#always remember that poem that ends: “Then they came for the Jews

[thinkingmystic]

An interview with organised labour thoughtform, Ned Ludd

Today’s (semi-serious) post is inspired by Anne Johnson’s blog The Gods Are Bored. Anne has been interviewing bored deities for many years, and I thought I’d emulate her by interviewing the nineteenth century apocryphal figure, Ned Ludd. 

LB: Whaddup, Ned Ludd?

NL: I see what you did there. “Hanging loose”.

LB: As you should! Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today. 

NL: I sense a proposition. 

LB: Yes, indeed! You’ve kept abreast of recent technological advances I take?

NL: I have. It’s looking kind of bleak.

LB: This AI business is a little not good.

NL: Oh, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it per se.

LB: Really? I thought you’d be against it in principle.

NL: I’m not against technology in principle, just capitalism. It’s two different things, but the capitalists want you to see advancement as inextricably bound up in capitalism. There can be advancement just fine without exploitation. 

LB: I’m glad you feel that way, I do not want to forswear modern comforts!

NL: Ah, about that…

LB: Bad news, Ned?

NL: Eschewing some modern comforts will probably be necessary. Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs…

LB: Or a few knitting machines, am I right?

NL: Yes! The warning even back then was that mass production for maximal profit is untenable in the long term. As long as technological advancement is the lone purview of the venture capitalist, it is always going to tick down to a doomsday scenario. 

LB: So what, practically, are we to do?

NL: Break a few eggs! 

LB: What eggs, Ned? 

NL: Subscription services, same day delivery, products created in sweatshops, over consumption, doom scrolling, hashtags, white supremacy, major corporations, western individualism, saviour mentality, envy, influencers, the Kardashians, the algorithm…

LB: Whoa! That’s quite a list!

NL: Look, most people still have to participate in the system, but doing so with a little thought and awareness and the willingness to forgo some comforts can go a hell of a lot farther than shrugging your shoulders and saying, Oh, well, everyone else does it. Otherwise everyone will keep doing it until you reach the end of the line, and then what?

LB: What do you think the future is going to look like?

NL: I don’t think there is as much left of it as you all want to believe.

LB: But haven’t people of every era always said that - that the world was going to end?

NL: The world won’t end, just life as you know it. It can either improve or it can get worse. The choices you make now have an effect on that outcome. Individual choices as well as societal mores.

LB: So our choices should be…?

NL: Remember where I had my start: infamous breaker of knitting frames. If you told the original Luddites what the future would look like, they would struggle to grasp it; so much has changed. But they’d recognise the same impulse in things like AI and algorithms that they saw in the factory bosses encroaching on their specialised trade in favour of bad mass production. Your choices should always be for humanity, as much as you can, as often as you can. What’s that poem about coming for your neighbour? 

LB: You mean Pastor Martin Niemöller’s First They Came? 

First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me

NL: That’s the one! Notice how now, when you most need human solidarity, people are driven apart by hyper specific algorithms that cater to every negative and wanton thought, fear and belief? You don’t think that’s accidental, do you? It’s ironic, in light of the above poem, that even a people who suffered one of the most devastating attempts at extermination can turn around and do that to others. There is no better time to be more human than when all the apps and algorithms are trying to make you less so. 

LB: Those are fighting words, Ned Ludd.

NL: I’m a cross-dressing product of organised labour consciousness - did you expect anything less?

LB: Indeed not! It’s why I wanted to do this interview. We’ve talked practical actions - shall we talk impractical ones? 

NL: You want to go “full woo”.

LB: I want to go full woo! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with invoking a cross dressing, organised labour consciousness thoughtform to withstand the march of mindless, exploitative progress. It’s been a while, but do you think you’re up for the task?

NL: I’m happy to lead the charge on the “astral”. 

LB: Excellent! How can we best petition you?

NL: I have a fondness for ale, hammers, oaths of secrecy, guerrilla warfare, cross dressing, needlework and other specialised skills, assassination, and that “The Cropper Lads” tune. 

LB: We might have to skip the assassinations for the time being.

NL: That’s okay, I’m plenty patient.

LB: Err, right. But the ale and that, hey, that’s workable! Any parting thoughts as we wrap up this interview?

NL: The technocrats won’t hesitate to replace you. Replace them first. And: real resistance starts the moment you believe it’s possible it might make a difference. 

LB: What a thought to ponder! Thanks for your time, Ned. See you on the astral.

NL: It’s been a pleasure! Donate to Wikipedia! 

Well, there ya have it, folks! Some inspiration for resisting the technocrats, mundane and magickal alike. How are you pushing back?

[songue85]

Jesus, The Bible and Homosexuality

After I read some bad comments in this post, I just decided to read a few articles and the Bible myself, as some were saying that I had to do, because of their opinion of what they think Christ would actually want, and yeah, I read it. And you know what?

Jesus would not be against Homosexuality - a term only coined in the late 19th century, so let’s go with same-sex relationship.

If you want an argumentation, here: in The Gospel of Mark, Chapters 11 and 12, the ordinary people start to follow Jesus because He does not restrict the interpretation of the law (it’s the section of “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God��s.”, just for reference), but people forget a passage there in Mark 12, for instance:

28One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?”

29Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; 30and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

31The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

So yeah, first of all, Jesus explicit says, above all else, these two commandments: Love God and Love Everyone else.

Not just some. Not just the Right Wing. Not just the White. Not just the ones that you agree with.

Every. One.

And if you are still in doubt, remember Paul the Apostle in Galatians 3:23-28

23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

You read it, in the Bible, there is a passage that rejects gender identification for the believers in Christ. You are with Him (clothed yourself in Christ), you are not male or female, you are one in Him.

The most people try to use against same sex relationship comes from the Old Testament, but it is an issue over interpretation:

I’ll put the links here, because frankly it is a good but long read: https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality and https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality-for-starters-jesus-wasnt-a-homophobe-199424

However, this is not enough.

At the end of the day, when I myself found many conflicting passages, even about Christ and about the Old Testament and the New one as well, I had to say, to heck with it.

It is not a popular opinion, but I always try to remember that, not only interpretation of the Word, you should always interpret the author.

The Bible is not the Spoken Word of God. It is the Written Word of God. The Scribed Word of God. The Translated and Retranslated Word of God. The Interpreted Word of God. The word of God that Apostles taught about and men wrote books decades and centuries later about.

Burn down a church and it is only debris. Burn down two books into piles of ash and can you point me to a particular pile and say that this one contains the words of the Lord and teachings of the Son? You can’t, because in the end, paper burns and buildings topple and people are fallible.

I myself believe in God. I believe in the God in the pages, not in the words, if this can make it clearer. The God that is in the pages of the Bible and in the poems of those who preach love and in the speeches that reject violence and in the posts that promote good deeds and in the tweets that ask for help in charities and in the songs that exult joy to our world.

People are not perfect. We lie, we trick, and yes, we misinterpret good advices and good teachings to fit on what we think is the right, on what we were taught to be right. The Bible, at the end of the day, is just a book, written by men. The Church is just an organization of men and women. But I can feel God in them, most of the time.

I don’t feel the god mentioned in hate speeches, the angry god that politicians use against their targets, the god that rejects minorities typed down by bigots and racists and TERFs in social media, these are not God.

I may be conflicted and not enlightened in many subjects of the Faith, but I am sure of this: God is good and Jesus was a true bro.

[margie-lovitos]

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF INDIAN LITERATURE WITH ITS SYNOPSIS ND LEARNINGS:

RAMAYANA

THE PARABLE OF RETURNING LOVE FOR HATRED

THE PANCHATANTRA

THE DUEL BETWEEN THE ELEPHANT AND THE SPARROW

THE MAHABHARATA

GITANJALI

THE LION MAKERS

1. PANCHATANTRA

Panchatantra is a huge collection of fables originally written in the Sanskrit language. Each of the Panchatantra stories for kids has an associated moral. These morals are taught to kids through the plot and characters of the stories. Probably that’s why parents and school curriculum make sure that kids are introduced to at least some of these stories. Panchatantra short stories make for an interesting read.

2.THE MAHABHARATA

When faced with grey areas of decision making that affect a big number of individuals, Lord Krishna would have us think that we must remember that we are social as well as moral creatures and that we must make a decision that is best suited for the maximum number of our stakeholders. The Mahabharata is one of the greatest Hindu epics, and each character has something to teach us.

Lord Krishna, Lord Vishnu's avatar, won the war by using every unfair trick in the book. His deceptions and deceptions helped the Pandavas win the war, but they lost far too much in the process. Hastinapur is the last destination.   

3. THE PARABLE OF RETURNING LOVE FOR HATRED

In a nutshell, the plot revolves around a robbery victim (probably certainly a Jew) who is found half-dead on the road to Jericho. A Jewish priest and a Levite refused to help, possibly fearing that it was a plan or that they would be plundered if they stayed. But it was a Samaritan (whom the Jews despised) who came to the rescue, administered first aid, transported the victim to an inn, and made arrangements for his care. A Jew in need was a neighbor to the Samaritan.

4.THE DUEL BETWEEN THE ELEPHANT AND THE SPARROW

Once upon a time, there lived a sparrow with her husband on a banyan tree. One afternoon, a wild elephant came under the tree unable to bear the heat of the sun. Unfortunately, all the eggs of the sparrow got crushed though the parents were saved. You have to find a way to kill that elephant. We need your help. The she-sparrow, the woodpecker and the fly went to the frog and narrated the whole incident. The next day in the noon, all the three played out the plan and the elephant was killed.

Lesson of this story is that Wit is superior to brute force.

5.GITANJALI

What I’ve learned about this is that no matter what happens we should thank and praise God with all our heart and soul by offering a song of praises.

6.RAMAYANA

Rama, the crown prince of ancient Ayodhya and an earthly incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, is the protagonist of the Ramayana. He is also the protagonist of the poem, which tells the epic story of Rama's mission. In this lesson, students will read an abridged version of the Ramayana and consider how parts of the story of Rama, such as the Epic Hero Cycle, situate it within the epic poetry tradition.

One of the things I took away from this narrative was that pride always comes to an end. It was when Ravana was a powerful warrior who had been granted immortality by Lord Shiva, but his pride led to his demise. The Ramayana teaches us about humility since Vibhishana, Ravana's modest brother, played a significant role in the evil demon's death.

7. THE LION MAKERS

Once upon a time, there lived four friends. Three of them were highly educated. The fourth friend was not educated but had lot of common sense. They decided to travel their neighbouring countries and use their skills there to get rich. It was the first chance to test their knowledge.

The lion roared and jumped to the three educated men. The lion had made a great feast of them. It left the place, very satisfied. The uneducated man climbed up a tall tree and brought the lion back to life with the will of god. He then went home safely.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF HEBREW LITERATURE:

1.THE STORY OF RUTH

2. THE STORY OF JOSEPH

3. THE PARABLE OF TALENTS

1. THE STORY OF RUTH

This story impart that It's difficult to hope when life has dealt you a blow. It's difficult to have faith. But it's when things are the most tough that faith and hope are most needed. Start with a little faith in the moments when life feels like it's crushing you.

2. THE STORY OF JOSEPH

This story made me realize that God sometimes speaks to us in ways that are only meant for our hearing.

Joseph had a tendency to daydream. But it was also because Joseph shared his goals with his brothers that his brothers were envious. They did come true over time, but hearing about them caused a tremendous deal of discord and jealousy in his family.

3. THE PARABLE OF TALENTS

God always provides us with everything we need to do what he has called us to do, according to the Parable of the Talents. We might sympathize with the servant who earned only one talent, but in actuality, he received as much as a million dollars from the master and buried it in his backyard. He was provided with more than enough to meet the master's requirements.

God wants us to generate a return by employing our abilities for productive goals, just as the master wanted his employees to do more than passively preserve what has been entrusted to them. The servants were given enough to generate more; the same is true of the gifts that God has bestowed upon us.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF PERSIAN LITERATURE:

1. THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM

2. HELL AND HEAVEN

3. THE SHAH NAMAH

4. THE PRINCE OF PERSIA

5. THE BEAUTIFUL QUEEN OF PERSIA

1.  THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM

This is an example of a lyric poem in which most of the subjects talks about life and love.

2.  HELL AND HEAVEN

My learnings in this story is that in life, we have two different groups of people . They can be the people whom can accept us for who we are and the other is what we call the bad influence to us and will able to tolerate our bad doings.

3.  THE SHAH NAMAH

This book is about human consciousness. This immortal quest tend to explain the truth and of justice.

4. THE PRINCE OF PERSIA

This story views about loyalty, brotherly love and doing the right thing. In life, It is necessary that we possess that attributes for us to be able to walk in the right decision and path.

5. THE QUEEN OF PERSIA

This story views that how feminism is important to the Persian. It emphasizes that Women can rule his kingdom and tells us that beauty should not make us boastful and so we will always remember that our past doesn’t dictate our future.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF ARABIAN LITERATURE:

1. ARABIAN NIGHTS

2. THE FOOD OF PARADISE

1. ARABIAN NIGHTS

This story tells about Fidelity. As we can observe in the story, The attribute which is Fidelity is driven force that enable the two brothers to be together.

2. FOOD OF PARADISE

This story entails about how hope and faith rule the place in Religions and changes the beliefs of the people.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF LEBANESE LITERATURE:

1. THE SAYINGS OF THE BROOK

2. SIMON WHO WAS CALLED PETER

1. THE SAYINGS OF THE BROOK

This books teaches us that life has lots of hurdles and or trials but we should not stop dreaming and continue achieving our goals and dreams in life.

2. SIMON WHO WAS CALLED PETER

This story  entails that we should have a close connection with God.To get closer to him, We should build a relationship and need to take necessary steps to move closer to him and follow his command.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF CHINESE LITERATURE:

1.THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS

2.WORKS OF CHINESE POETS LI PO, LAO TZU, PO CHU I , AND WANG  WEI

3.A LITTLE INCIDENT

1.  THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS

This book tells us that we should be kind to the people around us and treat them well and anything you don’t want to happen to yourself, Don’t ever impose it to others.

2.  WORKS OF CHINESE POETS LI PO, LAO TZU, PO CHU I , AND WANG  WEI

3.  A LITTLE INCIDENT

What I learned about this story is that kindness lies in everyone’s heart. This implies on how kindness takes place in everyone’s life. 

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF JAPANESE LITERATURE:

1.THE THIEF WHO BECAME A DISCIPLE

2.MADMAN ON THE ROOF

3. MY NATIVE VILLAGE

4. THE PICTURE OF WIFE

5. THE SPIDER’S THREAD

1.  THE THIEF WHO BECAME A DISCIPLE

This story tells about change because No matter how bad a person was, There is always hope that they’d change for the better. No matter how bad they were before , they deserve to have a scond chance.

2. THE MADMAN ON THE ROOF

This story tells about the perception of life, sanity and nature. This depicts that we should not be able to be insecure or get envy to others because all of us are unique beings.

3.  MY NATIVE VILLAGE

This story tells about that we should be observant, talk less and listen more to people. No matter where you are, You should always remember the place where you live before.

4.  THE PICTURE OF WIFE

This story tells about Women should be cared and loved for who they are and put a high respect for them even if she is already your wife.

5.  THE SPIDER’S THREAD

This story tells about  the state of mind of a person. This tells about compassion and salvation. This implies about hope and fragility.

THE FOLLOWING ARE THE LITERARY WORKS OF KOREAN LITERATURE:

1.THE ZEN MONKS AND THE GOVERNOR

2. THE VANITY OF THE RAT

1.  THE ZEN MONKS AND THE GOVERNOR

This story emphasizes the practice of meditation as it could somewhat helps people to awaken  the inner  nature of a person, wisdom and also compassion.

2. THE VANITY OF THE RAT

This story tells on how our decisions affects our entire life. This somehow gives us on to decide our own ,especially in choosing the right person to us.

[definitefraggle]

thought-vomit

1. What if... we could critically examine our own sexual and non-sexual desires within the context of the society and power dynamics we grew up in... and STILL NOT shame or harrass anyone else over their own desires? It’s almost like it’s possible to do both!

