Literary Discussions

Path train at WTC
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Repost to ReadGreatGooks
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literarydiscussions: I now have yahoo chat on my blackberry so if you see a message READ it literarydiscussions: I am now on line with blackberry for msg convenience

literarydiscussions: I am filming subway singer Cyrano West at Columbus Circle and then will go up to Dorothy-see my FB for videos-good publicity - help struggling subway/street performers- Pay It Forward
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So, mercy is lowering the bar... no?  I am not trying to irritate  you. but sometimes I just ask myself what certain things really MEAN... like for instance in a waiting room of a hospital, there is one empty seat so you walk up and ask "is anyone sitting there" well.. Godammit, you can see it is empty, and then someone says, "Oh, sorry someone is sitting there..." well AGAIN Goddamit NO ONE IS SITTING THERE...   You know Gandhi explained in his autobiography quite clearly WHY he rejected Christianity after a prolonged study of it in England... because he would see Christians sin in the most casual fashion and when he questioned them they explained "Oh, well, we are constantly mystically cleansed by our baptismal waters and the blood of the crucifixion" and Gandhi said "I do not wish simply to escape the CONSEQUENCES of my wrong-doing but if possible I want to extinguish iniquity at its very source."  So I sneeze, and someone says "God bless"  well, that is because of the bubonic plague, and the idea that the soul briefly leaves the body... so why should God bless me when I sneeze? What I need is a kleenex or at least some toilet tissue.  ... with all due respect.

On my Blackberry at Dorothy's.. Logged into dptalentinvest .. Reading and retweeting.. One popular topick is Curt Cobain - some interesting quotes!
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I will tell you a TRUE STORY, in the mid ninetys I was working in a computer consutants office... and suddenly he looked at me and said "you are utterly amazing"  I had no idea what he meant and asked him "Why?!" He explained that there was a banging noise in the pipes of the building at the moment that was driving him berserk and I was sitting there like nothing was happening. I did notice the noise when he mentioned it, but I had filtered it out ... so, different folks, different strokes... but that incident always stuck in my mind... I mean how each of us is so totally different and unique in our gifts, shortcomings , etc

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Actually, what he said was that he was SHOCKED that I could be so stupid as to imply that people in India know any more about religion than other people.... well, what I was TRYING to say is that the CULTURE of India, and people like Sarvapalli Radhakrisnan or Rabindrath Tagore or even Salman Rushdie, immersed in that ancient culture have a clearer vision of the total spectrum of religious expression from adwaita to vasisth-dwaita to dwaita... and I have met many Roman Catholic priests from South India who can run circles around the many priests I have known from Ireland and Italy and USA, BECAUSE educated people in India are immersed in an ancient culture which understands pluralism and syncretism.... NO I DID NOT mean that every street whore in Calcutta knows more about religion than all 300 million Americans.  But I see that fellow as a clown anyway. I thought about challenging him to compare writings and he can look at the 12 years of my writings at my wordpress blog and i can look at the years of his writings and the blog which he probably does not have, and so he is a clown, and I will not call anyone an a-hole... but I would rather have only 10 genuine people on FB than 5000 clowns. Thank you!

It suddenly occurs to me that "good fellowship" almost always implies among the like-minded, which is interesting if we think about how we "silo ourselves" and as Paul says "avoid vain disputations" ... I wonder if Facebook might ever be described as "fellowship?"  When we cloister ourselves with only the like-minded we never change, we never grow or diminish, but I suppose the idea is to "keep the faith" (whichever one true faith that may be.)

to me every and any sport is like watching an ant farm with all these little things running around after some king of ball or puck, and i would have no idea which team to root for or which player to admire... and i cannot understand what scores mean... in the sense that it has no meaning for me, i cannot get excited... nudity excites me... sports victory/defeat eludes me... i did some work for a man, and after we met, he mentioned his favorite team and wiggle his eyebrows with a snicker... as if he were mentioning different sexual practices to see what i find exciting... do i like boobs or butts or missionary... and the sports thing has ZERO MEANING TO ME I DONT EVEN KNOW WHICH SPORT THAT TEAM PLAYS GODAMMIT ... so dont wiggle your freaking eyebrows at me and snicker and expect me to know what the hell you mean or expect

And, of course, I had to go to Posterous.com and figure out HOW to change the password for the Twitter feed there. I could find no option to change! So, I deleted the ReadGreatBooks feed, and then readded it, at which point of course I was prompted for the new password. This is a test to see if posterous still reposts to twitter ReadGreatBooks

You see, we DID become LIKE God's knowing good and evil, but we did not become Godlike in knowing what to do with our knowledge and power, and so we have become a demonic infestation.

