Epistemological violence in America

It’s funny how your personal level of angst and unhappiness ebbs and flows in inverse relation to your level of success. As I become a functioning person, as I accomplish things I am proud of, I see myself not just accepting, but celebrating, others’ success. When you’re down and out in whichever place you find yourself, it’s easy to looks upon other people’s accomplishments with annoyance. But when you’re on ascent everything is hunky-dory.

I've passed the halfway point in the aforementioned Blood Meridian and I've come to several conclusions. First, Cormac McCarthy is way smarter than am I. I appreciate the opportunity to read a book so genius that I'm left dumbfounded by the writer's talents. I cannot fathom how one goes about creating such a work. Second, I need to read fiction to remain sane. Of course, I like reading books about politics, urban planning, nature and what not, but there's something about a well told story that feeds the soul like no other type of book can. I just hope to fit in a few more novels before the grip of school work becomes too tight. As of this moment I intend to read Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury next, though Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles has been sitting on my bookshelf for far too long. Finally, I need a break from modern culture. I've had enough of cell phones, television and facebook. I need something real.

At present, I am devouring Cormac McCarthy's ridiculously terrific Blood Meridian. The novel, which mostly takes place in Mexico in the early- to mid-nineteenth century, requires use of two dictionaries: one to translate the semi-frequent Spanish dialogue and another to translate McCarthy's arcane lexicon. For example, he tosses around words such as djinn (which I knew thanks to the Final Fantasy series of games), caesura, and filibuster (used with regard to a person, not the infamous legislative (in)action.)

It isn't often that I reread a work of fiction. The Great Gatsby and Broom of the System (and the first fifty or so pages of Infinite Jest) are the only such books that come to mind. But in the case of Blood Meridian, I expect to turn back to page one upon completing the first read. As the critic's blurb on the back cover states, "The book reads like a conflation of the Inferno, the Iliad, and Moby Dick." What more can one ask for?

Labels: Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy, dictionary

The role of the t-shirt in society constantly amazes me. On the one hand, t-shirts are ubiquitous. Most everyone wears them. Thrift stores are lousy with the discarded and/or ephemeral. Music festivals often double as ironic shirt conventions. On the other hand, t-shirts have become a staple of free speech. Profanity, explicit imagery, and political statements are perhaps the most noticeable examples of t-shirt-as-sandwich board. I myself own several such shirts. A recently purchased shirt sports a picture of a computer and an office chair, the latter of which is made to look like a coffin. In other words, spending one's life staring at the screen is the same as dying. Go outside, see people, be alive!
I spend much too much time with my laptop. This t-shirt has caused me to reconsider my lifestyle, and to realize that I am not living up to the ideals my clothes espouse. It's one thing to not be able to afford your politics (i.e. vegans who cannot afford expensive synthetic shoes). It's another thing altogether not to practice what your preach. T-shirts with radical political and/or environmental messages fill one drawer of my dresser, yet I see my actions veering toward the mainstream, if not the lethargic. This introspection will perhaps shame me into action, and to move away from t-shirt poseurdom.

I've been dealing with a cold for the past few days, and as a result have gone largely without olfaction. This has of course messed with my sense of taste as well. It occurred to me while walking around today in eighty-plus degree heat that I would no have no idea whether I smelled bad. This got me thinking about smelling in general, and what sort of communication really goes on between the nose and brain when you smell a flower or a dumpster. What is to smell?

Moreover, without the sense of smell, and I realize this question probably sits somewhere on the razor-thin cusp between nonsense and metaphysics - what does nothing smell like?