2. Persuadable targets are the most effective targets. If you phonebank or canvass for a Democrat, your canvass director won’t send you to knock on the doors or call the homes of hardcore Repubicans. They’ll send you after people who are gettable. So it makes sense that antis go after people who are “gettable” in pursuit of ridding their online spaces of content they dislike.

3. What makes the majority-female population of Tumblr Fanfic Fandom “gettable” or less scary to go after vs. straight cis boys at the chonz or Pornhub or e-hentai, etc., is worth examining and critiquing. In other words: the very things that make women “persuadable” ties directly into how women are socialized by a misogynistic world to be accomodating and to put the desires of others over our own. It’s logical to prey on that weakness (probably subconsciously, to be fair) but also gross.

4. Antis would probably be opening themselves up for harrassment/doxxing/etc. if they DID go after the straight cis boys and their objectively much more politically distasteful porn

5. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating and rage-inducing when they don’t go after those guys. Like, if you care about Problematic Porn and ridding the world of it, porn for straight cis dudes is always going to be worse. Always! And you don’t even have to go to Pornhub, plenty of it is right here on Tumblr!

6. In the Ye Olde 90s and Early 2000s, the sexy trendy hot-in-the-streets crusade was that Fanfic Should Be Well-Written and You Should Be Fine With Strangers Critiquing Your Work and People Who Say They Write Fanfic Just For Fun Aka just want to write what they want and get praised for it no matter the quality level are Aliens We Cannot Understand! And Their Bad Fanfic Is Annoying To Sift Through And it Shouldn't Be This Way!

In retrospect, that was really dumb, like the anti stuff is. The difference is, calling someone a bad writer is much, much less harsh and damaging than calling someone a PEDOPHILE. 

It is also much easier to doxx people these days than it was then. It's also much easier to whip up a mob against people these days than it was then because there are simply more people using the internet now.

There were ship wars back then, also -- I remember hearing, perhaps falsely, that someone was even doxxed or had their employer called during the Ray Wars -- but, again, it's so much easier to doxx and mob people now.

It's also frustrating, as a political junkie who is heavily invested in the world becoming a more just place for the people with the least amount of power, to see what are often basically ship wars using the language of social justice. Like, issues of race, sex, class, etc., obviously affect all aspects of life, including hobbies like fanfic writing, and I am totally on board with, as I said at the start, critically examining everything through that lens. Even masturbation! I'm fine with naval-gazing and discussing and thinking shit over! More than fine with it.

But using those issues disingenuously to basically push for your preferred ship over those icky ships you dislike... it's just making a mockery of these battles that people literally bled and died for. It's beyond stupid.

7. I hope at some point, some ex-anti can do some kind of red-yarn-murder-board and show me if all of this degraded version of meta and discourse literally just came from ontd and sf_d folks jumping ship from LJ to tumblr. Aka, people just moving toxic communities from one platform to another. I mean, I am happy to be proven wrong, show me how it actually started, I'd love to see it. I just, idk, there's probably a really interesting post to be made by someone who was actually part of the first waves of this.

8. I was there for Strikethrough and Boldthrough and I was definitely... amused/irritated at the time at all the, "HOIST THE PIRATE FLAG! TO THE BARRICADES!" rhetoric and I had a looooot of Jew!rage at the CONSTANT invocations of the PASTOR MARTIN NIEMOLLER POEM over FANFIC PORNOGRAPHY even though in past years I had been more chill on parodies of it and in recent years I am much more chill about it again, but I tended to keep my mouth shut because I wasn't one of those affected by the deletions. 

All that said, AO3 ended up being a great thing to come out of it. Boldthrough/Strikethrough was something that legitimately was scary to fanfic writers and really should have been scary to anyone that even wants to discuss books, let alone write fiction of any kind -- I think a Lolita discussion community was deleted?! A community discussing a frickin' book? That should bother you, and if it doesn't, idek what to do with you.

I am not a free speech absolutist, I believe in censoring and no-platforming hate speech and I think there are discussions to be had about what kind of speech and art you want in your community vs. what you don't.

But AO3 had that discussion, and they made the decisions they made, and they made them for reasons I understand and support. If you don't like it: Weebly is right there, bud, make your own archive for your own fic.

My point is: I was not a "HOIST THE MIZZENMAST, LADS! WE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM!" person during Strikethrough and even I know that it wasn't a CABAL OF PEDOS trying to KEEP PEDO-ING AROUND ffs. Stop lying about shit you weren't even around for.

I’m personally veeeery uncomfortable with chan/actual underage fic but if everyone who read or wrote it was a pedophile, then ... look, there cannot statistcally be that many pedophiles. If you think that many people are legitmately sexually attracted to irl children, your personal project shouldn't be ridding the internet of fanfic, it should be working on NUKING THE HUMAN RACE because too many of us aren't attracted to adults and our species no longer works. Like, it's Twelve Monkeys Virus time if you think these are the stats.

8. I hope antis shipping symbrock is the equivalent of when me and other Fanfic! Should! Be Good! people eventually evolved, like pokemon, into Fanfic! Should! Be Porn! people, but it's also fucking frustrating lololol

[fairest]

DIDN’T GO TO TWITTER YESTERDAY - September 12, 2018

Find your country. 

In the American food court of O’Hare’s Terminal 3, eating my bean & whole egg burrito from Burrito Beach, I thought, the Viet Cong were the Dirt Bag left of their time.

Except the Viet Cong knew how to kill red state Americans.

(At that time red states were blue, weird.)

The only thing the Dirt Bag left knows how to do is put two pictures side by side on a timeline.

But there is hope.

Maybe once, in the past, all the Viet Cong could do was tweet, too.

Maybe it’s only the beginning for the Dirt Bag Left and at the beginning there is only talking, organizing.

Right now it’s still the Truman years.

Dewey defeats Truman, Clinton defeats Trump.

Right now it’s still the French colonizing the American mind (all these poems hurt my feelings and all the Marx bullshit) and in 50 years we will find the right American words and we will remember how to die.

Project for an extremely online leftist: Google Image Viet Cong & Google Image Dirt Bag Left and place the images side by side on Twitter.

I have this note here: On the airplane, the milf reads her thriller.

I have this note here from long ago: a male pilot who misses his flight reading a romance novel.

Find your country.

Today, my wife’s 34th birthday, I saw a young man sitting on the curb, coming to the end of a novel.

The streets smelled of a rain that had passed over.

The farmer’s market band was singing: find. your. country. find your. country.

My wife was holding our son.

We were warmed by the cool sun, my honesty.

What my honesty has done to my perception, how it has allowed me to see things which I could never look at, because someone else was looking.

I asked my wife, is that The Corrections or The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? And my wife said, it’s The Corrections.

Writers always look at the books people are reading.

In fact it’s one of the only things a writer can do.

It is hard for me to edit my novel during this outpouring because the characters in my third person omniscient novel live to deceive themselves, but here, for this waterworks, I am admitting myself (admit one) in the first person.

I was watching the farmer’s market band and thinking to myself, musician is the only honorable profession, everyone else is a scab.

How can you face yourself, sitting there looking at Visio and TweetDeck, when you could just as easily pick up that guitar and strum.

I can still see the couch where I finished The Corrections, a cheap college couch, I cried on the last page.

I only remember one sentence, it’s the only sentence I almost remember from a Franzen novel: ‘she was going to make some changes in her life’.

It comes at the very end. It’s about the character Enid Franzen. Chip Franzen’s mommy. 

The novel ends on a note of supreme, mainstream hope, an almost Bellovian hope.

Nothing says hope more than making changes.

Hope: One day Mr. Sammler goes to bed with the right papers.

Who was the Tolstoy of the Jews? 

Franzen the Great. Our last great male Jewish novelist.

It was also the couch where AbercrombieAnnie1983 (the best screw[s]of my life) told me she had herpes, and I said so I can’t see you anymore (I can’t fuck you anymore) I can’t love you anymore (I won’t fuck you with a disease). 

I can still smell Annie’s pussy and now you can too. It wasn’t odorless like Kardashian pussy, it had a focused smell.

I used to write things like that in MFA school and people would look at me with hatred, disgust, like they were my grandmother, so I tried to stop doing it.

Style is what you are trying to stop doing?

All of that was in my head for different periods of time and different amounts of headspace, standing in the cool sun listening to the farmer’s market band run through the changes for Find Your Country, on my wife’s birthday.

My wife is a the one. 

That’s not a typo, my wife is a ‘the one’.

It took Karl Ove 240 or so pages to leave his wife, go back to his MFA school, propose love to his mistress or some girl he used to know in college…. 

It would take me eleven million words to leave my wife.

It’s just hard to imagine.

When I see my wife’s friends I think, you gals have aged. When I see my wife she looks the same as she did the day before I met her.

As a good man (I am a good man, my father is a great man, my grandfather was an OK man, his father was a bad, bad man) I searched long and hard for a the one and when I find a the one my memory was erased.

Even AbercrombieAnnie1983 (in 2001) is gone.

It takes 5-7 generations for the badness of man to reach full flavor.

For best results, drink 3 to 4 generations per day.

I read a clearly engaging essay yesterday by Charles Finch … who I know in real life … hi Charles ... but he is not the Charles I mentioned yesterday ... who said ... critics are bitter people … about Karl Ove and it reminded me how part of Karl Ove’s Q&A … like when an indie bookstore talks to Karl Ove … what they Q&A about … is that he “gave up” on art.

Like he “gave up” on art the way Henry Miller gave up on art when he broke the sound barrier of the autobiographical novel, but like Andy told me that time in Vilnius, nobody reads Henry Miller anymore, Stuart, and I added in my own head, not even me.

Miller once said it got to the point of madness where no matter what I said about the man I could have easily have said the exact opposite.

Although I’m back in New York … that’s why I was at the airport this morning thinking about the Viet Cong … and I always bring Aller Retour New York in my bag when I come back, although I haven’t opened it for 12 years or so, and I didn’t bring it this time, I brought Eros the Bittersweet instead, which got Burrito Beach red salsa sauce on it and now is kind of fucked up.

Karl Ove fits easily into Algren’s criticism of Henry Miller: the problem with Karl Ove is that he thinks he thinks.

Much more than Miller himself does.

That’s my problem. I think I think.

This reminds me a lot of David Frum.

I feel like I made fun of David Frum the last few days but I don’t know David Frum.

Making fun of people you don’t know is for people who go to Twitter. 

I didn’t go to Twitter yesterday.

Sorry David Frum.

Thought about tweeting yesterday: 

At the Tribeca Target, my wife said even the mannequins are fat now, and I told her she should tweet that. I’m not going to tweet it’s insane that Tribeca has a Target.

I came to this sentence in Charles’ essay, which gave me a painful pang of recognition: writers who leave more questions than they answer.

I thought to myself, am I a desperate amateur who thinks he thinks and leaves more questions than I answer?

I wrote a humor piece … the only literary criticism possible for me … since literature is hilarious … about Karl Ove … this was like five years ago … I wrote it in Managua … because Dario is boring in English … it was about why Karl Ove is famous … because people like to say ‘Karl Ove’ … you know … like the Seinfeld joke about salsa … that people only like salsa because they like to say salsa … you know I’d been to parties … and people said Karl Ove … but when they said Karl Ove they didn’t mean Karl Ove … they meant themselves … like when they say David Foster Wallace they don’t mean David Foster Wallace … they mean themselves … I did a search for the unpublished article a few moments ago … I was going to send it to HTMLGiant or The Awl at the time … I must’ve erased it … if you’re interested, I’ll leave a broken link to it in show notes.

Giving up is something only men can do.

I have this note here: something only men can do.

I have this note here: A list of verbs from mammals before humans that humans can also do but it’s just the kind of “good writing” with “strong, interesting verbs”: crawl, pounce, slither, wag, others? Use them during editing process.

Women are not allowed to give up.

Men are allowed to give up when they want to harness creativity.

That Picasso line … it took me a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child … if a woman said that she would be laughed out of the salon.

Don’t paint like a child, grow up, paint like a man.

Sometimes I wonder if female writers are burning up, they have ten thousand words to go, and they look over at their husband, and he’s fast asleep. 

I don’t give up.

I am trying pretty hard right now.

I detest creativity.

I am uninterested in the expanding of my mind I want a long, drawn out compression that lasts longer they I could with AbercrombieAnnie1983.

Creativity takes me always from behind. 

It’s weird my president is mad at Nike, they make a shoe called Air Force One, then again he likes his own plane.

Creativity takes a step back for a moment, long after I am miles ahead.  

I am scared of creativity. 

American writers spend a long time being afraid of advertising.

It takes an American writer 900,000 private words before they can say to themselves: fuck advertising.

The Charles Mingus composition Myself When I Am Real, how does it go again, is it a vamp or a romp? Is it a song, or a book? 

For the longest time as a child I would think to myself, I am not creative enough.

I believe in God, saints, angles—the triune stumbling block to creativity. But I don’t believe in fairies, goblins, witches, Batman, the ruling class, late capitalism, planets with more than one moon … Luke Skywalker’s farming planet … I never believed that shit.

If a woman gave up on art man would say, cool have a kid.

I have a note here about men’s bodies that make my cock move: the young falafeltarian waiters wear tight white polos. Does a man still starch a polo these days? My fantasy: their nails clipped in half-moons.

I wrote my wife a card for her birthday.

Happy birthday my love. The wine was dark. The food clean. The service sucked. The conversation spoke to us. There will never be another you.

I wrote her a card from our son, too.

I am scared to die for my country. 

My son might not be. 

I wrote it out with my right hand to be cute (editor’s note: the desperate amateur who thinks he thinks asking more questions than he can answer is, IRL, a lefty). 

Writing the card backward was a notable experience.

I fucked up cute all words except the word Mommy. 

I write mommy almost if not equally well with my right hand as with my left. 

Maybe it’s because I have so much hope.

I have so much hope for the world, my son, my wife, my mommy even though she is old.

My mama’s got cancer in her breast, don’t ask me why I’m motherfucking stressed, things done changed.

I hug my wife, between us our son.

Find Your Country.

Hold your influences close.

Hold your closest influence closer.

[justforbooks]

When Leonard Cohen was twenty-five, he was living in London, sitting in cold rooms writing sad poems. He got by on a three-thousand-dollar grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. This was 1960, long before he played the festival at the Isle of Wight in front of six hundred thousand people. In those days, he was a Jamesian Jew, the provincial abroad, a refugee from the Montreal literary scene. Cohen, whose family was both prominent and cultivated, had an ironical view of himself. He was a bohemian with a cushion whose first purchases in London were an Olivetti typewriter and a blue raincoat at Burberry. Even before he had much of an audience, he had a distinct idea of the audience he wanted. In a letter to his publisher, he said that he was out to reach “inner-directed adolescents, lovers in all degrees of anguish, disappointed Platonists, pornography-peepers, hair-handed monks and Popists

Cohen was growing weary of London’s rising damp and its gray skies. An English dentist had just yanked one of his wisdom teeth. After weeks of cold and rain, he wandered into a bank and asked the teller about his deep suntan. The teller said that he had just returned from a trip to Greece. Cohen bought an airline ticket.

Not long afterward, he alighted in Athens, visited the Acropolis, made his way to the port of Piraeus, boarded a ferry, and disembarked at the island of Hydra. With the chill barely out of his bones, Cohen took in the horseshoe-shaped harbor and the people drinking cold glasses of retsina and eating grilled fish in the cafés by the water; he looked up at the pines and the cypress trees and the whitewashed houses that crept up the hillsides. There was something mythical and primitive about Hydra. Cars were forbidden. Mules humped water up the long stairways to the houses. There was only intermittent electricity. Cohen rented a place for fourteen dollars a month. Eventually, he bought a whitewashed house of his own, for fifteen hundred dollars, thanks to an inheritance from his grandmother.

Hydra promised the life Cohen had craved: spare rooms, the empty page, eros after dark. He collected a few paraffin lamps and some used furniture: a Russian wrought-iron bed, a writing table, chairs like “the chairs that van Gogh painted.” During the day, he worked on a sexy, phantasmagoric novel called “The Favorite Game” and the poems in a collection titled “Flowers for Hitler.” He alternated between extreme discipline and the varieties of abandon. There were days of fasting to concentrate the mind. There were drugs to expand it: pot, speed, acid. “I took trip after trip, sitting on my terrace in Greece, waiting to see God,” he said years later. “Generally, I ended up with a bad hangover.”

