start a new country up

rem's cuyahoga unplugged

i read this piece on a blog this morning and immediately thought of a line from rem's cuyahoga, (off of 'life's rich pageant,) "let's put our heads together to start a new country up."

anyone who feels confused about the bailout and how we arrived where we are today should read this particular article, as well perhaps as the blog on a regular basis. it is an amazing source of little known information.

be forewarned though, it is a depressing story, filled with deceit, cronyism, criminal behavior, lies and subterfuge.

as i read the piece i realized i know someone who has amassed a fortune gambling, as the article describes, on derivatives. this person has dealt with credit default swaps and as the article describes, i believe they have played both sides as a "protection buyer," and a "protection seller." i see too, how as mortgages default and various entities come to bankrupty, the person i know is protected, as the article explains, by the sheer convoluted and confusing nature of all that has transpired, (relative to any single piece of paper.)

it does make one want to go start a new country up. if only... i remember 1983, or whenever it was, when i first heard the song and i thought the line was so hopeful. it conjured like-minded souls for me, who i might meet some day and run off with to explore the world and start up our own new country as it were.

now i am thinking about how we can't start a new country up. we have a country and while we're in poor shape at the moment, it is up to us to fix it. i think the fixing starts with readnig articles like this one, (and you can also click on my title to link to it,) and becoming educated and self-motivated as it relates to questioning authority and pursuing the insight we need to possess to beat back the wolves who would corrupt our country, society, or system again.

not to cause greater depression but here is another article i read from the same blog. this one talks about how the cia began working out new forms of propaganda on the american people many years ago. (it included this picture, which i thought was priceless since this is certainly how i have always seen ronald reagan in my nightmares.)

the article is titled; "the doors, part one," a reference to blake's, (or huxley's,) doors of perception. it is epic in its proportion and it details a great number of things i knew about but without the level of detail the article provides. i suppose some would read this and think it is science fiction but i freely admit, i believe it.

it's long but check it out and if you have a chance, let me know your thoughts.

videotape

i was all set to write about politics today, specifically the debate last night and how presidential debates don't really do all that we would like them to do. then i started thinking about a song i listened to a few nights ago by radiohead. videotape.

i blog about politics occasionally because i want others to come to a certain light i have been lucky enough to discover in my days. contrariwise, i blog about radiohead or any work of art primarily just to stroke my own sensibility. it is merely the selfish act of putting into words how i appreciate or why i love.

with radiohead it can be difficult to know what a song is about but this one follows a familiar theme for thom yorke. the lyrics are below and i think the gist of it is, "the proof is in the pudding." to expand only slightly i think the idea is if he were to stand at some pearly gates and if he had to make a case for himself to st. peter, his response would be to simply say, "roll back the videotape and let's watch. i'm cool with it."

When I’m at the pearly gates

This’ll be on my videotape

My videotape

My videotape

When Mephistopheles is just beneath

And he’s reaching up to grab me

This is one for the good days

And I have it all here in

Red, blue, green

Red, blue, green

You are my centre when I spin away

Out of control on videotape

On videotape

On videotape

On videotape

This is my way of saying goodbye

Because I can’t do it face to face

So I’m talking to you before

No matter what happens now

I won’t be afraid

Because I know

Today has been the most perfect day I have ever seen

it is not hyperbole to say yorke is a musical genius. i am very comfortable with that idea. but this is an especially beautiful rendering of a sickly sweet song.

what do you think?

firedoglake

i blog and i regularly read a couple of blogs. i highly recommend both.

i guess it was in the year leading up to the 2006 election when i first started consistently reading a blog. the blog was www.talkingpointsmemo.com, which in those days featured content almost strictly from founder joshua micah marshall. i think tpm, (as it has come to be known,) has revolutionized journalism, (in addition to threatening the world of print journalism.) i used to listen to al franken's radio show regularly and marshall was a regular guest, hence, i became a reader of marshall's blog.

blogs had been around a while at that point in time but to marshall's credit, i had not become a regular reader of any of them. i had been a regular reader of the la times once upon a time but that was probably 10 years ago now since i came to see it as an inferior product.

