Jonathan Carroll – The Wooden Sea - Review

To characterize Jonathan Carroll as merely a 'surrealist' novelist would be a misnomer, though his work does fall in the vicinity of this category. While reading The Wooden Sea, however, many subjects came to mind: quantum theory, depth psychology, and particularly Zen Buddhism.

What we witness through the eyes of the protagonist, Frannie McCabe, is a sequence of unrelated events, strange and explainable. The journey's purpose, we later discover, is recognizing the meaning in these events that for a great deal of the stories find the lead character, jumping back and forth in time, meeting past and future selves.

Frannie McCabe is a Vietnam veteran living in Crane's View, New York, working as the town's Chief of Police. One day he comes across a three-legged dog, which he dubs Old Vertue, who suddenly dies before his eyes. Feeling bad for the old mutt, he finds a shovel and buries him in the woods outside of town. The next thing he knows, Old Vertue reappears alive and as good as new, except he's still a three-legged dog. This bizarre miracle sets off a quantum chain of events, where through various time periods, McCabe journeys, and for the most part, is accompanied by his teenage self, that he comes to call Gee Gee.

What we come to discover, through chance meetings with unusual beings, is that Frannie McCabe has only seven days to figure out what the heck is going on, putting the pieces together, to prevent some unknown universal catastrophe.

Carroll is clever in his use of the Zen Buddhist concept, known as a Koan. A Koan is a riddle or meaningless statement that Buddhism's student must meditate upon to reach a state of enlightenment or Satori. A common example is a question: “What is the sound of one hand, clapping?” or “When a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” The Koan point is to break down one's logical mind, its embedded circuitry, thereby triggering enlightenment or a level of spiritual awareness.

The Wooden Sea could also be described as a one-long Koan. Nothing makes any logical sense, and the question is asked to McCabe: “How does one row upon a wooden sea?” A few characters, including McCabe's younger self, come up with some creative answers, but that's not the point. There are no answers, for it is a method to directly understand the meaning of life, ignoring what is considered miss-leading logical thoughts and language.

From my little understanding, depth psychology addresses the notions of a “divided self.” Through a process of self-analysis, including therapy and dream interpretation, one reaches a stage of “individuation,” where our divided “selves” merge, creating a conscious wholeness.

The Wooden Sea is a quantum journey through non-linear time, meeting future and pasts selves; selves that require merging for a true understanding of our lives and ourselves.

Carroll merges these concepts in an entertaining story, at times hilarious, and sometimes extremely moving.

This is an excellent novel - quirky, funny, weird, and informative.

 

Kayaking Down the Colorado River (P.3 of 3)

 

I awoke the next morning to the crashing sounds of the river. My fellow travelers were still sleeping. So not to wake anybody, I stealthy found my way to the river's edge, scooping my hand in the cold stream and drinking several mouthfuls. After so many years, I still can taste its freshness and bite to the tongue – it was delicious. The rest of the camp emerged, and we cooked breakfast of slimy eggs and oatmeal.

“Please no oatmeal for me, thanks, I'll stick to the eggs and burnt toast.” I said.

“Suit yourself, but it's going to be a big day.” Big Jack replied.

The sky was overcast and looked like it would rain at any moment. After loading our supplies into our respective kayaks, we launched onto the river. For the entire morning, we only hit a few rough patches of white water. Big Jack sat behind me, barking out orders on which side of the boat I should paddle on. We were doing well, traversing around rocks and rushing water that appeared too dangerous to run through without running into trouble. Then it started to rain, and it came down hard.

Big Jack yelled, “We need to go to shore before the storm gets any worse!”

Right as we turned around a long bend, we were faced with a scene of pure white water. There was no escaping the rushing torrents and rocks without slamming into them. Up ahead, I saw the older man's kayak turn over and watched him grab onto a rock as his boat flipped like a wheel, topsy-turvy downstream. The younger man had disappeared with no sign of his craft. All I remember is Big Jack screaming:

“Paddle-like-hell-son!”

Close to the river's edge, our Kayak capsized

Our provisions, and everything else crashing downriver. I remember Big Jack grabbing my shirt collar and taking us both to the edge. We made it. Then the heaven's opened up, and cold rain pelted hard against our bodies. Every drop of rain that hit my body felt like a bee sting. We crawled under the closest tree. After around thirty minutes, the old man and his son showed and sat next to us under the tree.

“We shouldn't stay here, or we'll be hit by lightning.” the old man said.

“Any sign of the kayaks?” Jack asked.

“No Big Jack, the boats with all our provisions are long gone. We need to find help.” the younger man said.

The rain had stopped as quickly as it began. So we set out on foot downriver to find anybody that could aid us in our current plight. The sun reappeared in all its burning glory, and my hat and shoes had been in the Kayak. If you ever had to walk barefoot on a forest floor, you'll know it's excruciating.

We then decided to walk away from the river inland. After a two hour trek, we could see a homestead in the distance. Before even reaching the front door, a man dressed in an old plaid shirt and jeans, carrying a shotgun, announced,

“You people are on private property. I'd advise you to move on!”

After explaining our circumstances, the shotgun man sized me up, determining that we didn't present any threat. I remember him half smiling, possibly thinking: 'These damn city people, more trouble than they're worth.'

When we entered his home, who I assumed was the man's wife looked me up and down and said, “Take off those wet clothes, child, and get in the shower. I'll find you some dry ones. Go on...”

Getting into the shower, I remember it stinging so bad because of the fact my face had second-degree burns, not to mention cuts and bruises on my feet, crying in the shower. The clothes the lady gave me were way too big. But I recall being thankful and, most of all, grateful for being alive.

I don't remember traveling home; however, what I do remember is Big Jack and my father sitting in front of the TV watching history taking place, the major event in my lifetime.