Here and there, Cohen caught glimpses of a beautiful Norwegian woman. Her name was Marianne Ihlen, and she had grown up in the countryside near Oslo. Her grandmother used to tell her, “You are going to meet a man who speaks with a tongue of gold.” She thought she already had: Axel Jensen, a novelist from home, who wrote in the tradition of Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. She had married Jensen, and they had a son, little Axel. Jensen was not a constant husband, however, and, by the time their child was four months old, Jensen was, as Marianne put it, “over the hills again” with another woman.

One spring day, Ihlen was with her infant son in a grocery store and café. “I was standing in the shop with my basket waiting to pick up bottled water and milk,” she recalled decades later, on a Norwegian radio program. “He is standing in the doorway with the sun behind him.” Cohen asked her to join him and his friends outside. He was wearing khaki pants, sneakers, a shirt with rolled sleeves, and a cap. The way Marianne remembered it, he seemed to radiate “enormous compassion for me and my child.” She was taken with him. “I felt it throughout my body,” she said. “A lightness had come over me.”

Cohen had known some success with women. He would know a great deal more. For a troubadour of sadness—“the godfather of gloom,” he was later called—Cohen found frequent respite in the arms of others. As a young man, he had a kind of Michael Corleone Before the Fall look, sloe-eyed, dark, a little hunched, but high courtesy and verbal fluency were his charm. When he was thirteen, he read a book on hypnotism. He tried out his new discipline on the family housekeeper, and she took off her clothes. Not everyone over the years was quite as bewitched. Nico spurned him, and Joni Mitchell, who had once been his lover, remained a friend but dismissed him as a “boudoir poet.” But these were the exceptions.

Leonard began spending more and more time with Marianne. They went to the beach, made love, kept house. Once, when they were apart—Marianne and Axel in Norway, Cohen in Montreal scraping up some money—he sent her a telegram: “Have house all I need is my woman and her son. Love, Leonard.”

There were times of separation, times of argument and jealousy. When Marianne drank, she could go into a dark rage. And there were infidelities on both sides. (“Good gracious. All the girls were panting for him,” Marianne recalled. “I would dare go as far as to say that I was on the verge of killing myself due to it.”)

In the mid-sixties, as Cohen started to record his songs and win worldly success, Marianne became known to his fans as that antique figure—the muse. A memorable photograph of her, dressed only in a towel, and sitting at the desk in the house on Hydra, appeared on the back of Cohen’s second album, “Songs from a Room.” But, after they’d been together for eight years, the relationship came apart, little by little—“like falling ashes,” as Cohen put it.

Cohen was spending more time away from Hydra pursuing his career. Marianne and Axel stayed on awhile on Hydra, then left for Norway. Eventually, Marianne married again. But life had its burdens, particularly for Axel, who has had persistent health problems. What Cohen’s fans knew of Marianne was her beauty and what it had inspired: “Bird on the Wire,” “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye,” and, most of all, “So Long, Marianne.” She and Cohen stayed in touch. When he toured in Scandinavia, she visited him backstage. They exchanged letters and e-mails. When they spoke to journalists and to friends of their love affair, it was always in the fondest terms.

In late July 2016, Cohen received an e-mail from Jan Christian Mollestad, a close friend of Marianne’s, saying that she was suffering from cancer. In their last communication, Marianne had told Cohen that she had sold her beach house to help insure that Axel would be taken care of, but she never mentioned that she was sick. Now, it appeared, she had only a few days left. Cohen wrote back immediately:

Well Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.

Two days later, Cohen got an e-mail from Norway:

Dear Leonard

Marianne slept slowly out of this life yesterday evening. Totally at ease, surrounded by close friends.

Your letter came when she still could talk and laugh in full consciousness. When we read it aloud, she smiled as only Marianne can. She lifted her hand, when you said you were right behind, close enough to reach her.

It gave her deep peace of mind that you knew her condition. And your blessing for the journey gave her extra strength. . . . In her last hour I held her hand and hummed “Bird on the Wire,” while she was breathing so lightly. And when we left the room, after her soul had flown out of the window for new adventures, we kissed her head and whispered your everlasting words.

So long, Marianne . . .

Cohen died on November 7, 2016 at the age of 82 at his home in Los Angeles; cancer was a contributing cause. According to his manager, Cohen's death was the result of a fall at his home on the night of November 7, and he subsequently died in his sleep.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[dfroza]

stating his defense

against false accusations.

A case we see with Paul in Today’s chapter of the ancient book of Acts:

[Paul’s Trial before Felix]

Five days later, Ananias the high priest arrived in Caesarea, accompanied by some Jewish elders and Tertullus, their prosecuting attorney. They were brought before the governor to present formal charges against Paul. After Paul was summoned, Tertullus accused him, saying, “Your Excellency Felix, under the shadow of your wise leadership we Jews have experienced a long period of peace. Because of your wise foresight, many reforms are coming to pass in our nation because of you, Most Honorable Felix. We deeply appreciate this and thank you very much.

“So that I won’t weary you with a lengthy presentation, I beg you to hear our brief summary, with your customary graciousness. For we have found this man to be a contagious plague, a seditious man who continually stirs up riots among the Jews all over the world. He has become a ringleader of the sect known as the Nazarenes. He has even attempted to desecrate our temple, which is why we had him arrested. We sought to judge him according to our law, but Commander Lysias came with great force, snatched him away from our hands, and sent him here to you. He has ordered his accusers to come to you so that you could interrogate him and ascertain for yourself that all these charges we are bringing against him are true.”

All the Jews present joined in the verbal attack, saying, “Yes, it’s true!”

[Paul’s Defense before Felix]

The governor motioned that it was Paul’s turn to speak, so he began to answer the accusations.

“Because I know that you have been a judge over this nation for many years, I gladly respond in my defense. You can easily verify that about twelve days ago, I went to Jerusalem to worship. No one found me arguing with anyone or causing trouble among the people in the synagogues or in the temple or anywhere in the city. They are completely unable to prove these accusations they make against me.

“But I do confess this to you: I worship the God of our Jewish ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. For I believe everything that is written in the Law and the Prophets. And my hope is in God, the same hope that even my accusers have embraced, the hope of a resurrection from the dead of both the righteous and the unrighteous. That’s why I seek with all my heart to have a clean conscience toward God and toward others.

“After being away from Jerusalem for several years, I returned to bring to my people gifts for the poor. I was in the temple, ritually purified and presenting my offering to God, when they seized me. I had no noisy crowd around me, and I wasn’t causing trouble or making any kind of disturbance whatsoever. It was a group of Jews from western Turkey who were being unruly; they are the ones who should be here now to bring their charges if they have anything against me. Or at least these men standing before you should clearly state what crime they found me guilty of when I stood before the Jewish supreme council, unless it’s the one thing I passionately spoke out when I stood among them. I am on trial today only because of my belief in the resurrection of the dead.”

Felix, who was well acquainted with the facts about the Way, concluded the hearing with these words: “I will decide your case after Commander Lysias arrives.” He then ordered the captain to keep Paul in protective custody, but to give him a measure of freedom, he allowed any of his friends to visit him and help take care of his needs.

[Paul Speaks to Felix and Drusilla]

Several days later, Felix came back with his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish. They sent for Paul and listened as he shared with them about faith in Jesus, the Anointed One. As Paul spoke about true righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment, Felix became terrified and said, “Leave me for now. I’ll send for you later when it’s more convenient.”

He expected to receive a bribe from Paul for his release, so for that reason he would send for Paul from time to time to converse with him.

Two years later, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. Before he left office he decided to leave Paul in prison as a political favor to the Jews.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 24 (The Passion Translation)

to be followed up by reading from Today’s Psalms and Proverbs for january 20:

[Psalm 20]

For the worship leader. A song of David.

May the Eternal’s answer find you, come to rescue you,

when you desperately cling to the end of your rope.

May the name of the True God of Jacob be your shelter.

May He extend hope and help to you from His holy sanctuary

and support you from His sacred city of Zion.

May He remember all that you have offered Him;

may your burnt sacrifices serve as a prelude to His mercy.

[pause]

May He grant the dreams of your heart

and see your plans through to the end.

When you win, we will not be silent! We will shout

and raise high our banners in the great name of our God!

May the Eternal say yes to all your requests.

I don’t fear; I’m confident that help will come to the one anointed by the Eternal:

heaven will respond to his plea;

His mighty right hand will win the battle.

Many put their hope in chariots, others in horses,

but we place our trust in the name of the Eternal One, our True God.

Soon our enemies will collapse and fall, never to return home;

all the while, we will rise and stand firm.

Eternal One, grant victory to our king!

Answer our plea for help.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 20 (The Voice)

and a few of these lines from The Message:

That clinches it—help’s coming,

an answer’s on the way,

everything’s going to work out.

See those people polishing their chariots,

and those others grooming their horses?

But we’re making garlands for God our God.

The chariots will rust,

those horses pull up lame—

and we’ll be on our feet, standing tall.

Make the king a winner, God;

the day we call, give us your answer.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 20:6-9 (The Message)

[Psalm 31]

A David Psalm

I run to you, God; I run for dear life.

Don’t let me down!

Take me seriously this time!

Get down on my level and listen,

and please—no procrastination!

Your granite cave a hiding place,

your high cliff aerie a place of safety.

You’re my cave to hide in,

my cliff to climb.

Be my safe leader,

be my true mountain guide.

Free me from hidden traps;

I want to hide in you.

I’ve put my life in your hands.

You won’t drop me,

you’ll never let me down.

I hate all this silly religion,

but you, God, I trust.

I’m leaping and singing in the circle of your love;

you saw my pain,

you disarmed my tormentors,

You didn’t leave me in their clutches

but gave me room to breathe.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 31:1-8 (The Message)

and the same lines mirrored in The Passion Translation:

How Great Is Your Goodness

For the Pure and Shining One

A song of poetic praise, by King David

I trust you, Lord, to be my hiding place.

Don’t let me down.

Don’t let my enemies bring me to shame.

Come and rescue me, for you are the only God

who always does what is right.

Rescue me quickly when I cry out to you.

At the sound of my prayer may your ear be turned to me.

Be my strong shelter and hiding place on high.

Pull me into victory and breakthrough.

For you are my high fortress, where I’m kept safe.

You are to me a stronghold of salvation.

When you deliver me out of this peril,

it will bring glory to your name.

As you guide me forth I’ll be kept safe

from the hidden snares of the enemy—

the secret traps that lie before me—

for you have become my rock of strength.

Into your hands I now entrust my spirit.

O Lord, the God of faithfulness,

you have rescued and redeemed me.

I despise these deceptive illusions,

all this pretense and nonsense,

for I worship only you.

In mercy you have seen my troubles and you have cared for me;

even during this crisis in my soul I will be radiant with joy,

filled with praise for your love and mercy.

You have kept me from being conquered by my enemy;

you broke open the way to bring me to freedom,

into a beautiful, broad place.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 31:1-8 (The Passion Translation)

[Proverbs 20]

Too much wine begins to mock you,

too much strong drink leads to noisy fights,

and whoever is misled by either is not wise.

A king’s wrath strikes fear like a lion’s roar;

those who provoke him to anger sentence themselves to death.

Honor is due those who refuse to fight at the drop of a hat,

but every fool jumps at an opportunity to quarrel.

A slacker procrastinates when it is time to plow;

so when it’s time for harvest, there are no crops in the field.

The real motives come from deep within a person—as from deep waters—

but a discerning person is able to draw them up and expose them.

Most people claim to be loyal,

but can anyone find a trustworthy person?

The right-living act with integrity;

the children who follow their example are happy.

When a king sits on his throne as judge,

he ferrets out all evil and scatters it with his royal stare.

Who can say, “I have cleaned my heart”?

or who can proclaim, “I am purified from sin”?

False weights and differing measures are alike:

both are disgusting to the Eternal.

Youth reveal their true natures by their actions

whether they do what is pure and right or not.

Ears to listen, eyes to see—

the Eternal designed them both.

Do not fall in love with sleep, or you will awake a poor person.

Stay awake, get to work, and you will have more than enough food.

“Bad quality for a bad price,” bargains the buyer;

but then he runs off with his prize in tow, bragging, “What a steal!”

Gold and rubies abound,

but lips that utter knowledge are a rare jewel.

If someone guarantees a stranger’s debt, hold his garment as collateral;

if that stranger is a foreigner, hold the creditor responsible.

At first the bread of lies tastes sweet

until guilt reduces it to gravel in the mouth.

Plans are finalized on the basis of good counsel,

so only go to war when you have wise instructions.

A gossip will reveal your secrets!

So avoid the company of people who talk openly and foolishly.

If someone pronounces a curse on his parents,

the lamp of his life will be snuffed out as complete darkness creeps in.

An inheritance acquired hastily at first

will end up not being blessed after all.

Do not say, “I will get even for this evil.”

Wait for the Eternal; He will defend you.

He despises dishonesty in business;

false weights and deceptive scales are wrong.

Every one of our steps is directed by Him;

so how can we attempt to figure out our own way?

Those who rashly dedicate something to God are trapped;

only afterward do they realize what they’ve promised.

A wise king weeds out the wrongdoers,

then drives over them with his threshing wheel of justice.

The lamp of the Eternal illuminates the human spirit,

searching our most intimate thoughts.

Loyal love and faithfulness safeguard the king;

his throne is perpetuated through loyal love.

The best asset of youth is the strength of the body,

but the beauty of age is gray hair.

Severe punishment scrubs away evil,

and tough blows scour the innermost parts.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 20 (The Voice)

my personal reading from the Scriptures for january 20 of 2020 (Psalm 20 and Proverbs 20) along with Psalm 31 for the 31st day of Winter

accompanied by the pairing of a chapter from each Testament with Today being Acts 24 and Zechariah 11

[essayofthoughts]

oh no! er, maybe he visits a museum instead, and has some interesting comments on some of the newer stuff (WW2, etc), because he lived through those times?

Adjusted from this previous ask: “dumbledore visits a cattle ranch. it is both an enlightening and terrifying experience for all involved, except the cows. the cows just chill.”

While I have been to the Imperial War Museum it was several years ago and I have no idea what the current let alone past exhibits are and were respectively and I cannot be arsed to look it up. While my mother regularly consults their archives for her PhD, the museum itself is rather less of a concern, so I’ve wholly made up the museum content for sake of this fic.

Not like it matters - JKR used a fair measure of artistic license in some parts of her book so fair play says I can do the same. Things I reference in this fic may be found Here, Here and Here.

AO3 Mirror Here.

i.Imperial War Museum. It was quite something of a name, he supposed. The wizarding world, after all, had little by way of such imperials, though, certainly, they had often followed the path of their muggles imperialist efforts. 

But wizarding England had not had quite the empire of their muggle counterpart, and had not partaken in such battles. The Statute forbade it, of course, but if they had… well then, the other wizards would have fought back, and after all the bloodshed Grindelwald had wrought it was easy to see how devastating that would be.

As he walks through the exhibits he can see Gellert’s hand in some of it. Not in the older battles, of course, but on the continent, during his reign…

Dumbledore shakes his shoulders and walks on. He does not wish to dwell on the man he once called friend.

ii.“Minerva,” he says, bowing his head. She’s stood in front of a large replica of a painting, men in a row, hands on the shoulder of the man in front, many blindfolded. It’s dated to before Gellert’s war but it is still of war. 

To one side is a poem, writ large.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge…

Minerva nods in turn. “Albus. Thank you for meeting me here.”

He says nothing. If she asked him to meet her here there is something she wishes to ask of him, and it is not something he thinks he knows how to talk of.

iii.“You-Know-Who,” she says. She’s turned back to the painting, fingers running gently over a leaflet in her hands, the same image printed there. The title is simple Dulce et decorum est: A meditation on the First World War

He remembers when it was simply “The Great War”. He even remembers the rest of the Latin - pro patria mori.

It is sweet and right to die for ones country.

No it isn’t, he thinks. It is terrible.

But they have to ask it of their people all the same.

“You-Know-Who is growing in power,” Minerva says. “Watching the students in class… more and more of them are whispering his views. He recruited while he was at Hogwarts, Albus, and he and his continue to do so.”

