Things that strike me, of no relation to one another:
'Is This Russia?' What a strange mix of capitalism, feudal resignation, and Communist paranoia Putin's Russia is:
"Even the Communist Party, the only remaining opposition party in Parliament, has said that its leaders are kept off TV.
And it is not just politicians. Televizor, a rock group whose name means TV set, had its booking on a St. Petersburg station canceled in April, after its members took part in an Other Russia demonstration.
When some actors cracked a few mild jokes about Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev at Russia’s equivalent of the Academy Awards in March, they were expunged from the telecast."
A bit over the top, no?
Happy Curmudgeon I recognize that I am increasingly out of touch when it comes to the time-consuming energies of our chat, message board, and flaming Internet world. The silly things that get people riled up like talk-radio callers.
But usually when I peak through the crack in the door, it only affirms my status. Of this list of the "Web's 10 Most Hated People" -- people that incite message board and blog-comment ire -- I've heard of only two of them. And one of them, I wouldn't have heard of if her scandal hadn't been local (apparently it made national news, because the media loves White Girl Dies/Kidnapped scandals). For the most part, all that anonymous Internet anger ... over what?
American Idol, Bradifferlina's new drama, which Nascar drivers hate each other -- of these things it's usually comforting not to know.
A Different Kind of Drama Meanwhile -- like your addicted friend who seems beyond help -- the universe is tearing itself apart at an ever-increasing rate, and we've still no idea why. We're more likely to be extinct before it becomes an issue, of course. But scientists would sleep a little better if they had more of an inkling.
How daunting would it be to feel fairly certain there are multiple universes -- when we don't even know how to contact other life forms within our own galaxy?
Maybe the new multi-billion-dollar particle accelerator in Geneva will unveil clues to mysterious dark matter (and the stench of hockey equipment) ... and maybe it won't.
I called my father the other morning for his 80th birthday. He was naturally happy to hear from me, but he announced that he would never "see" me again.
Though he always talks flippantly about health decline and being shocked (and disappointed) to have lived this long, this time, in his own literal way, he was serious: After a steady decline in his eyesight and a final unsuccessful maneuver to restore it, he's nearly blind now. Can't see the numbers on the phonepad, can't read.
"So even if you visit me, I will not see you," he said, with no spoken emphasis on the word "see" to convey his wordplay -- I'm certain he takes delight in speaking this way. (Shit, is this where I got the dry side of my own sense of humor? Reflect...)
He generally opens conversations with such cheerful news like that. It's partly a Czech thing but mostly a him thing: How are you doing, Dad? "Horrible. But not as awful as last week" is par for any call.
We spent most of our half-hour conversation discussing his taxes (which I didn't handle, until this call) and my taking over the delivery of birthday checks -- both management moves necessitated by his vanished vision. He apologized, as always, for talking business on my international dime, but I told him for his birthday he could talk about whatever he wants.
(Of course, he did manage to get his usual dig in about how I am "so far behind" my brother in the offspring race that I "may never catch up." I'm sure he'd prefer his favorite child lead that "race" -- particularly if I produced male family name-carriers.)
It always strikes me as odd that a guy living abroad who can no longer travel (nor see, now), and who has for several years talked of dying any week now, would be so concerned with his minimal U.S. taxes and renewing his AAA membership. When it was his driver's license, and even AAA, I figured it was more psycho-sentimental: the clinging on to the symbols of one's independence such as the implied ability to drive.
But taxes? Practically speaking, I suppose he could worry about outstanding tax/IRS claims on his estate after he's gone, but I know it's not that. I think it's the comfort of normalcy represented by life's routines.
And thus he has my deepest sympathies. He has always been a creature of routine (no breakfast, "a soup" for lunch, Perry Mason afternoon if home, nap after work, up till 2 or 3 a.m., highlight the TV Guide with different colors for "must see," "nice to see," and "have on if around," crossword puzzle and a cigarette while sitting on the throne.) Of routine to such a degree that I suspect it helped cope with an overactive mind, or mild OCD, or perhaps a way of instilling certainty on a life whose first 15 years consisted of the tragic uncertainty of invasion, an assassinated father, war, "liberation" and Soviet occupation.
