tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88516231493101500062024-03-19T01:48:33.475-07:00Wooden Poston a mission for modesty....Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.comBlogger4547125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-76268259167877813662024-03-18T10:57:00.000-07:002024-03-18T11:33:42.964-07:00Honest Money? No Chance! <p><span style="font-size: medium;">Listening to my radio I get the news:<br />small businesses started in great hope<br />are going bankrupt across my country<br />at rates unprecedented since the last crash, <br />debt default is burning through businesses.<br />High Street pessimism is hitting new highs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Later a friend calls me and tells me how much<br />skilled tradesmen now prefer to work cash-in-hand<br />such that if they are asked to give a quote for a job <br />they will hedge and</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> prevaricate until the customer <br /></span><span>says the magic words, 'off the books, cash only.'.</span><span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What both of these stories confirm to me<br />is how debt should be indexed against dishonesty<br />of aspiration, but then in any such index <br />who speaks first about debt says it for all, ultimately. </span><br /> </p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-43526804036284740942024-03-17T14:04:00.000-07:002024-03-18T02:34:15.686-07:00Spinal Tap On Sunday<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I was there when my church <br />went full 'Spinal Tap' in it's way,<br />without realising that it was doing it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The church performed all it's normal words,<br />and got the expected responses to it's rituals,<br />quietly unaware that the world they were part of,<br />had changed, the old rituals had less purchase<br />on this new world than was presumed.<br />The ritual also hid the new world,<br />by sustaining a uniformity </span>of effect. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">We still all believed in what we said<br />but in the silly world we were all joined to,<br />we had no way to reversing-engineer<br />the alchemy-in-reverse of the absurdity.</span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-11585431388670427262024-03-16T14:48:00.000-07:002024-03-16T14:55:12.028-07:00Truth In Politics And Fiction<p><span style="font-size: medium;">'In real life many writers are liars.<br />Perhaps, when starting off, they all are:<br />no real story is ever as neat as the writer tells it.<br />Politicians with a tendency to self-glorifying<br />exaggeration usually get caught early<br />and are advised by their handlers to cut it out,<br />so that Hilary Clinton doesn't land<br />more than once in Sarajevo 'under sniper fire',<br />and Joe Biden, who once expended his every<br />experience into an act of heroism,<br />eventually learns to feign veracity.<br />But writers have to advise themselves.'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">-from 'Latest Readings' a 2015 book by Clive James (1939-2019).<br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;">I have not yet discovered what Clive James thought of Donald Trump. </span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-57752750494962252812024-03-15T14:58:00.000-07:002024-03-15T15:31:59.295-07:00'The Best Of Man Is In His Ruins'<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>My best friend, and a far better blogger<br />than I am, </span><span>once wrote as a line in a poem.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I seen the abandoned dwellings<br />and barns without roofs in the countryside<br />across County Down, where the ivy could be<br />holding up the walls, or causing their decline,<br />I can't help but agree with him, and wish for mine.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>I would like my decline to be as quiet and slow</span><br /><span>as the buildings that I see</span><span> are quietly abandoned<br />that add so <i>much</i> to the landscape. That is my way to go,<br />as part of a bigger being abandoned, forgotten, and disowned.</span></span><br /></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-52332046129511593902024-03-14T12:15:00.000-07:002024-03-14T14:02:53.389-07:00Entitlement Inc<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Pious People are rarely known <br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;">for what makes them laugh.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>If they were, then, along <br />with </span><span>their sense </span><span>of being the elec</span><span>t,<br /></span><span>their humour </span><span>would be jet black,<br /></span><span>and lined with schadenfreude,<br /></span><span>at how much </span><span>folks not like them<br /></span><span>are not going to</span><span> enjoy </span><span>their next life<br />and should not be enjoying this one, <br /></span><span>as if the elect were the more entitled<br /></span><span>than others to appreciate this life, <br />and enjoy controlling the hereafter.</span><span> </span></span></p><p> </p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-36709489165826372932024-03-13T07:08:00.000-07:002024-03-13T07:46:15.026-07:00Poverty Multiplied By Inequality Equals...... <p><span style="font-size: large;">In these democratically turbulent times<br />where multi-coloured political party kettles<br />say that the opposition have gone to pot,<br />and the opposition need to clean their act up<br />if they even half want to remain the opposition <br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span>what Governing parties like to affirm <br /></span><span>is that the public needs more <br />of the old divisions between rich and poor, <br />the public are better off than they can know <br /></span><span>with a politics where</span><span> wealth, <br /></span><span>whatever the skin colour of it's holder,<br /></span><span>entitles </span><span>the wealthy to the privacy<br />where the public can't know how racist<br /></span><span>and worse, obnoxious towards the poor, the newly rich are. <br />And the poor will know even less<br /></span><span>of the private opinions of the wealthy<br />after the latter have massaged the poor's vote,<br /></span><span>via divisive media, and propaganda that reinforces<br /></span><span>the distance between controller and controlled.</span><span> </span></span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-84639897553747718482024-03-12T13:21:00.000-07:002024-03-13T02:17:30.745-07:00Families And How To Escape Them - Chapter Six - An Unsettled Settling In <p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">Getting to actually see Richard, the young man who had initiated the idea of me joining the ACE scheme away from home, to facilitate more easily my moving out of Gainsborough, proved difficult at first. When we had first met three months earlier we had both been benignly evasive when the discussion came to him explaining precisely where he worked and lived in Nottingham. It seemed unimportant at the time. C</span><span style="font-size: medium;">ontacting him to arrange to meet up at his digs after I had started the job took more time than I expected. When we met he said he liked music. I don't know whether he actually did like music, or he merely said he liked music because it was an easy shorthand which left covered what he wanted kept covered.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since I was quite open about liking music it would have been an easy cover for him to claim and have me believe. When he asked me the lend of some of the compilation tapes I had made, the sequencing of which was unique to me and I took a certain small pride in them, I lent them to him and took it on trust I would see him again, and he would return them. I did not tell him that he could have copies of them next time we met, and directly arrange for us to meet again. I did not make copies of the tapes before parting with them. The latter is the way anyone else would have done it. I knew even as I lent him the tapes, that the record collections I had compiled them from were no longer available to me. I expected to see him again. I did see him again, two or three times, but each time he was evasive about whether he had copied the tapes and where they were when I asked. I was disappointed. But not as disappointed as the last time I called when the landlord said he was not there. Not indicating which it was, he was intentionally out that Sunday, or he had changed address/moved house. The bigger evasion all along was him not telling me that he would soon be moving. It did make life in Nottingham seem to make like a needle lost in the haystack of the city.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was only after reflecting on that last call, when the landlord answered, that I realised how one sided the attempted friendship had been all along, that maybe what Richard recognised was a needy closeted gay man where he hid how he recoiled from recognising the sexual element in that description, however genuine the underlying need was. That was what was going on when I even faintly raised the matter came to returning the tapes and he said he could not find them w</span><span style="font-size: medium;">hilst opaquely admitting that he was highly disorganised. If politeness meant a distance that great that I did not know where and how he lived, I did wonder who was most 'in the closet' about who he was and what he wanted out of life. We can't take out what we don't put in.