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People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. A.J. Liebling

Check with the doorman.

I think that, in general, doormen look better when smartly dressed as Czarist Russian Admirals in heavy woolen overcoats with gold fringed epaulets, huge lapped pockets, and also wearing eight point, gold trimmed, leather-visored officers' hats.

You should want to promptly make arrangements for proper uniforming. Maybe I got such a get-up in the back of the store. I don't know....

Solomon.

Michael Gross: a vigilant servant of the truth.

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what is a capitalist?

One who hopes to gain heaven by knowing the ropes.
E. M. Forster

If a piece of art must be understood through the brain first it has that much further to go to reach the heart.

Phillip Toshio Sudo
Zen Guitar

If you have to appreciate a work of art via your brain ....

Basically we have no home. We move from apartment to apartment, or from city to city. There is no generational plot of land that calls us, that keeps us.

Rather, it is our friends, our life long friends that bind us together. We expect friendship without guilt a commitment which lives in us just because we are who we are, and as time goes on the glue of friedhip stiffens, and holds fast. We complement each other, like a setting on a table. the fork needs the knife, the soup calls for the spoon and napkin.

Our friendship has been refined over the years--perhaps it is true that we would not sacrifice everything we have for each other--but that's only money. I would not be surprised, however if we'd sacrifice our lives for each other. There has been an unreakable harmony amongst our little group--until now. there is no way to curtail the inclination of our feelings--but something has shattered within the group--and attention must be paid. Thisis not an implacable break. I would ask here that we not confront, to pick at the scab, but to leave punishment, resentment and reprisal to life and its changing fortune.

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The Gypsy looked me in the eye knowingly. She ignored my wife who sat at my side. She held my hand lightly in her's and mumbled to herself, "what's this?" She turned directly to me, somehow putting herself between my wife and me. My wife's curiosity level must have sky-rocketed.

The palm reader began, " You have two parallel love lines. Each is very long, each is very deep, each is unbroken. " I gritted my teeth. The wife leaned closer to hear what was becoming a gypsy incantation.

mek

"It makes me feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast
but let me make it plain:

I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again."

Edna St. Vincent M.

Larry, The Iceman Cometh

I was forced to admit, at the end of thirty years’ devotion to the Cause, that I was never made for it. I was condemned to be one of those who has to see all sides of a question.
When you’re damned like that, the questions multiply for you until in the end it’s all questions and no answer. As history proves, to be a worldly success at anything, especially revolution, you have to wear blinders like a horse and see only straight in front of you. You have to see, too, that this is all black, and that is all white.

Eugene Gladstone O’Neill.



Life can never be completed. It can only be abandoned.

Michael E. Katz

One day the news came that Lenin would be making a visit to Poland. What could they do for the great man?

A delegation convened and they decided to commission a painting, a large and glorious oil painting on the theme "Lenin in Poland"

They went to the town's master painter. He promised to have it ready in a month. After a month they returned but he put them off. Two weeks later they were back. He needed still more time. But at last, just one day before Lenin's arrival they went to the studio. As they stood there the painter pulled back the cloth from the enormous canvas. They gazed in shocked silence. In the painting they saw Trotsky climbing into bed with Lenin's wife.

At last one of the delegation spoke up. But where is Lenin?

Ah, replied the painter Lenin is in Poland

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A few days later the town's Mathematics teacher, Professor Goldstein, who had been in Poland with Lenin, returned home and discovered his best friend, the town's English teacher, Professor Kittridge, in bed with his wife.

"Kittridge!" shouted the Mathematics Professor, "I am surprised to find you in bed with my wife. "

"No, Goldstein!" answered the English professor, now sitting upright in the marital bed.

"It is your wife and I who have been surprised. -- You are shocked to find me in bed with your wife."


****************************************************

Credit for the story above goes to Bernie Katz

It was another damn sunny afternoon, the thermometer showed 82 degrees, so I went to see Fog of War which is a filmed interview of Bob McNamara including clips from family photos and newsreels. McNamara comes off very well, I thought, and he quotes poetry. I think you will be interested.

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Narcissus leant over the spring, enthralled by the only man in whose eyes he had ever dared--or been given the chance--to forget himself.

Narcissus leant over the spring, enthralled by his own ugliness, which he prided himself upon having the courage to admit.



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We remember our dead. When they were born, when they passed away--either as men of promise, or as men of acheivement.

Dag Hammarskjold

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Regrets are a waste of time. They are the past wallowing in the present.

*

No matter what happens keep up your childish innocence. It is the most important thing.


From the film Under The Tuscan Sun

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Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.

Till then I see what's really always there:

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,

Making all thought impossible but how

And where and when I shall myself die.

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.



The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse

-- The good not done, the love not given, time

Torn off unused -- nor wretchedly because

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.



This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,

That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.



And so it stays just on the edge of vision,

A small unfocused blur, a standing chill

That slows each impulse down to indecision.

Most things may never happen: this one will,

And realisation of its rages out

In furnace-fear when we are caught without

People or drink. Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.



Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,

Have always known, know that we can't escape,

Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world begins to rouse.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.

Work has to be done.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.


Phillip Larkin ---

Dear Stephen ben-Manny.

I know a bit about Bulgar, the grain, as I am delving into the life of Catherine the Great and much is written about her posed devotion to her people, the peasants. "Wherefrom comes Kasha?", I would ask.

Well, as you know K'ai Shu is the common script used in writing the Chinese language (you could look it up in your magnificent magnifier Oxford, of which I am very jealous having given mine to Max.)

But that is not the Kasha that we seek. According to my Shorter Oxford it is "a porridge made of cooked buckwheat or other grains." My old Merriam New Collegiate (1953) doesn't even mention it which surprised me.

Now I personally cook my oatmeal almost every morning, and I use the slow cooking brand, namely John McCann's Steel Cut Oats, that take a half-hour to cook.

Your description of how we lived under the Czar reminds me of what my grandfather said to me when I complained to him about the taxes that I was paying.

"Michael, you should be glad to pay your taxes here," he said, patting me on the head. "In Russia we paid no taxes--but every spring the mud was up to our knees -- and that was INSIDE our house."

In 1880 his mother, my great-grandmother, walked with him and his four sisters from Svier (near Vilna) to Hamburg where they got on the boat for New York. His father remained in Russia and followed them over a few years later. Two of those sister, Dora and Rose married the same man. My great-grandfather was one of seven founders of the Hebrew Free Loan Society, which still exists, though it is now controlled by the major Jewish Real Estate families of New York.

BULGAR WHEAT PILAF Courtesy Mrs. Google

bring 3 cups water or vegetable broth to boil add one head celery, choppedone large onion, sliced thinsimmer 5 minutesadd 2 cups bulgar wheatsimmer on low about 25 minutesturn off heat and let stand 5 or more minutesI have also made this a one pot meal, adding more vegetables such as sliced mushrooms, green beans or peas, you get the idea. Toss in some herbs, too, can't hurt. kwvegan vegan Note the misspelling : Should be "Can't hoit."

bulgar cereal courtesy mrs google

As hot cereal, I just put it a saucepan with two parts of water andsome cinnamon and raisins, bring to a boil and simmer it for about10 minutes. This gives the mushiest results, but it's just finefor hot cereal, and not as mushy as finer-cut 9-grain cereal mixes.

kwvegan vegan

Planning to go to the health food store for further information.

Love,

Michael ben-Bernie.

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Dear Stephen ben-Manny.

I know a bit about Bulgar, the grain, as I am delving into the life of Catherine the Great and much is written about her posed devotion to her people, the peasants. "Wherefrom comes Kasha?", I would ask.

Well, as you know K'ai Shu is the common script used in writing the Chinese language (you could look it up in your magnificent magnifier Oxford, of which I am very jealous having given mine to Max.)

But that is not the Kasha that we seek. According to my Shorter Oxford it is "a porridge made of cooked buckwheat or other grains." My old Merriam New Collegiate (1953) doesn't even mention it which surprised me.

Now I personally cook my oatmeal almost every morning, and I use the slow cooking brand, namely John McCann's Steel Cut Oats, that take a half-hour to cook.

Your description of how we lived under the Czar reminds me of what my grandfather said to me when I complained to him about the taxes that I was paying.

"Michael, you should be glad to pay your taxes here," he said, patting me on the head. "In Russia we paid no taxes--but every spring the mud was up to our knees -- and that was INSIDE our house."

