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

[kocch]

ngl i'd be more excited about st if thinking about n**h wouldn't make me think of zionism and how uncomfortable it makes me feel

[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.

[tourdion]

what do you like about leonard cohen? basically all i know about him is that he is (was?) a singer-songwriter who wrote for example famous blue raincoat. had dark eyes. think he was a jew but could be wrong. anyway, what's special about him to you? really wanna hear:)

well well well well... you definitely came to the right spot... or maybe the wrong spot if its too overwhelming to properly describe & it is 2am but well.... first essential key context is there was a time in my life where with absolutely 0 exaggeration at least 90% of the music i was listening to (often actually a lot higher then this) was leonard cohen like my question every day wasnt hmmm who do i want to listen to 🤔 but specifically which leonard cohen albums do i feel like listening to & with every single one of his albums i had some extended phase where i was completely obsessed with it for a while & i do deeply love every single one & listened to 1000 hours of leonard cohen one year... actually i even have a screenshot of one of those timewhizzs websites with a bar chart for that year demonstrating the extent of my insanity ill try to find it.....

so this is just the preface..... also i just realised im literally wearing a leonard cohen t shirt rn 😇

i think i have to say the one thing that i find really special about him is his depth.. sounds like such a generic way to describe poetry and music but i mean it in a lot of ways... first that in every single line has been created with so much intention and contains so much meaning.. one example of this is in the song take this waltz (which may be my favourite song ever) which is a translation & adaption of a lorca poem which includes a line leonard cohen added himself "theres a bar where the boys have stopped talking theyve been sentenced to death by the blues" which refers to a time that lorca met up with hart crane with a mutual friend translating for them who eventually left as they came to a gay bar bc he was straight so they could no longer communicate & eventually lorca was killed by spanish fascists who wore blue uniforms & hart crane killed himself like there is a whole story in just these two lines and multiple meanings within this as well

i remember when i first got extremely intensely insanely obsessed with him after you know only being casually obsessed for a few years it was via this song and i didnt even know the story behind this line yet but actually even then it already was my favourite.. but i remember thinking how there was so much intricacy in each of the worlds in these songs i specifically remember thinking that i wished i could just live in his music for a while (then proceeded to do exactly that for the next year 🤓)

another thing is there have been so many cases with so many of his songs that i have just listened to that one song on repeat for days and unlike so many other people his music never ever gets boring after this and actually just gets better as you gain a deeper understanding

another song that i find really fascinating is obviously famous blue raincoat but the thing that really fascinates me is it is really actually so vague but the story it creates for people is often very vivid or at least obvious seeming... so many articles/reviews/quiz answers/people ive interrogated over the years have had so many insanely different interpretations & while sometimes people maybe less secure in their answers like oh i havent listened that much i might be wrong etc the basic premise of the song is mostly just assumed to be as they think & its the details that are less clear but these "basic premises" are always so different & this is what i love!!!!

lets end with a tale from my childhood... so i was a very out of touch child who hadnt watched shrek or the x factor so the first time i heard hallelujah was in my school choir & to make sure we remembered songs properly we werent allowed to read words to songs and i remember being so stunned by the beauty of the words when the choir teacher read those lines to us...

also realising i havent really touched upon my deepest love for him even at all yet but i was frantically drawing diagrams between his songs and constantly having to add more details because there is always just so much there in all his writing.. so my main obsession is his religious/romantic ambiguity & from his very first novel to his last albums he released in his 80s there are still common themes & its just all so insane

so this is a picture of my diagrams i could find quickly on my phone but its very likely that more couldve been added since......

[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.

[jewish-privilege]

This weekend, I marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. To the left, through the thick cables and ropes of the bridge, I could see the Statue of Liberty, clear and strong. My grandmother had learned the Emma Lazarus poem by heart when she was a child, so I memorized it, too, and now the words came back to me as we crossed into Manhattan: Here at our sea-washed, sunset shores shall stand/ A mighty woman with a torch /whose flame is the imprisoned lightening /and her name Mother of Exiles.

It’s hard for me to see the Statue of Liberty and not think about the hope with which my ancestors came to America. One great-grandfather, alone at thirteen, was sent by his family to seek a better life. Another great-grandfather, the rabbi of a small Belarusian village, was fleeing the pogroms with my grandfather, then sixteen. All of them saw this statue, this vision against the water, emblazoned with the words of a Jewish poet welcoming the exiles to their new home.

...This is not to say that as Jews, our time in this country has always been rosy. Decades after his arrival, my great-grandfather’s synagogue was torched by arsonists the first night of Passover. Everyone remembers the story, especially the crazed guest rushed back to save the Torah scrolls. But nobody thought to tell me the story until I was well into my college years.