Clare: I am glad you asked that question. First, look at the opening scene of Goethe's Faust, a professor who mourns the fact that he has wasted his life on philosophy theology.. then (it is Easter morning) he tries to translate John 1:1 'in the beginning was the WORD" but he transmogrifies it into DEED, and then Faust proceeds in part two to CHANGE THE WORLD, altar ecology, sweep back the ocean and create new land.  Don't you ever look about you at the sh!tting mess this world of ours has become. We can no longer drink water from a pond. We live on anti-biotics.  We are technological giants and ethical infants. The Neanderthal were the chosen people. The Homo Sapiens killed them and ate them; genocide. We are the destroyers. Now how could we do these wicked things without speech, ideologies, stump speeches, making the world a safe place for democracy. The animals who lack speech do not need God's blessing, which if it were anything would be the extinction of the human race so the animals could live their lives in peace. Don't you see our species as something monstrous and parasitic and destructive which thrives upon the needless suffering of others.  Just a thought. Just a suggestion. Don't mean to make you sad or anything.

William: But how may one demonstrate that what you reply is not mere words, idle words, empty ideas, the lip service of demagogues. I mean no offense. Noam Chomsky points out that Neanderthal man lived a total of 400,000 years. We Homo Sapiens have only been around 200,000 years. And for 400,000 years, the Neanderthal's polity was anarchy (as Paul said SIMPLE rational logic), bands, clans of hunter gatherers loosely associated. And their life was stable for those 400,000 years. Their technology never changed. The were not sickly but robust because of natural selection. How can you say that their lives were any less meaningful to them then our lives are to us?  You really cannot say anything to refute me.  Things have been going down hill for a few centuries the way I see it. What goes up must come down. You wont patch the leaking holes in your dike with empty words and stump speeches and sound bites and ideologies, with brave new worlds or slogans. You are doomed. We are all doomed. Perhaps not in this century but surely in the next several. The way I see it, only a naive child could be optimistic and taken in by rhetoric. 

Now let's pretend that you found the greatest political genius in all of America and made him/her president for two terms (a total of eight years.) Do you honestly feel that one person in only eight years can solve all the problems of the nation and the world? I guess that person would have sort of a Jesus complex. I mean Jesus got up on the cross and saved the whole world in 3 hours.  Now eight years is much longer than three hours. But you REALLY think one person could improve everything.  Now it took centuries to build up Rome, but it only took a week or two to destroy it. I believe one person could make things much worse in eight years. Now it took Mubarak 30 years but, well, they speak Arabic... all that bakshish and Inshalla...  anyway, I dont think Jesus would run for president but would said "if nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve" (and he would throw in some things about the poor and the meek I suppose.)  Does it ever seem to you like everything that every politician says is a bunch of crap. I mean how many hundreds of years has it been since George Washington (who owned 300 slaves). Did things REALLY get any better during those centuries?  If so, how so? If not, then, well.. quite frankly, what makes you feel that the next 8 or 12 years will be any better?

You see, comedians DO succeed on occasion. And you will notice that his skill at juggling balls help him now with juggling budgets and contributions. I hope he was at least as good as "Bedtime for Bonzo" and "Terminator."  I suppose if environmental issues are not properly addressed we will have a "Bonzo Terminator" ... I mean... all those poor monkeys and creatures going extinct, like the dodo bird. Now the dodo was not very bright because people would walk up to it and it would just stare at them and then they would club its brains out and eat it. Did the word "inhumane" ever strike you as odd. I mean it is mostly humans who are inhumane. I mean who were the humane ones... perhaps Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Kate Smith... I mean you could count them on your fingers and toes.  Do you think Mr. Franken will like my little jokes? Do you think he might STEAL my material. Well, I hope not. Please do not steal Mr. Franken. We need honesty and transparency. Actually, what we need is "a straight man." I say Abbott would make a better president than Costello. A good straight man is hard to find. And Abbott could figure out that "Who's on First Base" so he should be able to balance the budget and bring back prosperity. Yes, I really think we need endless prosperity and growth. But, we are running out of places to explore and conquer and exploit. In fact some of those exploited places are starting to exploit us. Well, I guess we deserve it, like the dodo.

