Now is the Winter of Our Discontent Made Glorious Summer..

We, determined to prove villainous and hate the idle pleasures of these days, plots have laid, inductions dangerous, by drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, set in deadly hate one against the other: subtle, false and treacherous.


All I can say is to repeat what I've already said: we deserve what we are going to get.




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Pictures of the Day: River Styx to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' House

The River Styx.

Three Vultures above the Styx.

Smallish alligator feeding upon a deer carcass in the river (click to enlarge image if you can't see him: he's almost invisible but for the top of his head on the right of the deer; mouth on carcass, his submerged tail pointing to the upper right corner of the frame).

The Yearling, on the far side of the bridge.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' House.

Marjorie's Parlor.

Marjorie's tenant farmer's house, where the help lived.

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Picture of the Day: Arc of the Covenant, Gainesville

I have an odd bunch of pictures to post, but it's late and I'm tired, this wireless connection is too slow, and I want to write clever amusing little captions but am too addled.   It'll have to wait for tomorrow, is all.  



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Pictures of the Last Few Days: Jacksonville, Fort Clinch SP, Gainesville

I've not been in the mood to write anything these last few days - or week or two now, I suppose.   I've been turned inward, seeking to put myself in better order, lately.    There's work to do inside, is what I'm saying. Still, I did see a few things, and I did remember to use my camera on a few of them....

Like this, Fort Clinch State Park, a Civil War era park just north of Jacksonville that was begun just before beginning of the war, then taken and then abandoned by the Confederacy, and then taken and held by the Union after Florida was evacuated by Confederate forces in the middle of the war.  I have always loved old forts like this,  they move me somehow.   Here are a few images I seized of the place:

Then I saw this later that same day along the side of the road.  It's web was huge, probably a square meter in total span, and the little fellow was himself not all that little (in that if he were to grow any larger he would be a great nightmare, and not just a vividly colored little spook like he is now..)  being about two inches long or so with the extent of his legs..  He was very beautiful, but I was a a little too wary and respectful to get any closer than I did, which means the images I took are not as impressive as they should be:

I just looked him up online.  He's a yellow silk spider, also known as a banana spider, a calico spider, a writing spider, a giant wood spider or a golden orb spider.

He's not at all dangerous, and can even be touched or picked up if you have the guts to do it.   I like spiders, but prefer not to touch or get too close to them.  They're awesome to me, and that means I give them due respect.  I look, but will not touch.  

Some people are brasher in this than I.  Here's the proof of that:

That guy's a little bigger than the one I ran into, but not much.   Pretty amazing, eh?


I'm beginning to really like Florida.  It's really only a matter of paying attention to what is good and ignoring all the idiots.  That's just a matter of acting with grace and acquired wisdom, and then paying attention, really..



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Pictures of the Day: Little Talbot Island SP, Jacksonville

Turtle Nest

Self- Portrait

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Pictures of the Past Week: St. Augustine Area

So, not only have I not posted a daily image like I vowed I would, I have not posted at all in over a week.

I've been in the St. Augustine area, on the north east coast of Florida this week, and have been in a very introverted mood.  Maybe even slightly depressed.   I've been enjoying my travels here quite a bit, though, and have seen some interesting things.

I just went through all the images I took, and pulled out a bunch that I like, that give a bit of a taste of what I've seen.   An incoherent photo essay of my last weeks wanderings..

I have a few film reviews and other things that I may post the next few days.  One thing I recommit to doing is posting images of my meander this coming week..

Driving through the Floridian Jungle..

 I came upon this Great Oak in the Jungle, called the "Fairchild Oak" after the botanist who introduced soybeans to North America.   This tree is 2,000 - that's *two thousand* - years old, and is clearly cared for by the Eledrhrim.

Emma in that Jungle.

 This is the ruin of a great sugar mill built near the Atlantic coast in the Jungle in 1831 by the Bulow brothers.   It was burnt later that decade by the Seminoles, during the second of the three Seminole Wars that were fought in Florida before the Civil War.