But for someone who loves to read, write, drive and travel, to be immobile at home without vision but fully cognizant must be rough. The comfort of so many routines now lost, replaced by dependence he hoped he'd never live to see. At least there's still jazz music.
Nonetheless, he sounded in good spirits. Possibly because he was hearing from his newly nominated tax handler, so that eased one of his nagging worries, but still. He's surrounded by good people -- an old couple and a cousin who, truth be told, aren't in much better shape than he. But he couldn't survive under recent circumstances without them. And they sound happy to have him and help him. Their voices on the phone as I completely misunderstand their Czech words betrayed their happiness at hearing from me.
It's those tones in their voices -- they take me back to being there, much younger, as they talked about me in Czech to my father in reverential words for the nice boy, your son. The aunt has the voice of a big jovial babushka whose laughter is infectious and instantly brings a smile to my face. Her husband has the much-lower drone of a guy who's done hard labor all his life -- permanent V-shaped chest tan and all -- but who nonetheless keeps a great hold on Czech humor's great appreciation of the absurd.
Both of them speak to me as if I understand, when I don't. But always there is some sense of communication achieved. Those tones. They resonate. Hearing them reinforces my sense of beauty in life's simple things. Sowing community in simple gestures, smiles, body language. Suddenly I can see how foreign cultures -- sometimes, anyway -- could initially interact positively with one another despite lacking a common language with which to speak. The common thread of humanity can be very powerful, before we start fighting over the resources.
Perhaps it's their loving vibes that have helped keep my father in good spirits despite the loss of life's normal comfort routines.
It's been 11+ years now since I first said goodbye to him at the airport when he moved back to his original home. I wept with therapeutic abandon that first time, because it represented such a monumental transition from an old way to however this story would end. From a block or a phone call away as a child, to an ocean and several time zones of separation as a young adult. It's not like I saw him often by that point, anyway: My sister's need for free rent had long since bumped my belongings out of his spare bedroom, and I was chasing adventures and delightful mistakes in college, anyway.
It was more what the transition represented -- all of life's earlier memories with him wrapped up, while an uncertain future lay ahead where I might see him once a year or, perhaps very soon, not at all. Emotions and sentiments tidily packaged in a moment like the sappy end of a chick flick. Haven't managed to cry at any of our partings since: as if that transition was already crossed and could shed no more tears.
Since then, the health issues (and calls focused on them) have steadily piled up, the visits evermore sporadic. But he's still forging along, creating new routines, getting by somehow. ... And still doing his taxes.
I love photos like those in this slideshow, depicting abandoned gas stations and the growth that takes them over. Particularly jarring to see the tree growing out of the old gas pump.
It reminds me of the work of Edward Burtynsky, who has some absolutely stunning images of giant quarries, mines, refineries, even China's Three Gorges Dam -- a project that, like the Grand Canyon, is so massive it is impossible to grasp on film without seeing it in person. The quarry photos are incredible -- you can click on the images to open a higher-res version that really brings the photos to life.
As he describes it, the images are meant to evoke "the dilemma of our modern existence":
"We are drawn by desire -- a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times."
There is the environmental angle, of course, but what I love about this sort of photography is how many themes you can let play in your head. Reminds me of our pass through Cairo (how I wish I had my good camera for that trip!).
For the gas stations, there is the passage of time, the relics and logos of our past (and childhood?), the shifting trends, fortunes and demographics of cities and suburbs, how kids make use of things that are trash to adults. Even a "what happens when we don't weed" motif -- outside of your walk or your neighbor's peer pressure, it's actually not all that bad! Certainly better than the old fuel station it's covering up.
If I'm not mistaken, the reason there are so many abandoned gas stations (as opposed to abandoned Starbuck's) is because the environmental clean-up/excavation cost of repurposing an old fuel station site is much, much greater than any other old retail space. Which is food for thought itself.
For the quarry and dumps photos, there is naturally (ha) the awe of volume when contemplating the billions of human consumers. But there's also the sheer scale of it all, that turns trucks into little toy specs at the bottom of a quarry. And the frightening sense that some of these images have an aesthetic beauty.
