That's how I feel about blogs. Recently someone wrote about sparring with the late great Bill Knott in the comment queues of blogs ten years ago, during "what now seems a golden age of blogging." I started blogging in 2009, and I contributed to some of those witty and spirited and vitriolic debates. But a few years later the scene apparently dried up--like the big-city "soul jazz" scene in the 60s. I got to the clubs--the blogs--shortly before they were all boarded up. Story of my life: by the time I get there it's all boarded up or about to be...
Not to spoil the great fun that's plainly being had by all, but, in case it's not overwhelmingly obvious, what I had in mind with this post was nothing to do with blogging.
It has to do (duh) with the evanescent conception, injected in an early stage of cultural development, that when people die, they go either to the good place or the bad place; with the attached proviso that some must wait in a sort of unpleasant but not hopeless holding-tank, until graduating (or would it be gravitating?) upwards.
Anyway, excuse the doctrinal confusion, the cobwebs feel a bit thick here today -- but just saying.
That's what I was taught to believe in -- the possibility of eternal peace and rest at the finish line -- and I guess I probably did believe in it at some point, for a while, once upon a time, but now, not so much.
Based on memories of being kept home from school sick when I was a child and, my concept of heaven was (and to some extent remains), a perfectly made bed with fresh sheets and pillowcases, toast and milky tea, watching Here Comes Mr. Jordan on a black and white television. I think my favorite Who song is their long-time opener Heaven and Hell, which if someone were soliciting high school yearbook quotes, I might offer for consideration. This was really good -- funny and grim. All day long, I was disturbed by the thought I missed the golden age of blogging. Curtis
Tom, Heaven,is probably the anthem for consolation.Hell on the other hand may yet be the realization that anthems are needed.Not necessarily to be sung,but believed in.No matter how irrelevant they may sound-in both places,once there or even before that.
That anthem of a film, by the by, in case anybody wondered, was directed by Tom Tykwer (2001), after the death of the great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, who had written and conceived it as part of a trilogy, meant to also include Hell and Purgatory. (It's terrific, with an out-of-body performance by Giovanni Ribisi.)
It may be that Heaven is a planet which is not detectable by human technologies and passes near the Earth at irregular intervals, unpredictably.
All we really know is that all recent sightings have been errors. It's definitely not here now.
Meanwhile, anthems and clean sheets sound like like fine consolations, to make do with, while we wait.
(I'm reminded that a poet friend who grew up in the Great Nature Theatre of Oklahoma had a childhood system of arranging chairs, tables and other available household furniture into a sort of fortress, wherein he could crawl... and dwell in the peace that passeth understanding. He called it his Nirvana Machine.)
Oh, and re. the Golden Age of Blogging, with all that wonderful vitriolic conversation about the ranks and pecking orders of the big fishes flopping about in the minuscule pond of AmPo, I suspect the thrill of its may have been mostly restricted to a small handful of involved participants.
I'd have identified it more specifically as an Age of Brass.
Beautiful. Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. No car crashes, no pain, no nothing. Yes. Sign me up right now.
(Oh, to be able to tap one's foot, as DB is doing there, without rolling on the floor in agony a moment later -- the little things! Another idea of heaven!)
About those few tens of thousands, drop in the bucket to the Megatech Gods, of course. They were probably busy packing up the private data for the spooks.
Glad somebody did. I almost thought I had hallucinated the whole thing. Entirely without artificial inducements of any kind.
As for the author of this modest (?) proposal, the "Champagne Tranarchist", well, you'd have to live around here to grasp how common these blithe tech-triumphalist types have become, they've already bought San Francisco, and every UC student dreams of nothing but to sign on with them ASAP.
Champagne Tranarchist. Sleepless as usual, reading about this bugged me a lot and kept me awake and annoyed until a glass of wine put me to sleep and I dreamed about it. Why not CEO of the World? Apparently, according to my other sources of periodical literature, Eric Schmidt was one of Wendy Deng Murdoch's paramours, so I guess New Media wins or something. At least Rupert (or Mr. Murdoch as we referred to him at my old job) knew all about fixing printing presses. Curtis
That's how I feel about blogs. Recently someone wrote about sparring with the late great Bill Knott in the comment queues of blogs ten years ago, during "what now seems a golden age of blogging." I started blogging in 2009, and I contributed to some of those witty and spirited and vitriolic debates. But a few years later the scene apparently dried up--like the big-city "soul jazz" scene in the 60s. I got to the clubs--the blogs--shortly before they were all boarded up. Story of my life: by the time I get there it's all boarded up or about to be...