There have been the restricted clubs, the school quotas, the countless episodes of bullying and beatings. There was the lynching of Leo Frank and the shooting in Pittsburgh. And yet, Jews continued to come to America to flee the darkest episodes. After my great-grandparents would come the survivors of the Holocaust, the Jews escaping Egypt and Iran, my cousins fleeing the Soviet Union on hunger strikes. For all of them, America was the place we went to willingly, often desperately, to both survive and seek a life better than survival. America was the light at the end of so many dark tunnels.

For the ancestors of so many Black Americans, America was the tunnel. The darkest period. The place that brought death and the opposite of hope.

...Of course, as American Jews, we know about this distinction between our fate and the fate of African Americans. But there is, sometimes, an impulse to see shared cause with racism in this country because we ourselves have been so intimate with tragedy. We know what it is like to be oppressed and killed and wantonly harassed, we think, and we know overcoming it.

Sometimes this impulse is spoken in a message of solidarity: Never Again. Sometimes it is whispered, the comparison prompting a question that is often asked softy, lest the racism be heard too loudly: We came to America, on the heels of so much trauma, and here we flourished. Why does the Jewish story and the Black story in America look so differently?

The truth is simple: We live in a different America, one that offered us a haven. We fled to America and away from the lands of our greatest horrors, while the Black community was forced to overcome their greatest horrors among the people who wrought them.

In the past few days, I have been thinking about what it means that the American Jewish community has processed the tragedy of the Holocaust, that defining tragedy, in a country that also sees the Nazis as evil. In a country where our pain and the horror of our experiences did not condemn the majority of the population but served as further confirmation of their heroic valor, their moral worth and bravery.

What if the Jews had stayed in Germany?

As 20,000 of us marched across the bridge chanting Black Lives Matter, I thought about what it would have meant if the Jews had to process the Holocaust not with Americans but with Germans, with the very people who had organized our murder, and then with their children and relatives and friends. How would we have been forced to hedge our trauma, to delicately navigate the Germans’ feelings, to help them process their own pain and anger at the legacy of what was done? How would we have found the right words to calmly explain why we aren’t yet over such ancient history?

The Jewish experience in America and the Jewish experience of hate and persecution are two different chapters in our history; for Black Americans, they are the same. When we fail to understand that distinction, we risk subsuming the story of Black oppression into our own narrative, and seeing ourselves as aligned with the persecuted in this story. Worse, we fail to understand why and how Black discourse, in the country of their oppression, is so different than the discourse of Jews, in this country of our security.

[eyesaremosaics]

Dream

I was with Michael at his house. We were just holding each other. I kept clinging on to him pulling him closer. For some reason I left his house... then I called him, and we talked on the phone... I was walking through these grassy hills... barefoot, in the dark at night. We talked for hours just like we used to. It got to a point where I began to cry, I said: “I just want you to know... I never wanted to leave you. I never wanted to go. You gave me no choice. You forced me away. I spent so many nights crying myself to sleep. Wishing I was dead because you didn’t love me. I had to move on. I had no other option.”

I could hear the pain in his voice as he said:

“I know. That was the way I wanted it. I wanted you to be free.”

I told him I would never stop loving him, and I never did. That I’m sorry for all the mistakes I made. He said he was deeply sorry too. That I was the last person he ever wanted to hurt. I don’t remember what else was said, I just remember the feeling of joy I felt at the end of the conversation. He had to push people out of his room, they were having a party. I asked if I could come back over and be with him. He said “Yeah! Come back over.”

At this point I had wandered through the darkened hills... and reached a bus stop in the middle of nowhere. The sun was rising over the brow of the hill, and I realized that I had no shoes on. “Oh no. I have no shoes. I’m in my pajamas. I have to go back and get my car on the other side of the hill.”

“Just take a bus here.”

“I need shoes.”

Some random girl at the bus stop gave me shoes, and told me to go. I said to Michael: “I don’t have any make up on.”

He was silent for a minute, I repeated what I said thinking he had not heard me. He said something like: “it doesn’t matter to me. You look better without it.”

I was so happy, then I woke up. In my room, early in the morning... Valerie asleep next to me. I nestled back into dreaming and sleep, but the dream quickly turned into a nightmare. After arriving at his house, there was a party going on. Michael was not in his room, and it was clear that he was dead. We were at his memorial again, and I saw a picture of B____ on his wall, the kind of bullshit she would post on livejournal back in the day. “I loved a girl in blue.” There was another line to the poem, something cryptic and so like her. I looked all over his room that wasn’t his room. There was no photo or anything of me. I said this aloud, and some guy came in and said that she inserted herself, exaggerating her importance. But I didn’t feel that was true. The deep cord in my heart of being unloveable began to gong inside me. Ringing in my ears.