I then drove up coastal A1A to Saint Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the United States.   There is a Catholic shrine, Our Lady of La Leche,  on the shore where the Spanish settlers landed, where there is this great cross:

It is a beautiful, but very touristed old city.  I spent two days there, and enjoyed the place anyway, despite the difficult parking.

Psalm 26:8

I've decided that I'm going to start a series in imitation of Daniel Nichols at Caelem & Terra featuring the churches and shrines I visit.  I may even steal his hache tag "the glory of thy house" which is taken from Psalm 26.   I noticed that that verse was on the side of the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, which is nearby that great cross by the sea.  The shrine was built in the 16th Century by the settlers, and while it has been destroyed several times by hurricanes or fire, it has always been rebuilt.

There's an outdoor path there lined with the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin,  the first of which is the Presentation, or the Prophecy of Simeon.  It's the only of the seven that I considered a happy sad sorrow, in that if I received such a prophecy concerning my child, I would be both terrified and glad.  The reliefs are beautiful, as you can see:

 I also went to mass Sunday at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, which is the primal parish of the United States.   The present building dates from the 19th Century, and is very beautiful:

This beautiful shrine to Blessed Augustine is on the nave of the basilica:

There is also a great Spanish colonial era- fort there, called the Castillo de San Marcos, now a National Park:

 I also made a pilgrimage to a small Greek shrine in the city, devoted to Saint Photios.  I spent several hours talking with the caretaker Fernando (in picture below, tending the candles) who is a Colombian convert from Rome.  I bought five icons from their shop there, and promptly lost the bag on the way back to the car.  Such losses are never accidents, I only hope that they be found to good use..

 That's the latest from Florida.   I'll blog more faithfully these coming weeks, so stay posted..



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The Discontents of Civilzation: The Contradictions of Village Politics [Revised]

Back Briefly in the Villages, I am once again subjected to the discontents of the bourgeois, of how the government is ruining everything, told of how everything is going to hell.

But now, I am somehow (miraculously, even) beyond annoyance, and am just bemused.

Really! Really? No, Really.

One of the sublime ironies of this discussion for me is how the Villages are probably one of the best governed places in the country, not to say planet.. Everything works and is in order here. There are lots of rules, and people respect them.

Grant you, this is an oligarchic association inhabited almost exclusively by upper middle class white people from New England, the Mid- Atlantic and Mid- West. These are disciplined people, who know how to balance a checkbook and respect a red light.

They've got government in their DNA, coursing their veins and invigorating their very sinews. They are mostly mid to upper level bureaucrats who managed this country through the greatest economic boom in human history, a boom we are still enjoying.

Tonight I sat around a table and listened to people who all - everyone, without exception - had worked for the public sector their entire careers, as public servants in the military, the Portsmouth Naval Yard, as public school teachers and administrators, who are all retired in their 50's and early 60's on public (federal and state) pensions, Social Security and Medicare, universally abuse the government and decry its incompetence.

All without any apparent sense of irony or self criticism.

I posed questions that bounced back at me like duds off a cushion: is there any substantial difference between a publicly controlled bureaucracy and a corporate one? Isn't the substantial difference whether it exists to create value for shareholders (as per U.S. corporate law) or to advance the common good?

Isn't it in our interest to ensure that all bureaucracies and decision makers are held accountable to the public (general) good? Isn't democratic governance one of the few ways to pursue this end in our fallen world? Would it really be better to live in a world where everything was owned by a rich man, and we all were forced to bow and scape for some sort of contractual relationship with someone of wealth, where we had no recourse but to sell our labor to an overseer for the right to sustenance and shelter?

Isn't what the wealthy usually call socialism almost always a merely matter of regulating markets and guaranteeing that the economically disenfranchised maintain access to wealth necessary to their well being?

Regulation of markets, especially labor markets. The 40 hour week, workers comp, minimum wage, care for children, the sick, the elderly. Guaranteed access to food, shelter, education and healthcare. Guaranteed access to information, to markets.

