angle. Finally, I've written one novel, for which I am currently trying to get literary representation, and am working on my second novel, which for various reasons I think might turn out to be more commercial. In the meantime, I do this blog, and thrive on reader participation. I welcome brickbats where I've got them coming and will cough up apologies when they're called for.
Welcome to the latest incarnation of Cinema Nocturne.
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