I ripped her picture off the wall, strongly resisting the urge to tear it to pieces. Out of respect for him, I put it back. It looked out of place though. People kept coming and going from the room, trying to comfort me. But everything felt empty. Sad. Hopeless. Then I woke up, tossing and turning.

Analysis:

*The meaning behind Dark Dreams

To dream of darkness overtaking you on a journey, augurs ill for any work you may attempt, unless the sun breaks through before the journey ends, then faults will be overcome.

—

*Paracelsus says on this subject: ``It may happen that the soul of persons who have died perhaps fifty years ago may appear to us in a dream, and if it speaks to us we should pay special attention to what it says, for such a vision is not an illusion or delusion, and it is possible that a man is as much able to use his reason during the sleep of his body as when the latter is awake; and if in such a case such a soul appears to him and he asks questions, he will then hear that which is true.

Through these solicitous souls we may obtain a great deal of knowledge to good or to evil things if we ask them to reveal them to us.

Many persons have had such prayers granted to them. Some people that were sick have been informed during their sleep what remedies they should use, and after using the remedies, they became cured, and such things have happened not only to Christians, but also to Jews, Persians, and heathens, to good and to bad persons.''

—-

To dream of experiencing delight over any event, signifies a favorable turn in affairs. For lovers to be delighted with the conduct of their sweethearts, denotes pleasant greetings.

To feel delight when looking on beautiful landscapes, prognosticates to the dreamer very great success and congenial associations.

—

To dream of climbing hills is good if the top is reached, but if you fall back, you will have much envy and contrariness to fight against.

—-

A sun shining through clouds, denotes that troubles and difficulties are losing hold on you, and prosperity is nearing you.

—

To dream of being barefoot represents situations where you are aware of your morals or basic principals being tested. Moral conduct or honest behavior is being noticed by others. You can't hide the trust of who you are as a person to yourself or others. Faithfulness or honesty is being displayed to others.

Positively, bare feet may reflect a willingness to change core beliefs or have your values tested in front of others.

Negatively, being barefoot may reflect a loss of principles, integrity, or morals. It may also reflect low self-esteem, or a lack of confidence. Having casual sex.

You may be experiencing vulnerability to negative influences. Situations in your life that open the door to corruption or challenges that you are not ready for. It may also an open attitude to changing your values.

—

Night

To dream of experiencing night time represents confusion, obstacles, or setbacks. A lack of clarity. There is an issue in your life that you can't figure out, prevents you from moving forward, or that holds you back.

Night may also reflect situations that aren't positive any more or that have taken a turn for the worst. Something isn't good as it used to be. Unpleasant feelings about something good in your life is over-with. Feeling scared that you don't have answers you want when you feel you need them the most.

—

Darkness

To dream of darkness represents situations where you feel there is nothing positive happening. Fear, ignorance, injustice, anger, evil, death, or powerful uncertainty. It may also reflect a positive situation that has taken a turn for the worst. Expecting the worst. Worrying. Emotional crisis. An unwelcoming or unpleasant situation. Feeling that a situation is dangerous. Unhappiness. Feeling mystified that you always make choices that sabotage you. Feelings about having nobody to help you with a problem and that you are all on your own. Situations where there is a complete lack of any sense of humor. Situations that are inconsiderate of your feelings. A pessimistic attitude (especially dark blue or dark grey). People who fear losing their eyesight often dream of darkness. Alternatively, darkness may symbolize your inability to see the truth or find the answers you want. Feeling cut off or without the ability to know what is happening in a situation. Feeling unable to know what is happening with other people. Ignorance of the truth. Feeling out of place. To dream of the sun or light taking away the darkness represents answers, overcoming problems, or fear that is vanishing.

—

Hill

To dream of a hill represents an obstacle in your life. A struggle to achieve a goal. The steepness of hill reflects how big the challenge is that you're facing.

To dream of moving uphill represents your attempt to work against an obstacle. Feeling the difficulty of a situation or that something is getting harder. Feeling that a problem is too much for you. You may also be experiencing an enormous challenge or lots of pressure to meet a deadline. Fighting against the odds. A sign that you need to "tough it out." Patience and dedication will benefit you.

To dream of moving downhill represents a sense of ease with an obstacle or feeling that you are moving away from a problem. Life may feel like it's getting easier. Moving downhill too fast may reflect an improvement that is happening too quick to respond to. Something is good is happening too fast.

To dream of standing on top of a hill represents success or overcoming a challenge. You are noticing that you struggle is over with.