Big Jack continued saying to my parents, “If it wasn't for your son, we'd be floating somewhere drowned in the Colorado River. Your son is the hero in this story.”

There was nothing heroic about the whole damn thing. But something truly immense changed for me as a human being. Coming in close contact with the giant owl on the river had opened my awareness beyond the bubble state of suburbia. The pain of walking barefoot through the brush of the Wyoming landscape revealed that I wasn't merely the “quiet child" who had waking nightmares three times a week. The moon landing represented an evolution for not only the human race but for me, personally.

From that July day in 1969...I had grown up.

Kayaking Down the Colorado River (P.2)

Once embarking on the river on the first day of this planned three-day adventure, which turned out to be only two, turned out to be relatively uneventful. It was around noon that our twenty-year-old companion managed to maneuver his kayak between two rocks, wedged motionless as his boat filled with water. We passed the boy, hailing him not to panic, as we paddled our way to shore, devising a plan to set him free. Once we reached shore, he sailed past us waving, wearing a grin of cheeky triumph. He got himself free without our help and appeared quite proud of this fact.

We kayaked downstream until close to dusk, and I remember the sky turning a deep orange when over-head, a giant owl with a wingspan of at least a meter, flew over our bow. Big Jack let out a loud yelp in surprise. My reaction, however, looking back, was really a tad strange. One could just about touch this magnificent bird as it flew over us, giving me a feeling of an inner sense of peace. I've never felt such a feeling even today, and remember it in full: a technicolor memory.

Once we set-up camp, making a fire, and cooking hamburgers, the entire talk around the camp was the boy's accident and his heroic efforts to set himself free. At the age of 12, I was never really the talkative type of child. I listened to their discussions around the campfire but never really listened. My parents called me a dreamer, a soul with a vivid imagination, and a disdain for the “real” world. All I could think about was the giant owl, which nobody seemed interested in talking about.

This image of the owl brought back a memory while living in Australia at the age of five.

In those days, the Australians celebrated Guy Fawkes Day. This event was the day a group of conspirators, including a man by the name of Guy Fawkes, who, on November 5, 1605, known as The Gunpowder Plot, attempted to blow-up the London Houses of Parliament. Fawkes was part of a band of Catholic zealots, who were angered by King James, refusing to give Roman Catholics their religious Rights. This political act is what we presently call “terrorism.” As many people are now aware, the mask of Guy Fawkes is used in protests as a symbol of rebellion against authority. Well, on this particular November day in my grandfather's backyard, we were about to celebrate with yours truly, flying to the moon in a makeshift rocket ship.

In my innocent and somewhat naive view of existence at the age of five, In my grandfather's make-shift rocket of tin cans and wood, I truly believed that I would indeed travel to the moon. I remember sitting in the “cockpit, and my grandfather lighting the bottle rockets from behind, expecting to surge into space. Needless to say, there was a lot of noise and no movement; simply loud pops and laughter from my family. The joke was on me. I thought magic existed and believed my grandfather had the wherewithal to build a real spacecraft.

This close encounter with the giant owl on the Colorado River, and my belief that I could fly to the moon in my grandfather's spacecraft in the year 1961, felt to be related. What did these unrelated events, including the 1969 moon landing, all have in common...how did they relate?

Kayaking Down the Colorado River (P.1)

It was the Summer of 69', (yes, like the song) when my next door neighbor and I kayaked down the Colorado River, where we almost met our deaths from the white rapids, drowning amongst the rocks in the southern part of Wyoming.

I remember returning from this near-death experience to our living room in Denver, Colorado, the black and white TV blaring, my father with a pint of whisky by his side, watching the live images of our moon's landscape, and the famous words from Neil Armstrong, broadcasting around the world: “That's one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.”

At this point, my skin had second-degree burns from the sun, and my feet so swollen that all I could do was undress and crawl into bed, falling more into unconsciousness than sleep. This adventure turned more into a miss-adventure because I later discovered the “adults.” of our contingency of three individuals, and one child had not pre-planned the ride downriver. The professional river traveler will explore ahead, estimating the risks. This was not done. We kayaked blind into unknown territory and nearly paid with our lives.

Our next-door neighbor, Big Jack, we called him, worked at the Denver Airport as an engine mechanic. The light in his garage could be seen late into the night while he built his fiberglass kayaks and various other unknown projects. On those hot afternoons, I'd sit on a wooden crate, watching him build his boats, discussing his many experiences on the river. It would be a few months later that he asked my mother's permission to take me on one of these boating excursions.

Big Jack exuded confidence and had the bearings of a man who knew about the world. A Korean War Vet, Jack, had that military-style and personality that demanded respect. Jack was a man who you could trust with your life. As I recall, my mother reluctantly allowed her 12 year-old son to join the expedition. The trip turned out a little differently than anyone, including Big Jack, anticipated.

I don't remember what brand of truck Jack owned, but it was big enough to stack two kayaks on the roof. We loaded all our provision, mine only a newly bought sleeping bag, a change of clothes, and the compulsory toothbrush. Big Jack said he would provide everything else, including bug repellent and camping equipment. I recall waving goodbye to my mother and two sisters as we pulled out of the driveway. Like most mothers, mine had a worried expression, and as many mothers will admit, worrying about their children is their “job.”

On the border of Colorado and Wyoming, at a desolate gas station, we met Big Jack's friends. One of the men looked older than Jack, and the other, a younger boy, no more than 20 years of age, who turned out to be his son. After the initial greetings, Jack and I led the way into Wyoming, to finally turn off the main drag and ending our day at a public campsite.

We launched our boats the next morning into relatively calm waters. This “calmness” on the river would soon change for the worse.