In 1880 his mother, my great-grandmother, walked with him and his four sisters from Svier (near Vilna) to Hamburg where they got on the boat for New York. His father remained in Russia and followed them over a ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������

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In the middle of the darkest, moonless nights, I listen to the radio in the den so as not to wake the little woman when I can't sleep. The other night I heard on this program, which usually reports the movements and sighting of UFO's and aliens, that Ben Laden had been captured, according to one usually reliable source.

Of course, the following morning I heard nothing of this story-rumor-concoction...But, I have heard in the past two things which I would like to add to the story.

When we captured many of the Iraqi enemies pictured on the cardpack, we liked to keep it quiet for a time so that their friends would not know and therefore we could make additional arrests based on what the captured general would tell us, before the targets had a chance to hide or destroy records and materials. �

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It looks like Iraq had moved WMD into Syria where it has been buried for some time. The Israelis say that Kaye had been briefed and told the coordinates of the burial place. ..But why hasn't he said anything, if this is true?

The First Marines and the Third Army are scheduled to return to Iraq in a few months--before the election. The First and the Third were the elements of our forces that won the Iraq war in days.

How long will it take them to invade Syria, and capture the WMD? Not long.
Using the Investigation to trace the materials to Syria explains why no WMD was found, and gives Bush the reason he needs to invade Syria. Ah, Dr. Machiavelli must have an office in the White House.

Australia, Britain and the US each announced investigations in a three day period. Mr. Atom Bomb of Pakistan has been outed in the same time frame.

The purpose of the investigations is to lead us to Syria.

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Someone asked me who Gabby Hayes was. I answered that in the movies he was usually Roy Rogers sidekick, and that I had seen a John Wayne movie made in 1930 in which he also played the hero's sidekick--and that although he must have in his twenties he still looked like an old codger,,,I then checked a list of his films and sent the following sequel to my original answer:

Well, I was close. He did play in mysteries in the 30's and he also played in some Hopalong Cassidy films as well as the Roy Rogers that most of us remember. My sister and I double dated only once. I got her a date with my friend Danny and she got me a date with her friend Judy \. We were in our late teens. We went to PJ Clarks and saw Gabby Hayes at another table. The girls, yes, they were still girls in those olden days, squealed and wanted his autograph. As soon as they went to the ladies room (though in PJ's calling it a Ladies Room was quite a stretch) I scrawled Gabby Hayes's autograph across a menu.-- "To Patti and Judy with all my pistol packin' heart, Gabby Hayes."

When they saw it they got up and hugged him, thanking him for the autograph. He was so drunk he thought he actually did sign it and wanted them to come home with him.

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Steven Wright Jan 30, 2004 Ft Lauderdale

I have three brothers and a sister. But my sister has four brothers. She must not be a part of our family.

I am writing my Unauthorized Autobiography.

My neighbor is so fancy she wears pierced hearing aids.

I am looking for a decaffeinated coffee table.

The court clerk asked me if I would tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I replied that., yes I would, and that he was as ugly a man I had ever seen and that I would like to have a go at the girl in the first row of the jury box.



>

This is what has been worrying me lately: these kind of mistakes; mis-readings, tripping, failing to observe, clipping curbstones when making right hand turns, forgetting words, forgetting movies that I saw already, dropping forks, reading without comprehension, knotting my tie incorrectly, losing my way, finding directions impossible to follow, finding maps indecipherable, wearing mismatched clothing.


Actually I am not worried, just reporting: worrying was the wrong word (which is another indicator) here's some more: not changing my socks, forgetting to flush the toilet, looking at good looking women and forgetting why, buying unneeded things, putting empty coffee cups in the refrigerator, putting banana peals in the refrigerator, not being able to spell the peal in banana, not remembering that I already had sex with my wife and having sex two or three times in one morning, thus missing my tango class.

Ballet Revised Wed Jan 28th


On January 7, at 9:05 PM, in Boston, Massachusetts, Norvora Dumatora, principle ballerina of the North Church Dance Company leaped into the air in a _________ and kept on going up and higher until she was out of sight of the stunned audience.
At the same time, to the very second, in Berlin, dressed in a white tutu and wearing a new pair of slippers, Gretchen Bamberger twirled herself in a _________ and began to spin so fast that the audience lost sight of her body, seeing only what appeared to be a swirling column of white dust, which blurred and suddenly disappeared from the stage.
Members of the audiences rose from their seats, and many charged the stage, looking up into the ______of the stage. A few climbed the ladders that led to the lighting. One resourceful chap in Berlin found an entranceway to the roof and searched for a hole or other evidence of a hurried departure from the theater building. There was none.
Insurance companies on both sides of the Atlantic refused to pay claims from the ballet companies for “disappearance” of ballerinas.
Except for supermarket tabloids the story was barely covered by major newspapers, in fact, the dance critic of the Berliner ______ was suspended for a month on the grounds that he must have had too much schnapps or was suffering a nervous breakdown. The testimony of a thousand or more witnesses was ignored.
Church leaders demanded to know which ballets had been produced, and not being familiar with the medium, made judgments based only on the names of the ballets involved. The Very Reverend Belington Everton Washington brought a fifty-person choir to Berlin to “sing” Ms. Bamberger back. +++to sing for the return of Ms. Bamberger. Parisian designers vied with Karl Lagerfeld for the right to design and sew the choir’s robes.
Medical men inquired as to the drugs and steroids or the perfumes and body lotions that the ballerinas may have been using. A weight loss lotion called Vanish was implicated and then exonerated – after sales multiplied by a hundred times.
In Boston a disorderly coven of lawyers was dripping over the stage trying to get a piece of the case—but no one knew what the grounds for a suit might be. One lawyer dressed in a three thousand dollar Armani suit had to be restrained when he began to incant at maximum lungpower, “We will prevail.”
The box offices of both companies had to hire extra help to contend with the demand for tickets that followed the news of the amazing incidents. In fact, all over the world ballet companies saw increases in subscriptions and ticket demand.
Ballerinas found themselves divided into two groups. The first, more adventurous, group wanted to know exactly which steps led to the disappearances and began to practice the steps for hours on end every day. It was thought that they might be unsatisfied with the current course of their lives and so sought disappearance as a solution. The second group, prudent, or perhaps fearful wanted to know the steps so that they could avoid them.
In general, mothers all over the world withdrew their daughters from ballet schools, though a few persisted in the lessons with unknown, undefined goals.

A few un-summoned news people appeared on the doorstep of Miss Dumatora’s inamorata demanding interviews. Her tearful companion had no explanation for the event and begged the journalists to leave—which, of course, they did not.

The Boston Chamber of Commerce simultaneously issued denials of what was

On January 7, at 9:05 PM, in Boston, Massachusetts, Norvora Dumatora, principle ballerina of the North Church Dance Company leaped into the air in a _________ and kept on going up and higher until she was out of sight of the stunned audience.

At the same time, to the second, in Berlin, dressed in a white tutu, and wearing a new pair of slippers, Gretchen Bamberger twirled herself in a _________ and began to spin so fast that the audience lost sight of her body, seeing only what a appeared to be a swirling column of white dust, which blurred and suddenly disappeared from the stage.

Insurance companies on both sides of the Atlantic refused to pay claims from the ballet companies for “disappearance” of ballerinas.

Except for supermarket tabloids the story was barely covered by major newspapers, in fact, the dance critic of the Berliner ______ was suspended for a month on the grounds that he must have had too much schnapps or was suffering a nervous breakdown. The testimony of a thousand or more witnesses was ignored.

Church leaders demanded to know which ballets had been produced, and not being familiar with the medium, made judgments based only on the names of the ballets involved.

Medical men inquired as to the drugs or steroids that the ballerinas may have been using. Lawyers were dripping over the stage trying to get a piece of the case—but no one knew what the grounds for a suit might be. In Boston, one lawyer dressed in a three thousand dollar Armani suit had to be restrained when he began to repeat at the top of his lungs “We will prevail.”

The box offices of both companies had to hire extra help to contend with the demand for tickets that followed the news of the amazing incidents. In fact, all over the world ballet companies saw increases in subscriptions and ticket demand.

Ballerinas found themselves dived into two groups. The first adventurous group wanted to know exactly which steps led to the disappearance and began to practice the steps for hours on end every day. The second group, prudent, perhaps one might say, fearful wanted to know the steps so that they could avoid them.

In general, mothers all over the world withdrew their daughters from ballet schools, though a few persisted in the lessons with unknown goals.

