I might have said, Lord, show me something I have never seen before. A chicken on the hood of my car - that's for a start. I returned to remove something from the back - the hatch - cars used to have trunks - and there it was, through the windshield - the large hen. I thought: I have never seen that before. Thank you.
Returning home late each night from working. It's almost over. I'm taking no new jobs. There's only an infinite amount of money to be made; am I to want all of it? No, I come home to walk this borrowed dog, whom I call Mrs. Abigail Uppington, and then to bed, to sleep the honest sleep of one who is well and truly done with his day. The dog - Abby - is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. She sees movement, chases movement - a squirrel, a bat, a bird, a bicyclist. I say to her, What are you going to do with the bicyclist when you catch him? Are you going to eat him, you silly dog?
Behind me is a ravine of sorts. A creek runs under the ground and through a culvert; you can hear it on the street in front. Down to the river valley. I am in spitting distance of the river's source. The river runs all the way down to the Chesapeake Bay, and there it is a mighty thing, very wide, and the periodic flooding of this same river, which here behind me you may wade across in three long steps, has been the cause of great calamity and death over time. Cities have died because of it: Elmira, Wilkes-Barre. A few years ago a man driving a truck went over into its oblivion after the river took away the fragile highway bridge on the Interstate. But here I look down on the hungry river valley as a baby, the cord yet uncut. The dog, in the meantime, appreciates the microscopic abundance under her snout.
Last night the darkness was too busy to let me see, but I could overlay the darkness with a vision of that valley from my memory. In that sunken bowl of darkness were fireflies in their thousands. They filled the bowl, and then, as if held by surface tension, they came no higher than the rim upon which I was standing.
I had never seen that before, either.
Our minds can limit the world until there is no room to move in it, and there is nothing new to see, and everything is like a dirty little city with every building in it just exactly the same, ever person in it mean and ugly, in some indescribable way deformed. Some people see the world that way. I look at the same world. The same world.
On the way to the house where I have been working some people have been building a new house along the side of the road. You come through the trees, past a few standing stones and the old burial mounds, and there it is - the house under construction. It is very small, just a cottage. I saw a pudgy little boy, shirtless, in shorts, just standing perfectly still, like a statue, in the house frame. The expression he wore was deadly earnest. A fat boy in a house frame: I have never seen that before, Thank you.
One is particle,
Two is the level of particle replication,
Three is Space,
Four is Time,
Five is Consciousness.
Now, listen carefully 'cuz this is gonna cost you money:
Well here's a poem my father wrote about my Mom. I thought that on Father's Day nothing could be more appropriate. It's his expression not only of the love he bore for her, and she for him, but of himself entirely. They were One.
Yes, this is the real world making an intrusion in the White Lodge. These are real people, my Mom and Dad - not my characters. This is not my writing.
THE LONGEST NIGHT
Faint, feeble fingers of dawn Strained to stain that blackest of nights With at least a hint of light and warmth.
Our patient vigil ceased as Peggie’s pulse, So slowly, steadily lost its strength. That beautiful, generous, all loving heart stopped.
Her spirit, so bright a star that lit the lives Of all she shined upon, now leaped earths surly bonds To soar where saints were ever meant to reign.
So noble her soul, so sweet her smile, so gentle each gesture The mere nearness to her became exquisite joy. Drudgery seemed delightful, the loathsome lovely.
When we worked together there were no irksome tasks. Painting porches, bagging leaves, lugging laundry, Even doing dirty dishes, a source of smiles.
No whining words. No sad laments, no matter how merited Four times she’d faced down death T B, Cancer, Cists, Blocked arteries, still never a complaint!
Five long years the scourge of gerd prevented her lying down. At first, foam wedges, piled up pillows and cushions, Blocks under headboard helped us share a bed.
Later, not even that sufficed. She slept in a Lazy-boy. 50 years we’d shared our slumber, now that was gone. But tending her many needs and wishes remained a constant joy.
I’ve finally found a way to fill that awesome abyss Left by Peggie's passing. I’ll gather all the love she gave To me these too few 50 years. ‘Twill last me 50 more.
That night she died, winter’s start, is called “Solstice” That means “Sun Stops.” It seemed so appropriate. She, my brightest star, now sets to rise no more.