To dream of a steep hill represents feelings about an obstacle in your life being particularly difficult. A challenge which requires you to try your hardest or be stubborn to overcome it. Feelings about needing to push yourself hard to achieve your goals. Negatively, a steep hill may reflect feelings about how an obstacle is demanding too much from you. Feeling it's too much work to overcome a challenge that other people may not think is difficult.

—

Dawn

To dream of the dawn represents a fresh start or the end of troubling time. Reemerging into a new stage in your life or new opportunities. Rejuvenation, enlightenment, or a renewed sense of vitality. A dark moment or difficult time may be coming to an end.

Alternatively, the dawn may reflect new insights, new ideas, or new understanding.

—

Dreams of telephone calls from the deceased are very common when people are grieving. The dreams may reflect the person's desire to speak to the person again. It may also reflect the person's difficulty adjusting to the reality that speaking to the person is now impossible. Positively, calls from the deceased may reflect your wish to have a sign that they are safe or happy in the spiritual world.

To dream of a telephone represents psychological communication with an aspect of yourself or issues that need attention. The ability to "get through" to people, listen to an inner voice, or realize an objective at will. It may also reflect an situations that could be "called " into being if desired. Alternatively, the telephone represents your communication and relationship with others

—

To dream of being forgiven by someone represents feelings of being accepted for who are. Forgiving yourself for the past. Giving yourself permission to let go of guilt. Negatively, dreaming of being forgiven may reflect issues acknowledging guilt or accepting responsibility for your actions. Releasing yourself from blame for actions you are guilt of.

To dream of forgiving someone represents feelings of letting go of the past, grudges, or resentment. Feeling that it's important to move on with your life. Letting go of guilt.

—

Crying

To dream of crying sadly represents powerful feelings of loss, disappointment, or pain. Distress, sorrow, or stress. You feel frustrated or overwhelmed by how unpleasant a situation is. You may be having difficulty accepting the end of a situation or relationship. Jealousy of something in your life not being perfect. Feeling empty inside.

Alternatively, crying in a dream may be a sign that you are acknowledging a problem you've been repressing. You or someone else that is experiencing catharsis or emotional cleansing. A release of sorrow, grief, or misery that has been held back. You may have finally confronted a powerful fear.

To dream of crying tears of joy represents the resolution of a frustrating problem or working through emotional blocks. Relief of some kind. It may also represent your deep appreciation or sense of wonderment for something that has happened to you.

—

Cuddle

To dream of cuddling represents a situation or relationship you are thinking about being perfect all the time. Enjoying or desiring a perfect experience with nothing wrong happening.

Negatively, cuddling may be a sign that you are too focused on fantasies or ideals and not seeing reality clearly enough.

Alternatively, dreaming of cuddling with someone may reflect your need for physical contact or a desire to be cared about by someone. Consider what the person you are cuddling with symbolizes for additional meaning.

—

Hugging

To dream of hugging represents a person, behavior, or situation that you are embracing. Feeling good being close to something or someone. Showing or receiving sympathy. Choosing to accept or take something into your life. Agreeing with someone or the embracing of ideas. Hugging may also reflect appreciation or relief you feel that a problem is over. Enjoying something you missed.

Positively, hugging could reflect feelings of relief or elation to be away from a dangerous or terrible situation. Appreciating what you have after experiencing something bad. Wanting eagerly to feel close to something positive after a crisis, trauma, or bad experience. Missing someone or something dearly.

—

Funeral

To dream of a funeral represents an acknowledgment that something in your life has ended. The end of a situation or aspect of yourself that you know you'll never see ever again. Letting go or a final goodbye. Experiencing the end of a bad habit. Alternatively, a funeral may reflect preoccupation with a loss.

If you are actually dying in real life a funeral dream may reflect your feelings or anxieties about your own death. Otherwise funeral dreams can also reflect your feelings of mourning for people who have died in waking life.

—

Pictures

To dream of a picture or photograph represents a memory or mental imprint of an experience you had. How a situation was remembered or is perceived by you after it has occurred. A lasting impression. Ensuring remembrance.

To dream of taking pictures may reflect the importance you feel on remembering current actions at a later time. A wish to remember yourself as having done the right thing.

Negatively, pictures may reflect a bad memory of yourself. Memories of yourself having made a mistake, not stood up for yourself, or having embarrassed yourself. A bad impression of our past behavior or actions. Remembering something bad. Trying to manipulate how an event is remembered. Alternatively, it may reflect an intentional choice to take actions so that something will be remembered in a negative way.Look to the content of the picture for other symbolism to help you understand what kind of impression certain experiences left on you.

—

Jealousy

To dream of jealousy represents your anxiety or concern that some area of your life will be too powerful for you. You may fear that someone or something will get out of control or embarrass you.