“We will fight,” Albus says. It is simple - how can they not? Grindelwald was much of a continent away, other Ministries too proud or too scared to ask for help, or, when they did, left in the wake of Gellert’s passing with no trace of the man who had travelled far ahead. The hoops jumped through to find Gellert, to hunt him down, to duel him…

That had taken too long. For all the harm Tom Riddle meant to do, they could at least be certain he was doing so on their home ground, where they could fight back directly.

Through, Albus supposed, it was Tom’s home ground too.

“We will fight,” he says. “We cannot have another Grindelwald.”

iv.Gellert had made spells that acted like the gas canisters of the Great War. Noxium Caeli, Spiritus Venenum, Aeras Toxini. Gifttod. Working in so many ways and through so many shields that someone always died.

A poison gas seeping through the ranks, until someone stumbled and fell and choked and died.

The survivors would have nightmares of it forever.

v.“Not everyone will want to fight,” Minerva says. “Not everyone wants to acknowledge it.”

Dumbledore nods. “The purebloods stand to gain from it, or so they think.”

“So we talk first to the muggleborns?”

And have them fight our war for us? In a world they have only just come to know?

“I suppose we must. Adults, though, not students.”

Minerva’s shock is visible on her face. “Never students.”

Dumbledore knows though, how, sometimes, the only ones left to ask are children. How sometimes, they are the only ones who will fight. How sometimes, the only ones who fight the fight are those fighting for themselves. What was it Niemöller had said?

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Dumbledore nods. “Let the others know.”

Minerva nods and turns to go. Dumbledore considers the painting, considers the poem writ large beside it, from beginning to end. 

All the terrors of war - who will fight it? The old who want rest? The young who are the future? Those who must or die?

He sighs, he turns, he, too, leaves the Museum.

The last lines of the poem echo in his mind.

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest)  To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

[christianborle]

SOMETHING ROTTEN! 1.1.17 - FINAL PERFORMANCE (#27)

well well well. here we are. after a year and a half, rotten says goodbye on broadway. i’m super sad about it but i’m grateful it is going on tour and will continue to spread joy and laughter around the country.

here was my day at rotten’s final performance! (warning this is super dramatic and emotional)

i’m going to bold the moments i started crying just for dramatic effort (well i was tearing up the whole day but these moments were like....The Emotional Moments)

the first was on the train where i remembered “hey, i’m on the train to see something rotten for the last time”

i got to the theatre at around 3:30. i stood under it and took it all in. and there was no one around, weirdly, which really added to the effect. i took long, lasting looks at the marquee and the wallpaper. i crossed the street over to phantom to look at the theatre from afar. i couldn’t believe in 24 hours, it would all be gone. my home would be gone.

then i met up with me pals (@stuff-and-shenanigans​ and other pals who don’t have tumblrs) and we went to get food and then got ready for the show in our matching t-shirts bc we’re annoyingly extra. hayley headed to the theatre early and we met up with her. while we were waiting in line i saw christian borle and his dresser, meredith, walk into the restaurant right next to the theatre and i was so shook. i knew he was gonna be at the show, i just didn’t expect to turn around and boom there he is!

finally the time came and the usher who i don’t know his named but he always checks our bags and he knows us now checked our bags and we thanked him for everything and hugged him and the usher scanned my ticket and i just. began crying. last time scanning my ticket, last time walking down this long hallway.

Christian Borle and his dresser Meredith, Brooks Ashmanskas, Brian D'Arcy James, Will Chase, Jordan Roth, Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, John O'Farrell, Kevin McCollum, Gregg Barnes, and Todrick Hall, and all the producers were in the audience tonight.

also i saw stephanie @writingplays again yay!!

i also saw karey and wayne in the lobby and i went over and said hi and wayne hugged me and we talked about the tour! they’re so freaking nice it’s really mind blowing to just?? be in the presence of the writers of ur fave show and have them remember you??

The Show!

So this was the most rowdy crowd I've ever heard in my life. Any time there was room for applause, there were waves of it. Literally just.....always cheering. Every entrance and actor made got an applause. Every applause after a song lasted twice or triple as long as it would have on any other day (A Musical and Omelette were even longer, but we'll get to that later).

cheering for Brooks's cell phone announcement (I'm so glad they kept it as Brooks for the whole run. I'd love to have seen his reaction to hearing his voice again) and for the dimming of the lights and for André's entrance.

Cheering as the curtain pulled up

The ensemble looked so happy and so ready to burst with energy. They were smiling so big and were holding back tears.

Huge applause for Rob and Josh and the troupe!!

So Rob was sick yesterday and apparently had a raging fever, which is insane because he was AMAZING. I would have never known he was sick

Robin (Aaron Kaburick) got so many cheers and laughs throughout the night i’m so happy for him

The famous “don’t be a penis” line got a huge laugh, the laugh it deserves

GERRY VICHI!!!!!!!!!!

Huge applause!!! His speech about how much he loves theatre was so passionate and so full out energy and it got a huge cheer, something i haven’t heard since previews/early run

Rob played along and even clapped for Shylock!

Also any time jews were mentioned some audience members clapped thx friends

LESLIE KRITZER!!!! WENT OFF!!!!! I love her so much she riffed the hell out of the song and just gave it her all!

When bea kisses nick, she kissed him for a rly long time and the audience started cheering so leslie broke off and then just kept kissing him again rt ur goals

Bea winked and blew nick a kiss right before running off and got a huge applause of course

Josh changed his hyperventilating/panic bit! It’s really hard to describe just in text but basically he dragged out his words “i don’t thiiiink i can wooooork under than kind of pressuuuuure”

BRAD OSCAR!!!!!

Got a huge applause!! We literally just didn’t stop so nostradamus just went with it and he started looking up and around as if he could hear voices.

Brad always gives x200 each performance, but tonight he just had so much enthusiasm and it made me so happy to see him give justice to this number.

There were cheers for the les mis joke, for when the ensemble comes out, “and then you got yourself a musical,” and the end. People were also clapping along to the song.

“And then you got yourself a musical” is the line that always gets me. It’s the loudest point in the song, it’s when everyone is lined up together, it’s just?? The best part and i really teared up at that part. 

The standing ovation started when everyone had their headsketches up. It was really incredible to see the actors smiling so wide, really taking in the audience. Most of the ensemble was crying. I was in the second row so I could turn around and see the orchestra, the mezz, and the balcony all on their feet. I saw Jordan Roth standing and beaming. It was really magical.

The applause clocked in at approximately a minute and 30 seconds, which doesn’t seem like a lot of time but trust me when i say it felt like five minutes. Then when everyone sat down, the applause started back up again to last another 30 seconds.

So Elizabeth Earley went on in Marisha’s track, meaning she was the ugly woman Nigel accidentally points at. And she did the funniest bit i have ever seen in that role. Nigel pointed at her and she screamed at him, shaked her butt, and just kept dancing and the crowd went wild. She hovered over to the fruit stand and bought grapes from the seller and proceeded to eat them in front of everyone. The crowd was LIVING. I didn’t think i could laugh any harder until she took ANOTHER grape vine and offered it to portia and portia said no so she just gobbed on them. This literally went on for a full minute. I’ve only seen a funny bit done in this role before at that was with Tracee. Elizabeth Earley is so fantastic I’m so glad i got to see her shine!

I’ve never laughed harder at black death than i had last night

“Pleasure’s a sin”

“YOU SHOULDA BEEN A BETTER REAPER”

Any time bea mentioned feminism the crowd cheered

Eric’s “YO BEAR SHIT BOY” was FIRE

I Love the Way was so frickin CUTE

Will Power was so fire and I kept thinking of Christian in the audience watching and wondering what he was thinking

“Thanks for helping with my wood”

Adam’s “hmm” are so funny

THEY KEPT CHRISTIAN’S ICE SCULPTURE THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE RUN AND I WOULD KILL TO KNOW WHAT CHRISTIAN WAS THINKING WHEN HE SAW HIS ICE SCULPTURE ROLL OUT ON STAGE

Bottoms Gonna Be On Top might honestly be my fave number i just love it so much

THE TAP BATTLE ok so any time the crowd cheered for Shakespeare, Nick looked at the audience (specifically in my direction??) like “what no stop!!” and rob did the most hilarious thing. When shakespeare asks “you wrote omelette?” rob mimed a string lifting up his knee, then mimed lifting up his foot, and the mimed cutting the string and his foot landed on the ground and he said “yes” that was so brilliant and unexpected i hope he keeps that on tour

Intermission

I said hi to Gregg Barnes!! we had a rly nice convo about his costumes and tour and seeing the show develop from previews and he’s honestly such a nice guy. he thanked me for supporting the show and coming back and i rly can’t wait to see what he does in the future

i headed over to the lobby and saw some of my pals talking to jordan roth so i said hi to them and jordan said hi and welcomed me back and complimented the matching shirts!!

I saw todrick hall in the lobby and we made eye contact and he smiled and i waved?? I don’t know him super well and he doesn’t know me at all but that was a cool moment!!

dina @sscsldcp had a free snack voucher so i went with her on line to get a drink and we ended up behind christian on line with brian and brooks in our vicinity. i said hi to christian and he smiled and said hi and that he was happy to see me!! (that sounds super general but he was actually so nice and generous!!)

Act Two (idk why act two notes are shorter than act one notes??)

Again i just kept thinking about Christian watching Adam do HTBTB

“i like the new york actor”

The scene where nigel reads his poem to portia got so much response!

We see the light was so fun and happy

Tari’s last “so true PREACH IT”

Everyone awwed when nigel and portia kissed!

“DON’T DO THAT” left the audience SILENT and SHOOK my fave moment of the show

To thine own self was fire

Adam’s toby screech

Right hand man reprise was so sweet and touching

MAKE AN OMELETTE!!!!!!

My favorite line in the whole show, “my father said this to me, that he did and then he blew me………….away” got so much laughter thank u thank u

Another standing ovation for Omelette. Pretty much the same as before. Lasted a minute. So much smiling and energy from everyone in the theatre.

To thine own self reprise :((((((( man i was crying

“And brother. I know just the story we should tell”

I was full out sobbing during the finale and the curtain speech

John and kate popped out stage left during the speech and i was so shook???? Surprise ALL ur faves are here!!!!!

Stage Door

Edward Hibbert, Catherine Brunell, Aaron Kaburick, Leslie Kritzer, Angie Schworer, Max Clayton, Stacey Todd Holt, Elizabeth Earley, Jenny Hill, Rob McClure, Josh Grisetti, Tari Kelly, Brad Oscar, Leah Hofmann, Beth Nicely, the Kirkpatricks, John O’Farrell, Jordan Roth, Kate Reinders, and John Cariani all came out. I saw Eric but he had to leave.

I basically just thanked everyone and wished them well. I got hugs from Catherine, Leslie, Tari, Eric, and Beth.

I took a ton of photos with my pals and as I was walking away from the theatre I just lost it. It felt so wrong leaving the theatre knowing it would all be gone.

and that.....was my night. if i remember any more i’ll update this post but ye thanks for reading and thank you to all my SR pals on this website!! ur the real bros!!

[keremulusoy]

The last point of farewells: Ports

Ports have always been final points of goodbyes throughout history. They divided people into two groups: those who go and those who stay. The last pieces of land the sailors have seen before opening to the vast blues are the last stops that will remain in their minds for months. In this state, the ports that infiltrate as poems, songs, literature and cinema as a romantic space are theoretically defined as a natural or artificial havens that allows ships to shelter, loading and unloading of ships and passengers.

The importance of ports in human history is directly proportional to the importance of maritime culture and maritime transport in terms of both commercial and tourism value. When the world topography is considered, it is quite normal to mention primarily in terms of port history, the societies the most densely and commercially living the maritime culture and benefiting the most from the sea. At this point, considering the geographical and strategic location of them, it should be noted that Mediterranean Civilizations show an ancient wealth in terms the history of world ports. The use of natural ports in marine cities is related to the response to commercial and economic needs of maritime transport and shipping activities. On the other hand, there is no exact information on the archaic origins of artificial ports in research of maritime history. It is thought that Central Asia, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean Civilizations are in cultural contact with ancient traditions and reached a level of civilization ahead of its time were constructed various ports with simple engineering techniques. (2000 BC) Let’s break the rudder of our ship from four quarters of the world to important port cities. “Let our bow is clear and our wind is easy. Vira Bismillah!’’

Mystical and Beatiful: The Port of Tangier-Morocco “The ports of the cities on the coast of the desert are tedious / Bird flies ship does not pass, caravan is in time.’’ Whenever I remember the verses, The Morocco’s Tangier Port come to my mind. Obviously, these rhetorical words pretending ignorance have been said for oriental ports such as Tangier Port. Well, it must be the fate of the geography that dignified attitudes of the mystical ports, which the poet knows and ignores. In such cities people feel undoubtedly sad and a little further away from everything. A strange melancholy feeling of looking back at the show of stage… In this respect, Tangier is like the countryside both at the near side and at the far side of the world. Film lovers know well The Sheltering Sky movie made by famous Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci in 1990. In the movie, three American tourists come looking for the mystical East with Oriental enthusiasms. When their ships arrived at the port of Tangier, the attendant asked astoundedly, ‘’ You are the first Westerners come to here after the war, Why did you come here?”

Especially the Western intellectual who escaped from the depression of World War II desperately seeks a harbor to haven; seeking to find “a sheltering sky” with reference to the film (adapted from Paul Bowles, “The Sheltering Sky”).

The Beat Generation, a movement formed by a handful of intellectuals in the 50s; it was to seek the cure for social depression that poked fresh emotions such as hope, excitement and enthusiasm surrounding the spirit. The art movement that flourished in the Beat Hotel in Paris had chosen a single place from the East, apart from Western metropolises such as New York and London. Tangier… The bohemian representatives such as Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg who came and settled in Morocco and spent most of their lives in the end times, love Tangier very much was described as ‘’nowhere in the world’’ in those years.  Let’s mention about the port… The port of Tangier, established to the south of the Strait of Gibraltar where the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean were mixed, was established at the point where the 14-kilometer strait was connected to the European side. It is close enough to reach Spain by ferry service that takes about half an hour or one hour; thanks to its historical, cultural and mystical atmosphere of the East, it is as far away from Europe as it is… Transportation convenience due to its strategic location in terms of maritime transport between Europe and the Continent of Africa, the port has always been attractive. The port, which is the crossroads of espionage and smuggling traffic, is now a stopover point for tourism destinations… Tangier, which is a Mediterranean port that people going to important cities of Morocco Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech in the south must visit, is at the same time hometown of Ibn Battuta who is considered as one of the most important travelers of the world history. People who love seagulls flying over the Gibraltar; narrow streets curled into the city center from the port; the mystical chaos composed of by African, Andalusian, French and Berber culture.

Warm City: Rio De Janeiro-Brazil

Portuguese sailors probably did not expect that they would pass the North Atlantic and Atlantic Oceans and encounter such a living nature when they said Vira from Lisbon. From the beginning of the 1500s when the city was discovered, it was foreseen that the port area, which had the gates of the continent opening to the ocean, would multiply its importance over the centuries. In fact, it have been tried to be kept under control by many colonists movements constantly in history. Thanks to the virgin texture of Brazil, it has been able to solve the needs of ‘white people’ since its discovery to nowadays, and it has been able to deliver its products grown in the habitat of abundance tropical climate to many parts of the world. Rio de Janeiro, which has been in immediate contact with the human population for more than five hundred years, is the gateway of Brazil to the West (it is better to say that it is an ironic direction of confusion and more accurate to the East). After Napoleon invaded Portugal with the political eddy he created on the European continent, the noble families of the kingdom fled from Lisbon and took their breath in Rio de Janeiro. Besides being one of the most important export ports of the continent, the Statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain, which is mentioned among the Seven Wonders of the World, Copacabana, one of the most famous beaches of the world, which is about 4 kilometers long, Sugar Loaf Mountain laying through Atlantic Ocean located in the opening of the Guanabara Bay are the values that the ones are worth-seeing, Rio de Janeiro has and add extra beauty to its beauty.