The Confusion and Dis-information that is the US Presidential Election

                                                                    OPINION

The Trump/Biden debate was televised live here in Australia. My roommate announced that it was going live any second, an expression of pure excitement in his eyes as if his favorite rock band was about to enter the building. My understanding and close watch of American politics, particularly since the dawn of the Trump era, has quashed any seed of hope in what I consider a substantial change in American society.

In full transparency, Trump's handling of COVID 19 in America should be a matter of legal scrutiny. First, he dismissed it as the passing flu, that it would “go away” in the summer months, then, of course, the endless blame and shame game inside and outside his administration. Sources say that he would bully staff for wearing a mask and walk around without one like he was immune because, really, it was all a foreign or democratic hoax. Well, low and behold, the orange clown gets the virus and now wears a mask within the WH and in public. And please, let's not forget that COVID is all China's fault. Compared to other nations in the world's handling the virus, America gets a whopping zero on a one to ten scale. Well done, Trump.

To even look at Biden, let alone hear him speak, is woefully painful. The man is not what he used to be, brain-matter-wise; however, policy-wise, he's exactly the same. The crime bill of the '90s, for one example, that he pushed through as his own baby, changed the US into a semi-police state to a fascist one, creating what now is termed, The Prison Industrial Complex. A citizen caught for smoking weed is in the same cell as a serial killer. This is Biden's doing. Joe Biden is a full-blooded red Republican, wearing a blue, shiny suit. And certainly like Trump, Biden is a Wall Street lackey, and what Wall Street says, presidents jump high, to as far back as Lyndon Johnson.

And please remember, too, Biden was not the elected democratic choice to run against Trump; because of the virus and shifty machinations of the DNC, the man was essentially anointed as the nominee. The entire democratic system in the United States is fixed and run by Wall Street oligarchs, lobbyists, and right-wing ideologues of the worst kind.

The most outstanding aspect of current American politics is the blame and shame game. Rather than actually addressing the nation's issues, such as healthcare, education, environment, and the country's crumbling infrastructure, it's a back and forth game of who is more corrupt than the other. And if the blame is not from within, it's a foreign country like China, Russia, or Iran that is the root of all America's problems. Today's debate ran with the same playbook, cunningly skimming over the real issues facing the American people.

Reading my city's newspaper today, here in Melbourne, Australia, even the paper's US correspondents are jumping on Russia, China, and now Iran's interference in the upcoming election. Let's come back to reality; there was never collusion between Trump and the Russians in 2016. Aside from a few outlandish facebook ads and around $4,000 ad money paid to Google, that's the extent of the Russian interference. So like the so-called “left” journalists in MSM in the United States, Australia too, reports anything a retired Intelligence officer or once a leader of the CIA even slightly mentions that it “could” be that there is meddling from one of America's stated enemies, the press jump on it as if it's Breaking News, and spreads it around like it's a fact. Blame the Russians or call anyone an agent of Russia if they disagree with your political views.

Overall, the MSM has a lot to answer for their misinformation, reporting unnamed sources to make a headline or capture a few more clicks on the internet.

Many professional political pundits on the internet and elsewhere will have their summations and judgments on the last presidential debate of 2020. Personally, I don't care because I know this campaign is one big set-up, skirting the real issues that face my family and friends in the United States.

My question, will this 'shit show' of what we call American politics to get any better in the future, or are we heading down an LSD infested rabbit hole of even more corruption and wars?

 

Yukio Mishima – Confessions of a Mask – Review

 

One of the more famous novels by Mishima, the book is a poetic exploration of the soul, the inner personality of the narrator, who the reader comes to know as Kochan. Admittedly, for this reader, the journey we take with the protagonist, his intense self-analysis regarding his true sexuality, at once gruesome and strange, including his fantasy life from a young boy towards manhood is quite uncomfortable in its honest and descriptive detail.

 In the beginning, the narrator communicates that he recalls his birth. The detailed descriptions of being bathed in a small, wooden tub, illustrating how the morning light reflects off a droplet of water dangling from the basin's edge, is really quite beautiful. At this early point in the biography, no more than a toddler, we feel the child's contradictions in memory and truth.

Later the young child comes across a painting of a knight on a horse, fitted with body armor and a long sword welding triumphantly in the sky. At first, he treasures this painting representing to the boy the idea of manliness, hiding it from his grandparents, to later discover that it's a portrait of Joan of Arc. Once told of this reality, the boy immediately discards the work, never to view again. On the surface, for a young lad, this could well be disappointing, but Kochan's visceral reaction goes way beyond what we generally would consider normal.

As a young man in boarding school, he comes to feel what is “love.” for another boy. The older classmate, known as Omi, represents everything that our narrator is not healthy, strong, defiant, and exuding self-confidence. The boy's do connect, only once in a game of physical engagement. The game turns out to be a kind of draw, and Omi finally acknowledges our protagonist. This is Kochan's first “boyhood love,” and the prose used to describe this pubescent love, at times, I found quite moving.

However, Kochan's inner fantasy life borders on true sadism, which could well put off certain readers. He often returns to a painting of St. Sebastian, depicting the saint hanging from a tree, his arms crossed above him, in the throes of death. The painting comes to be the central point or apotheosis of all Kochan's sexual fantasy life.

Our narrator's first female love, Sonoko, is the younger sister of his best friend. Here in the story, Kochan's inner conflicts of identity and sexuality turn more anguished and confusing. Their exchanges though subtle, reveal a connection of a type from the very beginning of their relationship. I believe that Kochan does indeed love Sodoko, but leads her on in an egoistic manner: leading Sodoko to believe he is someone else other than who he actually is – she falls in love with his “mask,” and to a certain degree, Kochan finds pleasure in this deception. Though the two never marry each other, Sodoko finally does after the war to another, and surprising to the both of them, they continue to meet, only to talk and simply be in each other's company. The narrator's continued inner analysis of the true nature of love and sexual love is expressed notably during this section of the novel.