After you watch 6 seasons of "Sex In The City" you start to wonder where YOUR three best pals are and why every minute isn't exciting. Did you notice how, during the hearings over Justice Elena Kagan appointment some of the Senators were doing stand up comedy, one-liners. Do you think that happened in the 1950s. Do you think that we are a society conditioned by television since 1954 to think that we are always supposed to be laughing and happy and smiling? How many jokes do you remember Dwight David Eisenhower cracking? But now, we elect so many entertainers, and all the candidates tour the talk shows, and even sitting presidents throw Dean Martin style "roasts." Take a look at photos of crowds from the 1930s and notice that EVERY SINGLE WOMAN HAS HAT AND GLOVES, and ever single man has a hat. Times have changed. Do you realize that an entire generation of Vaudevillians got laughs without one single off-color word or joke?

I am still upset about the Arizona shootings. First of all, and this is going to sound a little crazy, I feel very sorry for Jared Lee Loughner. Now, I absolutely deplore what he did, however, due to my own experiences with depression and bi-polar disorder, I can sympathize with what it feels like to have your very own mind seem to turn against you. I can understand helplessness and hopelessness and confusion and even a little bit of insanity. I certainly have never been violent towards other people and I am thankful for that, yet, I just feel so badly for this very, very sick young man. To be so young and to have your whole life ahead of you, to have a healthy body, to be intelligent, and yet to be tortured by demons in your own mind is truly tragic. I wish that he had had enough awareness that something was very wrong with him and he sought help. Maybe he did and did not get it. I wish his parents had got help for him. Maybe they tried. That young man's life is wasted along God given human potential will amount to nothing. His life is, for all practical purposes over, along with the people he killed, especially that sweet 9 year old girl. Their families are devastated and the poor congresswoman may never be the person she was before. People are talking, just talking about gun control. Or more accurately, machine gun bullet control---or whatever the call those multiple round clips he used. I wish we could have mental health treatment on demand. A tall order I know as getting "regular" health care is difficult for millions. I wish people would look at mental illness with compassion and offer help to those of us who suffer in silence and our families. People only pay attention when someone does something violent to others. I feel that if just a few of the Jared Lee Loughner's of the would can be prevented it would be an amazing thing.

Several years ago I spent a lot of time on ustream.tv and one woman, 30ish, ran her business on-line and was CONSTANTLY live on ustream.tv video blog. You could hear her phone conversations. She was always properly attired, but worked reclining on her bed. She liked to chat with me because she was a literature major. I asked her one day WHY she does her business in front of a webcam. She explained that her ENTIRE LIFE is at the keyboard so ustream/webcam gives her some extra social dimension. There were always 10 or 20 lurkers hoping that suddenly all her clothes would fall off because males are stupid like that, but she just ignored them. One of my professors/tutors from SJC, now retired, has FB but laughed and said "It is extraneous because it is a RECREATION of life." Well, that is great for him to say because he is a charismatic person with a line of people waiting to sit in his living room or kitchen and chew the fat.  I don't happen to have that, so Facebook and things like Yahoo chat, IRC, Gchat, Plurk are my way to socialize, learn, network, get advice, give advice... AND ... posts are NOT in real time, so if someone asks me a provocative question, I may see it two hours or the next day later, ponder it, and answer the following day.  This on line venue can be like a seminar but it is BETTER than a seminar because you dont have to wait to BUTT into a thread, and you may compose your thoughts and google on facts.

Lionel Trilling offers the literary imagination as a cure for the simplifications of the liberal imagination.  In the preface to The Liberal Imagination he contrasts the "primal imagination" of liberalism with its "present particular manifestations."  The function of the literary imagination in the American present is the work of retrieval, "to recall liberalism to its first essential imagination of variousness and possibility."  Trilling's essentialism is part of the generally idealist tendency of his thought.  The story he has to tell is of a fall from a Platonic idea of liberalism to a corrupted political embodiment.  The literary imagination will help to restore liberalism to its original, pure form.  But, really, given Trilling's idealism, any political embodiment would represent a fall.  It follows from this purism that the function of criticism is literally to "refine" liberalism, to clear away the material dross of Stalinism and progressivism. - from Mark Krupnick, "Lionel Trilling and the Fate of Cultural Criticism", Northwestern University Press, pg. 64, ISBN 0-8101-0713-9pr, Copyright 1986

The wisest words every said, by King Solomon, "this TOO shall pass" - youth passes, and old age, sickness passes, and health, war passes, and peace, poverty/enslavement passes and also wealth/power. Better to say "I am glad that it happened" rather than "I am sorry it is over."

The worst thing about trying is that possibly nothing will happen. The words thing about not trying is that definitely nothing will happen. Sp, give it a try!