I shall cease looking back. And I shall not dream of the future. My here is now. I cannot have my past again. I cannot satisfy my daydreams. My duty is here -- and now...

After some years of freedom at school, then college, then the army I spent thirty or thirty-five years trapped behind the counter of a drug store on Graham Avenue in Brooklyn. I left pieces of my soul, or the shavings of decades of soul whittling, and most of my energy on the littered streets around my store.

It was after I escaped the chains of ownership that I became free again for a few years working for an organization which had some vague stated purpose but which actually was no more than a place to hang a hat and tell a few stories. I felt human there for a time surrounded by people who understood me, and whose aims exceeded that of piling up money.

What happened to me since then has been merely a matter of surviving trivialities and a weakening body. I own a piece of the beach; I have recently purchased an almost infinite sea view, which ends at the horizon. I see the ocean as flat, and I see Florida as even flatter. There is little variation in the seasons discernible to a native Northerner and I miss the weather, the atmosphere of the north. New York and New England are natural to me. The landscape, the foliage, is in my blood. The cold invigorates me, I never hide from it, and I go out to meet it.

But now, in Florida, at the end of my working life, I feel defeated, ambition depleted, exhausted by my pallid life on Graham Avenue which was paradoxically brightened only by a few crimes attempted on me, which I deflected. Those few moments were the only moments I really lived. All the rest was marking time.

I revel too much in sentiment. Tears come to my eyes easily. Thoughts of my dead father, lost friends dead too, form lumps in my throat. The pain of other people, their losses also make me cry. Once open the floodgates of memories fail to hold back my tears.

I look in the mirror and now, instead of my father I see a new man, no longer handsome, fleshy, face no longer symmetrical or proportional, unearned lines misplaced on my cheeks and forehead, jaw weakened, eyes puffy and flat, seeing much less than they once did.

My main pleasure has been a few friends.

My bullshit button was stuck but there's some good advice among the turds.

Dear Michael,

There is a new book on the life of Goya (not the Robert Hughes-another) called, "To Every Story There Belongs Another," which is, I believe, the title of one of Goya's paintings. I don't know whether you, yourself, can write the first story as well as the second (another) story (can anyone)? but it is a good marker to keep in mind as you write.

Will you write a confession nuanced with exposure of false bravado? Or is it to be a memoir?

I think you will have little trouble exposing the warts and uncovering the scabs. You've had plenty of practice during your lifetime and you believe in scarification. Every scar, every wrinkle, is evidence of a life lived on the field-not in the bunkers.

But I think that something else is warranted. I am glad that it is you who has the assignment and not I. This is going to be wrenching work. Harder than honest therapy. "Harder than golf." You must write a dialog between generations as well as your biography. I think that this is what Jason had in mind.

What to leave out? Nothing. You will rise to the challenge and stick to it.

As you find your way you will guide future generations of Gross'. The current generation is asking what happened and why did it happen. It is your grand chance to save your life-and your Dad's too-from that ephemeral smoke out of which all our lives wisp. So much is lost already.

I bet Paul Gross could help.

You must reach into that lost anger, the shame, each and every different grief, and the fear; and you must deliver each of your passions to your children and to their children with honesty. Can you be brutal with yourself? Are you going to "snap, jangle, abrade?" Will the whiskey times have their part?

Long quotations can be death to the reader; but after all are any of us up to writing our story with originality? When appropriate why not quote from our betters?

Here's what Larry, the fallen Wobbly, says in The Iceman Cometh:

"I was forced to admit, at the end of thirty years' devotion to the Cause, that I was never made for it. I was born condemned to be one of those who has to see all sides of a question. When you're damned like that, the questions multiply for you until in the end it's all questions and no answer. As history proves, to be a worldly success at anything, especially revolution, you have to wear blinders like a horse and see only straight in front of you. You have to see too, that this is all white and that all black. "

Tough to say, tough to write. I know you never wore blinders and yet you were able to push through, to take stands, you were (are) able to Know the Way.

This is what you are being asked to write by your children. They want to hear from you while you can do the work.

You might also tell them what fruit you left on the table un-tasted, and the degree to which you regret it. Everything is worth talking about.

Avoid the easy temptation of sanctimony.

And now, can you write about how different things look at this age? It's not just our worsening eyes is it? Does the blurring soften everything? Does time heal all wounds?

And I hope you will remember the bowels of compassion. Keep them open and free.

And will you be afraid to share the true story and honest appraisal of your life with your family. I think that that the very writing of it will excite you. What a project. You can always keep it in your safe if you have something that must wait disclosure….

The world’s turned upside down: the world’s best golfer is brown, the world’s best rapper is white, there’s a major war and Germany doesn’t want to be in it.
London Review of Books 8Jan2004


No heart is as whole as a broken heart.
Rabbi of Breslau

My woeful certainty of death stalks my heart always.
MEK


No faith is as true as a broken faith.
Elie Weisel

Without doubt there is no faith…
Miguel Unamuno

She was ruthless and relentless--he had to leave her. He had to escape the violent constant kicks to his balls. And so he went.
MEK

Growing old teaches me that being matters more than knowing. Harold Bloom

I write for myself--and strangers. Gertrude Stein

The future is the past.

Patterns in lives get repeated.

Thousands in the bank and nothing in the soul.

film: House of Shadow and Fog--ben kingsley will be oscar nominated

Still reading 'Don Quixote"

Author: Giles Blunt

BCPL.net/inmoskowi/holmes

Saturday, January 3, 2004
My bullshit button was stuck but there's some good advice among the turds.

Dear Michael,

There is a new book on the life of Goya (not the Robert Hughes-another) called, "To Every Story There Belongs Another," which is, I believe, the title of one of Goya's paintings. I don't know whether you, yourself, can write the first story as well as the second (another) story (can anyone)? but it is a good marker to keep in mind as you write.

Will you write a confession nuanced with exposure of false bravado? Or is it to be a memoir?

I think you will have little trouble exposing the warts and uncovering the scabs. You've had plenty of practice during your lifetime and you believe in scarification. Every scar, every wrinkle, is evidence of a life lived on the field-not in the bunkers.

But I think that something else is warranted. I am glad that it is you who has the assignment and not I. This is going to be wrenching work. Harder than honest therapy. "Harder than golf." You must write a dialog between generations as well as your biography. I think that this is what Jason had in mind.

What to leave out? Nothing. You will rise to the challenge and stick to it.

As you find your way you will guide future generations of Gross'. The current generation is asking what happened and why did it happen. It is your grand chance to save your life-and your Dad's too-from that ephemeral smoke out of which all our lives wisp. So much is lost already.

I bet Paul Gross could help.

You must reach into that lost anger, the shame, each and every different grief, and the fear; and you must deliver each of your passions to your children and to their children with honesty. Can you be brutal with yourself? Are you going to "snap, jangle, abrade?" Will the whiskey times have their part?

Long quotations can be death to the reader; but after all are any of us up to writing our story with originality? When appropriate why not quote from our betters?

Here's what Larry, the fallen Wobbly, says in The Iceman Cometh:

"I was forced to admit, at the end of thirty years' devotion to the Cause, that I was never made for it. I was born condemned to be one of those who has to see all sides of a question. When you're damned like that, the questions multiply for you until in the end it's all questions and no answer. As history proves, to be a worldly success at anything, especially revolution, you have to wear blinders like a horse and see only straight in front of you. You have to see too, that this is all white and that all black. "

Tough to say, tough to write. I know you never wore blinders and yet you were able to push through, to take stands, you were (are) able to Know the Way.

This is what you are being asked to write by your children. They want to hear from you while you can do the work.

You might also tell them what fruit you left on the table un-tasted, and the degree to which you regret it. Everything is worth talking about.

Avoid the easy temptation of sanctimony.

And now, can you write about how different things look at this age? It's not just our worsening eyes is it? Does the blurring soften everything? Does time heal all wounds?

And I hope you will remember the bowels of compassion. Keep them open and free.

And will you be afraid to share the true story and honest appraisal of your life with your family. I think that that the very writing of it will excite you. What a project. You can always keep it in your safe if you have something that must wait disclosure….

I'll be back.