Yukio Mishima was an intriguing individual: actor, playwright, model, filmmaker, and ideologically an imperialist – right wing. He organized his own militia as a revolutionary force, combating what he thought were the unnecessary western influences in Japan. This militia failed miserably, and soon later, Mishima committed seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide in 1970.

Confessions of a Mask reminded me of the unrelenting and honest self-analysis of the great authors of the 19^th century – Dostoevsky and the German philosopher Fredric Nietzsche.

Excellent yet disturbing.

Halloween, Northglenn, Colo – 1966 (P3 of 3)

My perceptions reeled into an echo-chamber, the constant pounding of a rhythmic machine, like a pile-driver, smashing a steel beam into the ground. A sudden shift to standing on a cliffs edge, tittering, unbalanced, looking down into a dark abyss, daring me to jump into the void forever. A soft voice from beyond, barely audible, beckoned me to return to the present time.

Again, my 4th-grade teacher, Ms. Shuburg, sat on the folding chair in the corner of the room.

The more I peered into her blue eyes, the more relaxed my body, and an overall feeling of peace, like a gentle wave of the sea, splashed over me, once again returning to my origins, that one safe space most of us can never remember.

Ms Shuburg spoke to me, though only in my mind, as her beautiful red lips never moved.

“I want to show you images from the future, circumstances and situations, possible futures, based on what decisions you make for yourself. None of these futures are set in stone in this existence, but alternative lives, that are existing too, as we face each other now”:

Similar to watching a large movie screen, I see my self having sex with a pretty girl no more than 15 years of age; we are the same age, and I'm drunk and having an orgasm, I lift myself off the bed and stumble down the stairs in horror, feeling I had committed the most egregious of acts imaginable. The scene changes, and the girl is holding a child, a crowd surrounds her, and everyone is happy. A sudden cut and I'm watching us at a wedding ceremony. Later, the girl and I are much older, arguing with the child now grown. A new cut in the film, much older now, standing by the gravesite of the girl, my wife, now dead, and feeling the pain of loss and anger that she has left us too soon.

The scene changes and I'm with another woman, around twenty years of age, and I know we're married. Our surroundings are dirty, unkempt, and smells of week-old rubbish. We are sharing drugs while a toddler waddles across the room, smudged in mud, wearing soiled pajamas. After injecting the drug, the woman, my partner, falls into unconsciousness and dies because she has overdosed. I appear panic-stricken, pacing the room in a drug-induced frenzy.

Now viewing a ceremony at a prestigious university, feeling pride because my son has graduated with honors; the person next to me is a beautiful middle-aged woman, who shares my pride for our son.

Now I'm standing on the deck of a large ocean-liner. I can feel the sea breeze and smell the salt in the air. I look terribly old and alone. In the next moment, I see myself jump over the railing into the ocean and drown.

Now surrounded by the unrelenting sounds of gunfire. We're sitting in a hole as the bullets whizz over us. And my friend lays beside me wounded, bleeding, ready to die, but there is no way out of the hole to save him as the enemy is everywhere. The dying man turns to me and says, “Remind never to join the service for a stupid war like this one. Hell, man, we shouldn't even be in Vietnam; it's their damn country, for fuck sake!”

The movie screen begins to flicker and grow dark. Though I can see my two sisters and myself fully grown, laughing at my younger sister's child's antics, acting the fool for the family. It's there I realize he'll be a famous actor one day on the Broadway stage...

The screen goes completely black, and I'm now sitting with Ms. Shuburg in the makeshift room in my home, and I remember that it's Halloween.

I hear my father's frustrated voice from behind me. “C'mon Craig. Give us a hand taking all this shit down. You got to go to school in the morning.” Turning back, my 4th-grade teacher had miraculously vanished.

Many years later, I read about quantum theory and the notion of the multi-universe. Can it be possible that there are thousands of other 'selves,' living similar lives, in different dimensions? Does our so-called destiny solely depend on those seemingly indiscriminate choices that we make every day? In one dimensional existence, did I really marry my childhood sweetheart and live happily ever after? In this dimension, I managed to escape going to Vietnam, but in another, was I drafted and watched a friend die in a hole right in front of me? Perhaps. It's an interesting notion to consider.

Science has moved beyond what is called biological determinism. Actual consciousness cannot be explained in basic Newtonian terms. Quantum Physics has revealed that a rock is not simply a rock, that at its most basic level, there is an awareness that cannot be entirely explained. Existence and perception, that is, consciousness, remains to be a mystery.

Over the years I had put this insane incident out of my mind. For certain, at that age, I had been experiencing everything from lizard heads appearing on my chest while sleeping in bed to Nazi soldiers chasing me through the house, only to then awake, back to this dimension, hearing the soft sound of my mother's voice, reading poetry.

Halloween, Northglenn, Colo – 1966 (P.2)

 

This Halloween evening landed on a Monday, a school night that did not discourage 100's of children from hitting the streets for their treats and minimal requests for tricks. I recall perhaps only one instance, standing at the door yelling, “Trick or Treat, that an older man answered with “Trick.” The three of us stood their stupefied, never having been given that option. Seeing our shock, the old man smiled, handing out various candy forms into our treat bags. On this particular Halloween in 1966, my father had devised a new plan. To receive your treat, you had to enter his makeshift haunted house.

Digging into memory, I don't recall what got my father to become so creative on a celebration that, at the time, mostly celebrated in the United States. Father was born on the border of NSW's and Victoria, Australia. The family soon moved to Sydney, where he spent the first twelve years of his life.

One day my grandfather announced that the family was moving to Melbourne. This move left my father with an irremovable psychological scar for life. Although he attended Swinburne Tech and soon later met my mother at a local town hall dance, he never stopped complaining about Melbourne, how he hated the weather and the “snooty people.”