“Diamond Center of The World”: Antwerp-Belgium Considering the route of transit maritime transport in Northern and Southern Europe, Antwerp stands out as one of the most important ports in Europe. Antwerp as its international name or Antwerpen as its original etymological name took its name from a myth. A giant known as Antigoon used to take money from the sailors passing through Scheldt, the river on which the city was built, and cut the hands of those who did not, and threw them into the river. A hero named Silvius Brabo, who stood up against this tyranny, made him what Antigoon did to the sailors and throws the giant’s body without hand trunk into the river. According to legend, after that day, the city was called Antwerpen with the reference of Antigoon, the protagonist of this myth. The historic center where the port area is established has also the best examples of traditional European architecture. The development of the transportation and trade network of the Port of Antwerp helps to improve the city’s road, sea and air traffic and contributes to the commercial mobility of convenient transportation from around the world.  The area where the port is established and continues to grow day by day with additional services is 13,057 hectares. The part of the area on the East side of the Gulf of Scheldt is 7,239; and 5,818 hectares on the West coast.

The Port of Tangier in Morocco

The P of Tangier in Moroccoort

Antwerp Belgium

Port of Hong Kong

Rotterdam The Netherlands

New York South Street Seaport ABD

“Fragrant” Harbour: Hong Kong Located in the south of the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong is one of the first to come to mind when it comes to maritime transport and trade. The region meaning “Fragrant Harbour”, until July 1997 was a colony of British Empire and after that became a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. Hindus, Muslims, Taoists, Jews, Christians, and Confucians have been instrumental in expanding the range of cultural forms and beliefs and making the region known as the “World City of Asia”. We can say that the wealth of the port has served for cultural hybridization. The region has evolved into an international maritime transport hub, logistic attraction point and a global trade destination thanks to its long-term status as a free port after centuries of colonial rule. Today, it has a rapidly growing structure thanks to its large hinterland that shapes the Asia-Pacific Region.Hong Kong Port, is considered among the ports where loading and unloading speed is at maximum thanks to its more than 300 cranes.

A Pearl In The North Sea: Port Of Rotterdam-The Netherlands When we talk about the ports of the world, we cannot pass without mentioning it. Rotterdam… One of the most important centers not only in Europe but also in the world logistic sector whose city memory dating back to 13th century. The destructive influence of the Second World War almost destroyed the urban texture of Rotterdam and the city was rebuilt all over again after the 1950s. This is why we do not see much of our eye on the architecture of the city of Rotterdam, with Baroque, Gothic or Romanesque structures that we can see in many of the cities of Central and Northern Europe. On the edge of the modern style, it is content with winking to its fanciers. Rotterdam, the 2nd largest cities of the country after the capital Amsterdam in terms of population, is at the same time considered as the largest port of the Europe. It is referred as a large gateway to all of major land sea networks, such as North and South America, Asia, Africa and Australia, from the north of Europe.

New York, New York: South Street Seaport-USA New York… The center of trade, economy, culture, art, tourism and entertainment… One of the most populous cities in the world; the metropolis of the world, not only America. Let us not pass without mentioning that the city, which is one of the most important points of global bureaucracy, is hosting the United Nations Headquarters. Like Wall Street, it contains an important region which is considered as the financial center of the global economy.  It is known to everyone that New York, having leading institutions in many fields such as cinema and media sector, advertising, fashion-design, entertainment, information-equipment-education, is the big brother of many sectors on a global scale. The fact that the city, number one in terms of tourism activities in the world, known as the ‘World Capital’ stems from it having a voice in almost every human-oriented sector.

Let’s come to South Street Seaport, the natural port of New York. Located at the mouth of the Hudson River, the port is one of the most beautiful examples of the world’s natural ports. South Street Seaport, which started to serve American maritime transport since the 1600s, was used in domestic trade activities in this period. Nowadays, with the prominence of the tourist potential, it has started to search for its economic attraction in the tourism sector by changing its commercial power segment and thus its popularity has increased. Now the port has become a tourism and activity center, shopping stop, restaurant and entertainment paradise; it evolved from a commercial structure to a touristic center with cultural and art activities arranged in the summer months. If you come to South Street Seaport, you can get to the harbor through the Hudson River with the sailboat tour called ‘Pioneer Tour’ with the historical boats, visit the museum here and taste the world cuisine by shopping in the world-famous shops and restaurants.

Port of İzmir

Port of Sigacik, Seferihisar-İzmir

Port of Sinop

Ports From Country Port Of Izmir Külebi, said that “Izmir’s sea smells as girl, girl smells as sea /Streets smells as both girl and sea.” in his “Requiem for Atatürk” poem. I guess it is hard to find another expression telling this much simple and this much good a city. Izmir… The pearl of Aegean, the city that makes the songs of victory in the National Struggle. The port region of Izmir forms the inner area in the southeast of the line connecting Foça and Karaburun in the east-west direction. Port of Izmir, which is one of the biggest export ports of our country, is divided into a natural division as inner, middle and outer ports.  The city has been a very important maritime center throughout the history of civilization; the development of the port in modern times increased the importance of the city of Izmir too. The port contributes greatly to the development of the inner region which is also its hinterland. Considering the city planning criteria, it is an obvious fact that Port of Izmir is directing the city in a certain development profile. The city is in a healthy harmony among settlement areas, the sea and the port triangle. The strategic location of the port makes it the pearl of the Aegean in terms of its location on the transit route between both Western and Southern Europe and North Africa and for the Black Sea coastal countries. The port provides bulk solid-liquid cargo loading and unloading, infrastructure, equipment, mixed goods, Ro-Ro and passenger services. As an export port, it is also an important logistic point for industrial facilities in the inner regions of our country.

Port of Sinop Since the Ancient times when ancient Greek and Rome civilizations developed and expanded, when it comes to count the most important port cities of Black Sea, Sinop comes first to minds undoubtedly. The city was founded around 7 BC as the Helen colony. According to a myth, it was named after an Amazon queen (Sinope), one of the founders of the primitive period. Sinop, as a port of Black Sea that is a partial inland sea, both in the ancient times and after the Anatolian Civilizations in the Byzantium, Seljuk, Candaroğulları Principality and in Ottoman Empire governances always keep its importance and become an ancient port city. Today, while strolling around, you feel you are in a cute port city stuck between ancient and modern periods. The development of the commercial and logistic network in Republican period, although not as developed as the other ports of our country, being only natural port of the region and the fact that fishing and marine culture are important means of living for the people of region provide the port keep alive. The importance of the port cities are handled in terms of having a say in tourism and maritime transportation sector thanks to the natural or artificial sea shelters of the piece of land that have a coast of oceans and seas. Of course, this determination is valid when considering commercial and economical potential. In order for the ports to have a say in the world transportation sector, their form must be suitable and open to development, as well as the inland areas (hinterland) is expected to have a suitable standard for land shipment in order to ensure continuity in transportation. The assessment of “World Ports and Port Cities” is undoubtedly an enormous research subject that needs to be dealt with utilizing the principles of many disciplines, such as history, sociology, geography, economics and commerce. We preferred to mention the settlement located in the backyard of port formed naturally or artificially (hinterland), namely the port city, its history and its socio-economical culture. In the maritime culture, which has gained importance as a stop and shipping point in the maritime culture from the antiquity to the modern times, it is obvious that it will be unfair to evaluate the economic gains of the port cities only from the sea. A port can also change its city in cultural, social and demographical perspectives. We believe that we were able to have seen this change in the port cities where we can only deal with some of them. In conclusion: Port cities, commercial and logistical centers, as well as being architectural, cultural and touristic places they offer special contributions to the geography of world history will increase their value as we can think.

Historical Port of Alexandria

Tangier Morocco

Adsress of The Festival: Rio De Janeiro

Antwerp

Lantau Island

After the Hurricane Sandy

Notes

Historical Port of Alexandria When we turn back the pages of history, it is mentioned a port known as an important anecdote and built in Alexandria, one of the four Alexander city founder by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. According to this anecdote, Pharos Island was connected to the land by a 1.5 kilometers long and 180 meters wide embankment road and ports were built for commercial ships on both sides of this construction provided that artificial shelters were formed.

Where is Tangier? Located in the south of the Strait of Gibraltar, Tangier is Morocco’s closest city to continental Europe. There is Gibraltar located on the opposite shore of Tarifa, stretches for 14 kilometers. It constitutes an important artery of the Black Continent with the reciprocal ferry services organized between Africa and Europe.

Ancient Culture Its history dating back to the Carthaginians who reigned in the BC 5th century, Tangier has an ancient culture, which is a Berber and Phoenician hybrid. Historically, the Romans, Vandals, Mauritians, Arabs, Moroccan Dynasties, Spaniards, Portuguese and British took control of the region and influenced cultural stratification in this geography.

Address of The Festival: Rio De Janerio If we mention Rio de Janeiro the warmest city of the world, we must also mention samba which provides millions of fanciers both born in this city and from all over the world flocking to Rio in the festival period. The Samba City in the Rio’s port area Rivadavia Correa, one of the special areas where this festival is held each year, has an area of more than 114,000 square meters. In the Rio Festival, which has nearly turned into a religious ritual, the dance schools in the city perform parades with choreographies and perform shows for tourists from all over the world.

Antwerp Antwerp is an important point of European cultural and historical tourism with its medieval Baroque and Gothic architectural works, museums and art centers operating in many fields. Stadhuis (Antwerp City Hall), known as Antwerp’s city hall, GroteMarkt (Grand Market Square), Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Our Lady Cathedral (Cathedral of Our Lady), Vleeshuis Museum, Rubenshuis (House of Painter Peter Paul Ruben), St. James Church,  Antwerp Central Railway Station make an indelible impression as the major values contributed to the city’s texture.

Lantau Island Lantau Island, one of the most important residential areas of Hong Kong, is famous for its Buddha statue, one of the symbols of Buddhism. Solid bronze design, full weighing 220 tons; it is recorded as one of the largest Buddha statues in the world. Tourists from all over the world can climb 268 steps to reach the huge pedestal where the statue is located.

The Biggest Port of Europe The reason why Rotterdam has the title of the biggest port, despite the other European countries standing out in terms of commercial power; is that it interconnects the country’s maritime logistics networks into a single point. Rotterdam Port is the eye of the Dutch economy with its capacity to circulate around 40 thousand ships per year. This volume is whereas reflected in their economies as more than 500 billion euro a year as a commercial input, proving us why Rotterdam is seen as the country’s financial center.

Commercial Potential of New York Harbor Organizations that start in the evening hours during the summer season turn South Street Seaport into a kind of performing arts event venue. Open-air cinema shows, jazz concerts, festival events, music and dance performances prove that the port directs its commercial potential to the tourism sector.

After The Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy, which occurred in the Atlantic Ocean in 2012 and is reportedly among the biggest hurricanes, affected New York and the harbor quite badly. As a result of the natural disaster, some parts of South Street Seaport have become unusable. Over time, with various arrangements and reinforcement works and renovation projects the port has been given life to.

The Only Natural Harbor of The Region Port of Sinop forms a safety zone to take shelter all the time for logistical ships in the stormy climate of the Black Sea. The inner port in the southern direction of the peninsula is called as “White Sea” in the maritime literature thanks to its completely closed structure to storms and winds.

Other Important Port Cities There are many important port cities in the world. Hamburg-Germany, Marseilles-France, Porto-Portugal, Valencia-Spain, Valletta-Malta that we cannot mention in this study, are some of the examples.

By: Necati Bulut

*This article was  published in the  July – August issue of Marmara Life. 

World Ports and Cities The last point of farewells: Ports Ports have always been final points of goodbyes throughout history. They divided people into two groups: those who go and those who stay.

[ecotone99]

[RF] The Mask

It began on a Saturday. The pitter pat of rain thumped innocuously at Damien’s window. It was a silent kind of day. Then his alarm sounded. A fist shot out immediately, striking it, sending it crashing to the floor. Damien groaned. “Fuck me,” he exclaimed. “I need a drink.” He fished around and came up with a bottle of clear liquor. His head pounded. “Rum. The other white meat.” He took a deep drink. Damien was fat. There was no delicate way to say it. At 5’8” and 278 pounds, he was one fucking big guy. It was a point of contention. It drove a wedge between him and his parents. The rings in his face, his purple mohawk, that drove another. He kept odd hours. He could afford to. His writing career made just enough money that he was his own boss. It was liberating. Those cocksuckers working at banks and restaurants had it all wrong. It had been a rough week. Robert’s dad had a stroke. A bad one, by the sound of it. He paused mid sip. He had a late lunch with Robert in an hour or so. What was he gonna say? What could he say? Sorry your dad is gonna fucking die? “Thoughts, and prayers, and my thumb up my ass,” he grumbled. Damien was an Atheist. Had been since approximately age fifteen. His mother was a Roman Catholic who meant well, but had her head up her cooch. His father was a lapsed Jew or something. His phone vibrated. It was Paul. Damien ignored it. He’d deal with the overzealous editor when his head wasn’t throbbing and his balls didn’t ache. But of course, his balls always ached. That was his cross to bear. He fucked around for a minute longer, then against his better judgement, stepped into the shower. God yes, but that steaming water always felt good. Damien always did his best dissociating in the shower. He sat down, back against the wall, and tried to forget. Thump. Thump, thump. “Five more minutes, Martha.” He stuporic eyes shot open. “Who the FUCK is Martha?!” “Damien, you in there?!,” Robert shouted mildly. “It’s time to go, man.” “OH, FUCK.” “Just give me a sec.” he gave everything a rub down, washed his asshole and his balls, and quickly shampooed his hair. It was 45 minutes past their lunch date before he even got dressed. “Hey man, you okay?,” Robert inquired, voice laced with concern. “Am I okay? Bro, I’m worried about you. Robert managed a weak smile, and shrugged. “I mean, what can I do, man? It’s a bad scene either way. I just hope he doesn’t suffer on the way out.” Damien met his glance, could see the pain in his eyes. They were best friends of over 25 years. More like brothers. “It’s gonna be okay, Robbie.” He embraced his friend tightly. “Don’t call me Robbie,” he said. They sat in saddened silence. Normally, eating at Red Robin marked a happy occasion. “What’re you ordering, man?,” Robert said. He tried to smile, but couldn’t. “The fucking shrimp basket.” “Shrimp basket? Is it fried?” Damien laughed wryly. “Ninja, it’s a fucking Red Robin. Everything is fried. The goddamn soda is fried.” Robert smiled, for real this time. “Thank you, Damien.” “For what?” “You know what. For having my back, like you have since forever. You know the doctors say he has less than a month now.” The news stopped him cold. “A...a month?,” he stammered. “Yeah. Shit sucks.” “How’s your mom taking it?” Robert shrugged. “About as well as you’d expect. She’s 68. And stoic. She doesn’t let me know it’s bothering her, but I can tell. I can tell.” “The thought of your mom in an empty bed eats me up inside,” Damien said with a quiet fury. “Me too, man. But hey, he’s not dead yet. Let’s make this last month count.” The two men are their meal, reminiscing about the past, discussing their hopes for the future. The meal was delicious. A funny thing, Damien thought. Death always made him hungry. Hungry, and horny. He would have to scratch that particular itch later. The thrusting was vigorous. They moaned together, at the end. When it was over, the man, naked, lit a cheap cigar. Soon the motel room stank of tobacco. “You should at least learn to smoke a real cigar,” the woman said. “Fuck it,” Damien said, bringing it to his knee, holding it down in a desperate act of self mutilation. “Jesus, fuck, Damien,” she exclaimed. “Why do you have to be so goddamn self destructive?” He smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “You’re just jealous.” “Fuck you,” she laughed,” taking the cigar from him. She pressed it down against her inner thigh. “Fuck, that feels good.” Lazily flicking her nipples with her free hand. Damien squeezed her breast. “Admit it,” he lulled. “You like me.” Mischief burned in Karen Harper’s eyes. Mischief, and something else. “Miss me with that gay shit,” she said. Then he kissed her. She pulled back after a couple minutes, voice heavy. “Are you okay?” Damien smiled with an impish charm, and sighed. “Yeah. Fuck. No, actually. I don’t know why I just lied to you.” What’s wrong?,” she inquired, laying a hand against his shoulder. “It’s my best friend Robert. His dad just had a major stroke. This wasn’t the first time, either. He...,” his voice cracked. “He’s dying.” She stroked his shoulder comfortingly. “Damien...I’m so sorry. I lost my father 6 years ago. He had a massive heart attack. It was a total shock, we never saw it coming.” “I’ve known him my entire life. His wife is crazy about him. It’s killing me.” She took his head in her lap, stroking his hair. They stayed like that for a long time. At some point, he fell asleep. Sometimes, in our most vulnerable moments, the void is filled. But never for long. “How’s Dusty doing?,” Paul asked. Damien just hadn’t been able to put him off any longer. The editor was a big man. A huge man, actually. All of 6’7” and pushing 350 pounds of muscle. Of course, Damien had shown up reeking of brandy and pot, but that suited Paul just fine. The Goliath worked hard, and partied harder. “Not good,” Damien sighed wanly. “He hasn’t got very long.” “Shit. It’ll be okay.” “No,” Damien said morosely. “You’ll be okay,” Paul urged gently. “No, I fucking won’t.” “Christ, Damien, I know that. But it’s what people say. I’m limited by society’s options.” “It’s a mask,” Damien said. “Just say what you cunting mean, Paul.” “In that case.” He grinned. “In that case, I’d like to inform you that I’d 100% let Lady Gaga shit in my mouth.” Damien cocked back his head and laughed shrewdly. “Hey, me too.” “Damien, do you want the world to remember you when you die? Is that why you write?” “Huh. Well, art is a very selfish and egotistical pursuit.” “You didn’t answer my question.” “I want them to celebrate,” Damien said. “Celebrate what?” “Life. I want them to get drunk, high. To fuck in the middle of the street.” “What about your body?” Damien shrugged. “Skin my tattoos, cremate my fat ass, and for the sake of baboon pussy, don’t pray for me.” “I don’t give a fuck what happens,” Paul said mildly. “I just wanna get high.” “Why did you call me here, Paul?,” Damien arched his eyebrows. “For another one of your horseshit deadlines?” “Dude, I already said.” He held up a big old white bag. “To get high.” Damien grinned boyishly. “You know me too well, Paul. Way too fucking well. It’s eerie.” 30 minutes later, they were in Paul’s immaculate black Mercedes. Paul was driving (Damien didn’t have a license). Actually he was gunning it. He was jamming it to Lynyrd Skynyrd in erratic fashion. “Sweet home Alabama! Dun nun nun nun nun nun nun! Where the skies are so blue!” “Man, FUCK Alabama!,” Damien cried, smashing a mailbox with a wooden bat. “He leaned out of the car, a savage grin on his face . “Nothing in Alabama but buttfuckin hicks and weasels!” “Man, I’m FROM Alabama.” “So? Fuck you too,” he laughed. Paul twitched, did a line off his steering wheel. Started laughing. “Man, you’re right. I hate my hometown. Fuck Alabama. Big old shithole, man.” “Fuck Alabama,” Damien agreed. “Hey, Paul?” “Yeah?” “Can you take me home? I wanna be alone. Some of my best writing is done fucked up.” Paul nodded. “Sure, buddy.”