—

Anger

To dream that you are holding or expressing anger represents an awareness of frustration or agitation. Experiencing a disagreement with someone in your waking life or inner conflict with an aspect of your character. You may be experiencing frustrations and disappointments with others. Frustration with yourself. A need to be more assertive than you want to be. Powerful feelings of jealousy or being undervalued. Feeling of hostility in waking life.

Being angry in a dream may also reflect you or someone else that is demanding to be acknowledged. It may also be a sign that you have unacknowledged aggression or hostility. Perhaps you feel undervalued, rejected, or jealous.

—

There is a belief that our deceased loved ones are trying to communicate with us in many different ways. Your dreams are one of the most common ways to have communication with your loved one. Your loved one will send you little signs and you have to be able to recognize them and to understand their meanings. If your deceased loved one appears in your dream, it is obvious that he/she wants to have a contact with you.

Your deceased loved one wants to remind you that you are not alone. That person will always be with you, even if he/she is dead. You should never forget that and you should never feel lonely.

Most important is not to have fears because of your deceased loved one that has appeared in your dream, but you should be happy because you have the opportunity to see that person once more, to touch her and to hear what that person wants to tell you. It is believed that a message from your deceased loved one in a dream could be very important for your life in general. If you have dreamed about your deceased loved one, you should pay special attention to your dream.

It usually happens that your deceased loved one appears at the moments when you are going through a very difficult period in your life. Your loved one will come to you when you need support and also at the moments when you are feeling lost and confused.

If you have seen your deceased loved one in a dream, that person will certainly be your guide and help you solve many things in your waking life. It is believed that in our dreams we can receive very useful advice from our deceased loved one.

[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

[justagirlnamedvic]

Personal Essay

I wish I could look back on my days in Greek school as happy. I wish I could look back and say that those years were, at the very least, pleasant. But I can’t. This is why.

The church basement was always cold, even in the springtime. The classes were harshly lit under fluorescent lighting and the sharp yet luminous eyes of Greek women. Rusted desks and chairs stood on broken floor tiles in rooms with holes in the drywall. This is where I spent my Saturdays. From the time I was old enough to understand that being Greek Orthodox means lighting candles, kissing icons, and drinking wine from a spoon in a priest’s hand, I attended St. Nicholas Greek school.

It wasn’t so bad in those first few years. I made friends with the other girls with long hair and even longer last names. I learned my alphabet. I learned how to say words like orange and mountain and fatherland. I learned how to sing the national anthem. I learned to dance around the room in a semicircle, although holding hands with the boys was uncomfortable. At that age, I could ignore the way my teachers mispronounced and misspelled my last name. I didn’t understand why at the time, but it didn’t matter. They adored me anyway.

It got worse as I got older. I began to notice things. Our class had outgrown the desks and our legs could no longer fit underneath them. Going upstairs for start-of-year mass in the church stopped being fun and became boring. I stopped putting silver quarters in the collection basket that got passed around. The price of tuition and books doubled for no reason in particular. No one ever came to repair the broken tiles or the holes in the drywall. I overheard my mother complaining about the shiny new Mercedes the priest parked in the parking lot. I resented waking up early on a Saturday to go to Greek school. All the girls in my class moved away and in their absence, some of the boys liked to tease me. The teachers never noticed this.

It wasn’t a big deal, though. The mild bullying didn’t bother me, as I was proud and refused to let it get to me. I recognized how lucky I was to be going to Greek school and I was grateful to be learning my language and culture. I soaked up every note of music and every new word I possibly could. I read any Greek book I could get my hands on and practiced verb conjugations for hours. Yes, I suppose I was unhappy with the Greek school environment and my horrible classmates and the way the Greek bishop talked about intermarriage, but my graduation was coming, and I had to prepare. It would all be over soon.

My very last day is what changed everything. The school liked to put on a concert in mid-June, where all the parents and grandparents would crowd into the tiny church banquet hall to watch their children perform songs, dances, poems, plays, and speeches. At the end, the teachers would present one child from each class with an academic award and give the graduates their certificates.

The festivities were in preparation. The parents hadn’t arrived yet and the classes were taking turns rehearsing their performances. I was on stage with a couple of my classmates when it happened.

We had just finished practicing our dance and were gradually getting off stage. I’m not sure how the topic came up, but my classmates asked me about my father. I didn’t normally discuss him with that crowd, but by then I was fourteen, in grade nine, and proud of my Jewish heritage. I had outgrown the shame and secrecy that somehow came with having a Jew for a father, so I didn’t see any reason not to tell them the truth.