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There were other places and routines in which to try to feel less like a missing needle in a haystack. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">One place that seemed promising from the outside of the building was the local Church of England church that was fifteen minutes walk for my new lodgings. I thought to myself 'There at least I will know when the stand up sit down, and what to say and when to say it. There will also be more informal times where the sharing seems more spontaneous.'. When I joined the Bible study group I fell at the first fence, I found it easier to be interested in donating home made shortbread to The Bible study meeting than to get to know people by name. Like many women in church do, I hide behind the teas, coffees, and biscuits as the dominant men dominated the discussion of The Bible, nearly much as the dominant men in The Bible made themselves central to the narratives it had to share.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For every attempted engagement with the city via the adaptation of new schedules and routines there was the temptation to look back on the old, easy to manage, small town life I had left behind. What value was there in going from being a medium sized fish in a small pond to becoming a minnow in a much bigger body of water? In my old life buses were unreliable, trains out of town were few and slow, and a lot of my life had been an exercise in thrift and avoidance. I walked most places in the town, even when carrying things that it would have been easier to transport by bus or car.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I normalised walking two miles to my hitching point to get out of Gainsborough. It worked too, or at least until in her third term Margaret Thatcher had given the County Road Services money to widen the roads into Lincoln and put in a grid of roundabouts around the city which slowed down how soon I got a lift because even when drivers stopped and wanted to offer me a lift the question became 'Which roundabout do you wat dropped off at?' I would say I could be left off at the roundabout for the City Centre and they would be going in at an earlier roundabout. Also wider roads made for faster traffic, and a reduced chance to stop for folks like me. In the world of hitching lifts I always gave myself plenty of time. In Nottingham I still walked a fair amount, but my travels were informed by the bus schedules where I discovered the joy of reading on the bus, over time I read all seven of the Narnia books on different buses.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My being caught in the accepted social evasions of the church social life were mirrored in how well I was fitting in as part the new shared house. With my working class origins and values I struggled to fit in around the urbane middle class manners Mike presented me with</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>.</span><span> I could see how I was not settling in, but I could not formulate why. Part of my difficulty was how I should have sorted through more of my packing, but I needed to be at ease to know what to discard. Things that were for future use were still in the boxes I had brought them in. My uncertainty about future unpacking annoyed the landlord. Also my claim for housing benefit should have been settled but wasn't. The money Mike was due should be in his bank account. It wasn't. City Hall Housing Benefit department seemed to be oddly slow in processing my claim. After over three weeks of waiting I had to visit them sometimes between work shifts.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I can't remember now who I fell into conversation with. But I took note when I realised that they were better informed than I expected them to be, and they listened well. I told them how I had put the form in with </span><span style="font-size: medium;">the City Hall Housing Benefit Department in the centre of Nottingham. They told me that I had not got the benefit yet because I should have put the forms in with the same department in West Bridgford Council buildings for processing.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was prompt in recovering my mistake, and filling the right forms in again, and getting them to the right place. Prompt too in backdating the new forms to the date I had sent forms to the wrong office. West Bridgford paid me promptly from the date I got my forms into them. But they sent the back-claim into their appeals system, where I might or might not get the rent money. It all depended on whether the board sided with the council or with me. The landlord seemed relieved at first when I told him. But as soon as the rent issue was regularised he gave my a fortnight's notice to leave. He did not say it but he could not accept the unopened boxes, after sorting the Housing Benefit out I was glad he took the initiative. Somebody had to be clear. Since it was his house, better it was him than me.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This came not long before another announcement, this time about my job. The government paid me to work part time for a year for The Leonard Cheshire Home, now the government were going to end the ACE scheme on which I had got my contract of work. The initial effect was that The Leonard Cheshire Home was going to make an early exit from it's contracts for paid for government labour via the ACE scheme. I was going to work out the roughly ten months of my contract doing some other care work for another employer. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Finally my family wrote to ask me to contact them urgently. The did not have a landline but gave me a phone number of somebody who did. The message I got via the phone was that my gran was comfortable, but in hospital. Mother was visiting her there daily. But at the age of 88 she was very very tired. Nobody wanted to say it, but it was obvious that there was going to be a funeral at some point. My phrasing, not theirs. I was to keep in touch for updates every other day. I had more means of keeping in touch with family than they minded to keep in touch with me. </span></p><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size: medium;"><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">To be directed to Chapter Seven please left click </span>here<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></div><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </p></div></span></div>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-9938760619824441682024-03-11T07:33:00.000-07:002024-03-11T10:39:52.491-07:00Post Mortem On The Oscars<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3f0AjksOs4KMUlsfh63IQfo04Eskx9-nsSRd6fvrW5vfRF1s5BKg8kjtvJDz47vF5olZMfkUcS8C_xbC54eNgL_wWOAICP6IWi7SV-13ALlUiYxWCmaWImwyoPk4mKrqpHNJn7JHcyckHl6Ne1XzU-69BbSVPy4Puknmxw6KHVahVoa0eRoTGKmieuQq/s3016/MV5BMTUzNDQ0MzY4OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjAwMTMzOTE@._V1_.jpg" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3016" data-original-width="2413" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3f0AjksOs4KMUlsfh63IQfo04Eskx9-nsSRd6fvrW5vfRF1s5BKg8kjtvJDz47vF5olZMfkUcS8C_xbC54eNgL_wWOAICP6IWi7SV-13ALlUiYxWCmaWImwyoPk4mKrqpHNJn7JHcyckHl6Ne1XzU-69BbSVPy4Puknmxw6KHVahVoa0eRoTGKmieuQq/s320/MV5BMTUzNDQ0MzY4OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjAwMTMzOTE@._V1_.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is a well observed phenomenon that not only do good actresses shine when given good roles in otherwise dull films, sufficient for the actress to be the only person to be nominated for the different awards when the awards season approaches, but that in addition to being nominated such actresses, will also be overlooked for the prize they have been nominated for, in favour of actresses who have performed nearly as well in much more showy and stereotypical roles.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Thus it was that Lily Gladstone (born 1986), a distant but indirect descendant of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), who was raised on the Blackfeet reservation, and is of mixed Piegan Blackfeet and European origin,<span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;"> </span>was both nominated and snubbed this award season. She won the Golden Globe for her portrayal of Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman who survived the Osage murders in Martin Scorsese's lengthy 2023 crime drama 'The Killers of the Flower Moon', beating internationally nominated competition but in the Oscars lost out to showy faux feminist post-Frankenstein melodrama 'Poor Things', in which Emma Stone triumphed against the odd in the role of a woman beset by male expectation where when she survives those expectations it is less by directly challenging them, more by finding a life away from them in spite of the males. Perhaps Ms Stone won the Oscar because of the character she played, more than her acting, the character too much represented certain aspects of Hollywood for Hollywood to resist rewarding her.