When we encounter a great landscape that was created by giant glaciers violently scraping the land millions of years ago, we are overcome by its natural beauty. But when we encounter a strikingly similar anomaly in the landscape created by a violence of our own doing -- years of harvesting ore, rock or whatever the resource -- it creates a different feeling entirely.
As Burtynsky points out, it doesn't change our mind about wanting "the good life," but it does give us pause about how we achieve it. A bit from a sardonic comedian -- I forget who -- joke about the silliness of "saving the planet." Because the planet is doing just fine: It will still be here and doesn't need saving -- it's us who are gonna be f*cked!
Which is both precisely the point and beside the point at the same time (a dual feat it seems only comedy can pull off): "Saving the planet" isn't about literally saving the planet, but rather extending our ability to use and coexist with it.
Which is why, in this peak oil era, it's long overdue that we invest our motives and capital in renewable energy sources (and later: population policies? the conversation will need to happen eventually). Sources like water, wind and the Sun. Which, incidentally, is the biggest fuel station of them all and the one thing we know for certain* will eventually doom the planet in a few billion years, whether we're still around or not.
*er, um, that's "just a theory." The solar system is only 6,000 years old. I said believe, dammit!
"Almost as much fun as the music was the monologues. Waits has a stand-up comedian side to him that’s been well-honed since his early years when he was balladeering and badgering barflies for tip money. One segment of banter was essentially an extended joke concerning “how hard it is to get a bad cup of coffee” nowadays, what with the Starbucks-ization of the planet, and how he was going back to instant coffee; the punchline went, “because the keyword there is ‘instant.’” (This is a joke Waits has apparently been telling and refining ever since a 1997 Allen Ginsberg tribute he was involved in.)"
-Harp Magazine, August 2006
Tom Waits is in St. Louis Thursday. I wanted to confirm that there's no opening band, and in my Google search I came across a great review (quoted above, and below) from his eight-show 2006 tour that not only totally whetted my appetite for the show, it also went into great detail explaining the anti-scalping measures they take.
The two-tickets per person, per household policy flummoxed me (and others) originally, because I wanted to buy tickets together with three others, as well as for another unsuspecting guest. This policy scratched that thought -- particularly amid the "better order now, they sell out fast, is it worth the price?" dilemma in the work-day moments when the sale began.
But among the revelations in the review: They do small venues because it's like a theater experience and they can better fight scalping that way (by requiring will call and such). On the last tour, tickets sold out in 20 minutes, and immediately following there were tickets on eBay and other places for 1500-2000 dollars! But it sounds like they were able to fight that -- including turning away people who had paid handsomely for scalped or even counterfeit tickets.
It's always annoyed me how you can get squeezed out of an actual ticket sale, and then minutes later find them on auction sites for a 400% markup.
Anyway, I also realized that, while it would be nice to sit with people I know, it sounds like the Tom Waits experience is something best seen like other theater: Take in the moment now, talk about it with your friend afterward.
"Upon reflection it occurs that a Waits concert is part musical exorcism, part extemporaneous theater, and a whole lotta psychological manipulation. It’s certainly a stage show, but it’s also larger than just a “show” – it’s something more emotionally extreme than that. The entire time attendees get so caught up in the moment – all 120 moments, in fact – that they never stop to ask themselves, “What am I seeing and hearing? What does this mean?” It’s that same spontaneous, willing suspension of belief you tumble into when taking in a particularly transcendent piece of cinema."
As you may have noticed, the site has changed. Sampa, the free-site host, did a version 2 of some sort.
Despite an FAQ that made it sound like allowing one's site to go through v.2 surgery would be okay, there were several flexibilities that surprisingly disappeared with the click of a button. (e.g. I cannot believe sidebars like this one are even narrower than before.)
And I'm told -- miraculously! -- that the conversion cannot be undone. Truth be told, I'm actually quite pissed. But free is free. Sampa has otherwise been good to me.
So I need to sort through site "features" to see how I can make do. Except that I don't have the time at the moment, in the middle of graduate classes and Lighthousehockey.com. (btw, I've removed that Lighthouse RSS feed so that you're not clogged with random Islanders hockey gibberish).
But I promise to touch up the accessories when I get a chance, and return to irregularly scheduled blogging.
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February, 2008