At the age of 23, he moved to Montreal, Canada, to seek his first job as a technical draftsman. After a cajoling year, he convinced my mother to join him in Canada, where he would marry her. What is surprising to many, my father seemed to always be an American. He played baseball in Melbourne as a kid and followed the films and politics. Although my mother, through the years, retained her distinctive Australian accent, my father lost his once stepping on North American soil, and it never left him. So really, in hindsight, building a haunted house in our home on that Monday in 1966 is not all that unusual.

First drawing the plan on paper, he grabbed all the bedsheets to borrow more from our neighbors. In the end, the construction included short and semi-long hallways and a few small rooms. In two of the rooms were mannequins, one dressed like a nasty ghoul, and the other, a scarecrow, resembling the one in the film, The Wizard of OZ, however, this one, had a psychotic grin. In the third room, my sister, dressed as a gypsy, was there to read your palms – if you dared.

In the first room, behind the mannequin, sat a cheap walkie-talkie, so when the people entered the room, through the constant static, my father would talk in an ominous voice or just let out a blood curdling scream. This antic had the desired effect.

Once you exited the make-shift haunted house, a bowl of candy lay on the step waiting for adventurous and brave.

As the night grew late, and fewer and fewer children fronted up to the house; my father was just about to announce to call it quits. I remember my sister had left the scene and the static from the walkie-talkie had been turned off.

Alone and entering one of the rooms, suddenly I felt dizzy, and that “night-terror” feeling became overwhelming. The bedsheets had changed color to a light shade of purple. Looking in the corner, the scarecrow was no more a scarecrow, but sitting with her legs crossed, as pretty as ever, sat my 4th-grade teacher, Ms. Shuburg.

“Don't be afraid, Craig. But I'm here to tell you something important.”

Is Lying ever Justified?

 An ethical question:

Before making this entry, my plan was to expound on the subject of dishonesty and, if lying in any situation or even life-saving situations, is ever truly justified.

I've changed my mind.

After thinking about the subject, having to describe Kant's Categorical Imperative to argue one way or the other has been done way too many times; however, in the last month or so, I've caught people lying, and in varying forms of grey to black, and their response was always surprising when confronting them with their deception.

More often than not, those caught would continue lying to cover the discovered lie...and so it goes...lie upon lie.

What did Hamlet say: "What a tangled web we weave when first we practice deceiving."

In other words, the more one lies, the easier it becomes, and farther into the hole one slides.

This week I attended a Renting Tribunal because I believe lies have been put forth to attain my money.

The magistrate directed us to the Bible, placing our respective right hands upon the holy text and swear NOT to lie. This we did.

The first question from the magistrate was: "Has Mr. Middleton seen the photographs and paperwork related to this case?"

The woman stammered, tried to lie, then caught herself vomiting nonsense. (She had just sworn Not to lie.)

He put his hand up, gesturing to the stammering woman to stop talking.

He turned to me, "Mr. Middleton, have you seen the photographs and the landlords case?"

"No, sir."

"Mr. Middleton, I see you have written material in front of you. Do you wish to address this Tribunal?"

I read half a page but was stopped because "counterclaims" were being made. Thus the case will have to continue at a later date.

I have much lesser examples, lies about things in which lying was not necessary, but the individuals lied anyway. In certain circles, this is called "Pathological Lying."

This week and last week, I've come across too many examples to mention here. My point, however, is society growing less intolerant to dishonesty?

Perhaps.

Are we becoming a society of cowards, where everyone lies from the highest government levels down to an uneducated, twenty-something Real Estate Agent bullying her way to make an extra buck?

Without truth, there is no trust, and without trust, there is no justice or love for that matter.

Are there situations in life that one encounters that justify lying?

Maybe, but that discussion is for another time.

Image of inspiration for me.

Halloween, Northglenn, Colo – 1966 (P.1)

 

As a child, October 31, was a favorite time, the summer about to leap into winter. People around looked thrilled. Halloween, an opportunity to dress as ghouls, cool monsters, favorite superheroes, and later, one favorite character from a novel or movie, to be someone else for an evening. I remember the Halloween of 1966, as memorable, only, I guess, our family and our neighbors invested so much time and love into the event in a small part. Then there was that first real romantic “crush.”

At ten years of age, society, and science considers you still a child, an innocent pubescent, and romantic love, would be an anomaly in puberty. No, sex aside, romantic love attached itself to me at birth. My first teacher 'crush' happened in 4^th grade in North More Elementary School and her name was Ms. Schuburg. Dark hair, green eyes, red lipstick, and the woman was nice to me. I mention my 4^th grade teacher because this is the first time since living in Colorado that I actually felt happy. It was worth getting up for school: Ms. Schuburg.

Opposite to these wonderful feelings of romantic love, over the last few years, I would experience what many psychiatrists would label “night terrors.” These episodes would occur at least three times a night throughout the week. Mother would rise from her sleep and deal with the insane midget. Wandering the halls of our 3 bedroom home like a panicked animal trying to escape. Escape from what or who remains a mystery to this day. It was only when turning twelve years of age that these episodes finally subsided, closed off, as it were, to the confines of the unconscious. In the end, in those terrible places of the mind or soul, my mother would read poetry. The sound of her soft voice and the rhythmic cadence of the verses brought me back to the present time.

What is Halloween, really?

This “celebration” goes way back, much further than cheap Superman costumes bought at the local grocery store. The Pagan Right of Passage and homage to the dead have recorded beginnings in ancient Greece, where off-shoots of paying homage to the dead have continued to this day, albeit in many different forms. Many people celebrate the holidays that they don't understand. Ironically, if by chance, you informed a fundamentalist Christian that, during the era of Jesus of Nazareth, that he too would take part in these ancient rituals, they would call it “fake news,” call you a demon, and you'll go straight to hell. We're comfortable in our own beliefs, faiths, and views of existence. To break that imposed reality on a person, particularly when they are not ready, is cruel, and in many cases, creates for more confusion.