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ecUo0brYa11xI2pvx9sc5BvL6DPHl2DW3QgjSuJAMhxplO_Q4sAQnkeFaIZ0rbDjJMgJe6BDqQZyIoJgC4DEvDg2qgehUnNmspBHpjn70ike9Lec-CaDRp-9wGoDD4ytxmXnLWCU49T5FhB39_EzSttvzkpiQx_lqNlXrNX5UkMyKHO-Hb1JYaqdcTNs/s382/Mollie_Kyle_by_Raymond_Red_Corn.png" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="382" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ecUo0brYa11xI2pvx9sc5BvL6DPHl2DW3QgjSuJAMhxplO_Q4sAQnkeFaIZ0rbDjJMgJe6BDqQZyIoJgC4DEvDg2qgehUnNmspBHpjn70ike9Lec-CaDRp-9wGoDD4ytxmXnLWCU49T5FhB39_EzSttvzkpiQx_lqNlXrNX5UkMyKHO-Hb1JYaqdcTNs/s320/Mollie_Kyle_by_Raymond_Red_Corn.png" width="320" /></a></div> But still I prefer women like the real Mollie Kyle (1886-1937) who shown here aged 17, is as far away from Hollywood as it is possible to be. She showed a resourcefulness well beyond all natural and legally circumscribed means, in surviving her diabetes, surviving her attempted poisoning, she got her poisoners jailed, she remarried after she got her husband poisoner jailed, got the guardianship over her lifted with the new marriage, and finally regained control of the material legacy that her family should have had full control of, all along. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That is what I would consider to be female resourcefulness at it's best in the face of white Klu Klux Clan being calculatedly murderous with envy at the rightful wealth of other nations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There the Frankenstein-type monster in the plot is the Klu Klux Clan, which seems to be about right to me. The undead ghost of white supremacy politics from the losing side of the civil has to be properly represented somehow. I have yet to see an image of Donald Trump with a bolt through his neck as the undead ghost of whate male exclusive entitlement but I shall savour it when I do. </div><p></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-26506090805795515722024-03-10T05:55:00.000-07:002024-03-11T02:40:53.356-07:00Hope Goes Out On A Limb<p><span style="font-size: medium;">On the Sunday when the media <br />makes mothering a thing of sentiment,<br />fit only for being the last item of a news bulletin,<br />I focus more on all the mothers who foster<br />and adopt, particularly as single parents<br />who focus their parenting instincts<br />in support of children whose lives <br />have been disrupted beyond repair.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This going-out-on-a-limb for a child<br />who can't know how stranded they are <br />is rarely recognised in my society<br />which makes the nuclear family standard<br />for the purpose of mass advertising,<br />whilst denying how every standard <br />creates variations that away from <br />what is predicted has to be managed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is why I praise adoptive mothers, <br />foster mothers, and many others <br />who seek to repair and reset future society.</span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-44490365081991728632024-03-09T04:50:00.000-08:002024-03-09T09:29:33.755-08:00Uncertainty Drive<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I can empathise with anyone who dislikes war.<br />Those who seem to know more what it is good for<br />usually have intentions that the majority mistrust,<br />and that is before the propaganda has taken effect.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But whatever the state, propaganda, peace,<br />or some state in between where aggression lurks and hides,<br />what gets disguised even more with everyday living<br />is how much technology makes change certain.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So whatever the state, look out for the changes<br />and prepare yourself to make them work<br />better for others and yourself as well as you can.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In uncertainty, hope for an improved tomorrow. <br /> </span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-6357808781456096672024-03-08T01:57:00.000-08:002024-03-08T02:03:47.838-08:00A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One<p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I was much younger than I am today<br />I used to hear it said of international politics<br />with varying degrees of weary resignation<br />that 'America is the world's policeman',<br />which by turns was both to be expected,<br />and 'a good thing'. One of the many jobs<br />this policeman had was to define 'freedom',<br />which America has done with alacrity.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's arms industry has followed<br />where diplomacy has gone first<br />in conflicts all across the world.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of late America has retreated from it's role,<br />as the measure and the policer of 'freedom',<br />and hid behind 'America First' which meant<br />'Only America' and 'Elite America for itself,<br />forget the little people whilst using their image<br />as advertising fodder' when the small print <br />on the policy was properly expanded.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It became a license for scammers and pyramid sellers.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Spurred by this the world has reshaped itself.<br />Old empires have renewed themselves<br />by returning to their old illiberal habits<br />with regard to their smaller enemies,<br />who America has been quick to champion<br />in words, but slow to act in support of.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Few people want the old policeman back,<br />any more than they want the old world order.<br />But an America with a stronger spine, to bolster<br />it's foreign policy, and with which to see clearer<br />both friend and foe beyond it's borders <br />that mostly picks on countries it's own size <br />and defends countries that are smaller <br />is what the many small countries are looking for.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-86888882723803871922024-03-07T04:22:00.000-08:002024-03-07T04:22:14.866-08:00'Portnoy's Complaint' By Philip Roth - A Review <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I found this in a pile of books left for people to choose from just beyond the check outs of my local supermarket after I'd done my weekly shop. I'd heard of the book, but knew nothing about it beyond that it was understood to be shocking when it was first released, there was film adaptation from 1972, and that Alan Bennett's mother read it when it first came out, knowing nothing about it before she read it.</span></span></p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bennett in one of his anecdotes explains how he took it upon himself to explain the logic of the writing and the dynamic of the relationships in the book to her, explaining, as I paraphrase it, 'Mam, in this book the authorities have taken sexual hysteria off the ration book'. The government ration book being something that she had lived with between 1940-54 that had made it's mark in every part of her everyday life for years after it ended, and it being something she understood the purpose of at the time it was government policy.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have also read several books that describe would-be fetish behaviour including the nineteenth century account of the fetish of being submissive, 'Venus in Furs' by Leopold Von Sacher Masoch. In fact I read it twice to understand it better. I too have had my difficulties with the psychology of rationing in my life. When I got 'Portnoy's Complaint' I thought it was book that I would enjoy reading whilst sat at the back of the bus, on journeys between 30 mins and 90 mins long when I could be doing nothing else. It is a brave experiment. Whether I finish the book remains to be seen.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It starts as it means to go on, as an unannounced confession in which the reader seems to be the person confessed to. How funny the reader finds this is depends on whether the reader is okay with taking on the role of unintended confessor, to a character-Alexander Portnoy-who has no obvious interest in any sort psychological resolution, spiritual absolution, or even accepting a logical approach to the easing of his problems. Portnoy is 33 and does a high status job of the city state of New York and lives with his parents, who for him to leave them requires him to marry a female they approve of. His father is a washed out character who sells insurance to black people who don't want it, and his mother wears the trousers in the house.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is where when Alexander was a teenager he seemed to get caught in this cycle, where his confession becomes.... I think about sex and masturbate all the time, my mother wants me to marry and settle down, if I did marry as she wanted me to then I would not be able to settle down, therefore I think about sex a lot, I masturbate a lot, I sometimes find attractive girls who seem to find me attractive, and they too want to settle down with a husband who works to pay for the home they want to live but they contribute to the maintenance of through how clean and controlled the house is, this makes me change girlfriends often.