When we sat back down at our table with the rest of our class, they started. Back and forth to each other but within earshot of me, so they knew I could hear them. A rain shower of anti-Jew jokes. Jokes about stereotypes and overused tropes, the kind that comedians and television shows love to emphasize. Big noses and hunger for money and such. Jokes about real historical events. Mass genocide. Death. Their cold words cut me like a knife. I saw real satisfaction in their eyes when they saw how much their comments upset me. They made cheap humour of my people’s suffering. They laughed loudly after each one, as if it was the funniest thing in the world, as if I’m not four generations removed from Nazis rounding us up and putting us in gas chambers, as if I’m not descended from victims of the Holocaust, as if the things they laugh about don’t still bother me every day.

I didn’t say anything to them. I sat there and tried to ignore them. In that moment, I felt like the drywall, peppered with holes and scratches and obscene words. In truth, my mind was reeling from shock. I had never experienced any kind of antisemitism before and I was not equipped to handle this kind of attack. I couldn’t say anything, because I had just realized something. Even in the company of my peers, people who were part of the same ethnicity and religion as me, I was still seen as an other. My Jewish roots and last name meant that I could never truly fit in with the community I thought I belonged to. Shame reared its head after being buried for so long and anger followed. The anger was because I didn’t tell them off or fight back. But then, the realization came. I didn’t belong. It was a feeling I was used to by then, growing up in Catholic school, and one that I would come to get more acquainted with as time went on.

I ended up winning the academic award. I collected my certificate and left with my family, determined never to go back there for any reason. I never did. My memories of that place would forever be poisoned by that last day, however positive they were from the years before. I could never look back and remember anything other than that experience, where I was, for the first time in my life, the target of genuine hate. It took years before I was able to tell anyone about what happened that day because the shame of it felt like the lashes of a whip. Unpleasant as it was, I learned a valuable lesson. The sad reality of our society is that in order to be openly Jewish, you must develop thick skin. You cannot fall to pieces at every hateful word or offensive joke that comes your way. This may have been my first brush with antisemitism, but it certainly wasn’t my last. In my case, I learned to take it in stride and not internalize it, because if I did, I would never be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Looking back, I saw how poor the school was in comparison to the church, how hateful the bishop was towards my parents’ marriage, how the boys mistreated me, and the way my last name turned heads and not in a good way. It was a place of greed, guilt, and hatred. I didn’t belong there and maybe I wasn’t meant to. I would spend a long time searching for where I did.

[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

[tcfkag]

The Wave....

Okay, so I have now seen the posts about "The Wave" experiment cross my dashboard in the last couple days several times and I feel like people are missing some salient points here. The Wave proved very little about human behavior; yes humans are exceptionally prone to tribalism, we've always known that. What we HAVEN'T ever really figured out is how to eliminate that tribalism (the Us v. Them that we so easily fall into...because really, why do Yankees fans suck? But I'm pretty sure they do.) The insidious story of the Wave was not that he was able to turn the school into a mini-gang or even that they turned on outsiders so easily, it's what comes next. Part of the reason the Shoah (or Holocaust ) was so bad was that, over the top of literally generations of racial and religious hatred towards the Jewish people, things in Germany had superficially improved. Berlin, Munich, Vienna were centers of Jewish culture in Europe because, for about 50-75 years, things had been better there then other places for Jews. Jews from Eastern Europe, where antisemitism was still much more obvious and overt had fled the east to move into Central Europe because it was believed to be safer. There, the gentiles were friendly, they were their neighbors, they were *safe.* The Holocaust did not happen because Hitler was a despotic leader with an enormous cult of personality who brought the Germans under his magic spell; it happened because he took advantage of those generations of hatred towards Jews to kick through the veneer of civility that had lured so many Jews to their borders. BEFORE the Holocaust, most Germans would not have believed that "that" could happen here, but they did know and they didn't act. But, what is also true, is that before the Holocaust, many Jews in Europe also thought "this couldn't happen here" (partially because nothing like the Shoah had ever happened before or since) but also because "these are friends, these are our neighbors." Stop me if this sounds familiar. Now, some really terrible, horrible, very bad people look at this story and say "well, see, that's why "the races" shouldn't mix.....its inevitable." Well, buckaroos, put your fucking big boys pants on because it literally does not matter how you arrange human populations, tribalism still fucking happens. As Jews disappeared from, German society behind walls and on trains, Hitler had to continually find new groups to target. YOU'VE READ THE POEM. You know....first they came for the Roma and disabled but I wasn't either of those...yeah that one (though I think he skipped those two.) And no one who is honestly looking at American history can say our history is any different; we (and I'm talking to all my fellow White Americans right now-I don't care if your family got here in 1870 and never owned a slave) have tolerated and benefitted from generations of genocide, slavery, tribalism, Jim Crow (which has been called by a lot of names over the years around the world - the Jews were put in the ghettos and South Africa had apartheid), and lots and lots of racism (yes, in the North too, you know...I don't think the bussing desegregation battle in Boston is part of the public school curriculum here.). We continue to this day. And nothing is going to change until we start admitting and addressing that in a legitimate and active way. Oddly enough, you can also look at Germany as a lesson on what to do after the fact. Because, what I found fascinating when I traveled in Germany (admittedly from the viewpoint of someone who studied Jewish history and wrote her thesis in college on Nazi Germany and the role of the Hitler Youth) is that you won't see a single Swastika. The Nazi salute and Mein Kampf are illegal. But you cannot visit Germany and not realize the Shoah happened. They mention it in tours, there are monuments and memorials big and small, and less then an hour from Munich (when you've dried out from the beer) you can visit Bergen-Belsen where they maintain and show detailed evidence of their historical shame. They don't GET MARRIED THERE (looking at you creepy Plantation weddings.) Present day Germany has been one of the most welcoming nations to the refugees coming out of Syria and Iraq and it's not because racism has disappeared and they are all one big, happy family; it's because their government continues to do the hard work of addressing and combatting racism in their midst - as do many Germans who (magically) can remember the lessons of the 1940s *without* attending Heinrich Himmler High School. So, this idea that if we take down Confederate monuments we will forget the lessons of the past is problematic for a few reasons (1) they're monuments, not memorials, and they provide no context for the viewer to learn any lessons, (2) until we start adding that context, we aren't learning shit as a country, (3) the lessons AREN'T the lessons of our PAST unless we can admit they are also the truth of our present and (4) even if we did add context, the MONUMENTS should still come down because our black friends and neighbors (hey! where have we heard that term before) are asking for them to come down, and there vote counts more then ours as the actual human descendants of the people Robert E. (not really a Southern Gentleman) Lee fought to enslave. So please, don't look around you and say "this isn't my America. This couldn't happen here..." It can. IT IS. Looking away, pushing it under the surface and pretending it doesn't exist, THAT is how you end up "shocked and amazed" that your government murdered six million innocent children. TL;DR, tribalism is not our problem, it's how we address that tribalism that is.