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling.
Still, at least there's the thimble-one-hundredth-full sense of near-perfect historical solitude.
A fine and private place, & c.
White male poets are forever doomed anyway, futile to canker.
Dashboard oblivion today, Find-a-Grave tomorrow.
Not to spoil the great fun that's plainly being had by all, but, in case it's not overwhelmingly obvious, what I had in mind with this post was nothing to do with blogging.
ReplyDeleteIt has to do (duh) with the evanescent conception, injected in an early stage of cultural development, that when people die, they go either to the good place or the bad place; with the attached proviso that some must wait in a sort of unpleasant but not hopeless holding-tank, until graduating (or would it be gravitating?) upwards.
Anyway, excuse the doctrinal confusion, the cobwebs feel a bit thick here today -- but just saying.
That's what I was taught to believe in -- the possibility of eternal peace and rest at the finish line --
and I guess I probably did believe in it at some point, for a while, once upon a time, but now, not so much.
Heaven
ReplyDeleteBased on memories of being kept home from school sick when I was a child and, my concept of heaven was (and to some extent remains), a perfectly made bed with fresh sheets and pillowcases, toast and milky tea, watching Here Comes Mr. Jordan on a black and white television. I think my favorite Who song is their long-time opener Heaven and Hell, which if someone were soliciting high school yearbook quotes, I might offer for consideration. This was really good -- funny and grim. All day long, I was disturbed by the thought I missed the golden age of blogging. Curtis
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteHeaven,is probably the anthem for consolation.Hell on the other hand may yet be the realization that anthems are needed.Not necessarily to be sung,but believed in.No matter how irrelevant they may sound-in both places,once there or even before that.
For sure. Never was our need greater.
ReplyDeleteThat anthem of a film, by the by, in case anybody wondered, was directed by Tom Tykwer (2001), after the death of the great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, who had written and conceived it as part of a trilogy, meant to also include Hell and Purgatory. (It's terrific, with an out-of-body performance by Giovanni Ribisi.)
It may be that Heaven is a planet which is not detectable by human technologies and passes near the Earth at irregular intervals, unpredictably.
All we really know is that all recent sightings have been errors. It's definitely not here now.
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Meanwhile, anthems and clean sheets sound like like fine consolations, to make do with, while we wait.
(I'm reminded that a poet friend who grew up in the Great Nature Theatre of Oklahoma had a childhood system of arranging chairs, tables and other available household furniture into a sort of fortress, wherein he could crawl... and dwell in the peace that passeth understanding. He called it his Nirvana Machine.)
Oh, and re. the Golden Age of Blogging, with all that wonderful vitriolic conversation about the ranks and pecking orders of the big fishes flopping about in the minuscule pond of AmPo, I suspect the thrill of its may have been mostly restricted to a small handful of involved participants.
I'd have identified it more specifically as an Age of Brass.
Here's heaven as conceived in another, bygone era:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZ5Qbna0fk
A few tens of thousands of us were dispatched to Verizon hell for the morning, causing my belated arrival here in the cool zone.
Beautiful. Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. No car crashes, no pain, no nothing. Yes. Sign me up right now.
ReplyDelete(Oh, to be able to tap one's foot, as DB is doing there, without rolling on the floor in agony a moment later -- the little things! Another idea of heaven!)
About those few tens of thousands, drop in the bucket to the Megatech Gods, of course. They were probably busy packing up the private data for the spooks.
Did you notice (by the way) the utopian scheme by the dingbat Google software engineer to have her boss nominated as CEO of America?
Some people will do anything for a promotion.
I noticed. Curtis
ReplyDeleteCurtis,
ReplyDeleteGlad somebody did. I almost thought I had hallucinated the whole thing. Entirely without artificial inducements of any kind.
As for the author of this modest (?) proposal, the "Champagne Tranarchist", well, you'd have to live around here to grasp how common these blithe tech-triumphalist types have become, they've already bought San Francisco, and every UC student dreams of nothing but to sign on with them ASAP.
Champagne Tranarchist. Sleepless as usual, reading about this bugged me a lot and kept me awake and annoyed until a glass of wine put me to sleep and I dreamed about it. Why not CEO of the World? Apparently, according to my other sources of periodical literature, Eric Schmidt was one of Wendy Deng Murdoch's paramours, so I guess New Media wins or something. At least Rupert (or Mr. Murdoch as we referred to him at my old job) knew all about fixing printing presses. Curtis
ReplyDeleteLike so many premises these days, it looks like Heaven has foreclosed.
ReplyDelete