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From the thoughts about the different girlfriends who the more he gets to know them the more they resemble his mother Portnoy is bounced back round the thought cycle to being confronted/controlled by his mother, repeat and repeat again with minor variations. To modern minds he would be a classic example of a commitment-phobe were his commitment to masturbation not quite so thorough, ongoing, and quite so consistent.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Alexander is helpful enough to his confessor, the reader, to list his fetishes for the first time on page 172 of the book. They are onanism exhibitionism and voyeurism. What he does not add, which might have shortened the book considerably if he had, could have been how for all of his fetishes being different to each other, they all rather neatly dovetail into one set of social actions as they all feed off each other.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then there is the famous scene with the liver, in which any vegetarian reading the text might feel a certain disgust, but may also absolve themselves of their disgust as they paraphrase the Pharisees prayer, Luke Ch 18 V 11, and say of themselves 'I thank thee Lord I am not as other men (particularly not the young Alex Portnoy)'.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is the book funny? Clearly yes in one respect, Roth writes Alexander Portnoy's speeches in extended similes and metaphors where the readers realises quite late into reading them that these tortured similes etc are actually jokes where the last part of the simile is the most tortured and extended part of the simile, the punchline of the long disguised joke. At that level the writing is very good, well sustained. But however good the writing is, writing for a character caught up in his own repeating cycle of events, behaviours and responses, much like the character Severin in 'Venus in Furs', does make the character one dimensional and self limiting, and where he is funny the joke is repetitive.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Two thirds of the book read, and Portnoy now has male friends his own age but still the dialogue is at the level of, I don't know-maybe one of the dirtier episodes of Beavis and Butthead, but that is opening out away from the previous accounts of sexual frustration. And still the young women come and go, leaving the reader disgusted and the mind that Alexander Portnoy has to be on one track, which his friends also get locked into when they try to be supportive company for each other.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One third of the book to go. It might be an uphill struggle but I will finish it. At the end Alexander Portnoy cannot quite remain the relationship/masturbatory equivalent of Sisyphus condemned to roll a boulder up a mountain only to see it fall to the bottom again, and start to roll the same stone up the mountain again. With no exit from his dilemmas as he continues relive his old traps, whilst half-looking for the way out from them. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Given the circularity of the plot and of Alex Portnoy's teenage sexual obsessions, and of his sense of perpetual conflict with the (Jewish) faith based adult world that he resists joining, any resolution is going to be a deflation. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thus it proves. But how the deflation actually happens I will leave the reader to find out for themselves.</span></div></span>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-23397680916350735932024-03-06T03:30:00.000-08:002024-03-06T08:47:54.184-08:00Measuring Heaven?<p><span style="font-size: medium;">One of the ways I fail to apprehend <br />the modern world is when people talk<br />and write in unqualified superlatives<br />about the idea of intensity, declaring <br />that their latest experience of this<br />and that 'was their best time ever'.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It is a given that certain experiences<br />don't just have no unit of measurement,<br />but make it required that rating them<br />out of five or ten is the nearest<br />we get to being objective.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Then there is quality of something being immersive,<br />e.g. when the arrangements and tunes <br />of a piece of </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>classical music are performed<br /></span><span>with enough empathy to </span><span>please the ear <br />of the sensitive listener. All that can be asked<br />is how faithful were the players to the score?<br />Everything beyond that is beyond measure. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And wherever Heaven is, it has no units<br />and is not a place where measuring is apt. </span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-30197054915364538222024-03-05T00:51:00.000-08:002024-03-05T00:51:06.914-08:00 Bad Alignments<p><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know how to read the present day news cycle,<br />which, from what it says, does more than recycle<br />the old human conflicts it says it is 'just reporting'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>These reports add a pointless cruelty into life,<br />where in reports of</span><span> wars protagonists of wars<br />can't hear </span><span>themselves speak, and won't listen<br />to how entrenched their enemies have become <br />in their opposing positions.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And that is just the foreigners who disagree.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There are plenty of folk in my own country<br />who for being unable to agree with those<br />who they oppose find the corresponding side<br />in, from Russia to the USA, to side with<br />and to underline their domestic position. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To call such positioning 'a bad alignment'<br />reproaches it all too lightly, and further<br />fails to address</span><span style="font-size: large;"> how </span><span style="font-size: large;">such alignments leave us<br />lacking in</span><span style="font-size: large;"> inclusivity, polarised, and divided,</span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-76645093311169406932024-03-04T01:07:00.000-08:002024-03-04T01:07:30.599-08:00Picture Set of The Month - March - Moroccan Star Sand Dunes<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFErj96mAuFctZZCAme1pfuaJFBSLbVTUSiYYOEeO44pyO7Kb3kOoze2EF_7-82jEpZi_L4IY7yaFE9SqrXnINr6mTxmv3zRKrwbc76gIWZb8NkiUuR_aCvtrw9qDQ-jawRjRKbO5saKIjDykhWFbWbC6rOJt5n4vOwjqFopJ4FDQlu840GEHGAHIYYSV2/s800/merzouga-sand-dunes-morocco.jpg" imageanchor="1" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="800" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFErj96mAuFctZZCAme1pfuaJFBSLbVTUSiYYOEeO44pyO7Kb3kOoze2EF_7-82jEpZi_L4IY7yaFE9SqrXnINr6mTxmv3zRKrwbc76gIWZb8NkiUuR_aCvtrw9qDQ-jawRjRKbO5saKIjDykhWFbWbC6rOJt5n4vOwjqFopJ4FDQlu840GEHGAHIYYSV2/w400-h246/merzouga-sand-dunes-morocco.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Are in the news as natural phenomena that also<br />appear on Mars and Saturn's biggest moon, Titan.</span> </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipeP62j8oqfRTqQ-ROyKCPqWxwGnN5w42hTL-x01gab9vkTfRPlKw7B90togMW5ngU89YererQdUEMQKqFQSG74XvsBBnk34tPEvy5bqORFwVnsZCIucYkkD0tXOxtjs6TneCsb9LnU4r1b-2pGSQKD8CmMnUq0ncfU5a3EH68m6xyZRlfBkvhrZi5KBcO/s800/morocan%20desert%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="800" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipeP62j8oqfRTqQ-ROyKCPqWxwGnN5w42hTL-x01gab9vkTfRPlKw7B90togMW5ngU89YererQdUEMQKqFQSG74XvsBBnk34tPEvy5bqORFwVnsZCIucYkkD0tXOxtjs6TneCsb9LnU4r1b-2pGSQKD8CmMnUq0ncfU5a3EH68m6xyZRlfBkvhrZi5KBcO/w400-h289/morocan%20desert%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where the base of a star sand dune can be<br />up to 13,000 years old whilst the peaks <br />are typically nearer 1000 years old.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrdLRg45jqDifYSgnD7F6-z_z310WXYow1o3kIpVVnHvk8ldKYtbgqpuufG3X9ojJ_TwGA6KTawfzGTPas8hvFPi-VjYrPacyDnmxpYlWLD1X_2pvsdy_AJXk8TH3vImlHZlUS_q5k6gfZ__63WSm3msY2k_OFSd5h9j_bVS-yxNZxQvfKHVlmeksyRAxA/s800/Morocco%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrdLRg45jqDifYSgnD7F6-z_z310WXYow1o3kIpVVnHvk8ldKYtbgqpuufG3X9ojJ_TwGA6KTawfzGTPas8hvFPi-VjYrPacyDnmxpYlWLD1X_2pvsdy_AJXk8TH3vImlHZlUS_q5k6gfZ__63WSm3msY2k_OFSd5h9j_bVS-yxNZxQvfKHVlmeksyRAxA/w400-h300/Morocco%201.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-align: start;">A star dune is formed by the wind blowing<br />in two opposing directions – from the south-west<br /> and the north-east – leading to the sand building up. <br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWM1qe0SZUgTKG9hUHIN1wRGec9cjq394FqK-d-qZeYUG0emINRb6oLiIv-E2C5vJQ64yF6seHL3-ziqnILkMBke4gmt2QqZS7gKTdnCdXmPbfXrTPvz3hD3haZFyBzkI1RZXUAG8KWEDpZ31mndejTFEdEywcfv2JyNV6g2toLgf_m4K-PB0DtZIMAP1C/s800/morroco%203.jpg" imageanchor="1" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="503" data-original-width="800" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWM1qe0SZUgTKG9hUHIN1wRGec9cjq394FqK-d-qZeYUG0emINRb6oLiIv-E2C5vJQ64yF6seHL3-ziqnILkMBke4gmt2QqZS7gKTdnCdXmPbfXrTPvz3hD3haZFyBzkI1RZXUAG8KWEDpZ31mndejTFEdEywcfv2JyNV6g2toLgf_m4K-PB0DtZIMAP1C/w400-h251/morroco%203.