[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.

[blogwritetheworld]

The Write Place: Starting a Book Club

Looking for the right advice on pursuing the writer’s life? You’ve come to the write place!

by Lisa Hiton

One of the most important muscles to exercise as a writer is one’s reading muscle. In my  blog series, Reading Like a Writer, I spotlight various craft books on different genres of writing. For this crossover blog, I’ll be looking at the art of creating shared reading experiences in the form of a book club. It’s not only important to read books with a writer’s heart, but also, to read books as a community and make luminous the power writing can have on people’s attitudes in the world.

The relationship between writing and reading may be the oldest one in the book. Similar to the existential idea behind whether the chicken or the egg came first, one cannot detach their desires as a writer from their experiences as a reader. This goes back to language itself, to our desire to speak in words and to put words in an order. From ancient times to now, we have always wanted to share our stories.

If you want to be a writer, you owe some of that ambition to having read or been read to. This might mean text. It could also mean a broader storytelling. I can remember my early, formal reading experiences: my mother reading me Rosie and Michael by Judith Viorst; hiding my reading light and A Separate Peace by John Knowles beneath my pillow so my father would think I’d fallen asleep; my English teacher, Jeff Berger-White, reading “Things I Didn’t Know I Loved” by Nazim Hikmet aloud; calling in sick so I could read Atonement by Ian McEwan in one sitting; hearing Louise Glück give a reading at the New York State Summer Writer’s Institute. These memories of reading books are some of the most vivid hours in my life. And the people who were and weren’t involved in my experience of those texts are part of my personal canon. From reading a book with classmates, to the tree I leaned against when finishing the final Harry Potter book, to a poem read at a friend’s funeral, it is impossible to separate the text itself from the experience that surrounded having read it.

But there are those more informal moments of broader storytelling that also taught me what a writing life might be. Passover is my favorite holiday. At a Passover seder, the story of the Jews leaving their enslavement in Egypt is told as a symbolic meal is eaten. The Hebrew word “seder” means “order”. The story is told in a specific order every year. The memories of food and story are perhaps the most relevant source of informal learning that have shaped me as a writer and poet.

STARTING A BOOK CLUB

The idea of a book club might seem simple: to read a book and gather to discuss it. But book clubs can be more orchestrated depending on the goals of a group of readers.

The first thing to do to start a book club is to find a group of people who would want to read books with you. You can declare yourself the moderator or organizer. You can also let this happen democratically. One idea is to think of a book you most want to read and see if you have a friend or two who has also been hankering to read that same book.