I grew up going to Catholic Mass every Sunday, ensuring Confession on Saturday before, and receiving Communion the next morning. All was beautiful and perfect in my invisible bubble of innocent reality. The bubble exploded, and society and this world turned out to be nothing I was told and believed.

This turning of perception all was realized on this Halloween evening in 1966.

Joan Didion – The White Album – Review

 

Essay and articles written between the 1960s and late 1970s, Didion gives her readers a unique and insightful viewpoint, both personal and societal, a time period of great transition including politics, and the American psyche in general. Some of the passages within the essays read like notes that the author has in mind for the future. But there is cohesiveness between all the entries like she wrote a few pages one day, only to return to it years later as a finished whole.

The period so named the “American Dream” a great economic surge in the middle classes, yet a generation (50's) that chose to remain silent, a politically quiet generation, not necessarily blind to the injustices of a growing surveillance state, and a warmongering government; a silence begging and ready to explode, upon the assassination of J.FK., Martin Luther King and R.F.K.; the killing of thousands of American men and women in a stupid war in Vietnam based on propaganda, the 1960's generation hit the streets, as if a new Zeitgeist had begun. The White Album, Didion's collection of essays seems to capture this new spirit of the age, though from a distant clinical perspective, a cool eye for detail, and a gift for describing the mundane as unusual and occasionally, fantastic.

In the first essay, we find her covering a story about the Black Panthers. The trial of Huey P. Newton, who was stopped by a white policeman by the name of John Frey. Newton was shot by Frey in the stomach and later is indicted for the murder of Frey, wounding another police officer, and kidnapping a bystander. Arrested in Kaiser Hospital from his wounds, the incident soon became national news. Demonstrators filled the streets with placards displaying, LET'S SPRING HUEY, including large buttons saying the same, selling outside the courthouse for 50cents a piece. What made this story a national “issue” is that Newton and his friend, Bobby Seale, were the first organizers of The Black Panthers.

What is most important and pertinent about this story, is these same “issues,” the African American vs. the establishment, (police) continues to be relevant, in light of the recent George Floyd case, though Didion is writing essentially about the same thing, over fifty years ago. Back then, Newton became what some called a martyr for the African American cause, repeating a quote that continues to be used today:

To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage. James Baldwin.  The more interesting sections of this essay are Didion's descriptions of her rented house on Franklin Avenue. This house became legendary in the city, a meeting place, a bohemian weigh station for writers, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and their respective entourages. She relates a few memorial experiences in this house, including huge parties with the likes of Janis Joplin. Didion claimed that these rockers never had normal alcoholic beverages but requested drinks like saki and other exotic elixirs.

During this time she was researching a piece on The Doors. Didion describes sitting in on a recording session where, not out of the ordinary, Jim Morrison is conspicuously absent. Morrison did finally show up, and she records a mundane conversation between Morrison Ray Manzarek. They were discussing something about rehearsing in another city and returning later. Certainly not worth mentioning here, but what must be said is Joan Didion's love for The Doors. A bit lengthy, the section is worth repeating, revealing Didion's admiration for the band and her general feelings about the time period:

 On the whole, my attention was only minimally engaged by the pre-occupations of rock-and-roll bands (I had already heard about acid as a transitional stage and also about the Maharishi and even about Universal Love, and after a while, it all sounded like marmalade skies to me), but The Doors were different, The Doors interested me. The Doors seemed unconvinced that love was brotherhood and the Kama Sutra. The Doors' music insisted that love was sex and sex was death and therein lay salvation. The Doors were the Norman Mailers of the Top Forty, missionaries of apocalyptic sex. Break on through, their lyrics urged, and Light my Fire...” (P.21)

In the section “Woman,” there is an unusual critique of the author, Doris Lessing and comments about her views on Feminism that are quite surprising.

Joan Didion is hailed one of America's true Women of Letters. Reading these selections of essays, for this reader, has only reinforced this. Great writer, fantastic reading.

Comment – Helen Garner – The Lockdown Diaries

 

In the early '90s returning to university, I landed a job as a telemarketer, selling space for The Melbourne Weekly. Later, the department's ad supervisor put me on advertorial writing because the journalists got tired of writing them. A floor directly above the Weekly's was Text Media. (Helen Garner's publisher) More than once, I would pass Helen Garner on the street or on the elevator, and always was greeted with a warm smile.

If you're reading this from another country, must know that Helen Garner is one of Australia's most celebrated novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, etc. Garner's first published novel, Monkey Grip (1977) immediately established her as a new force in Australian fiction.

In The Monthly magazine latest October issue has an interesting piece by Helen Garner, The Lockdown Diaries. Admittedly, before buying this issue, I had a dream about it, flipping through its covers trying, without success, to find Garner's piece to read. I don't put much importance on my dreams, but in this case, it prompted me to purchase the issue at my local newsagent.

The entries are short, written in simple prose, and come across as unashamedly honest.

First line in the piece:

My teenage grandson is on the phone, planning Dungeons & Dragons with his friend. “Do you want me to give you a run-down? Right. You're in a post-apocalyptic city.”

In a good way, this opening entry floored me. Why? Because most of us in varying degrees have felt that if this virus is comparable, for instance, to the Medieval bubonic plague, which killed millions - are we look at the true beginnings of a dystopian world?

The entries move between personal encounters, her family, observations, and speculations about the future. The use of irony and the themes of confronting one's mortality are expressed well through these entries.

Emails flash between the members of out Metamorphoses reading group. Is it alarmist to cancel our monthly meetings? If everything goes to shit, the two oldest of us are squarely in the most vulnerable cohort. We agree to cancel. “We have to move Ovid to Skype.” Skype? No fucking way!