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 17px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; text-align: start;">A steady third wind that blows from the east shifts<br />the dune slowly west at a rate of about 50cm a year.<br />Please left click <b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/mar/04/scientists-unearth-mysteries-of-giant-moving-moroccan-star-dune">here</a></b> to learn more about this subject.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-6093722263740983162024-03-03T04:51:00.000-08:002024-03-13T02:14:31.932-07:00Families And How To Escape Them - Chapter Five - Finding My Way Around<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was thankful the Monday morning that I started work that my work was part time. What I lost in the money I might have earned more if the job were full time but I gained in having more time in which to patch myself into the different businesses and organisations that I was going to be dependent on, to greater or lesser degrees, in Nottingham. The bank, my new doctor, and West Bridgford Council, from whom I had to get the application form for my housing benefit. They were the big three at the top of the list.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Finding where these places were located with a city map took time, finding my way within them also took time. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">West Bridgford City Hall was not quite like the huge hospitals where new visitors would get lost for having lost their sense of direction, and being blinded by the signs. But like a hospital, so many of corridors looking similar to each other and the signage seeming wilfully obscure. But like many a visitor to a hospital I got a fair amount of help when I looked slightly lost and there other people about. They spontaneously offered me directions.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With some of the tasks being less urgent than others I was apt to wander round a little, simply to get my bearings by sight. </span><span style="font-size: medium;">Joining West Bridgford Library was very low on the list of priorities, but the library building was much easier to find than many other buildings, and the process of joining was briefer to complete than for all the other tasks.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> The library building was a bigger version the library in Gainsborough. Both were fine Andrew Carnegie constructions from the 1920's. West Bridgford library proved to be not just a place for bookish entertainments, but with it's copies of phone books and business directories and other information it was a sign post for many of the places I thought I needed to go. It made many of the journeys I had to go on shorter. It was the second best place to go to. The Citizens Advice Bureau was the first place to go for advice but I did not find out where that was until later.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But the first place to find on the map and get to on the bus was my new employer, The Leonard Cheshire Nursing Home in Lady Bay, West Bridgford. If at some points over the weekend I had doubted the wisdom of moving to Nottingham then the employer was the person to dispel those doubts by putting me to work. The induction was demonstrative whilst being undemanding. It was partly about becoming familiar with the lay out of the building, partly about how I understood my duties, at meal time towards the patients, and between meals but the most important part was being introduced to the residents out of courtesy to them. I was going to be working a pattern of different daytime shifts where I would be working most in the mornings, with some early afternoon shifts for variety.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This was not my first experience of nursing. If being a volunteer for St John Ambulance counted as nursing experience then that was my first. I was in that from the age of nine to nineteen or so, until I found friends my own age. But I discount that as nursing experience. It was much nearer a junior version of 'Dad's Army', pointless hierarchies and mild incompetence combined so as each disguised and justified</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> the other. Then there was the year I spent as a volunteer of my own volition in Gainsborough's John Coupland hospital, as prelude to thinking I might get nurse training. There I was accepted by the ward nurses, but side lined and underused because I was uninsured. Here I was not only insured to work, but paid as well. Sorting out my banking arrangements for being paid with the head of the home was part of the induction.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZP_hhwCn6cPUmecmsBwkEqKoRnL4BF8OXna9nCV2fjnyaawJ1OID128GkFvzhyphenhyphen9I6u-Faha88Sipyo99RBfT1xmJC7AM5_Y01WHXh1JiCoj8diiPM6rpGVjknH0gNT_cTx4spMgaw4SEHZW-Ijv3pQwXWbUBlkScCukmDDtd1ooQ1Sz5W5I1PK5w580XW/s1092/malcolm%201990.jpg" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZP_hhwCn6cPUmecmsBwkEqKoRnL4BF8OXna9nCV2fjnyaawJ1OID128GkFvzhyphenhyphen9I6u-Faha88Sipyo99RBfT1xmJC7AM5_Y01WHXh1JiCoj8diiPM6rpGVjknH0gNT_cTx4spMgaw4SEHZW-Ijv3pQwXWbUBlkScCukmDDtd1ooQ1Sz5W5I1PK5w580XW/s320/malcolm%201990.jpg" width="234" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>This image was taken in 1990<br />two years after the Ace scheme<br />placement move, but it is close<br />enough to what I looked like in the<br />Leonard Cheshire Nursing Home.</span> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /><span>I liked the uniform but I was not particularly good as a nursing assistant at first. I was prone to impatience. But then this was the first time I was being paid to do something I thought I wanted to do. A</span></span><span> l</span><span>ot of the work was slow routine support for people who due to their Parkinson's Disease were slow to act. The biggest part of the work was forcing myself to wait for them to give me their cues to allow me to be helpful, when I did not see and hear easily when I was going to be asked, due to their declining health. Mealtimes were when the cues and patience mattered most, that was when the residents most valued their autonomy. But every daytime activity that was led by the residents also required the same discipline</span><span>. My impatience was a bad thing for people with Parkinson's disease. People who, depending on their age, health, and vitality, move at fractions of the pace they were once capable of when the Parkinson's was present in them but it not obvious in how they moved. But with practice I learned how to be more patient, within the work schedules that the nursing home ran to. </span><span> </span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even now, I associate blandness with imminent discomfort. Many of my times that I had to myself in that first few weeks when I was not in work and I had no need to be in the bland house were spent on the buses, getting the lie of the city. I had been to Nottingham three times in the previous decade. Each visit was fleeting and I was a guest of others who was put in the back of a car. The first visit was with a friend to see one of their friends in my CND days. I could have fitted in better that evening than I did. The other two visits were both to the music venue Rock City, first to see Christian band After The Fire, and then to see Bruce Springsteen/Neil Young sides man and solo artist in his own right, Nils Lofgren, with a very different set of friends to CND friends I had. But I had never seen Nottingham during the day and on my own.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know how often I caught different buses and en route took note of the different shops to investigate the next time I was on this route. But for that day I was going to places that I had seen and noted for the first time the<i> last</i> time I took this journey. Church buildings, record shops, second hand book shops and libraries were all of major interest. I was astonished at the floor space of the The Central Library, just off the city centre, it was spread over several floors, records and tapes to take out, as well as more books of interest to me than I could list, much less had the time to read. Library envy is not a feeling I expected to have at that stage of my life, but it was what I felt.