But that splendid spirit can’t be quenched by clods of clay. Just as the sun grows steadily stronger as it saunters north Her beauty and grace still blaze in hearts she sparked to fire.
Here's a song - or I should say here's a cantata from 70's prog rock band Yes. While they were not the first to play pop music in classical form they may have perfected it. This from their album entitled The Yes Album which came out in 1971. They had two that year, the second being Fragile. But in '72 they reached their apex musically with the extraordinary Close to The Edge. Subsequent releases failed, in my opinion, to go beyond becoming Close to The Edge Part 2, Part 3, and so forth - the exception being the strangely dark and brilliant '75 album, Relayer.
An interesting story about Close to The Edge: drummer Bill Bruford, who was a huge fan of Mahavishnu Orchestra drummer Billy Cobham, couldn't wait to get the hell out of his contractual obligation with Yes to go and join King Crimson. The album took a while to finish, too. Not long afterwards King Crimson simply disbanded - again, but only after Bruford had cut some unforgettable sides with them in '73-74. And of course he joined up the Crimson re-group in the 80's. In the meanwhile, Bruford's work on these early progressive Yes albums remains a study in rhythmatic brilliance for aspiring percussionists.
Notable on this song is the Steve Howe guitar solo. An amazing guitar player. Best of all, however, is that classical form. It's very formal, divided into three distinct parts - in a sense, three songs in one. The Radiohead album, OK Computer, which will be well known to younger listeners, does something very similar. It has a symphony-like structure. That's the idea of progressive rock, in a nutshell.
Well, none of this would have been possible without the emergence of Album-Oriented-Rock radio, or AOR on the FM band. Some very clever, and now no doubt very rich, radio industry folks decided that even hippies buy things - in fact, all kinds of things - so the college radio format, which had turned into a creative expression free-for-all with very long songs being enabled by its commercial-free status, became the model for the "Classic Rock" station, as it is known today. Once they figured out where to put the commercials it was all good. So, bands like Yes were free to compose music that a few years earlier would never have received any airplay at all. That's darn good news for us now, isn't it?
The thing about Yes is I had completely forgotten about them until about five or six years ago. Their music is quite upbeat, very life-affirming, very positive. In High School I thought they were just the greatest thing. But, when I got to college I was actually embarrassed to admit I had ever liked them. I don't know why. I must have read something or heard something... but I was very impressionable then. My desire was to please, to find approval. And I sought the approval of people who were just plain terrified of living - that was the new 'cool.' So it was God save the Queen; she ain't a human being; the Fascist Regime and all that for a few years there, just being anti-anti whatever. (Maybe I'll do some punk rock next week.)
While that period didn't last very long - or, more properly, I would later try to please a different class of people - the music had pretty much left my head. Then it was five or six years ago, as I said, that it came back. Not surprisingly, that coincides with the loss of my mind and its replacement by the piece of wood between my ears that you know and love today.
And yes, Jon Anderson's voice is very high. We used to grab ourselves and sing falsetto to lampoon him - in High School, but what you're hearing is the result of many takes, and many mix-downs. He sounded absolutely terrible when off-key, and he would crackle quite a lot. It was a strain. At best - and it's always the best it can be on record - his voice rings like bell; it's very clear. Of course, Yes is best remembered by many for featuring the singer with the peculiar high voice.
Years later, when they departed from their prog rock period to make music with a wider appeal, the voice - a wee bit lower, and less inclined to try those spiraling phrases - would remain their signature. It was still good stuff. I remember "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and all that. But I really think they had pushed it about as far as they could go in terms of Classical fusion. I think they did that early. I think they did it perfectly. Well, what do you do then? You can go on making chamber music 'till the cows come home, but once it was done, and then imitated by dozens of others who took bits of what you've created to make monster hits out of it while you're falling into the budget bin, it might be time to move on. Ultimately Yes became imitators of their own imitators - the sincerest form of flattery squared, I suppose.
But I hope you enjoy this taste of them when they were young - and, I was too. Kinda takes you back.