Damien fell, facefirst onto his bed. He had a nosebleed, but didn’t care. Didn’t give a single fuck. He fished around and found his half empty rum bottle. Took a deep swig. “Where did I put my mothershitting blunt?” “He groped for it, staggered, finally found it. The sweet, aromatic smell of pot permeated the room. He inhaled deeply. “Fucking aah, he declared.” He was just about drifting off when his phone began to ring. He looked down at his phone. 5:23AM. It was Robert. “Hello?” “Damien? Sorry to wake you.” “No. No, I was up. Everything okay, man?’ Even though he knew it wasn’t. Even though a late night call like this could only mean one thing. “No. He’s gone, Damien. He died about an hour ago. I’m sorry.” Even though he knew, fucking knew that Dusty Chavers was dying, the news hit him like a train. It was oddly physical. He felt sick, cancerous. “I’m sorry, Robert. I loved your dad very much.” “I know you did. I know it’s late. I just wanted to tell you.” “Robert, I won’t let you or your mom face this alone.” “Thank you. I gotta go. I have other calls to make.I love you, Damien. Goodnight.” “Goodnight, Robbie.” He made it to the very end of their phone call, then he projectile vomited. Right onto his bed. Fuck it. He would clean it up later. He couldn’t think. He could barely see straight. He was so high and drunk and fucked up on coke and weed and grief. There was only one place to go. Only one place he COULD go.

“Robert’s dad is dead,” Damien said quietly. She put her head on his chest. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re not okay. It’s NOT okay. It fucking sucks.” “Do you have a hole inside your soul, Karen?,” he asked. “I have an emptiness inside of me that I just can’t seem to fill. With food or booze or weed or anything good or bad. What is this emptiness inside of me?” He slammed his fist against the end table. “This desperate need to connect to others.” Tears began to fall. “Is this what being human means?” She touched his arm. “Would you read me one of your poems?” “What does that matter,” he said bitterly. “Please? Just do it.” “Okay,” he said tonelessly. “Whatever. I call this one Statuary.” He cleared his throat, struggled not to cry again. He began:

“The girl raises her glass, Alas, alas, So fast, She withers.

The forest chants, Enchants, Recants, Laments her whispers.

Her corpse is frost Touches the moss, So green, Obscene.

Among the lumber, She still slumbers, Slumbers, Slumbers.” She put his hand on her breast. “That was beautiful. “YOU are beautiful,” she whispered. “I...I don’t know what to say.” She shrugged. “Yeah, well. You were right. I DO like you.” His brown eyes shone.. He did not speak for a long while. “Miss me with that gay shit!,” he replied finally. The void is real. And it is cruel. And it wins more often than not. Death is a foregone conclusion. But one thing our species has is heart. We are stubborn, motherfucking pricks. The void is real, no doubt about it. Let’s make that bastard work for it.

submitted by /u/Avarice87 [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/2KdI4S6

[thekillerqueen1945-blog]

I AM FUTURE YOU

CHAPTER 5 

  Persian empire

“ I liked the Egyptians very much” commented Life and looked at me eagerly.

" Do you want another tale?" I asked hoping to get one more opportunity.

“Yes, please.” Life said looking up at me while batching eyelashes.

I rolled my eyes but decided to indulge all wishes

" What should I talk about?" I asked again.

“ Perhaps, you could tell the tales of all significant times in history. We could give you the theme, and you talk." suggested Infinity who was apparently involved in my talks.

 “ I suggest Persian. Even their name sounds so distant and old-fashioned there is a beauty in this name. For me, they are like dreams, and they got lost, like tears of flying ." talked Time quietly as the feather.

 “All right.” I have accepted the challenge “ I will tell you a story about Persians”.

 Before more than 3000 years today's Iran was a land of many tribes and Persians, and Medes were part of it. That land was plentifully ruled by the Medes, but 549. Year BC Persian king Cyrus defeated Medes and started developing the great kingdom, step by step. 538. Year B.C. Kir decides to extend the empire and agrees with Babylon. He died 529. Year B.C.Thirty years after its creation the Persian empire grows in the most powerful kingdom of that time, and the boundaries of the empire were Mesopotamia, Anatolia(Turkey), east part of Mediterranean sea and parts of today's Pakistan and Afganistan.

 “For over 200 Persian empires was the biggest empire of the then known world, exceeding the size of its Assyrian ancestor." I ended upon overhearing the soft noise.

 “Unique, untouchable, unperfect, like us." It was Death engaged in a puzzle game of his thoughts that are suddenly materialised by my words.

 At that moment I start to remember the gratings, and for the moment I disconnect my self from the conversation.

Persian leaders and the kingdom itself were undoubtedly different from other. Kings were merciful, and instead, then destroy the local economy for their own personal gain, Persian worked to improve the economy throughout their kingdom. They standardised weights developed the official coinage and implemented the universal laws. They did not impose their religion on conquered land nor did they turned runs them into slaves. For example, king Cyrus did not enslave the Jews; he let them return to Jerusalem, he allowed them to worship as they and as I insinuate even returned them all assets that were taken from them. The prophet Isaiah commented on Cyrus generosity saying he is " Gods shepherd" and that "God would go before him and level mountains". All of his descendants were as generous and merciful as him, tending not treating and destroying the old, but receiving it, building the new and making the civilisation grow side by side with humanity.

   All in all Persian empire was one sweeter, tenderer kingdom. The Persians also formed a religion based on monotheism ( belief in one God). It was founded by the prophet Zoroaster, called Zarathustra. Many of his ideas were collected in a series of poems called the Gathas, which became part of a religion, and religion's most sacred book, the Avesta. Zoroaster believed that people were preparing for the future life. He thought that world is always torn between the forces of the good and the evil and that people need to be ready for the day of the judgment when good triumphs over the evil, the day when all the Earthly existence would disappear. The Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, embodied all the goodness and wisdom there are. I can confirm you that Zoroaster's ideas strongly influenced and left an erasable mark on both Hebrew and Christian religions.

 “ They really were something unique and contradictory to all other empires, yet I believe even they found a path that led them to cruel, cold arms of their demise.” Life interrupted my story in distant demeanour, unlike its usual self.

 I paused for a second look at Life and presented my observation:

“One of the greatest Persian king, alongside Cyrus, was Darius I or he Darius the great. During his period, the empire was divided into provinces ruled by governors. Darius was establishing the mail system, and he created a single currency. He also made roads all over the kingdom connecting the areas. During his period, he started building the city Persepolis which was completed through the rule of Kserksa I.  Persepolis was the crown jewel of the Persian empire. It was large, beautiful and situated entirely on the culture and the humanity, leaving politics and war strategies outside its walls. One of its most beautiful parts of the city was the palace garden which was the biggest garden in the empire. It consists of all plants of the then known world. Most unusual and exotic plants could be found there. The garden indeed showed the power, and beauty of the empire and its ruler. It symbolically showed that the king has the entire known world at the brink of his fingers. The king cared about his plants with love and care, the same love and care he gave to his loyal subjects, as long as they, of course, respected and flowed the rules, that is.”

 “In the New year, Persepolis would be alive, and people would bring the king their gifts.”   I was, as usual, interrupted by Life smirking devilishly “ There is always but and the but comes now.”

 Despite the Persians' effective and gentle leadership, their empire did not last. Under King Xerxes in 480 B.C.E., the Persians made an attempt to expand their empire into Greece. The Greeks held the Persians back winning the almost every battle and nearly destroying the Perisa. When Alexander the Great rose to power in 331 B.C.E., he set an end to all of the Persian dreams of expanding their empire. Only in his early twenties, Alexander had no equal as a military strategist. He swept through the ancient world, conquering all of the Persian Empire. When he, during he concurring of Persia, came to Persoplis Alexander the Great burned it to the ground during the night when all were sleeping also closing the gates of the city making sure that no one would escape the terrible fate.  He burned the town out of fear and aversion that impressive city has awakened in him. He knew that all his builder and scientists could not build a city like. He knows that he would not be able to maintain peace within its walls without the amount of violence that will inevitably cause his defeat.

 I smirked stopping to catch the breath and begin to tell the story of the Persian royalty.

"No matter how great kingdom, empire or a country are, and no matter how much are their leader right, fair or merciful, everything has its definitive word, last breath, everything has its epilogue, and so had this gentler kingdom. Now let's revile a little, so I can tell you of a story that played out in the beautiful gardens of the palace of the Persepolis. That once was the city of peace and everlasting harmony now the city of shadows, capital of the dead.”

 The sun brightened with all its grace on the range of the great Persian empire. The most beautiful rays touched walls of the grates city of the empire - Persepolis - where the king and the queen are settled in their glorious palace. The king Darius I of the great Perian empire and his beloved wife Artystone, his second wife and his younger sister – the only woman he truly loved, went on the stroll through their luxurious gardens with beauty unmatched. They both covered by typical head ornaments, and formal dresses. Head ornaments and shoes were made of gold and decorated with small diamonds. King wore his blue dress robes while the queen wore a light white dress entangled with what looked like green-red velvet covering. They were both moderately young and had the same dense black hair.

 They walked through gardens and talked about trade, hostilities and the economy. King loved to be advised by his wise and beautiful queen, from time to time. Queen would stroke her hand through some flower while listening to the words of the king and responding with her own observations. Randomly the talking declined, and eventually, it was only the vibration of the leaves that was heard.

 After some time the queen stopped by amazing, beautiful white orchid with a bunch of purple stains on its soft petals. The queen gently touched the leaves, turned to her husband and spoke:

 " Do you think our empire will collapse any time soon? Both of us might be capable rulers, but all empires eventually decline for some reason, am I right, my love? "

 King seriously looked at his wife, but in a moment the look turned to a gentle one filled with unconditional love. He somewhat smiled and replied to the queen's concerned words:

 " I am convinced that this empire will undoubtedly fall, but not during our rain, not anytime soon, trust me, my love. Now, stop thinking such gloomy and depressive thought. The inventable has to come, but our empire has many more days to live."

 On these words, the queen turned back to the purple stained petals, and after the moment of the silence she softly spoke:

 " This gentle flower here needs months to prepare itself to bloom, and when it does bloom finally, its magnificent petals shall be touched by the suns ray of the human realm for one bright day and day permanently. During its short life, it is fragile and tender, but it serves us by its excellence. The empire is not so different from this flower. It needs years of preparation and courage for it to rise, but its beauty is not everlasting, and its descent is fast and dramatic, just as the petals fall from the orchid. That how it is in the life, the birth is long while death is quick, but both are painful in its own way. Many would then ask, why to build empires at all if the game is painfully and the seemingly neverending process of downfall and painful death twist that come too fast and wipe it from the surface of the Earth? "

 If the answer to this were power, money or permanent memory of themselves, it would miss the point.

   " Those three things should not be the reason for building the empire, but its gift, just as the beautiful petal and its mesmerising scent are the gift of the flower. The purpose is to create a place that will give safety to people and make them care and see the beauty of the mother Earth which helps us all to survive. The purpose is to serve humanity and awaken feelings of gratitude and harmony.  This obviously outshines the meaning of the flower, but the truth is, it does not since both serve to its surrounding. Bathing in the divine rays of the sun for one day for one flower as essential to it as the safety and survive materials are for us. What I am trying to say is that all those things we deem necessary during are rain are overrated. Such is that the most important thing is a memory. This flower will die, but the memory of it shall be around in our thoughts all until our deaths. The memory of our empire wants to be kept for other generations. It should be held in words and art, so even thousands of years after all these gardens and cities turn to the dust, people would know and learn from our mistakes, rises and falls. That is immortality darling."

 Words of the queen stopped, living mesmerised and shocked king. He slowly hugged her from the back, planted a kiss on her crown and whispered:

 " You are right my love. It is interesting, how many wise men on hundreds of meetings I had, never mentioned and probably thought of that. I love you and will do anything in my power to do what you advised. Now, would you join me in bathing in the lake."

 The queen smiled and ran towards the lake while the king followed. Both were overflowing in laughter and happiness.

 Flower bathed in the sun.

King and queen bathed in the lake.

This memory bathed in infinity,

side by side with me.

[livingcinema-stories-blog]

journal entry from december 2016 (or, literature in the age of trump)

I was thinking of the writer Sergio Pitol today and I found this journal entry completely by accident. It seemed like a sign to shelve off its dust and repost.  The second half feels almost innocent now, and I’m adding a couple footnotes to it:

12/2/16

Just read Sergio Pitol for an hour. It was an essay on a Polish novel about darkness, yelling against the politics of oppression. It was inspiring to read about. The novel apparently is a 150 page long sentence, followed by a five word sentence. The story is of a holy crusade taken by children in the 12th century. It is told through the format of a series of inner monologues. I would like to read it, but honestly, I can't imagine it being as good as Pitol's essay on it. Pitol apparently translated the novel in Spanish, and his love for the novel, his compassion for the novel, shows throughout his essay. There's a tender moment where he re reads it 20 or 30 years later, and is afraid its poetics and form will seem outdated or stale (it was very sylized and 'avant' for the time). He is happily surprised that the language and form hold up -- just as beautiful as he remembered.