Martinis

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.
..........Dorothy Parker

Martinis son como las tetas de una mujer
Una no es bastante
Tres son demasiado
Pero dos? -- es sufficiente!
..............Jose Espino

The mind is its own place, and in itself
it can make a heaven of hell,
or a hell of heaven.
-- John Milton

Quote courtesy of Basil of Canada

I have begun Don Quixote: but first:

From Michael Blowhard's Blog:

It's OK not to get some great art. This is art, after all, not science or history, and doin' the art thing is as much about exploring your own responses as it is about exploring the world.

I had a few subpoints in mind too: 1) You don't have to love everything you're told is great, 2) You don't have to claim greatness for everything you love, and 3) You don't have to dispute the greatness of the works and artists you dislike. Explore a lot of great art, give yourself the experience of it, have whatever response you have to it -- and then let it all go. What does it matter, really, whether you agree with the so-called experts? (I can get vexed when I see people try-try-trying, oh so very hard, to "appreciate" a work in exactly the way they've been told to. Why do they strain with such determination to have a particular great experience? Why not have the experience they're having instead, whatever it is?) It matters only that you give the work a try and take note of what the experience was like for you. But don't be such a self-pleasing fool that you avoid what's been deemed to be great. That's crazy too. Hey, it's cool and fun to challenge yourself.

Anyway, the rules of this game:



You aren't disputing the greatness of the artist or the artwork.

You can see the point of the work or the artist, and you understand what's there to be gotten.

You understand the greatness of it too -- the range of its influence, what other artists have taken from it, etc. It's impressive, and you're impressed.

And you've given the work or the artist a decent and earnest try.

But you've found that when you look at it, or you listen to it, or you read it -- the magic evaporates.

To kick things off, here's a modest Michael Blowhard "It ain't happenin' for me" list: Henry James. Dostoevsky. "Citizen Kane." Bob Dylan. "The Waste Land." Euripides. Mahler. Miles Davis.

Perfectly content that all these artists and artworks are deemed great. I got no problem with that at all. They just don't -- alas -- do a thing for me.

(Between you and me, I'm excluding much 20th century art and architecture because I'm betting that the 20th century's "greatness" list is going to be revised in the fairly near future. I'd bet, for example, that in 25 years Faulkner and Joyce -- both of whom I generally like -- will be largely forgotten. And don't get me started about "great" modernist architecture.)

What indisputably great art do you blank out on? Eager to hear from visitors too, of course.

Best,

Michael

I don't believe in studying something because I am told that something is important--I believe in studying that which has "caught" me. Joseph Campbell.

recrudescent discontent

ONE ART


The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


--- Elizabeth Bishop, 1976.

-
-
-



Export Free Traders mek

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same....Oscar Wilde, of course

Universal Draft --Selective Service


As you know the government is looking for volunteers for the draft board. I am thinking about volunteering and have listed the following pros and cons.

Con
Assists the government in an unholy endeavor.

Pro
Help to assure that the conscription not be limited to a single class. Making the selection certain of white, middle-class youth.

Preventing the escape of service by the children of the wealthy and powerful.

Making sure that all citizens be included and enrolled along side the white underclass and other classes such as blue-collar, Latinos, patriotic, and African-Americans, and other minorities thus ensuring a democratic and better educated armed force.

Help prevent a Junker class from evolving by assuring the cross-class, democratic selection of members of the armed forces.

Ensuring that in the future fewer members of Congress or the executive would be able to vote for war without having actually served themselves.


Your comments are solicited.

Gratwicker@aol.com


Golden Mean = 1.618

This morning our bid on a new apartment was accepted.

Work while it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work.

Choose between the exercise of power and the need to be understood.

Dear S:

A quick, from the hip reply:

Many writers kill themselves without being a part of any oppressed minority. I give you Ernest Hemingway, for one.

I read Mrs. Heilbron's obituary in the Times and was impressed by her life. I don't know why she felt it necessary to kill herself. Was she sick, or was she afflicted by writer's block? Did she feel that she had written all she could write and that there were no more words left in her pen? Had someone left her alone after a long term relationship?

My Dad had a friend, Murray Getz, who was retired from the Searl Pharmaceutical Company where he had been Sales Manager. He was in good health, and married to a good looking woman with a very sensual deep voice. He was tall, handsome, and apparently very strong. Dad said his only failing was that he sometimes drew to make inside straights.

Perhaps the loss of his job, or his wife's very deep voice drove him to the edge of the subway platform. But it wasn't being a member of an oppressed minority, and it wasn't because the Dodgers moved to California.

He leaped in front of a Number 5 train at the Jay Street Station in Downtown Brooklyn.

Several years I read a book called "Suicide" by A. Alvarez, an English critic. Although the book was over 200 pages he came to no conclusions regarding motives for suicide.

I shall order Ms Heilbron's book, and am ready to enter into any discussion that you may lead.

Note to a group of friends from SS: My first response is above.

Three weeks ago Carolyn Heilbron a women I had met on a couple of informal
occasions killed herself. She was in her 70's not ill or obviously effected by
major depression. She was an academic and retired as a professor of Lit
at Columbia University. She wrote books on literary subjects with a feminist
view point as well as detective novels under the pseudonym of Amanda Cross

I picked up a copy of her book "Writing a Women's Life" and I have been struck
with the fact that even though I have tried to understand the oppression of
women in our world that I still need education and enlightenment. This I feel
is a need that you all share.
I suggest we read this short(140)page book and discuss among ourselves and
maybe others. Sylvia Plath, Virginia wolf?

ss

The Wedding Ring

As you may know a time came a few years ago ago, when Maria asked that I wear a ring to symbolize ...

My father never wore a ring; I used one, hastily purchased on Greenwich Street, at the ceremony that tied us together in June of 1963, in Riverside Church, the Reverend Pablo Colon, presiding. What happened to that ring I cannot tell. It is gone for a long time, many years, perhaps stolen by a burglar at our home in Great Neck. Or lost, forgotten on a sink somewhere. I don't know. At the time I did not feel comfortable wearing it, and never replaced it.


Many years later, Maria asked that I wear one, just after our reconciliation feeling somewhat under pressure, and guilty too, I agreed, and immediately went to find one. I tried a few on, but I couldn't bring myself to go through with a purchase. So a year has elapsed, perhaps more.

A few days ago I visited a few nearby jewelry stores; my finger was measured -- ring size 11 1/2. A few rings were tried on, none suited me, most were too wide, one too narrow, finally it seemed that whenever I liked one the store would fail to have in stock a size 11 1/2

I tried a few pawnshops, but not one had a suitable ring, though the thought crossed my mind that in a pawn shop each ring must have had a more interesting story to tell than any new one that I might buy.

So this morning, once again, I went ring-hunting and found what I sought. A size 11 ½ of medium width, 18K.

And I wear it now -- as I type.

I wanted to surprise Maria by wearing the ring without telling her that I had purchased it. As I placed it on my finger, the salesman smiled and asked whether my haste to wear it outside indicated a shotgun wedding of some kind, but I explained to him that I had been married for forty years and that the purchase (and my wearing) of the ring was a present for my wife.

He suggested that buying her a present would be more appropriate. Well, I had no time to explain my convoluted thinking so I left the store, the ring on my finger and burning into it.

I walked away, finger ringed, now searching for Maria.

She called me on my cellphone and we agreed to meet at another store in the Mall. We met and I waited for Maria to notice the ring.

At first she failed to notice it, as I had purchased a silken robe for her from VictoriaÂ’s Secret, and she was busy looking at the robe. My secret was betrayed by a bulge in my pocket where I had placed the ring box. She saw and asked what was in my pocket. -- Still not seeing what was on my finger.

"My cell phone," I lied. She detected the lie quickly as I had the cellphone in my hand.

"Let me see it," she demanded. Sheepishly I pulled the box out and she saw the Tiffany box.

"Look, I bought a ring," I announced.

She complained that I didn't bring her with me when I bought it. It was too small. Of course I bought in Tiffany's so it had to cost too much.

I wanted to surprise her and I thought that she would be very happy when she saw the ring. Well, no good deed goes unpunished.

Back from NYC and a job interview. Let's cross our fingers.

Reading The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll. Alvaro Mutis. A Columbian now living in Mexico. Friend of Carlos Fuentes and about his age.

I can see that this is an important novel and I shall be reporting to you about it shortly.

.
.
.Too often social reform is conflated with socialism.

Liberalism is not socialism;

progress does not mean revolution.

Take note republican demagogues.

October 16, 2003

Posted by Micha Ghertner

Marilyn vos Savant, holds the world record for "highest recorded IQ," ,


What I am interested in is Marylyn Savant's name. Imagine, she is the world's smartest person (or has the highest recorded IQ) and is named "Savant."