</span></p><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">To be directed to Chapter Six please left click </span><a href="https://woodenlodge.blogspot.com/2024/03/families-and-how-to-escape-them-chapter_0291324867.html">here</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-6216602582377413352024-03-02T00:30:00.000-08:002024-03-07T12:01:47.080-08:00Is This The Oldest Modern Genocide? <p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2zNp41RC6VXVosNsL9nHhlDW6odcXf1WObc1nUZ-ACROHVM50ygXn2NYvVzIuqkoXmgAzBTUREO8Ftd4PO3q8ytWqEVvLwIiKaZj_OsBPqDVb1nDhomOR62HavR2pn9qAs5SEZUtSmR6XypO3oufuEqaE2TkBTTcZhPjzoCxu0Wfa4txGPkpr-Q_d9dm/s1371/Circassian_prince.jpg" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1371" data-original-width="977" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2zNp41RC6VXVosNsL9nHhlDW6odcXf1WObc1nUZ-ACROHVM50ygXn2NYvVzIuqkoXmgAzBTUREO8Ftd4PO3q8ytWqEVvLwIiKaZj_OsBPqDVb1nDhomOR62HavR2pn9qAs5SEZUtSmR6XypO3oufuEqaE2TkBTTcZhPjzoCxu0Wfa4txGPkpr-Q_d9dm/w456-h640/Circassian_prince.jpg" width="456" /></a></div><div class="k31gt" style="background-color: white; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Favorit, "Helvetica Neue", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 15px 0px; min-height: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: var(--post-padding); padding-right: var(--post-padding); padding-top: 0px; scrollbar-color: rgba(var(--black),.4)rgba(var(--white),.1); scrollbar-width: thin; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve; width: 540px; word-break: break-word;"><div class="k31gt" style="border: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 15px 0px; min-height: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: var(--post-padding); padding-right: var(--post-padding); padding-top: 0px; scrollbar-color: rgba(var(--black),.4)rgba(var(--white),.1); scrollbar-width: thin; vertical-align: baseline; width: 540px; word-break: break-word;"><p style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">'Circassian Prince at Constantinople' as painted in 1845 by Orientalist American painter Miner Kilbourne Kellogg (1814-1889). The full description of the painting is described as Portrait of Seferbiy Zanoko, Circassian aristocrat, diplomat, and military leader in traditional Circassian costume. Circassia was a small country on the North East shore of the black sea close to Georgia and South Ossetia. </p></div><div class="k31gt" style="border: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 15px 0px; min-height: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: var(--post-padding); padding-right: var(--post-padding); padding-top: 0px; scrollbar-color: rgba(var(--black),.4)rgba(var(--white),.1); scrollbar-width: thin; vertical-align: baseline; width: 540px; word-break: break-word;"><p style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Seferbiy Zaneqo (1798 - 1860) was a Circassian diplomat and military commander and fifth leader of the Circassian Confederation between 1859 and 1860. He took part in the Russo-Circassian War in both a military and a political capacity. As a diplomat he advocated for the Circassian cause in the west, and acted as an emissary of the Ottoman Empire in the region. By the end of his life Zaneqo was the leader of the Circassian resistance. </p></div><div class="k31gt" style="border: none; box-sizing: border-box; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 15px 0px; min-height: 1.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: var(--post-padding); padding-right: var(--post-padding); padding-top: 0px; scrollbar-color: rgba(var(--black),.4)rgba(var(--white),.1); scrollbar-width: thin; vertical-align: baseline; width: 540px; word-break: break-word;"><p style="border: none; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Between 1763 and 1864 Circassia was at war with the Russian Empire. Between 1800 and 1864 the Russians overran Circassia, and committed genocide on it's Muslim population. Georgia is the only country in the world to still classify what the Russians did to the Circassians as a genocide.</p></div></div>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-40354959327883381972024-03-01T04:52:00.000-08:002024-03-07T11:57:32.615-08:00Families And How To Escape Them - Chapter Four - Mismatched Living<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">The weekend felt <i>very</i> odd. All I had, and all evidently was materially/socially, was in a pile out of direct view in this show house which now housed me, but in which I felt did not fit. The tenant/landlord relationship felt as new as the show house in which it was starting. As far as I could see everything was too shiny for comfort. My past, when I lived in it, had seemed to me to be much poorer materially, but much richer in connectivity. But in the light of the wealth and modernity that now surrounded me my life, as evidenced from what I had brought with me</span><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">seemed worn out and tatty.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">If I had been better organised before I left then I would have an address for Richard whom I had not seen might since that October meeting. But in October he seemed quietly resistant about copying that detail down for me. But no, in the Gainsborough I had come from, what seemed like friendship seemed easy bt evasive. With youth unemployment at high levels young men had more time on their hands than they had money. With the time it was easy to get to know something about other young men using only first names and knowing where they lived by sight, rather than the name and number of the street they lived on. We found it natural to avoid our family background because our families thought we had all turned out wrong again for us not being married off, not having full time well paid jobs, and not having a mortgage and our own house to live in and keep other people out of. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;">My only company was Mike, who each time he passed me looking at the piles of what I had brought with me whilst thinking what to do next with it all made sort-of-funny but unhelpful comments. M</span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">y weekend felt more like a very weak end. </span></span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">He was polite towards me, but was distant, making it clear that for him distance was the point. </span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When he drove to join his family for Sunday lunch I was more relieved than guilty at how connecting with him now seemed so difficult. </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">I can see more clearly now what I could not see then; that Mike had taken me at face value when first saw me, because as a landlord he was much nearer being the student he was before he became a property owner. I realised that when I first met and talked to him in the November I had door-stepped him, unaware that that was what I was doing. Even as he had only recently changed from being a student into a property owner, his idea of being a student was always far better supported than any idea about any sort of life, as was witnessed by his comments. </span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">It did not help that I could not find a single book in the house with which to talk to him as more of an equal. Even my dad, who I generally thought little of, kept a small pile of paper backs of cowboy stories that he liked next to his armchair. There was not even a recipe book in the house. A house with no books, no house plants, and definitely not any animals in it is surely defines the idea of an empty bachelor pad.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">As I looked over the pile and slowly moved parts of it into my room, to be tidy, Mike would make passing comments if he was about. His most perceptive comment was in reply to something I said and have long since forgotten. His comment was about how our first thoughts are not always our best thoughts. His lack of curiosity was clear, along with how he had never met anyone who had built their life out of enduring long term unemployment or living on low pay when working. He was right about first thoughts, though. I could say nothing about how I could not get my head around how I was now having to learn to relate to somebody nearly the same age as me, but whose main interest in life was his work and it was a job that made him detached sufficient to bar him from having anything that resembled personal enthusiasm. I had got myself into being the tenant in a shared house with a landlord whose main enthusiasm was making enough money to live in impersonal secure comfort. If I could work out what and who was I could not work why I'd chosen to co-habit in such a situation.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">I don't know when I became aware that my new choice of abode was a mistake. Nor do I know when it became clear to me that my past life was much more of a mess than the lives of the people I met in Nottingham. My first clue came to me with the moving of all my stuff that weekend. Mike looked and walked like a man who did not just wore a suit to work, the suit wore him, He looked uncomfortable not wearing a suit. His casuals at weekends were a white shirt, clean jeans and smart shoes. Whereas if there was a dominant theme with my clothing the phrase 'army surplus chic' would describe it best. For coats I had one suit jacket which I was proud of it partly because the label at the neck said 'made in Scunthorpe', a leather jacket on which the central back panel had survived being painted with white gloss paint which made it quite distinctive, a great coat for which the weather was much too warm nearly all year round which I kept because I liked the look of it, One type of jacket I did not have was denim jackets-I had a complete blind spot about them. My favourite everyday jacket was a light army jacket with lots of pockets, and to go with it I had a small canvas army shoulder bag. If the bag itself was small then it was a good place in which to put carrier bags when I shopped for food. My choice of shirts was ex-German Democratic Republic army shirts with the flag of the GDR at the top of the arm where from top to bottom the three stripes were black red and yellow, where the message the colours conveyed was the phrase 'through the night and the blood comes the light'. finally there were several pairs of air wear shoes worn to varying degrees, which were charity shop purchases which had been donated with wear left in them by delivery men, employees of The Post Office.