Other key approaches to organizing a book club: themed book clubs or themed readers. Themed book clubs can be made on any idea or framework. Here are some suggestions to get started:

Graphic: a book club where we read literary graphic novels, such as The Arrival by Shaun Tan, or The Imitation Game: Alan Turing Decoded by Jim Ottaviani.

Dystopia: a book club where we read books for the end of time such as The Giver by Lois Lowry, 1984 by George Orwell, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Books for Book Lovers: a book club featuring books about books themselves–Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg, and Matilda by Roald Dahl.

Coming of Age: a book club of coming-of-age fiction and nonfiction in diary or mixed-genre format such as: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Citizen by Claudia Rankine, Six Impossible Things by Fiona Wood and The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank.

Girl Power: a book club where we read series featuring strong women protagonists–The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Divergent by Veronica Roth come to mind.

Roald Dahl: a book club where we read every book written by Roald Dahl.

Adaptation: A book club where we read books that have been turned into films and compare the written version with Hollywood’s interpretation. Examples might include The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and  book series’ such as J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and  C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.

Adventure: a book club focused on books about adventure and survival with titles like Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden and Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books.

I Sing the Body Electric: a book club where we read and discuss poems, and each week a member recites a poem from memory; the club would also attend local poetry readings.

The Play’s the Thing: a book club that reads plays, discusses them, then attends productions together

Themes are useful organizing tools for your book club to stay focused. You could also make a themed-book club in conjunction with one of your school groups. Perhaps you’re involved in your school’s green group and you want to come up with books of fiction or nonfiction about nature and environmental issues. Maybe you want to work with your GSA/LGBTQ group to come up with a list of books written by and featuring characters that are LGBTQ. The sky’s the limit!

BECOMING A MODERATOR

You may have a vision for your book club. Maybe you read novels from the 1920’s. When you gather to discuss the books, perhaps the host makes mocktails and plays music from the roaring 20s to accompany the conversation. All of these details may help your crew of readers embrace the whole of the book and the world it came from. If you want to approach hosting something more orchestrated like this, you can declare yourself a moderator. Come up with your own slant on how you will select books and what you hope to help readers achieve by reading the book together. You can post flyers for your new book club at your school and you may, end up with a slew of new friends who all want to read together.

If you are the moderator, be ready to be organized! You’ll need to keep a schedule and keep your members engaged.

How Often to Meet: Will your group meet once a month after you’ve read the book? Will you meet once before reading the book to discuss themes and set goals and once after you’ve read the book? Will you meet halfway through reading?

Shaping the Conversation: How long will you meet to discuss the book? Will it be a casual conversation? Or will you send members some questions beforehand to guide the conversation? You might even bring in “experts” to your meeting to talk about themes in the book!

Cultural Relevance: You can up the ante for your  book club members by periodically getting in touch with them between meetings—during the reading period for the upcoming book. Perhaps the book’s author was recently interviewed on Bookworm or in The Paris Review. Send the interview to your group of readers as an additional talking piece.Or maybe your book relates to something in the news or current affairs—send your book club members a collection of news articles to read.

THE GATHERING PLACE

A key element of a successful book club life is place. Just as writers need a room of one’s own, readers and book clubs need spaces with the right vibe to read and discuss books. There are some easy approaches to finding a gathering place: find local, public spaces. This could mean booking a conference room at your public library. You could also meet at a local cafe and claim your table space. Depending on when your club meets, you might ask a teacher to help you find a meeting space in your school.

Members of the club might also want to host the book club. Perhaps you’re in a more democratic book club where members take turns choosing books. Whoever chooses the book hosts the book club at their home. Members can also task out snacks and beverages accordingly (I’m much happier discussing books with a happy tummy than a hungry one).

Your gathering places could also be or become more expeditionary. Maybe your group sees a play together. If the time of year is nice, maybe you gather for a picnic in a park significant to the writer whose work you’re reading (there’s another book club idea: books by local writers). All of these large and small details can impact the reading experience your group has, and perhaps, the significance the book can hold in the minds and hearts of your book club’s members.

As you go off to create your own book clubs, remember that books are at the center, the beating heart of a new adventure for you and your group members. What will your club be like? Show us what your group is reading by sharing the cover on Instagram and Twitter. Be sure to tag us at @Write_the_World and use the hashtag #WtWbookclub

About Lisa

Lisa Hiton is an editorial associate at Write the World. She writes two series on our blog: The Write Place where she comments on life as a writer, and Reading like a Writer where she recommends books about writing in different genres. She’s also the interviews editor of Cosmonauts Avenue and the poetry editor of the Adroit Journal.

[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!!