Unexplainable to me.

Freedom of choice... unless you're a doctor.

I am not "pro-choice" but what follows is very suspect.

Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and NARAL all oppose a bill permitting doctors and hospitals to refrain from performing abortions.

Apparently, Alaska forbids doctors/hospitals from abstaining from abortion for conscience reasons. How on earth do they enforce this? A better question is directed to the rank and file pro-choicers out there: how do your consciences allow this? How do you still support NARAL, Planned Parenthood, NOW, etc. when they are:


against parental notification for minors wishing abortion

against outlawing partial birth abortion

in favor of forcing doctors who believe abortion is reprehensible to perform them

against regulations of abortion that are mandated for procedures that are much, much safer.

I saw Pygmalion (1938) on television the other day. I discovered that Rex Harrison stole (in the sense that actors steal) much of Professor Higgins from Leslie Howard.

Shaw's socialism very apparent in the dialog. Better than My Fair Lady--which ain't bad either...

Jan 1, 2003 -- old notes found in old books

Decorating
Maria and I are setting up the apartment--its slow going, especially as we have very different ideas--I am for buying the best, using a decorator if necessary, as I feel this is probably our last place and we should make it as beautiful and good as we can. She is Miss Frugal (thank God for that, otherwise we would have run out of money long ago, I must admit) But aside from cost our tastes are very different too. She is very beige, very bland, very traditional, I am for something, anything, knockout, that will still stand the test of living with it for twenty years. I could go for very modern, or very traditional, but give me something with a definite style. I saw, for instance, a portrait in Connecticut of an 18th century boy, frowning, dressed as a girl, for some reason. Striking, unusual, well painted. I crave it. Maria: "bizarre, I can't live with it."

We have had our only arguments since I returned, over furniture and so I am giving up. I am turning over the entire furniture selection to her, as there is no compromise--and it probably my inability to compromise that is at fault. I am very critical, and see crap for what it is. She doesn't. So, I am letting it go.....

:
:
The Pain Kept Within

The pain kept within: is it a strength? Or a weakness?

:
:
Hidden feelings

Hidden feelings can destroy relationships.

................So Gross said, "Pull the scab away, expose the wound. " Gross 1959.

:
:

Photography

"If pictures have anything to say it's this: I was here, I existed. I was young and happy and someone cared enough about me to take my picture."


One Hour Photo, Robin Williams

center>

The Oracle Advises...

taking a new job

Ask the Oracle a Question

Question for my two readers on the poem below.: I published this poem, by A.R. Ammons, on Sept 17th, a month or so ago. I have wondered about the last lines:

"...When
You left, the area around here rose,
A tilted tide, and everything that
offers desolation drained away."

In the context of the poem how does these last four lines fit? Is the author saying that when "you came" your brought depression and when you left the desolation disappeared? I first read it as a love poem, one that said that when "you came" life lit up and everything attained meaning.

Let me hear your ideas on the poem...Thanks.

gratwicker@aol.com


Everything

You came one day and
as usual in such matters
significance filled everything--
your eyes, the things you
knew, the way you turned,
leaned, stood or sat,
this way or that. When
you left, the area around here rose,
A tilted tide, and everything that
offers desolation drained away.

A. R. Ammons

:
:
:Destry Rides Again 1939

"Women always look their best in the peace and quiet that follows violence."

Destry (James Stewart)

a fine and quiet place

The ship is over a thousand feet long and has sixteen decks open to the public and a few more under the public ones, in the ships belly. We were on Deck Two--it took me two or three days to stop calling it "the second floor." On these ships traveling on Deck Two is akin to traveling steerage but we were by ourselves in a cabin. It had a large round window, not really a porthole, there was no shiney brass hardware on it, and it couldn't be opened.

A chambermaid was assigned to make sure that the cabin was kept shipshape probably because Royal Carribean's agents on the pier had spotted me as the type who would toss my underwear on the floor. They were not so perceptive when it came to Maria, however, as she is quick to spot a mess in the making and then quick to make sure that the underwear in question is put in its proper place.

Between the two, chambermaid and spouse, our cabin was always ready for the Captain's inspection.

Our cabin was tiny, though the furnishings of the space were so well designed that it was comfortable. There was a closet, dresser, vanity-desk with lighted mirror, wall safe, television, a small refrigerator and several extra drawers all in one prefabricated piece made of a light colored beechwood on one wall.

A double bed was placed under the 30" inch in diameter porthole. The bed could have been split into twins. On each side of the bed were small night tables. The space under the bed was used to kleep our luggage and two flourescent red life preservers.

Opposite the prefabricated wall unit the other wall had a comfortable couch, that I imagine might have been a pull out sleeper. A glass topped coffee table was placed in front.

The bath unit, also prefabricated from the same beechwood and one of the newer ceramic-plastic materials, consisted of a stall shower with a fine stainless steel spray unit; and a sink and countertop, medicine chest, and more lighted mirrors.

Although we were only a deck or two away from the engines, we could neither hear them nor could we feel their vibration at all.

No complaints at all about the room. Steerage, on the Royal Caribean, at least, is a fine and quiet way to go.

mek

At Sea


In every book that I have read about the sea the engines thrum and sea spray salts the faces of the crew or passengers, but on the Navigator, Royal Caribbean’s newest ship, by design thrum is neither felt nor heard, and sea spray is sighted only at the bow of the ship where its knife edge parts the water, a thousand feet from the deck. While on the ship the closest a passenger gets to the sea would be in any of the three or four saltwater swimming pools that could be found on the top two decks. As the pools were filled with most of three thousand passengers I avoided them, keeping a wary eye out for any wayward pool splash that might be aimed at me by frolicking Coney Islanders.

Of course, no pool in the Caribbean would be complete without Pina Coladas and a steel drum band, so the ship’s owners have provided several bars and a band, amplified at a level high enough so that should the guest be swimming at the bottom of the pool, ten feet under water, he or she could still hear the merry music.

There are always a few guests who carry with them glum and serious faces, wrinkled brows, and a Social Director has been provided to nudge them out of their self-concerned reveries and into a Royal Caribbean euphoria. One soon learns to paste a smile on ones’ face, as armor against said Social Director’s efforts, should one want to be alone a la Greta Garbo.

Return from a well-deserved rest


Yes, rightfully, you have asked the question: "Rest From What?" "From what?" you say? Well, a vacation is always needed to re-create oneself--thus, recreation. Nes Pa?

Maria thought that getting me on a cruise would be good for our joint soul--I must add, however, though not our joint bank account.

We cruised what is known as the Western Caribbean, in the company of some 3100 other souls in need of rest, and 1100 persons assigned to wait upon us hand and foot. Well, we were well waited upon. The service was enthusiastic, willing, and skilled.

Of course, not one American was to be seen in service. 37 other countries were represented, and the citizens of those countries were drilled and trained in the custom of service as practiced in Victorian Days. With the single exception of facing the wall when passengers passed, all other customs known to me were practiced. As far as the help was concerned crisp uniforms, reserved, quiet and discreet conversations were the mode and rule of the Cruise. Beds were made and re-made twice a day, guests were fed at least five times a day, and snacks, buffets, and other treats were available at all other times. One man was caught skipping Second Breakfast and the Captain ordered him to be force-fed by pushing a red rubber hose down his throat.

The shipboard help had been taught their place and behaved accordingly but not so much could be said for us passengers (now called guests, by the way) Passengers (guests) dressed as they wished, some were ready for Coney Island, others got the idea that they were going to be on the Rivera. As for me--Ft. Lauderdale style was fine. Full Blown whites: White ducks, white belt, white shirt, white bucks, straw boater with a white band.


+++++++++++

More later as I am up past my bedtime and duty calls--or is that the little woman's voice I hear?

Everything

You came one day and
as usual in such matters
significance filled everything--
your eyes, the things you
knew, the way you turned,
leaned, stood or sat,
this way or that. When
you left, the area around here rose,
A tilted tide, and everything that
offers desolation drained away.