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">I disliked army-style 'camouflage' trousers, they seemed pretentious. If I had reasons to disguise myself then they disguised themselves from me. I had one pair of plain green army trousers with the extra side pockets in them to my name. My favoured everyday trousers were ordinary jeans, which I bought in charity shops, where if a got less wear out of them than if I'd bought new they still 'paid for themselves', with the wear I did get out of them. The jeans were usually topped off with the thick leather belt with the movable Fascist Spain belt buckle.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">In the middle class West Bridgford that I had landed in, I was slow to understand the logic of detachment where charity shops were for giving <i>to</i>, not buying <i>from</i>. In the trouser department my prize possession was a pair of wide flared jeans that had been only just past being the height of fashion for me, when I first got them ten years earlier, Where they had become worn they had been patched, several times. The method of the patching being to cover the patch I was going to apply with copydex rubber glue, slap it flat over where the cloth of the jeans had thinned, and putting paper over the jeans in case of leaks, iron them both sides where the patch was applied, to heat the glue to make it adhere better. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">As I looked at these jeans I had no idea what was going to make me adhere to the life that was available to me in West Bridgford,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">To be directed to Chapter Five please left click <a href="https://woodenlodge.blogspot.com/2024/03/families-and-how-to-escape-them-chapter_3.html">here</a>.</p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-2817240158377999312024-02-29T00:44:00.000-08:002024-03-01T00:40:07.216-08:00Have You Ever Had A Lack Of Resolve?<p><span style="font-size: medium;">You are far from alone if you have.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Each morning I turn my radio on<br /></span><span>in the hope that what I hear<br /></span><span>will help me </span><span>start the day better,<br /></span><span>and leave me with some comment <br /></span><span>that might set me up right for the day.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Of late </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>I have taken to using the off-button</span><span> <br /></span><span>well before the news headlines finish</span><span>.<br /></span><span>The hierarchy of the reports has seemed awry<br />and with the disputes and conflicts reported on<br />refusing to resolve themselves </span><span>I have had<br />no choice but to treat the news the way my</span><span> parents <br />treated me </span><span>when I was young enough to think <br /></span><span>that sibling rivalry was the height of valid debate <br />that when I won it proved my intelligence.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I am not tired of life, but I do tire <br />of the infinite lack of resolution<br />to certain stories that my radio <br />presents me with every morning.<br /> </span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-59763595344606941432024-02-28T01:48:00.000-08:002024-02-28T01:48:48.040-08:00Live Lightly Whilst You Can <p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBlsUC-SErjYEAL52HmQyOocnbq2TxVObwJiTBt12Ud5As49K_ccd82G-CEPUGyYHl1RlkWefAjkDzL4rxwqKwDzzlUr4HdWrUszugquauXex9K0QWqIXHHIGxtsPVKmr28R-_dTEJROZFns1TpysrI_ir5w9nbclrTKTdjaFw9_i2x91GdciBzNWh0cw/s800/live%20lightly.jpg" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBlsUC-SErjYEAL52HmQyOocnbq2TxVObwJiTBt12Ud5As49K_ccd82G-CEPUGyYHl1RlkWefAjkDzL4rxwqKwDzzlUr4HdWrUszugquauXex9K0QWqIXHHIGxtsPVKmr28R-_dTEJROZFns1TpysrI_ir5w9nbclrTKTdjaFw9_i2x91GdciBzNWh0cw/w320-h400/live%20lightly.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You never know how close to a lack of <br />support you might be in future....</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <p></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-21128946107205253922024-02-27T01:44:00.000-08:002024-02-27T03:25:19.578-08:00Out Of Date/Out Of Time<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Who reading this remembers when<br />food was first sold with dates on it,<br />for when it was best consumed by?<br />I don't, and it now it seems not to matter.<br />My life is now past it's 'best before' date,<br />which was probably before I was born.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is why I have to be my own guide,<br />and eat what I eat with little regard <br />for the date on the side of the packet.<br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;">I do the same with radio programmes.</span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-23922791088316298002024-02-26T00:25:00.000-08:002024-03-07T12:14:29.780-08:00Families And How To Escape Them - Chapter Three - The Unknown Familiar<p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was predictable that the Friday I left Gainsborough was packed and sociable. I woke up with Alan. He was friendly but left in some haste whilst I was making my breakfast. Mid-morning Mother came and went, with her shopping trolley, taking away perishable food I had left. Later I walked a few doors up the street and said 'Goodbye' to Sue Hethershaw at her house. She was cheerful about it, as if my coming and going like this was nearly normal. Her husband, Nick, was about and distant but pleasant, as if I were interrupting his work-I was. As she put it 'You are</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;">not going a</span></span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">way forever. You'll come back.'.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At home I checked again the boxes I had filled, took out the boxes I had part filled and stored out of sight, and since it was a sunny day put them in the yard ready for Graham to put in his car. I was at ease when Graham, leader of the Christian youth group, appeared. We very quickly used all the space in in his car that was not for the driver and passengers as we economically packed every box in it. I had only ever been a part time student in lieu of being unemployed in my home town, I was unused to support that both encouraged me to move, and supported me with the move. My family were not like that. I never recognised Graham's help as being like that of a parent who helps their new student son or daughter to move into their first digs for the first time. But that where Graham was coming from.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">The ending of locking the door, putting the keys through the letter box, and setting off with Graham felt so light, it did not feel like the ending it was. The biggest change seemed to be the change in certainty levels. With my life up to leaving Gainsborough, Gainsborough was my safety net, and many times I had felt was supporting it, more than it supported me. But I could not say that without seeming churlish. A lot more could go both wrong or right now, and I would have my wits and sense of being an adult to rely upon to get me through.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">My knowledge of Graham was built around how he had led the ecumenical Christian youth group, rather than sharing a car with him. In such groups the group always mattered more than the individual. I knew that there was a lot that he did not know about me and I guess I knew relatively little about him. Friendship built on the absence of knowledge might well have been more common than we realised. Discussing it might change that too much. He was a patient driver. I was surprised at how good I was at giving directions and telling him which lane to be in with the multi-lane roads. He helped me unpack my boxes and put them in one corner of the living room. At first sight they seemed an odd collection of things that jarred against the sleek modern ambience of the new house in a way I had not predicted. Graham spoke briefly and pleasantly with my new landlord and got an image of somebody who lacked maturity from him, and the impression my tenancy would not be long there. Then Graham gave me a firm hug as he said 'Goodbye'. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;">By 6 pm I was in the house and on my own with the landlord for the weekend. I forget his name now, I am going to call him Mike. Mike gave me a run through of the rules of the shared house, where several words came to the fore of mind that I just had to avoid saying, these words included 'bachelor pad style furniture', and 'unused kitchen' because that was what I saw. The impression of him being a show-off bachelor was further cemented with the arrival of his guests that evening, two young women; Mike's university friends who both had bank clerk type jobs. One of the women lived there. It clear to me that Mike had designs on her being more than a friend. The second young woman was her friend who was there to make sure his designs on her friend remained that-unimplemented designs. I was part of the evening but I felt tired. The two women were pleasant enough but opaque to me, at best.