Then from another entry on the emotional spectrum:

A strange mood in the streets. Low traffic noise. The air's not moving, the sun shines gently, doves call. It's paralysis. We don't know what we're waiting for or how long it's going to go on.

Yes. For many, the streets' mood did change, quiet, pressing, an invisible presence looming. Something not necessarily jumping out and attacking, but a fog, smoke floating by and silently infecting us with ill intent.

There are repeated diary entries about an old German couple, who Garner appears particularly close to. Our lives all come to an end, but the old couple is nearing, and Garner ensures communication between them continues, despite the virus.

I can't visit the old professor and his wife in their new Camberwell fastness, so I make them a special postcard every week. My granddaughter watches me crouched over the coffee table busily tearing and gluing, and beams on me a smile of benign approval. I buy express envelopes in bulk: you can't trust bloody Australia Post with an ordinary letter.

Later she writes:

I keep sending the old Germans their weekly postcard. They never reply, they're beyond it now, but I keep it up so they won't forget that they once knew someone, and that someone knew them, or tried to.

Later on, we read that Garner finally connects to the German professor on the phone, and, for me, it rang of a strange combination of resignation and hope.

Australian's watching the news about corona-virus massively hitting New York City: seeing huge refrigerated trucks, parked outside filled with the dead from the disease, was shocking.

Garner writes:

Why are they dead, and we're not? Is there any reason? Will we ever understand what's happening to us?

More heart-wrenching still, in Australia:

On TV a battered old Aussie bloke from Queensland, suffering and grieving stammers out his love for his wife, who has caught COVID 19 on the Ruby Princess and died: “She was the best wife a bloke could ever have. We never had a single fight, not a single one. She wouldn't fight. She refused to fight.”

Garner has managed in a mere few sentences, a few pages of text, to say what Australia and the world have been feeling and thinking since the arrival of COVID 19 and the subsequent lockdowns. Despite our differences, though we may respond to the crises differently, there's that core piece of humanity we all share.

And that piece of humanity, in the end, is we all care.

Reference: THEMONTHLY.COM.AU

Marketeers & Lies – Politics: the Right-Wing Way

 

Particularly since the worldwide invasion of the COVID 19 pandemic, conservative governments have truly revealed their true colors. In the United States, many outside observers of President Trump's behavior, are not only whispering under their breaths about the man's loutishness and utter fascist rhetoric but seem to be banging their heads against a metaphorical wall, only trying to make sense of it all. Trump's cult followers are the saddest, really. Looking at their president as the second coming of Jesus Christ, toting AK 47's and shooting innocent fellow protesters at rallies is, as far as their right-wing American media is concerned, perfectly justified. You have so-called left-wing cable news screaming for war, blaming every American evil on the outside influences of another country, in most cases, Russia. The right-wing press attack a slightly left-of-center-democrat Bernie Sanders, as another second coming, in this case, Joseph Stalin. Nothing is as it seems in the politics of the United States. Is America the only country on the planet that is going absolutely crazy?

No.

My central point is conservative, right-wing governments' whole existence, its MO, is based on ideology and lies.

In the United States, actual policy is barely mentioned. What we hear is endless attacks on their opponents and the evils of socialism. The same old same old, give me freedom, liberty, pro-life, and the tired cacophony of the second amendment, the right to bear arms. Both parties in the U.S., both in their own way, fascistic, rely on these old platitudes of liberty, justice, and freedom. When the real issues of a corrupt pharmaceutical industry, expensive medical care,  militaristic police, and a privatized prison system go unmentioned. In the US, politicians are bought and paid for, and they only serve this invisible oligarchy, who are the real leaders of the country. In fact, the propaganda has seeped so deep into the average American citizen's psyches; sadly, they cannot see the forest for the trees. Ideology over substantive policy. Marketing/ideology in politics has won over the hearts and minds of its citizens.

In Australia, our conservative government, is on the same ideological path, making promises that, on a closer examination, are all talk and no action.

Similar to watching President Trump's rallies in the United States, listening to the Australian PM Scott Morrison, his speeches and press conferences, personally, becomes a negative, visceral experience. After, I force myself to remain calm, reaching for the help of a strong, Aussie lager.

After Morrison's lack of leadership and 'disappearing act' during our devastating bush fires last summer, since the outbreak of COVID 19, at least on face-value, has seemingly returned to properly govern the Australian people. Upon taking a closer look, however, there appears to be more rhetoric than action.

A good example of Morrison's talk over action is “he announced that no cruise ships would be allowed into Australian waters” at the start of the deadly virus. There were only four exceptions, including the infamous Ruby Princess. The PM spoke of arrangements “to put in place directly under the command of the Australian Border Force to ensure the relevant protections are put in place.” This was a major announcement by the government when what resulted was “a chaotic chain of command resulted in the disembarkation of hundreds of COVID 19 infected passengers from the Ruby Princess.” This is a prime example of making an important announcement, a promise that never eventuated, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

Although there are numerous examples of promises made and never acted upon by the Morrison government, one that stands out is the government's smartphone app for tracking the spread of the infection. This initiative was called, COVIDsafe. “...by Guardian Australia under freedom-of-information laws revealed that alarmed people were presenting to clinics brandishing their phones simply because while installing the app they'd clicked on a banner that asked, “Has a health official asked you to upload your information?” This click took them to a page that stated, “You have tested positive for COVID 19.”

Across the board the tracing app turned out to be a disaster. Another announcement and promise made by the Australian Prime Minister that never eventuated.

One has to admit that the Morrison Jobseeker and Jobkeeper plan helped ordinary Australians, prevented from attending work due to a punishing lock-down; since the plans have been introduced, the stimulus has been cut in half, with announcements to stimulate employment across the nation. However, when asked for the specifics on creating employment opportunities, the response is vague. Is there is such a plan, and if so, what exactly is it?