I've never read Thomas Mann, or Joseph Conrad -- but they are both writers Pitol admires. Reading Sergio Pitol reminds me of my old teacher Attila, who's grave I would like to visit soon, who did so much for my life, who touched my life and inspired me in a way that will never fade. Attila was also a fan of Thomas Mann; and he was a political prisoner for a time in Hungary. I imagine he might have been aware of this Polish writer -- perhaps was even a fan of his. Attila was imprisoned for composing a minimalist piece of classical music during the communist takeover. There were strict rules on what kind of art one should make. When Attila performed the piece, a small riot ensued in the theater and he was arrested. He later escaped, fled to Italy, and eventually emigrated to Michigan, where he became a private teacher of voice lessons. His final, unfinished work was an opera he was writing based on "The Master and Margarita."

This morning, I am made aware that both the writers Attila loved and that Sergio Pitol loves are those who write in times of, and in reaction against oppression, totalitarianism, or to Power (with a capital P). It is almost a violent style of literature. To use poetry and language to express the strong distaste at the currents of the system. To use “political angst” (for lack of better term) as a lens in which the narratives exist. For my whole life, I've been fortunate not to live under those kinds of regimes. Sure, George W. Bush was terrible -- and he disgusted me -- but he still resembled something like a democracy, no matter how opposed I was to his politics and policies, not to mention his unjust wars. He still hinted at some level of humanity within him, perhaps buried, perhaps misguided. His wars were disgusting. He expanded the powers of the state and surveillance. But the veil of democracy still seemed to exist, if only as a veil. There was room for hope. And though Gore won the popular vote, he won by a small number. (400,000 or something like that). It seemed unbelievable, but it was admittingly, a small number.

Trump has now lost the popular vote by over 2 million (*authors note — the real number increased to 3 million), and he uses fascist language and rhetoric almost daily, and always publicly, without shame.

***

In school, in middle school, or high school, or even elementary school -- I remember reading multiple times a poem about nazis. It was essentially about how no one stopped them. "When they came for Jews, we didn't do anything, because..." and “When they came for the handicaps, we didn’t do anything, because…” and ended with a line similar to "then when they came for me, there was no left to stop them" or something like that. This poem exists solely in memory, although I know its widely read and would be easy enough to find. It was about complacency (a word I didn't know then) and a casual calmness, a cool. We always wondered how people could be silent while others were oppressed, while the secret police would beat people, while the violence eventually escalated from torture and fear into a genocide in the middle of a "civilized" continent. We watched the movie Swing Kids in a class, a watered down Disney film about the same kind of thing. It showed friends betray each other, even each other's families. It was met with the same measure of disbelief in us. How could people let this happen?

When I asked a teacher about it, and I forgot which one, and I forgot how young I was, but I must have been before high school, before I became "rebellious" or whatever -- I remember the teacher telling me this poem was a warning. It was a warning and a way to be aware of the past. Our memory of history would protect us, make us aware that societies fall, that the danger is real. But still, fascism seemed like nothing could enter this country to me. Orwellianism -- no way. Elements of it, sure. Elements of thought control and manipulation and corruption -- of course. But nothing as blatant as what Trump has promised.

If Trump somehow is able to NOT damage our democracy, it will be a testament to how strong our democracy and philosophies are. I know many people who believe it is this strong.

But I tend to not think so. Our democracy is still young, its in its adolescence. Its younger than Europe was with Hitler, with Mussolini or Stalin.

And its not holy -- its not religious -- its not from God. I don't prescribe to that weird right wing idea that it is protected by a sacred power. Our Democracy is human. It was founded on intellectuals, yes. It was founded with clear philosophies and guidelines, yes. But that does not make it immune. It might have checks and balances, but we've already seen these corroded before Trump; when the Senate refused to even vote on a Supreme Court nominee. (Something that is unprecedented, at least for this length of time). This act of defiance corroded two branches of government -- both the court and the Senate.

And its never been tested by the things its being tested with now. That is: globalization and the Internet. (It has been tested with other huge economic shifts, though; so this paragraph probably should not contribute to my argument).

Like most people, I'm not sure how to react to recent news and movements. I'm not sure how to fight back for what I believe in, how to stand up, how to do the right thing, or what to even do or what that thing even is.

But reading Sergio Pitol and thinking about Attila Farkas makes me feel that there should be a new canon of literature -- one that reflects "avant" writers reacting and responding to oppression.

Pitol and Attila share these writers, which should be added to the canon: Thomas Mann (who I've never read). Joseph Conrad

Pitol adds Jerry Andrzejewski in this.

Attila would add J.M. Coetzee (who I love) and Bulgakov (Master and Margarita).

I would like to add to this list the violent, powerful, and wonderful prose of Roberto Bolano. A writer who's often compared to Borges, but adds an intense political anger to the style of "magical realism" -- and who kind of reminds me of the beat poets as well. I'm sure Attila would have loved Bolano, had he been alive to see Bolano’s translations into English.

So again, that list: Thomas Mann Joseph Conrad J.M. Coetzee Mikhail Bugakov Roberto Bolano

I will of course continue reading for fun as well, and won't strictly follow this. I can't imagine putting down works by Javier Marias (who's new book, I am glad to say, confronts fascism and takes place immediately after Franco's regime); or by "non political" magical writers such as Clarice Lispector, Cesar Aira, Haruki Murakami. But their style, their form, does not differ much from Bolano, nor from Coetzee for that matter. (Like I said, I haven't read the others).

When we are without gurus and teachers, we can use the books we read to help teach and guide us. Its not exactly a replacement, but the writers do become gurus. I'm paraphrasing, but Seneca, the Greek philosopher, said that reading philosophy makes life longer, beacuse it adds other writer's experiences to yours in a quick setting.

My generation, and those younger than me, and those older than me, should begin arming ourselves by reading a new canon.

Who would you add? ****

Footnotes (updated August 2018) A few more writers I must add to my personal list. For one, a book which has become one of my all time favorites, Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi (sometimes translated as Pereira Maintains).  Also, I can’t believe I didn’t include Jose Saramago! He should be near the top of this list. In fact, Zizek called Saramago’s Seeing one of the best books to read during this moment.

If I re-did the list, it would mainly be: Pereira Declears by Tabucchi Jose Saramago Roberto Bolano JM Coetzee (I have to make note of Tabucchi again, and point out that his other novels do not seem to have the political activation and ingredient as Pereira, but are equally wonderful. He also has a more dreamy style, and less angst than the others mentioned).

I’m currently experiencing a burnout from the presidency, and almost refuse to say the president’s name. He’s haunted my dreams at moments (where I’ve conversed with him, even swam with him at a public pool). Part of me believes he gains an almost spiritual power through the repetition of his name, and so I’m trying to refer to him as things different than his name. (For now, just the president, though even that seems a lie). I’d also like to quickly point out my disappointment at the nonfiction books written in response to his presidency. Its really weird and almost shocking that the only one I’ve read that has seemed cerebral, academic, and passionate was Hilary Clinton’s What Happened. (I also read Death of Truth, Fantasyland, and one by Naomi Klein). Not sure how to end this post script. I’m thinking of bicycling to a show right now. I have to wake up early in the morning. I experienced a pleasant feeling of cooking today. I had a strange encounter. I woke up at 5am.

[larryland]

by Jenny Hansell

Sabrina Hamilton, founder and Artistic Director of the Ko Festival of Performance

Jenny Hansell, Berkshire on Stage Pioneer Valley correspondent.

Berkshire On Stage Pioneer Valley Correspondent Jenny Hansell spoke to Sabrina Hamilton, founder and artistic director of the Ko Festival running through August 5 on the Amherst College campus. This resulting interview throws the spotlight on an enduring, adventurous, and essential component of the summer theatre scene in Western Massachusetts.

BOS: Each year you program around a theme, and this year it is “Radical Acts.” How did you select it?

Sabrina Hamilton: I don’t program two years out the way a lot of presenters do. I’m still programming into February. I read local newspapers, which I firmly believe in, I read a lot of national news, I sit in coffee shops and listen to what people are concerned about. Artist let me know what they are working on and send me videotapes.

Ko is an “Ensemble theater” where the artists are in control of the whole process. Instead of artists employed by artistic and managing directors, it’s artist-centric. In most theaters, there’s a hierarchy at the top. Ensemble theaters have a flatter structure, where the artists are in control of what they do and how they do it. A lot of them do what’s called “devised work” and at Ko we do this exclusively.

At Ko it’s like a little think tank. I don’t pick scripts and hire people to work on them. Artists who come to Ko have created the works themselves, often as a group. There may or may not be a single playwright, but there is never a playwright in absentia. Pieces often take several years to create and are devised over a long period of time. Sometimes they are true first-person material, other times they emerge out of research or a question. The work is created in the rehearsal room, on the hoof.  This approach sets us apart from most other summer theater.

I pick a theme after talking to folks and look for two anchor shows and things that bridge them. I’m looking for a different lens to look at the theme.  Our post-show discussions are not the usual ‘what’s your next show’… they’re about the theme. The audience often talks to each other, the artists just listen.

I try to pick chewy topics. Recent ones were immigration, and illness and healing. This year’s “Radical Acts” is a bit of a leap from last year’s them [Tactics for Trying Times]. This year the topics are more individual and may or may not be political at all, maybe spiritual or another realm, but taking a personal leap.

We have a lot of smart people in the Five College area audience. Artists always say, ‘we love your audience, they are amazing.’ The post-show discussions can last longer than the show.

BOS: What shows did you choose this year?

Sabrina Hamilton: The first show was The Radicalization Process, from an ensemble theater in Detroit — 30-somethings looking back at the radicals of the 1960s. The piece asks: How far are you willing to go. Is it far enough? They are trying to get different generations of activists to talk to each other, to understand what went wrong, what went right, are you in it for the long haul.

The next show is The Oven by [Amherst professor] Ilan Stavens. He is a comp-lit kind of guy. His cultural identity and perspective is Mexican Jew, and he is a regional and national intellectual, author of many books, often heard on NEPR. He has created what he thinks of as an anti-lecture, about being on a State Department-sponsored lecture tour. A shaman came to the lecture in Colombia and invited him to join an ancient family ritual, which turns out to be an ayahuasca trip.

Next week we have a story slam, as a way of getting more local people involved in telling their stories of radical acts. Each story is 5 minutes, without notes, in the first person. Many of the stories have been developed in our personal narrative workshops. The slams are really fun, with 15 slots. We always save one wild-card slot which we give away on the night. If we have too many people who want to do it, the audience votes based on the first line of the story.

The following week is Like a Mother Bear, a one-woman show. The creator, Helen Stoltzfus, started working on it several decades ago and now has come back to it. It springs from a time when she was low-grade ill for quite a while. Traditional medicine was not working for her, and at the same time she was trying to get pregnant. In a workshop, an image of a mother bear comes to her. She goes to Alaska, has an encounter with an endangered grizzly bear. Ultimately she realized that her illness was endometriosis causes by environmental degradation, chemicals also killing bears. The play is a moving call to action, about women’s bodies. It’s not so much about herself, or herself and the bear, and more about the larger world and what do we need to do. She’s also teaching a workshop later this summer, Theater As If Your Life Depends On It.

Closing the festival is a piece I’m directing, Industrious Angels. It’s by Lori McCants, a founding member of the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble. A number of years ago she was teaching a workshop at Ko, then stayed to take one. They were asked to look at where they live for inspiration, and she chose to build a piece around the  Emily Dickinson Museum. She was reading a Dickinson poem to her mother as she was dying. The piece takes place in an attic workroom and uses shadow puppets and handwork. It’s a memory play, about the relationship between Laurie and her mother, about Dickinson and women’s work.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

BOS: There is an ongoing theme of “resistance” here.

Sabrina Hamilton: I need a sense of community and support, to see people who are not  paralyzed, who are energized, there is solace in being in a room together. The most positive, healing thing we can do is to learn to talk to each other.  So often, you already know what’s going to come out of each others’ mouth. Here, what people have in common is, they’ve seen a show. Interesting surprising things get said in the talk-backs. In a show that was about grandparents, one man said, “I have a terrible fear that I have no idea how to be a grandfather, I’m going to mess up royally.” It had never occurred to me that someone might have that concern.

What we’re going for is what I call the “huh” factor. Most summer theater, you clap at the end, it’s over. When we do well, there’s this “huh” – that night, the next morning, even months later. People in talkbacks will refer to something they saw at Ko last week or several years ago, it’s still resonating. We’re dropping a pebble in the pond. Sticky is what I’m going for. Sticky theater!

BOS: Who comes to the workshops? Is it mostly students? Or theater professionals?

Sabrina Hamilton:: Mostly theater professionals and people doing it for personal growth. We don’t separate professionals to make sure that nobody’s on autopilot. It’s a really intensive experience.

The third ring of our circle is our rehearsal residencies. Performers come from all over to work in the lab. They don’t always show the works-in-progress to the public but this time we are opening up a new musical, called Quantum Janis. The premise is that Janis Joplin didn’t die, and she is now a 57 year old black woman.

BOS: How have you kept the Festival going for 27 years?

Sabrina Hamilton: It really runs on willpower and stubbornness more than anyone else. We have been in the black every year but one. We pay our bills.  We started as an ensemble where we’d do our own work and invite our friends. I alone remain of the founders. People think we have a budget 3 times the size of what it really is or that we are funded by Amherst College -in fact, we pay them, though we do get access to their beautiful theatre and studios. We survive by being pioneers in ‘value-added presenting.’ We give the artists as much money as we can through grants, and box office revenue. What else do artists need? You need a video? A vacation for your family? A consultant for how to build your set to tour? We give people time in the theater to work things out. We help artists remember why they deeply love doing this. Artists want to come back to Ko. They are loyal.

BOS: where do you get your funding?

Sabrina Hamilton: We can get $3,800 from the state, $1,000 from the town of Amherst. The NEA would be interested if we’d program two years out.  Part of our ethos is to be responsive to the times. We did a season on age and aging right as it was becoming an area of activism.  The capacity to do an NEA grant–we don’t have that. We participate in Valley Gives, a local giving day. We’ve done well with that.

Ko fills a need in the community. A lot of people have gotten turned off by theater, theaters have lost audience. They come to Ko because it’s their issue, their people, their tribe, To come up with a name for the company, we threw the i ching. What came up is the hexagram, Ko. It means revolution or fire in the lake–the old stuff sloughing off, what’s vital and important emerges.

Our work is not weirdo abstract performance art. It’s usually formally accessible.  Our tagline is “where the only certainty is surprise.” If you don’t like this week, come next week. The only thing we can promise you is, it will be different. It’s not just summer light comedy and a little ten-minute talk-back.

BOS: What do you hope for the future?

Sabrina Hamilton: That people will step up and do more of what they’ve started to do. Audience members will say, look I’ve brought a friend. They know it’s their responsibility. We need ambassadors to vouch for us. We know that people first hear about us from a friend. People realize they have to help, they have to give. Our prices are reasonable. We offer discounts to people who are on SNAP. Culture is a necessity. It’s up to the arts org to provide it — there is no funding for discounted tickets for lower income people. We just said it’s the right thing to do. Our discussions are richer for it.  Some weeks the audience looks very much the same – like a Gathering. Other weeks it’s wildly diverse.

There are other companies in Western MA, like Double Edge [in Ashfield] doing serious plays. World class work is happening. It’s not amateurs – these artists are incredibly trained, working on it for several years. The work has authenticity. People like that realness – it doesn’t feel fake.

The Ko Festival runs through August 5 at Amherst College in Amherst, MA. For a complete preview of the 2018 season, click HERE. Tickets are available at Kofest.com.

SPOTLIGHT ON: Sabrina Hamilton and the 2018 Ko Festival by Jenny Hansell Berkshire On Stage Pioneer Valley Correspondent Jenny Hansell spoke to Sabrina Hamilton, founder and artistic director of the…

[dfroza]

renewal. rebirth.

it all points to all things being made right in A grand end of time

and wouldn’t you like a new body that will never die? it begins with the rebirth of the heart (inside, Anew)

it is an act of grace.

even the heavens and garden earth are destined to be reborn. everything will be made pure and True. no more deceit plaguing this world. no more lies.

for it is impossible for a lie to be found in Love. because Love is pure Light. it is True illumination.

and we see this (the nature of truth vs. the lie) reflected in the reading of the Scriptures for the first day of january to begin 2020

chapter 5 of the ancient book of Acts:

Once a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira fully cooperating, committed fraud. He sold some property and kept some of the proceeds, but he pretended to make a full donation to the Lord’s emissaries.