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;">My landlord worked as a junior manager for a bank. It was easy for me to excuse myself from their shop talk by recognising that how they talked was mild stuff but above my grade of benefits. The main reason Mike had the house at such a young age, about the age 25 to my by being 27, was because of special low interest loans his employer had offered him, which he thought he was putting to good use by investing the debt in property. I</span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;">f money had proven anything to me, then I could recognise that I was going to have a hard time proving anything to him. I had spent the last decade of my life always close to being on the dole and never earning much more than dole money levels of income when I was offered work. Most of the work I had done was on government conscription jobs. Any discussion would have been a small-town-hick-vs-city slicker type dialogue.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;">But first there was the beer and pizza evening with the two young women to get through, after their hard week working behind glass shutters in their demanding white collar jobs. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;">The evening ended on a an a beyond weird note for me, though I hid my bafflement at the time. At some point Mike put the television on and left it on ITV for the late Friday night what-to-watch-when-the-pubs-are-shut entertainment. Somewhat distractedly I watched the WWF, World Wrestling Federation, wrestling programme for that evening starting, whilst the girls contrived to ignore the television in the corner, I assume because they believed that such a well coordinated exhibition of apparently pure testosterone could only be fantasy, and whatever they fantasised about it was not television depictions of machismo.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;">But to me, closeted and gay, raised within macho small town values that I could not, and did not, want to copy, but which nonetheless remained the popular image masculinity. T</span><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;">o fit in I watched the television pretending to watch partly from the perspective of the young women present, bemusement and disbelief at the WWF wrestling. As the new tag team 'The Powers of Pain', The Warlord and The Barbarian, both very big, very fit, very lean, men in black tights and boots, demolished two anonymous no hopers who were marked out as such from the start. The Warlord and The Barbarian performed with an agility that belied their size, performing somersaults and back flips before ending a very short bout. There were several more wrestling matches in that hour long programme. But to me, tired and socially out of my depth, the mix of the acrobatics, the great size and strength, the perfect finishing skills, and most importantly a pliant referee who looked the wrong way at the right moment, was such a stunningly intense, but brief, show that I'd had my fill of the whole programme with that match.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: garamond, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">To be directed to Chapter Four please left click </span><a href="https://woodenlodge.blogspot.com/2024/03/families-and-how-to-escape-them-chapter.html">here</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">. </span></span></span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-7731907088870900662024-02-25T00:59:00.000-08:002024-02-25T00:59:25.667-08:00An Exceptional Foreword To An Exceptional Book <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">'In our positivistic civilisation one of the inappropriate compliments sometimes paid to literature is to reduce it to 'artistic knowledge'. Not that such cognizance does not exist but art is both more and less than knowledge. It is unique, <i>sui generis</i>, a thing in and of itself. And it's experience is one of the justifications for our own existence.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> While the work of art 'enriches' (another unsuitable analogy), at the same time it creates a post partum sense of loss: the first experience is unique, an act never to be repeated - no matter how great the understanding and appreciation later achieved through the most intent study. If only we could erase from our minds the memory of our favourite books and return to the still unsuspected wonder of those works! When we recommend them to our friends, we do so in envy - that we cannot recreate that initial magic in ourselves. And the more we love a book, the greater our wistfulness. We cannot step into the same river twice, not so much because the river is different, but because we ourselves are in flux.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> If you are about to read the stories of Varlam Shalamov for the first time, you are a person to be envied, a person whose life is about the be changed, a person who will envy others when you yourself have forded these waters.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Kolyma tales tells of life on the Soviet forced-labour camps and the stories are regarded by historians as important documentary materials. Nevertheless the <i>Gulag</i> has many chronicles and only one Varlam Shalamov. This book can profitably read as a fictionalised history; the phrase 'historical novel' is itself a 'historical accident'; history in literature is not limited to the larger genres. But Kolyma Tales is much more than that. lf the camps never existed, this volume, one of the great books of world literature, would be only the more astounding as a creation of the imagination.'-John Glad.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">John Glad translated the tales into English from Russian and was writer of this foreword. The collected stories 'Kolyma Tales' - Varlam Shalamov (1907-1982), was published in 1994 where this excerpt from the full foreword comes from. </span></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-66464271118286004622024-02-24T05:10:00.000-08:002024-02-25T01:04:40.949-08:00Still Lost For Words<p><span style="font-size: medium;">As Russia enters it's third year <br />of invading Ukraine, and it's tenth year <br />of a propaganda campaign beyond compare<br />to prepare the world for World War III <br />I observe how little I have said<br />about Russia, in public or in private.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">These matters that have gone on <br />above my head and above my pay grade.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Both of Russia's efforts<br />have become avalanches of bad news, <br />fit to bury both the dead, and anyone<br />unprepared for self perpetuating lies<br />coined in defence of bad government. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As a would-be pacifist<br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;">my best defence against<br />the power of propaganda<br />has been my ambivalence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The propaganda is the firing gun<br />for the start of any war, long before<br />the first of the bullets reach their target.<br />The propaganda is the test of our reason<br />where pacifists fail to apply their pacifism<br />against the lies, so it becomes too late <br />to stop what comes after.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is why the first victim<br />in every war ever fought is truth<br />-it died before the battle started.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">As a would-be pacifist who knows <br />that wars start for all sorts of reasons,<br />I know enough to be wary of reason itself.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The avalanche of bad news reports <br />took</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> my words. </span><span>I notice my ambivalence.</span><span> </span></span> </p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8851623149310150006.post-33643226071985560312024-02-24T00:55:00.000-08:002024-02-25T01:05:49.326-08:00How To Prove You Are Not A Robot<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSqMdKtfentyiyrxsRMz7puswM9Vep9YDkxqWMsg8cFiurj4loEAUat7LE2S3aPXlvMGmTWbsM0LmrhpGNnv_Ki2TZt8nMxsyP2Cz7cpHOfX_nkHorSBR2h93E4ZHwK8JVhSmRv52ZtrssrUDMUh1HnN7XlyXK0jm4jKzPUptw2rtSXfHeJNu7kSebV83/s917/i%20am%20not%20a%20robot.jpg" referrerpolicy="origin" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="917" data-original-width="569" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOSqMdKtfentyiyrxsRMz7puswM9Vep9YDkxqWMsg8cFiurj4loEAUat7LE2S3aPXlvMGmTWbsM0LmrhpGNnv_Ki2TZt8nMxsyP2Cz7cpHOfX_nkHorSBR2h93E4ZHwK8JVhSmRv52ZtrssrUDMUh1HnN7XlyXK0jm4jKzPUptw2rtSXfHeJNu7kSebV83/w398-h640/i%20am%20not%20a%20robot.jpg" width="398" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">And if are a non-musical non-robot <br />who has difficulty choosing which box<br />to tick, guess anyway.... </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <p></p>Bearzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11288030980271753436noreply@blogger.com0