Well, a couple of years ago I signed a petition. The mere fact that I did such a thing may come as a shock to those of you who have been paying attention, (which is I think all of you), because of my notorious distrust of collective action. Whenever people start talking in terms of "the common good," or men who look like Richard Dreyfuss wearing little round glasses and riding bicycles begin to appear to organize masses of people into groups united by grievance, watch out! Somebody is going get screwed. I think of the mass graves, the gulags, the relocations, re-educations - oh, every horror of the infamous 20th Century experiments in Socialism which, for some unfathomable reason, is an idea still embraced by many who live in perpetual ignorance. Mass thinking, group thinking, race thinking - these can be nothing other than ignorant, and whenever big groups of people have successfully brought about a change for the "better" it is always with an unforseen double effect.
What's a double effect? Well, a double effect is moral ethics terminology for a negative or unfortunate result of an action which had been undertaken to achieve a positive one. In theology it's all about how defending innocence (positive, good) may result in the taking of human life (negative, bad) in warfare or divers actions undertaken to protect or defend. In the case of social action the most famous recent example of double effect is the destruction of property rights by the Civil Rights Act. While no one can deny the fundamental moral goodness, or righteousness, of the desired end result the negative double effect was one of the greatest blows to our founding principal of God-given liberty in our history.
In the name of moral goodness, coupled with the idea that the ends will justify the means, brutal dictatorships have been ushered in by mass appeal the world over. A hue and cry that our children have no shoes is so easily answered by killing half of those children so that all who are left may be shod. Just as Lenin not only allowed but facilitated the death by starvation of millions of people in the name of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the well-meaning masses in pursuit of redress of unfairness may - albeit unwittingly - end up doing just as much damage.
Collective action frightens the crap out of me.
But I signed a petition a few years ago. You may think I'm making a lot of fuss over an innocuous matter when I tell you it was all about having a Stop sign installed at the end of my block, but such is my inclination to distrust any action which may result in the enlargement of laws and law enforcement. I am not one to declare, "There oughtta be a law!" - To the contrary, I am one who is always declaring there oughtta be way to erase most of the laws we so haplessly brought down upon ourselves in our fear, our resentments, our hysteria.
Of course, the girl who asked me to sign the thing was very pretty. But really, I live very near the end of a long section of street which happens to connect two neighborhoods in my village. The school is near at hand, and the street connects school with State Highway and then continues, my house being somewhere in that continuance, down to a well-used thoroughfare leading to another egress from the village proper. Moreover, a large health club which is frequented by hundreds of people each day is located along that other street, so the one that I live on tends to become a popular route there.
I am quite near a two-way, rather than a four-way, intersection. There has always been a Stop sign at the end of the avenue which butts into my street, but there was none on my street itself, the consequence being an apparent tendency among drivers to exceed the speed limit - in fact, my street had become a super-highway for those who were racing to their appointments with their personal trainer, Claude, (pronounced clode), cell phone in one hand and baby binky in the other, racing by with nary a thought for anything but the latest Oprah Book of the Month selection, nail appointment, or kid's soccer match. In short, the street where I live had become rather hazardous because it is long and straight, and conveniently connects things, and because people are people - lovable, wonderful, terrifying...
Since I was working the counter at a print shop in those days, a little later I met the organizer of this Stop sign effort, (who was also rather pretty, although you must know that is irrelevant), and we got to talking while I facilitated the printing of a polemical letter to be mailed to neighborhood residents urging them to attend a public hearing on the matter. This meeting, and the subsequent event of my greater involvement in the organizing efforts, led me to attend said public hearing two weeks later. And, to make a long story short, there we all were - collectively acting.
Well, I was really rather pleased with myself. But, when I look back on that public hearing - which was rather well attended, thanks to my pretty neighbors' efforts, I seem to recall that there was no opposition to the installation of a Stop sign on my street. No, to the contrary, everybody in attendance seemed to agree that it was a morally good thing to encourage drivers to stop at that corner - where otherwise stopping would be unnecessary except for the double effect of slowing them down. My children should be able to cross their own street without having to worry about soccer moms at 80 miles per hour spreading their entrails across the tarmac. I think it is a reasonably good application of yet another local regulatory device, much as my knee jerk reaction may be to despise all such things.
Needless to say, we were triumphant. Venceremos!
Well... A few weeks went by.