Peter: Ananias, have you allowed Satan to influence your lies to the Holy Spirit and hold back some of the money? Look, it was your property before you sold it, and the money was all yours after you sold it. Why have you concocted this scheme in your heart? You weren’t just lying to us; you were lying to God.

Ananias heard these words and immediately dropped to the ground, dead; fear overcame all those who heard of the incident. Some young men came, wrapped the body, and buried it immediately. About three hours had passed when Sapphira arrived. She had no idea what had happened.

Peter: Did you sell the land for such-and-such a price?

Sapphira: Yes, that was the price.

Peter: Why did the two of you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Do you hear those footsteps outside? Those are the young men who just buried your husband, and now they will carry you out as well.

She—like her husband—immediately fell dead at Peter’s feet. The young men came in and carried her corpse outside and buried it beside her husband. The whole church was terrified by this story, as were others who heard it.

Those were amazing days—with many signs and wonders being performed through the apostles among the people. The church would gather as a unified group in Solomon’s Porch, enjoying great respect by the people of the city—though most people wouldn’t risk publicly affiliating with them. Even so, record numbers of believers—both men and women—were added to the Lord. The church’s renown was so great that when Peter walked down the street, people would carry out their sick relatives hoping his shadow would fall on some of them as he passed. Even people from towns surrounding Jerusalem would come, bringing others who were sick or tormented by unclean spirits, all of whom were cured.

Of course, this popularity elicited a response: the high priest and his affiliates in the Sadducean party were jealous, so they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. But that night, a messenger of the Lord opened the doors of the prison and led them to freedom.

Messenger of the Lord: Go to the temple, and stand up to tell the people the whole message about this way of life from Jesus.

At dawn they did as they were told; they returned to their teaching in the temple.

Meanwhile the council of Jewish elders was gathering—convened by the high priest and his colleagues. They sent the temple police to the prison to have the Lord’s emissaries brought for further examination; but of course, the temple police soon realized they weren’t there. They returned and reported,

Temple Police: The prison was secure and locked, and the guards were standing in front of the doors; but when we unlocked the doors, the cell was empty.

The captain of the temple police and the senior priests were completely mystified when they heard this. They had no idea what had happened. Just then, someone arrived with this news:

Temple Messenger: You know those men you put in prison last night? Well, they’re free. At this moment, they’re at it again, teaching our people in the temple!

The temple police—this time, accompanied by their captain—rushed over to the temple and brought the emissaries of the Lord to the council. They were careful not to use violence, because the people were so supportive of them that the police feared being stoned by the crowd if they were too rough. Once again the men stood before the council. The high priest began the questioning.

High Priest: Didn’t we give you strict orders to stop teaching in this name? But here you are, spreading your teaching throughout Jerusalem. And you are determined to blame us for this man’s death.

Peter and the Apostles: If we have to choose between obedience to God and obedience to any human authority, then we must obey God. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from death. You killed Jesus by hanging Him on a tree, but God has lifted Him high, to God’s own right hand, as the Prince, as the Liberator. God intends to bring Israel to a radical rethinking of our lives and to a complete forgiveness of our sins. We are witnesses to these things. There is another witness, too—the Holy Spirit—whom God has given to all who choose to obey Him.

The council was furious and would have killed them; but Gamaliel, a Pharisee in the council respected as a teacher of the Hebrew Scriptures, stood up and ordered the men to be sent out so the council could confer privately.

Gamaliel: Fellow Jews, you need to act with great care in your treatment of these fellows. Remember when a man named Theudas rose to notoriety? He claimed to be somebody important, and he attracted about 400 followers. But when he was killed, his entire movement disintegrated and nothing came of it. After him came Judas, that Galilean fellow, at the time of the census. He also attracted a following; but when he died, his entire movement fell apart. So here’s my advice: in this case, just let these men go. Ignore them. If this is just another movement arising from human enthusiasm, it will die out soon enough. But then again, if God is in this, you won’t be able to stop it—unless, of course, you’re ready to fight against God!

The council was convinced, so they brought the apostles back in. They were flogged, again told not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released. As they left the council, they weren’t discouraged at all. In fact, they were filled with joy over being considered worthy to suffer disgrace for the sake of His name. And constantly, whether in public, in the temple, or in their homes, they kept teaching and proclaiming Jesus as the Anointed One, the Liberating King.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 5 (The Voice)

and another mirroring of untruth that points to the purity of God’s Word is seen in these lines of Psalm 12 for the 12th day of Winter:

A David Psalm

Quick, God, I need your helping hand!

The last decent person just went down,

All the friends I depended on gone.

Everyone talks in lie language;

Lies slide off their oily lips.

They doubletalk with forked tongues.

Slice their lips off their faces! Pull

The braggart tongues from their mouths!

I’m tired of hearing, “We can talk anyone into anything!

Our lips manage the world.”

Into the hovels of the poor,

Into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks:

“I’ve had enough; I’m on my way

To heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.”

God’s words are pure words,

Pure silver words refined seven times

In the fires of his word-kiln,

Pure on earth as well as in heaven.

God, keep us safe from their lies,

From the wicked who stalk us with lies,

From the wicked who collect honors

For their wonderful lies.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 12 (The Message)

to be joined by the lines of Psalm 1 for january 1 of 2020:

Book One

The Genesis Psalms

Psalms of man and creation

The Tree of Life

Psalm 1

God’s blessings follow you and await you at every turn:

when you don’t follow the advice of those who delight in wicked schemes,

When you avoid sin’s highway,

when judgment and sarcasm beckon you, but you refuse.

For you, the Eternal’s Word is your happiness.

It is your focus—from dusk to dawn.

You are like a tree,

planted by flowing, cool streams of water that never run dry.

Your fruit ripens in its time;

your leaves never fade or curl in the summer sun.

No matter what you do, you prosper.

For those who focus on sin, the story is different.

They are like the fallen husk of wheat, tossed by an open wind, left deserted and alone.

In the end, the wicked will fall in judgment;

the guilty will be separated from the innocent.

Their road suddenly will end in death,

yet the journey of the righteous has been charted by the Eternal.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 1 (The Passion Translation / The Voice)

Instead you thrill to God’s Word,

you chew on Scripture day and night.

You’re a tree replanted in Eden,

bearing fresh fruit every month,

Never dropping a leaf,

always in blossom.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 1:2-3 (The Message)

and we see the same mirrored in chapter 1 of the book of Proverbs for the first day of the new year:

The Prologue

Here are kingdom revelations, words to live by, and words of wisdom given to empower you to reign in life, written as proverbs by Israel’s King Solomon, David’s son.

Within these sayings will be found the revelation of wisdom and the impartation of spiritual understanding. Use them as keys to unlock the treasures of true knowledge.

Those who cling to these words will receive discipline to demonstrate wisdom in every relationship and to choose what is right and just and fair.

These proverbs will give you great skill to teach the immature and make them wise, to give youth the understanding of their design and destiny.

For the wise, these proverbs will make you even wiser, and for those with discernment, you will be able to acquire brilliant strategies for leadership.

These kingdom revelations will break open your understanding to unveil the deeper meaning of parables, poetic riddles, and epigrams, and to unravel the words and enigmas of the wise.

How then does a man gain the essence of wisdom?

We cross the threshold of true knowledge when we live in obedient devotion to God.

Stubborn know-it-alls will never stop to do this, for they scorn true wisdom and knowledge.

[The Wisdom of a Father]

Pay close attention, my child, to your father’s wise words and never forget your mother’s instructions.

For their insight will bring you success, adorning you with grace-filled thoughts and giving you reins to guide your decisions.

When peer pressure compels you to go with the crowd and sinners invite you to join in, you must simply say, “No!”

When the gang says—“We’re going to steal and kill and get away with it.

We’ll take down the rich and rob them. We’ll swallow them up alive and take what we want from whomever we want. Then we’ll take their treasures and fill our homes with loot.

So come on and join us. Take your chance with us. We’ll divide up all we get; we’ll each end up with big bags of cash!”—my son, refuse to go with them and stay far away from them.

For crime is their way of life and bloodshed their specialty. To be aware of their snare is the best way of escape.

They’ll resort to murder to steal their victim’s assets, but eventually it will be their own lives that are ambushed. In their ungodly disrespect for God they bring destruction on their own lives.

[Wisdom’s Warning]

Wisdom’s praises are sung in the streets and celebrated far and wide.

Yet wisdom’s song is not always heard in the halls of higher learning.

But in the hustle and bustle of everyday life its lyrics can always be heard above the din of the crowd.

You will hear wisdom’s warning as she preaches courageously to those who stop to listen:

“Foolish ones, how much longer will you cling to your deception? How much longer will you mock wisdom, cynical scorners who fight the facts?

Come back to your senses and be restored to reality. Don’t even think about refusing my rebuke!

Don’t you know that I’m ready to pour out my spirit of wisdom upon you and bring to you the revelation of my words that will make your heart wise?

I’ve called to you over and over; still you refuse to come to me. I’ve pleaded with you again and again, yet you’ve turned a deaf ear to my voice.

Because you have laughed at my counsel and have insisted on continuing in your stubbornness, I will laugh when your calamity comes and will turn away from you at the time of your disaster.

Make a joke of my advice, will you? Then I’ll make a joke out of you!

When the storm clouds of terror gather over your head, when dread and distress consume you and your catastrophe comes like a hurricane, you will cry out to me, but I won’t answer.

Then it will be too late to expect my help.

When desperation drives you to search for me, I will be nowhere to be found.

Because you have turned up your nose at me and closed your eyes to the facts and refused to worship me in awe—because you scoffed at my wise counsel and laughed at my correction—now you will eat the bitter fruit of your own ways.

You’ve made your own bed; now lie in it! So how do you like that?

Like an idiot you’ve turned away from me and chosen destruction instead. Your self-satisfied smugness will kill you.

But the one who always listens to me will live undisturbed in a heavenly peace.

Free from fear, confident and courageous, you will rest unafraid and sheltered from the storms of life.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 1 (The Passion Translation)

And the reading of chapter 5 of Acts in the New Testament is paired Today with the reading of chapter 3 of Nahum where we see a time when the lies and injustices of Nineveh were exposed by God:

Hopelessness and despair,

that’s the destiny of the city that shed so much blood,

That perfected its use of lies,

that overflows with stolen treasures,

Leaving behind endless victims.

The Book of Nahum, Chapter 3:1 (The Voice)

[Let the Nations Get Their Fill of the Ugly Truth]

Doom to Murder City—

full of lies, bursting with loot, addicted to violence!

Horns blaring, wheels clattering,

horses rearing, chariots lurching,

Horsemen galloping,

brandishing swords and spears,

Dead bodies rotting in the street,

corpses stacked like cordwood,

Bodies in every gutter and alley,

clogging every intersection!

And whores! Whores without end!

Whore City,

Fatally seductive, you’re the Witch of Seduction,

luring nations to their ruin with your evil spells.

“I’m your enemy, Whore Nineveh—

I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

I’ll strip you of your seductive silk robes

and expose you on the world stage.

I’ll let the nations get their fill of the ugly truth

of who you really are and have been all along.

I’ll pelt you with dog dung

and place you on a pedestal: ‘Slut on Exhibit.’

Everyone who sees you will gag and say,

‘Nineveh’s a pigsty:

What on earth did we ever see in her?

Who would give her a second look? Ugh!’”

[Past the Point of No Return]

Do you think you’re superior to Egyptian Thebes,

proudly invincible on the River Nile,

Protected by the great River,

walled in by the River, secure?

Ethiopia stood guard to the south,

Egypt to the north.

Put and Libya, strong friends,

were ready to step in and help.

But you know what happened to her:

The whole city was marched off to a refugee camp,

Her babies smashed to death

in public view on the streets,

Her prize leaders auctioned off,

her celebrities put in chain gangs.

Expect the same treatment, Nineveh.

You’ll soon be staggering like a bunch of drunks,

Wondering what hit you,

looking for a place to sleep it off.

All your forts are like peach trees,

the lush peaches ripe, ready for the picking.

One shake of the tree and they fall

straight into hungry mouths.

Face it: Your warriors are wimps.

You’re sitting ducks.

Your borders are gaping doors, inviting

your enemies in. And who’s to stop them?

Store up water for the siege.

Shore up your defenses.

Get down to basics: Work the clay

and make bricks.

Sorry. Too late.

Enemy fire will burn you up.

Swords will cut you to pieces.

You’ll be chewed up as if by locusts.

Yes, as if by locusts—a fitting fate,

for you yourselves are a locust plague.

You’ve multiplied shops and shopkeepers—

more buyers and sellers than stars in the sky!

A plague of locusts, cleaning out the neighborhood

and then flying off.

Your bureaucrats are locusts,

your brokers and bankers are locusts.

Early on, they’re all at your service,

full of smiles and promises,

But later when you return with questions or complaints,

you’ll find they’ve flown off and are nowhere to be found.

King of Assyria! Your shepherd-leaders,

in charge of caring for your people,

Are busy doing everything else but.

They’re not doing their job,

And your people are scattered and lost.

There’s no one to look after them.

You’re past the point of no return.

Your wound is fatal.

When the story of your fate gets out,

the whole world will applaud and cry “Encore!”

Your cruel evil has seeped

into every nook and cranny of the world.

Everyone has felt it and suffered.

The Book of Nahum, Chapter 3 (The Message)

[theverydeepthinker-blog]

God [is]with us!

I remember as a child learning Isaiah 9: 6 like a poem. To this day, it’s a verse I remember very well. But the understanding of the verse grew with time. It’s but a small yet significant part of the Christmas story was foretold by Isaiah, who was among other prophets who told of the coming of Jesus. It came to past some 2,000 years ago, but it’s a timeless story that can never get old, even with the increasing commercialisation and “Santa-fication” of Christmas.

Unto us a son is given…

While reading through and listening to the story of Jesus’ birth, I was struck by elements of the story in a new way. For one, God sent His son into the world via a virgin woman who was pledged to be married. In today’s society, this would be front page news in tabloid magazines or even the plot of a soap opera. I can only imagine what Mary was thinking as she was told this news – Joseph would leave her and there was the potential for alienation in a patriarchal society.

Not only that, but when Jesus was close to being born, they had to travel to Bethlehem from Nazareth…a three-day trip. For anyone who is healthy and fit, that’s a tiring journey. It would have therefore been even more difficult for a woman close to giving birth. Joseph and Mary respected the decree of the Roman emperor to be registered in their “own town”, and despite the difficulties, made the journey.

But it gets more challenging. When they get to Bethlehem, there were no rooms for them. Mary’s due date arrived, and they had to settle for a stable…a manger set for animals. I’ve been to farms that rear animals, and I can say that they emit odours that are far from aromatic.

And the government shall be upon His shoulders…

And that wasn’t enough…Wise men who knew of the birth of the “King of the Jews” went searching for him. A very jealous Herod asked about this child who he intended to kill, but he was outwitted by the wise men. Of course, God told Joseph about Herod’s intention and they had to flee to Egypt until the king died.

And His name shall be called…

I sometimes wonder – why would such difficulties surround what should be a joyous occasion? After all, Emanuel – God with us, was born to save and redeem us. His Father is the One who made the universe, who made each and every one of us, and who holds everything in His hand. Yet, his very son started his human journey in a smelly stable to tired parents who ended up having to run for their lives to another country. And herein lies my “eureka” moment. We oft have to endure hardship before we can enjoy the blessings that God has in store for us!

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father…

Mary was chosen by God Himself to be the mother of His son…she didn’t know all that she would endure to be the mother who would be called blessed (Luke 1:48). If I were in her shoes, I would wonder at times how He could have called me to such an important task and allow such difficulties to come upon me. But like Mary, it’s our reliance on God, our Everlasting Father, that ultimately determines the outcome.

Prince of Peace!

A New Year is fast approaching, and none of us know what lies ahead. We may end up in situations that are rough, tough and tumultuous. But like Mary, our blessings are beyond the difficulties. We can have peace, even as the storms rage round-about us. We can and will endure when we remember that God is with us…always!