A. R. Ammons

Here's a worrisome piece of data I picked up in Adbuster's Magazine Sept - Oct 2003:

"Ironically paying for biodefense vaccines threatens the very research that produced them. The White House Budget Office stipulated that NIAID (Nat'l Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases) must purchase $233 million worth of a new Anthrax vaccine, and while the money must come from NIAID's budget, it isn't to touch the biodefense programs. "

"NIAID must slash funding grants to other areas of its research program--like basic immunology, infectious diseases, and AIDS research--in order to bankroll the bio-war demand. "

September 17, 1902 --Dad's date of birth. Brooklyn, NY

Dad would have been 101 today. If he's here looking over my shoulder, I miss you Dad--and wish we could have a conversation. Maybe you could get Grandpop, and the three of us could all be the same age--say 50--right now. What a talk that would be. I'd like to know you as a 50 year old man talking to me as a 50 year old man.


And then, maybe, a later talk bringing everyone up to 65. But each of the same age--50 and then 65.

Gee, now that I think of it--how about a series of conversations at each age starting with ten--then every five years...?

+
+ Decision
+
Dante says that the vestibule of Hell is reserved for those who cannot make up their minds.

Be this or that
When things are done
Both rain and snow have friends
But slush has none.

.................TRUTH......................

Most of us have an Operational Truth that we use to move through life. Every leftist and rightist has his own Truths. As do fanatic atheists and fanatic believers. Truth is never compatible with dogma.

Each of us looks in a mirror when he seeks Truth, but our eyes are blinded by what we have already seen in the past.

mek

mek

+
+
+
What you give
..................Write it in the sand
................................What you receive
..........................................Carve it in granite.

Basically distrust comes from not trusting our parents. If parents cannot be trusted than no one can be trusted. And if someone were very good to me he couldn't be for real because then my parents would be proven even worse.

Can you imagine the parent at bedtime who whispers into her child's ear the hypnogogic suggestion that "no one will ever love you more than I do?"

How then, can this child grow up to trust and believe in the love of any other person?

Marriage is like fine wine...let it mature

Cleaning up notes from the backs of envelopes, matchbooks, and assorted notebooks.


I am a fairly educated person, but not a scholar, and as an educated layman I do quite a lot of reading. But when reading certain authors I run into a macaronic tendency to drag in untranslated quotations. This is an annoying carryover from the days when educated people were expected to know Latin, Greek and a few modern languages like French and German.

Aside from a smattering of Spanish I have none of these languages, and I daresay that few of my contemporaries do either. Its time to start translating quotations, if only in footnotes. Leaving them untranslated has become de trop.

***

In Paris, when the War was over, Albert Camus, having seen both Nazis and Communists close up, defied democracy as that regime created and sustained by those who know that they do not know everything.

James Russell Lowell

Democracy has the unpleasant "habit of making itself generally disagreeable by asking the Powers That Be at the most inconvenient moment whether they are the Powers that Ought to Be. "

***

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is better looking than he had imagined.

/
People who give advice should be prepared to give some help.

***

It was in the old days--we tried to be mad in a sane world.
Now, how hard it is to be sane in a mad world.

/ from a note made to myself this summer in NYC:

Two very well appointed black women on the Madison Avenue bus. In the course of enthusiastic office gossip one remarks to the other: "He must respect me--I'm no house nigger."

Still, after so many years Blacks cannot escape the chains of blackness in America. (Or are they only perceived chains?) I wonder to myself why have the links have held, why have they not rusted away?

>

light and darkness
good and evil
matter and God
truth and falsehood

>
Iris Murdoch ----from The Jackson Dilemma

...An awareness of the tragedy of human life, good and evil, crime and punishment--remorse.

Surveying myself in the mirror, there was little light, the mirror old, I always wondered what I looked like. --This connects with who am I, what I am...I wonder why everyone does not feel like this, or is it a gift, free from my gods, an understanding of the only reality which is in truth that we are nothing. The mirror now shows me mostly my father, my brows thickening, perhaps...

/
/
/
Hares may pull the beards of dead lions.

"Postmodernism is about the reappropiation of the past, the making real of false consciousness, the revaluation of values. Until now we have been living in a false culture, surrounded by mass-produced kitsch....We borrow from the past, we have no history so we write it where it doesn't exist." Igor, Between East & West

imaginary realism-- imaginary truth.

ROBOTIC AYN RAND

Need advice about your latest megalomaniacal scheme? If only you could ask history's greatest megalomaniac, "novelist" and "philosopher" Ayn Rand. Too bad she's dead. But wait! In 1963, a secret cabal of Objectivists intent on taking over the Student Union at MIT built the first robotic Ayn Rand, and now you can own a Randroid® based on their original design. Comes with stock phrases such as "Morality ends where the gun begins," "Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent," and "Nathaniel! Bring me another gin and tonic!"

Price: US$50,000 includes software*
*software tends to be rather buggy. For instance, your Randroid may oppose immigration, yet be an immigrant herself. She may oppose infidelity, yet cheat on her husband. She may espouse individuality, yet believe that only those who follow her are individuals. She may oppose the control of individuals by organizations, yet laud corporate power. These bugs can not be repaired.


Item Available at VillainSupply.com

The few who have everything-- the many who need something. Which side are you on? The few who are unwilling to give up anything? Or the deserving many? Know which side you are on. It is amazing, however, that many of the many take the side of the few. Have I said that the masses are asses?

Last night the little woman and I went to see the International Sport Latin Ballroom Dancing Competition at the Diplomat Hotel. This is not dancing as we knew it in the Catskills. The two Titos would be very surprized, shocked (!) to see this highly stylized, ritualistic, robotic dancing.

The "sport" in the title of the competition refers to the furious movements that partners make on the floor. The Tango's ritual seem to be carried over to every dance, Rhumba, Tango, Cha Cha, Cha. These partners really sweat during their performance and when they violently turn their heads the sweat sprays a circle around their bodies. Did I see a rainbow in the rain of persperation? Maybe. There was some agreeable grace in the slides of the Quick Step and perhaps in the Paso-Doble.

Fred Astaire? Neither present in body nor in spirit.

Saw Matchstick Men last night at Cinema Paradiso. Nicolas Cage is good as a phobia-addled con artist . His life goes awry when Cage's teenage daughter (Alison Lohman) shows up. Alison Lohman is very good as a 14 year old. B+


Look, I want a movie that's free of anecdote and cheap sentiment. This wasn't it. Most films today just can't take me over the wall and into the world of real emotions or beauty or honesty.

I can't breathe anymore. The sterile atmosphere around me has become irrespirable. I need beauty, art, emotion. That's my oxygen. And no one around me understands. People around here equate going to restuarants with living. They fail to know that they are engaged in a desperate search for life. But restuarants and TV aren't life. And talking about restaurants and food coupons isn't conversation either.

Gad.

PPPoE what is it? Why does it hate me? What did I do to make it disappear? How can I get it back? I always lose the one that I need the most. Come back PPPoE what ever you are.

Dick Robinson's American Standards by the Sea

Okay, back in Florida. Joined a gym. I don't know why--the building I live in has its own gym, and of course we have the pool, and the ocean as well, and that's swell.

But maybe I want to get away, meet some people, and the whirlpool at this gym is very hot--hotter than I am used to, and finally I feel satisfied by the heat in the whirlpool and the suana. No steamroom here though. My fellow gymnaughts seem very blue collar which is to be expected here, as the price is very very low. But the gym is spotless, the pool is big enough and there are more machines here than in the Ford Motor plant in Dearbourne.

Maria and I have to go through all the mail that was kept by the post office here. This is the kind of project that proves my need to procrastinate, so I guess it will be a few days (weeks?) before I complete the project.

Le Divorce : American girl lives in Paris with French artist husband who walks out her. Sister comes to help her through her misery, but instead becomes the mistress of an important French businessman-politician. B-

Soulmate Aug 2003


On a walk through Central Park, on a rainy afternoon, I had asked my closest friend whether he felt that the woman that he had been married to for the past twenty years was his soul mate.

At six-thirty the next morning I received a phone call. I picked up the receiver and listened to the plaintive voice of his wife. She was sixty and had gone off the hormones that had kept her flush free for the past seven years. …


……………..

I looked at her, soundly sleeping, hair plastered against her sweated forehead; even in sleep drops of perspiration could be seen on her cheek. She was sixty and had gone off the hormones that had kept her flush free for the past seven years.



He was his own weather system, now in storm cycle, and no, it wasn’t that romantic distant thunder that brings lovers together, but rather it was the startling, fearsome crack right overhead, the flash of it simultaneous with its sound, evidence of its dangerous closeness, and blinding, a cleansing smell of ozone wafting through the brilliantly lit trees, eidetic, drenched and gleaming, then disappearing back to black in the threatening darkness.