nowadays there are a variety of sites i visit on the internet randomly. but only one blog i read religiously. it is firedoglake, (at www.firedoglake.com.) tpm has become so dense with information i have come to visit it sporadically, sometimes not for a couple of weeks at a time and other times several times daily if they are on the cutting edge of a story as they often are. but for consistently clear and concise interpretations and commentary on the news of the day, fdl is a great choice.

they have several bloggers. my favorite may be eureka springs because she conveys warmth in her posts so i often feel like i am reading a friend. however, for sheer insight, no one beats ian welsh. i believe ian is canadien but he is severely attuned to the american political landscape as well as our economy.

firedoglake is also a community so if you register with them you can comment on posts. i tend to lurk as it is called, which simply means to read the comments without commenting, but i am registered and i have commented a few times. if you ever go there i am registered as iconoclasm12, (in case you see me.)

besides all the politics, (where fdl will absolutely keep you informed,) some of the bloggers will post links to music or cartoons or any other oddball thing. i remember clicking on fdl once maybe a year ago and seeing the most amazing picture staring back at me. it was from a live rock and roll show at amherst college or somewhere like that from back in the late 80s. the blogger was bragging that he or she was actually there and took the photo i was gaping at. s/he said s/he was proud to say she was actually there, unlike the thousands who claim to have been there.

it was fugazi and the stage in the photo was perfectly lit so there were shadows and yet, an amazing clarity. more importantly there was action everywhere in this particular photo. the singer had sweat dripping off of him and the guitarist was practically moving in the still shot. i'll never forget that photo even though i know the way i remember it is likely flawed in multiple ways.

still, firedoglake is a smart blog and you might consider visiting it. it's good. other than that. . .what's on your mind tonight? :-)

elegy

elegy - any poem, song or piece of art, in a mournfully contemplative tone.

the melancholy of ageing lay not in the acknowledgement of a certain future doom but in the realization of the slow deterioration of what was once so perfect and pristine. in isabel coixet's film based on a short novel by phillip roth, (the dying animal,) death is the backdrop to the myriad pains of the human condition.

like the pains, flaws, and inconsistencies of the body, mind and spirit, elegy provides poignant reminders of human frailty like a series of surprise aches.

ben kingsley plays david kepesh, a writer and professor of some renown, who also narrates the story about a relationship he had with a beautiful girl 30+ years his junior, a couple of years prior to the telling. penelope cruz plays the vibrant young beauty consuela, who comes to genuinely love the older kepesh without reservation or condition.

kepesh, for his part, is beyond surprised at his ability to woo consuela. as the relationship matures and the two become fully intimate with one another, it comes to resemble a leonard cohen song in as much as kepesh seems to love consuela's perfect body with his perfect mind. consuela is drawn in by kepesh's familiarity with all things art, while kepesh is enraptured by her physical beauty, which is displayed fully and tastefully by coixet.

initially the relationship makes kingsley light as air. he is ebullient at regaining some amount of youth even if in the form of a lover, one who he confesses to his best friend, a poet played by dennis hopper, is more stunning in her physical presence and beauty than any he had ever known. in time however, the relationship becomes an albatross and kingsley becomes an insecure high wire walker.

everything he wasn't, he becomes. kepesh was a man's man. he waxes philosophical about his marriage much earlier in life as if it was a big mistake he would never repeat. he enjoys his single life, has a regular lover who merely stops in for sex every couple of weeks and has had a history of wooing beautiful coeds once classes end. he stays fit and seems to continue to stay abreast of current art and academia. he is in a word; secure.

out on the wire that is his relationship with consuela he tends to look down. he becomes nervous and expects consuela to wake up any minute and realize he has nothing to offer her. she can read the same books he has read, take in the same plays, go to the same museums, all of this she can get on her own and in fact, she exhibits every inclination to do just that. her personal security only exacerbates his increasing madness. ultimately, kepesh's behavior foreshadows a doom for the relationship that never actually materializes.

coixet seems to arrive as a director as this story is told in tense and mournful tones. the lighting is exquisite as it embraces a richness of shadows. the pace is as consistent as a metronome, and the story actually conjures a metronome as a device to foreshadow the events to come.

in the end elegy is a multi-layered exploration of human mortality and the fragile nature of man. it is sumptuous to look at and delightful in its slow, tense pace. if the movie is painful like the aches of mortality, perhaps there is a lesson present which is to embrace that which hurts as it is also that which teaches us and readies us for all that is left to come.