Politicians, as a rule, should never be trusted. In Australia, at least, we haven't put our leaders on pedestals, depending on them to save us from the evils on the planet. Unlike the US, the masses appear to have a “savior complex,” expecting one person to make all their lives better.

Right-wing governments, all over the planet, generally prefer to “sell” us ideas based on faulty ideologies, pitting the people against each other. This is a distraction to fuel discontent and distract us from what's important, and that's the well being of the people and the future health of the planet.

America has gone down a deep a rabbit hole of intangible ideologies, rather than specific policies that can change their country, the better. I find it sad and, ultimately, frightening.

Australia is not there now, (beholden as well to their rich donors), but continuing to believe our conservative government on face value, based on pie-in-the-sky announcements that never eventuate, we as a nation are not too far behind.

Neo liberal Failures, Covid 19 and Aged Care Deaths

Since the second wave of COVID 19 spread throughout Victoria, Australia, like a locust invasion, Neoliberalism, its economics and policies, have truly revealed themselves to be in the least inadequate, and at most, a national disgrace.

In the states of New South Wales and Victoria combined have approximately 4,000 deaths in Aged-Care facilities alone. This cannot be explained away with the standard retort that the elderly are more receptive to the virus. The majority of these deaths are a result of a privatized government-subsidized age care system.

Privatization has turned our social system toxic.

In a recent royal commission revealed many of the underlying problems in our aged care facilities. In the interim report detailed that all of the facilities are severely underfunded. This governmental neglect has resulted in "malnutrition, fatally untreated wounds, the undignified rationing of continence pads, and the cynically flagrant use of restraints and sedatives. The report continues, stating that the age-care, despite the weak pandemic responses, frequently find residence starved, stupefied, and were inadequately defended against the virus." This is a result of sustained political neglect.

Upon the release of these findings, the conservative government's response, as usual, glib and vague. We're "checking" into it, and perhaps "revising" certain standards. When confronted with hard-cold facts, this is typical of our conservative government – to smugly smile and respond with, "I do not agree with the premise of your question." A line our PM is notorious for saying when confronted with inconvenient truths.

In the late 1990s, the conservative John Howard government opened the floodgates to privatization. Through privatizing, opened the door to deregulation and profit-making in aged care at the expense of quality care, and most importantly, unaccountability.

Back in the days of the Jeff Kennet government in Victoria, the fog-horn-voiced-clown privatized/corporatized many public services, out-sourcing industries such as education and transportation, resulting in more money in the government coffers, but at the expense of quality, and in the case of aged-care, unneeded deaths.

What COVID 19 has unmasked, is by out-sourcing to private firms, like security companies, and government-subsidized aged care facilities, exposes a capitalist system shit-show of utter incompetence, and now, the thousands of deaths that would have been avoided. Without question, this is a national disgrace on a grand scale.

Another disgraceful reality as a result of neoliberal policies has been the creation of a mass casual workforce, including part-time and short-term employment. A gig economy has surfaced with zero benefits for the individual, and an unknown sustainable future for our young people.

When you include the massive educational cuts to TAFE, resulting in fewer apprenticeships across the board, the future does indeed look bleak for future generations.

When you have these buffoons in expensive suits, chanting the neoliberal mantra that "Private is Better," realize this is the rhetoric of all neoliberals: the system that only enhances the wealth of the few while strangling the many.

The political neglect of many industries, particularly the Aged Car, should be a national embarrassment to our current government. And will there be any collective accountability from this government, jettisoning disastrous neoliberal policies, returning to a more caring and sustainable Social Democracy?

Well, don't hold your breath. Because all you'll get from the current government is:

"I refuse to recognize the premise of your question." smiling smugly and turning away.

Michael Crichton – Binary – Review

The fact that a young Michael Crichton, while a medical student at Harvard Medical School wrote several well-crafted crime thrillers, knowing the study load of any university student never seizes to astound me. In Binary, published in 1972, we see all the Crichton hallmarks: science, technology combined in a swift plot, taking the reader to the edge, virtually until the last page in a cliff-hanging, entertaining form.

In Binary, Crichton, ahead of his time, weaves a tale about domestic terrorism.

A wealthy individual, John Wright, extremely intelligent, is politically motivated to bring down the US President, and the entire republican party. What we discover is he's unhappy with the president making diplomatic overtures with China. Rather than plotting to assassinate the president, we see a number of seemingly unrelated crimes, which culminate in the possible event of a chemical attack that, in theory, could annihilate, not only the US president and his party, but the entire population of San Diego, consisting of over a million people.

The protagonist is another highly intelligent, analytically minded individual who has a great understanding of computers. John Graves has had Wright under surveillance for many months. All because, it appears, he has been targeted to have hacked highly sensitive information of National Security.

The story evolves into a competition of minds between Wright and Graves and, like chess, both are at odds, predicting each other next move.

What I found original, is that Wright, in his hacks, not only received information on various chemical weapons, but also John Graves' psychological profile. Graves discovers this, thus requesting his file from the powers that be who, understandably, are reluctant to hand over to him. Finally, he acquires his file, and the mind games begin between them.

In this Hard Case Crime edition, the cover, like many of the pulp fiction magazines in the '40s displays a hardcore looking woman, sitting beside two, what appears to be chemical cylinders, adorning skull, and crossbones. What is unusual, however, is the naked woman taking-up much of the cover. The novel hasn't a single woman character. So, like the old pulp covers in the past, I suppose the naked woman was intended to sell more magazines.

This early Crichton text gives his fans a window into his development as an author. There is no doubt, however, that the author of Binary, is Michael Crichton.

Comparably, Binary is a slim text, and certainly can be read in a single afternoon.