He beat her mercilessly, with the alcohol fueled fury of a man too short and too fat, and too slow for his lean and hungry ambition. She loved him anyway, craved him for it, as most women love the men who beat them.


“Uncertainty,” Robert Musil said, “is sometimes nothing more than mistrust of the usual certainties.”

Here's what I want to say about him:

He beat her mercilessly, with the alcohol fueled fury of a man too short for his ambition. She loved him anyway, craved him for it, as most women love the men who beat them.

From Hal:

Spencer Tracy said it best; when asked what advice he could give to aspiring movie actors to make them good actors, he answered " show up on time....hit your mark...look into the lens....and tell the truth ! " I think something like this, could restore our ability to communicate......Hal


From Basil:

I am going to be sixty five in January. I've reached the stage in life
where I know it is all downhill from here. I look in the mirror and
don't like what I see. I try to do my exercising and I don't like how I
feel. I used to run four miles just to warm up. I now can barely jog
four miles. My doctor says I am in great shape for my age but that does
not help how I feel. I am getting old and I don't want to. I don't want
to deteriorate to the point where I can't stand looking at myself. I
think it is mostly a question of vanity but the thought of my muscles
becoming any more flaccid and my skin becoming more wrinkled is not
something I am looking forward to no matter how healthy I am. If I don't
die it will happen. I don't want to die but I think I would prefer dying
to growing much older. I am afraid of dying but I would be even more
afraid of living forever. Intellectually I know once I'm dead it's all
over so death is definitely more preferable.

On the other hand I don't worry about dioxins or watch what I eat and I
do not exercise obsessively. I smoke my cigars and eat fats and
sweets.......... What a relief Basil

From Gross:

I just finished Barzun's History of the West. He wrote this sweeping vision of civilization when he was 91; and he had stopped jogging years before. When we are no longer sufficiently fueled by our muscles, we need to look for a new energy source. gross

Basil's moaning results from the assumption that life is limited by physical capacity. The defect in that presumption is apparent from it's making. There is much evidence that our consciousness is capable of expanding indefinitely. Thinking carries us beyond our biology. Witness Stephen Hawking. The mind's eye clears with age. Look beyond the length of a jog, (which is also dependent upon time). Exercise ideas. Pessimism is poison. gross

Every man has seen women's bared breasts. Most have seen them hundreds, if not thousands of times under varied circumstances.

Why then, do we still hope for a glimpse of still another bare breast or nipple? Tonight Cameron Diaz was a guest on Jay Leno's night show. She wore a particularly revealing dress, one that looked as though her breast might fall out, or perhaps a nipple might appear. What kept me waiting, watching, hoping for a look?

Yesterday, the day of the big blackout, I went to the Whitney with MG, hoping to visit Tim Baum at the same time as his gallery is only a block way. Well, we never heard from Tim, so Mike and I did the Whitney, after passing through a blockade of very aggressive fund raisers. I t was lucky that Mike and I had the benfit of fighting for Coach Quinn on our old HS football team, Mike as a first string tackle and me as a benchwarming guard. Anyway, we cross blocked the little old lady and soon found our selves on the admission line.

Following our Whitney experience we went for a walk through Central Park, stopping for sandwiches at the Boathouse. We talked about soulmates and decided, basically, that they were very hard to come by. Comprimise seems to be the order of the day, especially at this age.

I was to have dinner in Great Neck with a neighbor from the old days on Willow Lane, and so I left Michael and took the "C" train from 79th and CPW to Penn Station where I made the last train that made it all the way home before the blackout. I arrived at Great Neck at 3:59 PM and went to 5 Continents to pick up some cheese for cocktails with Vesta and Maria. At 4:10 PM as the cheeseman began to weigh the cheese on an electronic scale he lights went out. The Cheeseman paniced and ran out of his store, leaving me alone with the cheese. Resisting the natural impluse to steal all the cheese in sight I waited for him to come back in. But now the electronic scale couldn't weigh anything--not even Mr. Cheeseman's thumb. He was reluctant to sell me anything, even though he had already cut my cheese. So I convinced him to estimate the weight--and finaly just stuffed some cash in his hand and took the cheese.

Last night we saw the Smuin Ballet dance Dancin' with Gershwin.at the Joyce. The Joyce is a small theater which was re-built especially for dancing and I dare say that there isn't a single bad seat in the house. But the Dancin': like eating at a restuarant named Moms or playing cards with a guy named Doc, one should not attend events when the producer thinks it's a good idea to drop the "g" at the end of a word ending in "ing." You can write that down. And shoould one be a dancer one should know that it is not a good idea to try to tap dance in a tuxedo to a recording of Fred Astaire singing Fascinating Rhythm. Mark this: when the audience hears Astaire's voice it cannot help seeing Him dance. I felt sorry for Shannon Hurlburt and Roberto Cisneros as they tried to climb the Astaire Mountain. Can't be done. It's like trying to outplay Art Tatum at the piano. Astaire and Tatum are in a class by themselves. You can be great but you can't be Astaire.


However, the rest of the night was light and fun. the light funtastic comes to mind.

Too often social reform is conflated with socialism. Liberalism is not socialism. Progress is not revolution.

I checked your link, and spent some time looking at the pictures that the Italian futurists made--the graphics, lettering, etc. I have a friend, a schoolmate, named Tim Baum, who is an expert on Man Ray, and a major dealer of his work. He befriended Man Ray during the last ten years of Man Ray's life.

Tim has a gallery in an apartment on Madison Avenue, and I will be calling him tomorrow because I discovered a coincidence. Inspired by looking at the Futurists I went to the library today and took out several Man Ray books--photos, biographies, etc.

It seems that Emmanuel Radnitsky and his family lived on the block where my grandfather had a drug store. I imagine that they were his customers and probably often used the telephone in his store or were called to it when people would call the Radnitsky family.

Seabiscuit: Come prepared. Bring a handkerchief.

My studies of Leopold II temporarily put aside, I am now reading Ben Hecht's autobiography which brings back many of the names of my youth, unknown by anyone of your generation except, of course, you, names like Sherwood Anderson, Charles MacAurthur, Fanny Brice, Gene Fowler, Billy Rose, Mike Ben Ami (Israeli gun runner,) William Frawley, David Bellasco (now you know who the theater is named for--he was a producer) Red Grange, Hugo Haase*--I didn't know the name either--anyway a hoard of names was buried deep in my mind, and mining them has been fun, not the back breaking work that usually accompanies my literary "studies" when I must struggle to learn new names. Recovering the old ones is easier, and the slagheap shrinks.

Of course, there are many others mentioned in Hecht’s book who are still known names, but what interests me is the number of names who were important in Hecht's day who have been forgotten by Everyone, and who were not even known in the fifties. At least not known by me in the fifties. Fame is, indeed, fleeting.

Maria knew one of the names: Bill Frawley.

Well, here's a factoid for you: Sherwood Anderson died on shipboard after swallowing a toothpick in an hors d'oeuvre sausage. So much for toothpicks & sausage, eh?

Much of my reading this spring and summer has emphasized the inhumanity of man, and we are reminded that it is nothing new. You can read about it in the Bible, some of the inhumanity ordered by God Himself. Gross told me a little about the un-Godlike punishments delineated in the Bible but I didn’t pay attention until I began to read about the other genocides we’ve lived through.

Strange, eh? Well, Leopold and his minions were no pikers when it came to elemental bestial horror, and with these biographies under my belt "Heart of Darkness” gets a new reading, the horror now being the Belgians and Europeans rather than the Africans. It’s not as though the Africans learned much from us, they had some of their own home-grown horrors, but it is true that bestial behavior on earth isn’t limited to the beasts, nor is it limited to Saddam, Stalin and Hitler.

Gross has moved from his study of religion to a new study of science based on his reading of science written for the “educated layman.” Well, we may not be properly educated, but we are laymen. He mentioned his astonishment at the miracle of our presence on earth, considering all the mischance that could have occurred going back millions of years even before there was a man who could be inhumane to his fellow creatures.

Eons of evolution brought us to the human state and at any minute during all those eons the path leading to humanity could have been obliterated; then more eons when anyone of our ancestors could have been killed or could have died of illness before having the offspring that would lead to us.

For this alone, we should give more honor to our grandparents and those before them. Look at me—in effect the penultimate of the Katz line—it doesn’t look as though Aaron will have any more children and most likely Max will remain childless. So, there’s no more Katz’.