It seems to me that we all benefit from the maintenance and advancement of the public good, of the public space.


I don't know. It seems to me that we can take care of one another, or else be left each of us uncared for. It seems we either fight for the common good, for mutual responsibility and benefit; or else descend into anti-social selfishness, disregard and irresponsibility.

We must either hang together, or be left to hang alone.


Just so. That all seems clear enough. Just as it seems we have yet another, similar, related choice: you can either be proud, angry and cynical or humble, bemused and amused.

I have had done with curses and cynicism. It's all worthless, it brings nothing.

Nothing but more bitterness and wrath.


Me, from now on I bless and laugh.



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Edictum de Fide Catholica:

One need only shut oneself in a closet and begin to think of the fact of one's being there, of one's queer bodily shape in the darkness (a thing to make children scream at, as Stevenson says), of one's fantastic character and all, to have the wonder steal over the detail as much as over the general fact of being, and see that it is only familiarity that blunts it. Not only that anything should be, but that this very thing should be, is mysterious! Philosophy stares, but brings no reasoned solution, for from nothing to being there is no logical bridge.

- Henry James, Some Problems of Philosophy, 1911 (posthumously published).



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You Opened Yourself, and You Held Me Inside..

A long time ago,
No shoes on my feet,
I walked ten miles of train track
To hear Hank Williams sing.

His body was worn
But his spirit was free,
And he sang every song
Looking right straight at me.

Now I don't have to pick,
And I don't have to choose,
I don't have to win,
And I don't have to lose.

And if I make any pay
I just throw it away,
I don't count on tomorrow,
I just live for today.


Just a tramp on your street..
You must understand.
You got my soul at your feet,
And my heart in your hand.

Still you opened yourself,
And you held me inside..
You made a stray dog like me
Feel welcome tonight.



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quelle tristesse

lyrics:

Seul, je suis seul seul, je suis seul,
J'ai tant d'amour à t'offrir, j'ai tant de temps
Et d'avenir que je te cherche
Mais je me retrouve seul, je suis seul,
J'ai tant besoin d'un amour, j'ai du chagrin
Depuis toujours et sans mes rêves
Je serais perdu et seul

Refrain:

Un soir j'ai rêvé qu'un de tes baisers
Me couvrait d'affection
J'ai besoin de toi, pourquoi
La nuit n'est pas l'éternité ?

Il fait si noir sans mes rêves et j'ai si froid
Sans tes lèvres que la vie est triste
quand je me retrouve
Seul, je suis seul

au Refrain

Il fait si noir sans mes rêves et j'ai si froid
Sans tes lèvres que la vie est triste
Quand je me retrouve
Seul, seul, je suis seul, seul, je suis seul
Seul, je suis seul, seul, je suis seul.



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"Or As You "Biologicals" Call It, Daily Life!"

One last post for the evening. I just finished writing the last post (er, okay, screed..) and then read this. Fantastic. Great minds thinking alike, that's all I can say:

It's long past time to start calling them spades, spades. Hat tip Caelum & Terra.



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Further Thoughts Forth

Since I just let tear that last post, and the void remains impassive, let me kick it up another notch:

Otto von Hapsburg died at the age of 96, today. July 4th. A distinction he shares with both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. That's amusing.

Why? Because this is the birthday of the Great Masonic Republic, the Whore of the Enlightenment, the anti-thesis of nearly everything that the Hapsburg dynasty represents in historical, theological and political terms. The only thing less "American" in this sense would be the papacy itself.

Now, I never met his highness, who one time pretender to the now extinct throne of the Empire of Austria Hungary, and so also a hypothetical candidate for the post of Holy Roman Emperor if it were still extant. I do have the great honor and pleasure of knowing many of his relatives, personally, though. Indeed, I consider a few of them that I spent some time with to be friends, in that slight but distinct sense that you often develop with people whom you like and share many things in common with.