One day as I was driving down my street, passing the school, I happened to see an obstruction ahead at that half-intersection just before my driveway. It appeared to be construction or road works of some kind. Here am I thinking What the hell are they doing now? As I neared the obstruction I saw - my suspicion turning instantly to satisfaction - that the Stop signs had at last been placed. The bright orange flags which decorated them were obviously placed there in order to draw drivers' attention to the fact that Stop signs now existed where Stop signs had not existed before, thus avoiding the possibility that they might just run right through them out of habit. I thought this was very wise, very prudent, as I pulled into my driveway - only then noticing the policeman's flashing lights in my rear-view mirror.
Well, I'll be a...
The fellow didn't put on his siren, which was a mercy. But when I climbed out of my car, rather humiliated, and the squad car pulled along side - (I have a circular driveway) - the policeman was wearing a grin on his face that called to my mind an adage about cats and canaries. His passenger-side window came down and he leaned across his seat towards me saying, "John, you ran through your own Stop sign." He seemed to be much more amused about it than I was - but then, he was the one with the gun - I figured being amused was his prerogative.
Well, that's called the double effect. Or perhaps the double double effect. Triple effect? Oh - whatever...
The Stars Did Wander Darkling in The Eternal Space
I have been told that I live in the dark. Several people have told me that, wives particularly. They were not speaking metaphorically, nor were they suggesting I was ignorant, inclined towards a spiritual darkness - anything like that. No, they were being quite literal. As I neared home last night I saw the upstairs apartment glowing like a beacon. Every light fixture was on, every lamp. The house appeared top heavy with light. Well, I wasn't home - that would account for the downstairs darkness. But when I am home the downstairs windows are still just as dark because I live in the darkness, as my wives observed. I do not know its origin, but since I was a wee boy I have been uncomfortable in revealing indoor light.
My father when he visited a few months ago required more lighting. His eyes are a bit older than mine. When I read - which lately occurs far less frequently than usual - I use a strong reading light aimed directly at my book which casts little ambient glow outside of a small circle containing - me. Like most young boys I went through a period of being afraid of the dark. I remember sleeping with glowing Rosary beads. Yes, they were phosphorescent. I prayed to be asleep and in my well-lighted dreams before their glow faded. Under the sheet, as though it were a tent, the Rosary was my protection and comfort. Perhaps, I think now, I "embraced my fear," and perhaps I embraced it so well that I have not only demonstrated over it but have even grown to desire the thing I feared.
Darkness seems to my way of thinking the natural state of night time; in the night time darkness is exactly what is supposed to happen. It is a great comfort. It is appropriate to night as light is appropriate to day. Few things are more pleasing than a beautiful sun-lit day, a day at the beach, or a day out walking in the country in the bright sunshine. The light has its time. During this season the light has more time than does the dark. In the winter this is reversed. When it is daytime the whole interior of my home is revealed by the light coming through the big windows. At night, however, when I am here alone I am either in the library listening to old radio or on the computer, or in the big room on my reading chair or listening to music on the big stereo. I don't watch television. If I am not doing any of those things I am in my dreams, some of them dark, others well-lighted - a different world.
Once - not here, but in another place - the police discovered an over-head light I did not know existed when they came to arrest me. Oh, I wasn't one to fuss over being arrested again - it happened rather frequently in those days - but for pity's sake, shut off that abominable light! In jails the lights are always on, especially in county lock-ups for the first 24 hours. If you ever have the experience of doing real time in a state facility they will eventually give you better darkness, but even then you will never know full darkness - for the most practical of reasons, as you may imagine. They need to be able to keep an eye on you.
I really dislike overhead lights. In my library I have a large, lovely chandalier. Never use it.
The first-ever Science Fiction story is Lord Byron's "Darkness." I don't believe that. I think that's just some professor of English Litersture trying to sound intelligent by pigeon-holing a poem he probably doesn't even understand - much less would he be capable of writing it. That's what they do in colleges, by the way. They have absolutely no idea how great is the subject of their scrutiny, how insignificant is what they think of it in their clownish bufoonery.
Anyhoooo, here it is.
DARKNESS
by: George Gordon (Lord) Byron (1788-1824)
had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
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had a dream, which was not all a dream.