But all the ones before us struggled, starved, froze, planted, hunted, star gazed, humbled themselves (or didn’t), just so that you and I could be here worrying about our weight or a tax increase. How many times did we hide in the woods, hearing our neighbors being raped and killed? Look, we’re just dots in the universe and lucky dots at that.

So why are we so bad to each other? Jerry, the fellow in whose apartment we are staying, had a daughter who died of cancer in her thirties. Right now he is having an air conditioning problem. I remarked that Maria and I felt bad for him, and he answered, with more than a lump in his throat and a tear in his eye, that after losing a daughter he was able to focus on the real, the good and the important. According to Jerry, air conditioning filters don’t fit into any of those categories.

Genocide: A case may be made that the first genocide was God's killing of the first born Egyptians. Since then genocide has been a popular method of taking control of land or getting rid of neighbors.

The twentieth century has seen plenty of genocidal terrors--starting early in the century with the Turkish eradication of the Armenians. Americans stood by and allowed it to happen, denying all the time that it was happening, in spite of Ambassador Morgenthau's warnings, protests, and pleadings with our Congress. We wanted to maintain a delicate relationship with the Otttoman Empire and so we said nothing. We've always found diplomatic or policy rationalizations for ignoring humanity in need. Need I remind you of Cambodia, Bosnia or Rwanda?

A Problem from Hell -- America and the Age of Genocide -- Samantha Power -- Race Murders in the twentieth century --Armenia Cambodia, Holocaust, Bosnia, the Kurds, Kosovo, Rwanda. But remember genocide goes back much further than the 20th century.

Leopold II of the Belgians, King of Colonialism -- Barbara Emerson.
Leopold owned the Congo personally and his evil is painted herein by a silken brush.

King Leopold's Ghost: Adam Hochschild. Genocide and plunder in the Congo. Money making for the very rich and unconcerned.


*Hugo Haase was a German hero-politician of the twenties and thirties who chose to stand up to the Weimar Government when it massacred two thousand Germans in Moabit prison and later chose to stand up to the Nazis and was assassinated for it on the steps of the German Parliament.


Well, its late. I’m going to call my granddaughter Remi, and give her a hug over the phone.

Buster Stronghart

John Watkins, M.D.
221A Baker Street


Sunday, August 3, 2003


Dear Steve:

I noted your loss of weight the other day at Chelsea Piers; but there was something else I noted with some interest. I believe that it is the second time that I saw you place the unwanted portion of your food with deliberate neatness onto a certain part of your plate.

At Chelsea Piers it was the roll part of your hamburger. You took both sections and placed the top half over the bottom half after carefully removing all the meat and cheese. You moved the roll to a place slightly off center on your plate.

You ate everything else, every morsel of “Atkins-allowed” food, I guess. When you were done your plate was clean, the roll perfectly reassembled (though somewhat flattened by the weight of its absorption of juices and fats) in that slightly off center place on the plate.

A month before, when we ate at March I noticed the same behavior. A careful separation of wanted and unwanted food. And then, you created artfully what was almost a “presentation” of the food to be returned to the kitchen by the busboy.

I am wondering whether this curious behavior is intentional, a method of, perhaps, rewarding yourself for your improved eating habits, or whether it is unconscious. Are you aware of it? Has anyone else commented upon it? Does your plate-designing behavior precede Dr. Atkins’ diet?



Your obedient servant,

John Watkins

Dr. John Watkins, Holmes’ loyal assistant.

King Leopold's Ghost: Adam Hochschild. Genocide and plunder in the Congo.

Leopold II of the Belgians, King of Colonialism: Barbara Emerson Leopold and HM Stanley explore and claim the Congo, destroying African life style and civilization along the way. .

Sweet flowers alone can say what passion fears revealing.

BLOGGER :: Dano FAQ

As a runner (actually, now a walker) I am very upset that the photo, painting, letters from the Senate and other memorabilia regarding Alberto Arroyo have been removed from the Central Park Reservoir Gate House.

The materials were removed prior to the visit of Mayor Bloomberg to the gatehouse in regard to Conservatory sponsored renovations of the fence surrounding the reservoir. Probably someone wanted to "pretty up" the gatehouse. It may have "prettied" it up, but it was at the expense of a sense of tradition.

Alberto humanizes New York, and its sad that one of the true characters of our city has been pushed aside because of someone's mistaken idea of what is appropriate.

Alberto, 88 years old, is an inspiration to runners who see him everyday walking the reservoir track, cane in hand. Although he was never a postman, neither rain nor snow stops Alberto from making his daily rounds of the track.

Alberto has been at the track as long as I have been going there, and it is my understanding that he began running in the late fifties and hasn't stopped since.

He has been honored by the New York Road Runners Club, two mayors of New York, Henry Stern, and many others.

Part of the aura of Central Park is tradition. Alberto is a living tradition.

Can something be done to replace Alberto's plaque? If appearance is what is in question, a proper plaque should be installed on the wall of the Gatehouse.

Every runner who runs on a daily basis knows Alberto.

Buster Stronghart

Rocco's Restuarant

Maria and I tried Rocco's tonight to celebrate the news from Baghdad. Here's the scoop on the most publiczied restuarant opening in history.

/decor: sleek
food: not better than okay
noise: dangerous
price: too high for not better than okay food
wine: great list, priced fairly
service: Rocco took people off street in massive hiring spree. He must have forgotten to train them.

From the Bahgdad Blogger:

It is so unbelievable how they have wasted a chance to show Iraqis they really are doing something. It was the most useless of press conferences, first off this Sanchez speaks only in Militar-ese, meaningless words come out of his mouth while we are all hanging on the edge of our seats waiting for one single picture, definitive proof. It is so easy, all it takes is to show us the friggin’ corpses. They do have them. Someone did see them and when asked why it wasn’t sown to the public they came up with the moral issues stuff. Habibi it didn’t bother you that all those Iraqis, Americans and British are being killed for dubious reasons, so why suddenly become so squeamish? Give the Images to Jazeera, moral issues have never stopped them from showing gruesome images, let them do your dirty work. All I care about is knowing, seeing, being 100% doubt free and that press conference proved nothing. An Iraqi journalist stopped me at the door of that hall and asked me whether I am American media (this happens from hanging around NY Times people too much), I told him I wasn’t but I could put him in touch, he said he was a journalist with IMN (Iraqi Media Network, the coalition sponsored media tool) he said that he wanted to make sure that the American journalists understand that Iraqis have huge doubts and if we would go out on the street we would be told that the whole thing in Mosul was a farce. Actually I was on the street and did ask that question. And people do need proof. The Americans just fucked up. Just like they waited too long after the fall of Baghdad to show the Iraqis they have things under control they have fucked up again by first making the decision to kill the idiots and then not give us clear proof of their death.
At that press conference there was a gentleman who asked an extremely important question which was answered by Sanchez with “that is speculation. Next question.” I later found out that the man in front of me was Fisk and the question he asked which we all want to be answered was: why was the decision made to attack with a force that would have been capable of annihilating a city block? Why did they opt for killing them when they knew their importance as sources of information on all sorts of things and the wish all Iraqis have that they be put thru trial?
Fisk started the ball rolling, sanchez was asked the same question at least 5 times in different ways and with it the question of how to prove this to the Iraqi people. And what do we get? Meaningless militareses. Beyond disappointing.
What sort of wake up call do they need? You get people saying the Americans are slow, the Americans are not fulfilling their promises. Don’t fucking lose it, you are really stretching your luck, act act act. You came and gave people big hopes and you let them fall flat on their faces. I can’t believe that there has not been a single big celebration, I went to the office this morning and one of the photographers was asking “so where do you think they will be dancing in the streets?”. It doesn’t feel like there is a reason to celebrate. People are still being killed left and right.
The only people who are having parties are journos and NGO’s, oh and I hear OCPA has a disco night at the Rasheed Hotel once a week.
After the war with Iran was over people were in the streets for a whole night, dancing and singing.
I am just pissed off, this thing today has redefined anticlimactic for me. I still have hopes for the day they catch Saddam. Maybe we will have our street party then.

And I would like to add that Jazeera is the worst ever. They should be banned under Mullah Bremer’s Fatwa banning all pro-saddam/pro-ba’ath propaganda. That political analyst they have, something al-ani, is a fucking saddamite.
:: salam 2:07 PM [+] ::