In common with. Funny. But it's true. I've shared meals and drinks with them, gone to mass and prayed the rosary with them, been to parties and dinners with them, all on a first name basis. Once in a while I would kid one of them, address them as archduke and then tell them with mock sorrow that it was a shame, but that I am a republican and revolutionary..

In a tone of mock sorrow, but not in complete jest. For it's emphatically true: I am a republican and revolutionary.

Because for as much as I like them..

Like them? Yeah. Because they are not at all like the vulgar "noble" house of Monaco, or the tawdry jet- setting Windsors. They're more like the family Von Trapp: very friendly, haute bourgeois in their manner, not at all ostentatious. If you didn't know who they were, you'd never guess.

Still, as much as I like them, I am not about to join the Black Yellow Alliance.

In fact, if we aren't going to bring back the Roman (note, Roman, not Spanish) Inquisition, and support the full triumph of the Gregorian Reform and strive for the fullblown global triumph of the Papal Imperium (see how I've gone Orthodox, and now have come full circle round: accept the authority of the See of Rome all ye schismatics, and repent), then I am with Jefferson, and for the freedoms articulated in the Bill of Rights.

What I'm trying to say is that I am a Guelph and no Ghibelline, then a republican and no monarchist.

Like any of that makes any sense in reality. These last few years I've been thinking about all of this, wondering if I have any politics left anymore.

If it is not time for me to turn inward, for good.


How come? Because in reality, we live in a world where the gnostics have triumphed, in which the nominalists have won full sway. It's all extrapolated numerology and elaborated alchemy, now. The faustians have made their bargain and seized their mess of pottage, in the moment victorious.

Personhood - human dignity - is now held to be synonymous with will and consciousness. The mind is held to be independent of the body, which is to be transcended in the algorithmic triumph of the mind over matter.

The software can be extracted from the hardware, and set loose as a type of "angelic" intelligence to live eternally. The end of the human race, the master stroke of our evolution: transcendence through trans-humanism.

As has always been the case with them, gnostics never tell the truth. They are always hiding their intent, allowing the great mass to wallow, rut and forage, while they seek their transcendence through gnosis.


In terms of this scheme to be a Christian is to be agnostic. For faith is an embrace of powerlessness, a profound humility that recognizes the face of the Lord in that of the retarded, the ignorant, the sinful, the poor. Oneself, and every other human being no matter who they be. It is to renounce any pretension to salvific power over creation, it is to admit our own utter dependance upon and ignorance before God.

For we know nothing about Him that he does not reveal to us Himself. That is to say that all such knowledge is only had by grace.


And grace is not to be had by force, either of intellect or will: It is never coerced but always gratuitously given; like friendship, like love.


Which is to say that a human social order informed by grace would be like a great family in which the weak are borne by the strong.


Not some sort of bizarre hermetic hieratic order in which the masters of numerology lord over everyone else, enslave and force them to do their bidding in return for some contrived unreal abstraction like money.


You know how Orthodox Jews wrap the words of God around their head and right forearm? The will of the One they worship is always before them.


Today, in this culture most of us would put our portfolio and paycheck in the phylacteries if we were to wear tefillin.


That's what you could call a prophecy partially fulfilled. Can I get an amen?


Again, Happy Independence Day Y'all.



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Thoughts on the Forth

"Natürlich, das einfache Volk will keinen Krieg […] Aber schließlich sind es die Führer eines Landes, die die Politik bestimmen, und es ist immer leicht, das Volk zum Mitmachen zu bringen, ob es sich nun um eine Demokratie, eine faschistische Diktatur, um ein Parlament oder eine kommunistische Diktatur handelt. […] Das ist ganz einfach. Man braucht nichts zu tun, als dem Volk zu sagen, es würde angegriffen, und den Pazifisten ihren Mangel an Patriotismus vorzuwerfen und zu behaupten, sie brächten das Land in Gefahr. Diese Methode funktioniert in jedem Land."

Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

- Interview of Herman Göring by Gustave Gilbert in his cell at Nuremburg, April 18, 1946: Nürnberger Tagebuch S.270


I'm sitting here at Borders somewhere in the urban sprawl of Miami drinking coffee and translating.

Un peu de Français parmi los Cubanos Locos.. A fit exercise for our national fest, I think. We Americans owe the French nearly everything, seeing as how they bankrupted themselves (thereby bringing on their own revolution) fighting in our war for Independence.

So, here's a goutte de café for the Marquis de Layfayette and his boys. Another for the Comte de Rochambeau whose men formed half the forces at Yorktown and a third for the Comte de Grasse whose fleet beat the Royal Navy there.

Our true founding fathers, all of them French.

And now one more for France Gall, France on Gaul singing this charming paean to my home, the only patriotically themed song I will listen to today:




Quand on a rêvé depuis 17 ans d'Amérique..
When you've dreamt for 17 years of America..

J'irai voir le Texas et le Colorado, sans parler du Kansas et de San Francisco.
I will go and see Texas and Colorado, not to mention Kansas and San Francisco.

Au centième étage du plus haut des grattes-ciel pousser les nuages pour toucher le soleil..
To the the hundredth floor of the highest sky scraper pushing aside clouds to touch the sun..

On dit qu'à Broadway brillent les lumières d'Amérique, ah si je pouvais voir le nez en l'air, l'Amérique..
They say that the American lights are bright on Broadway, ah, if I could only see all the rich and famous people there..

Lécher les vitrines des grands magasins d'Amérique, acheter des jeans et des mocassins d'Amérique..
Drooling at the great shop windows, buying American jeans and moccasins..

J'ai vu tous les films et j'ai tous les disques d'Amérique, mais ça ne suffit pas il faut que je voie, l'Amérique.
I've seen all the movies and I have all the records, but that's not enough- I have to see America for myself.

Et comme ce sera trop grand pour mes yeux l'Amérique, j'irai avec toi découvrir à deux, l'Amérique..
And it will all be too great for my eyes alone to bear, I'll go with you to discover America the two of us, together..


--

That's right. I'll take my patriotic mythology, nationalistic aggrandizement and gross materialism in French, thank you. Plus raffinée comme ça. Screw Toby Keith.


I'm done with American civil religion. Go wrap yourselves in the flag and make a fetish of it. Conflate love of country with love of state sanctioned violence, and pretend that you really care about "the troops." Yelp that patriotism demands celebration of whatever latest homicide our political leadership orders they commit. Do it all while stuffing your fat gob with barbecue and beer.


I say that when that violence redounds upon us - and it will, sooner than later - that we will richly deserve it.


Not that that event will be understood in those terms. No, the average American has the historical memory and moral imagination of a fruitfly. It will be cynically manipulated and used as another opportunity to incite us to more violence.

So, I have a minor quibble with that Göring quote at the head of the post:

If there's one thing people love it's war that they inflict on others but (and this is the key quibble and point) without any negative consequence to themselves. After sex and money, we're all about war. Sex without negative consequences (disease or pregnancy), money without negative consequences (drudgery), and war without negative consequences (anyone we love being hurt or killed, especially ourselves).

Anything that expresses power and sates us is what human beings want. And war is the consummate act of crushing those whom we despise. When we can't work them to death for pennies, debase them sexually them for pennies, we will blow them to viscera for pennies.

The true genius of the Anglo-Saxon power elite is that they cloak their obvious violence in a moral language that glorifies it, and them. They usually manage to extend that "them" to include "us." But not always - see Vietnam, for example.

Whenever violence can't be ignored, it becomes about virtue and freedom. The Nazis were just too obvious. Their great downfall is that they lacked imagination and were terrible propagandists. Which is merely to say that they actually told the truth about their actual motives too often. See the quote by Göring for proof of that. Neither George Bush would be caught saying that, even though that's exactly what they believe.

You can bank on that. Happy Forth of July.



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Vagabond Song

lyrics:

I've been sleeping for some hours,
Just woke up and you were there.
Like the morning, like the flowers,
Sunlight whispering in my ears.
Red tail hawk shooting down the canyon,
Put me on that wind he rides.
I will be your true companion
When we reach the other side.

I will try, I will stumble,
But I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go.

Can't decide which way to travel,
On the ground or in the sky?
All my schemes have come unraveled.
All that's left is you and I.

And I will try, but I will stumble,
And I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go.
Here I go..

Ghosts on the trees,
There's ghosts on the wires.
Asking questions and showing signs..
Shivering with truth, they're lighting fires,
Lighting fires all down the line.

And I will try, and I will stumble,
But I will fly, he told me so.
Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go.

Proud and high or low and humble,
Many miles before I go.
Many miles before I go..



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Pictures of the Day: Key West

Key West does have its appeal:

There's a pretty nice 1840's era fort (Fort Zachary Taylor, now a state park) that was an important bastion during the Civil War. It never fell to the Confederacy, and was an active military installation until after WW II. It has several hundred canon, since the place was too far away to make salvaging them for their iron feasible (which is what happened to most old canons):

One very cool thing that I really like about Key West is that there are chickens and roosters wandering free, all about. It's like what I imagine sacred cows must be like in India: just everywhere, doing their thing, being chickens and pretty much ignoring and ignored by people. I dug them, and wondered if the locals harvest their eggs. They must:

There are iguanas everywhere, too. The iguana is not native to Florida, being a Central and South American species that was brought here as pets and then released by their owners when they get too big. They are now considered a pest, since they have no natural predators here, and tend to eat a lot.. They can reach 6' in length, and are very cool looking, and surprisingly fast moving. I saw this guy at the fort this afternoon:

I've not been taking pictures of myself, really, so I took a couple inane random ones this afternoon. I've never worn sunglasses in my life, I've always disliked having anything on my face or occluding my sight.. But since I'm going blind and it's just so damn bright down here, I've caved. I wore goggles skiing this winter, too. New habits..

Self portraits:

Tomorrow, I'll pass through Miami again, and then start exploring the Everglades.



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On Key West

Key West, 4th July Weekend, 2011.

I have no idea how this place was before they put the oversea highway in. Or how much that amazing highway cost. It reminds me of Monterey, California crossed with Vegas. This used to be a working harbor and naval base. Now, it's overrun by fratboys, sorority girls and their families. Middle America, come to pahtay.

That miraculous highway across the sea exists merely to bear these tourists here.

This is what I've spent my entire adult life fleeing. These people, the stench of their middling ambition for wealth, their secure pleasures and sporadic weekend and then once yearly weeklong binge drinking. They may have kids in tow now, but they're still acting like they're on spring break.

Hemingway I think hung out in both Key West and Monterey back in the day. Definitely Key West.. Maybe it was just Steinbeck in Monterey..

Whicheverway, I doubt either one of them would want to hang here (or in Monterey for that matter) today. All the old working fishermen are disappeared. Now we have the besotted technicians of stockbrokers taking their place, NASCAR hats on backwards, Coors light cans in hand.. It's like becoming trapped one giant Kenny Chesney video.




The unscripted, the rough and raw, the unusual, the dissonant, the foreign, almost everything that could complicate and zest the place has been stripped away. It's basically been made like one great Carnival cruise, but without the boat, and no free parking. Cue the Jimmy Buffet, and get yerself a fake tattoo and an overpriced weakly blended margarita.

All of which is merely to say that they've gone made this place in their image: very lame. American wealth always standardizes and plasticizes, pasteurizes and makes things cute, routine and sentimental. That's what this place is: where the CPAs and Rotarians can come and play at being a celebrity sport fisherman for a long weekend.

It's like when they read the cliff's notes to pass that sophomore English quiz on For Whom the Bell Tolls. They're still faking it after all these years.

All of which is merely to note that Key West pretty much sucks.



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Pictures of the Day: Miami to Key West

Two days in Miami, tonight Key Largo, this weekend Key West:

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