Last night I went to see Gonzo, the Hunter S. Thompson documentary, which is essential viewing for anyone new to the good doctor's work. While it doesn't provide much new insight for the dedicated Gonzoist, one new gem is an audio recording of Jimmy Carter's Law Day speech at the University of Georgia in which he, President Carter, went about criticizing the legal system's bias toward the well-to-do and powerful. He called out lawmakers in Washington, Atlanta and Birmingham. He also praised Martin Luther King's contribution to advancing our society. Keep in mind he delivered this speech in the early 1970s to a room filled with wealthy Southern lawyers. Thompson supposedly carried this tape around the country, insisting that people listen to what Carter said.
Thompson, who initially had little interest in anything Carter had to say, described it as a "king hell bastard of a speech" and the best bit of political oration he'd ever heard. He doesn't quote extensively from the speech in his article, so it's nice to hear actual excepts of Carter delivering his devastating critique to the Southern gentry.
President Carter even quotes from "Maggie's Farm", which reminds me of Barack Obama's acknowledgment of that being his favorite Dylan song. Plenty of parallels can be drawn between Obama and Carter, not to mention Thompson's favorite former candidate, George McGovern. Like Carter, Obama is a supposed populist from a modest upbringing who rose to political prominence, seemingly from out of nowhere. The beginning of his end came when McGovern chose a shaky running mate who ultimately had to step down; Carter of course got trounced in the 1980 election after appearing week in the Iran hostage crisis. The specter of weakness and indecision plagues the Democratic presidential nominee now as it did then.
Obama certainly appears to be too politically savvy and learned in history to suffer the same fate that befell McGovern, Carter, Dukakis and Kerry. As most pundits agree, this election is Obama's to lose. Yet I can't help but think that some kind of crisis, real or manufactured, is lurking just over the horizon, waiting to sink the seemingly invincible Obama political machine and leave John McClain, I mean McCain, victorious in November.


Image courtesy of Hooverville

George Washington commissioned Pierre Charles L’Enfant to design the basic plan for a federal district in 1791. After disagreements with the local and federal governments, L’Enfant essentially had his work stolen from him before dying disgraced and forever unpaid. Despite this, many lacquered or otherwise laminated copies of said plan litter the city’s streets in alleged reverence for the author of this impressively imagined space.

Thomas Jefferson dreamt the nation’s new capital would become an “American Paris” and, with its low and dense skyline, wide boulevards, vast green spaces and general Baroque style, the city center of Washington, DC is certainly the closest thing to that. DC certainly looks unlike most American cities, aside from, perhaps, Savannah or New Orleans, in that high-rises and bland corporate architecture don’t plague the place.

Washington is the physical embodiment of the nation: the veneer of the state and of our national identity. While walking past the imposing state agency headquarters, seeing the place where the vice-president allegedly works, and fearing the absurd amount of police presence everywhere in the city, I could not help but feel the power of the monolithic federal government. The major cabinet level buildings (Treasury, Justice, Energy) are heavily fortified, so much so that average citizens cannot get within shouting distance. A sort of militarized zone surrounds the White House itself, as only pedestrian traffic is allowed in the general vicinity, and teams of dimly-dressed men and fierce dogs silently patrol the trees just beyond the black iron fence that keeps anyone from interfering with the process of democracy. Such is life during wartime.

One moment of wonderful irony came when Mr. Fishtank wondered aloud about the carbon footprint of the monstrous EPA headquarters (almost certainly the largest building after the Pentagon and Capitol). I don't have a picture of the EPA, but here's one of the good ol' home of the DoD:



Alright, enough with the cynicism and mistrust. Instead, I offer a humorous look at part of America's shameful past. At Mount Vernon, in addition to viewing a twenty-minute, Ford-sponsored, Lifetime–esque dramatization of George Washington’s rise to prominence and centuries of Presidential China (including Reagan’s!), I got to see this incredible sign:


I'll post some more photos once I have them.

At around 10:30 this morning, I waited for the Brown Line at the Southport El station. I had gone to the grocery store at that time to beat the post-work rush of Professionals looking to soften the day's corners with an expensive organic chardonnay. I waited ten, fifteen, twenty minutes with no sight of the outbound train I needed to get home, during which time at least five inbound trains rolled through the station. I was hungry, decidedly under caffeinated and quickly becoming cranky. I silently cursed the CTA and wondered what in the name of all things decent was going on. I became another inpatient city dweller, unappreciative of the fact that Chicago is home to a world-class mass transit system in the first place.

Upon arriving back at my apartment I went to the Chicago Tribune's website, where I discovered the cause of the delay: the body of a twenty-something male was found on the tracks near the Kedzie station, less than a mile from my house. Click here for the Trib article.

While I fretted over my thawing veggie burgers some poor bastard lay dead on the tracks. Too bad it took such an event for me to remember that getting home late and safe is far better than not getting home at all. I am disappointed with myself for getting in a dither over something so trivial, and for acting no differently than the thousands, millions even, of folks who shout, honk and shoot their way to early graves. How difficult it can be to remain calm when faced with the slightest adversity. I have to try harder not to become That Guy, because That Guy is not cool. And not good for anyone.

Weekend points of interest:

The ladyfriend and I made a halfhearted effort to get to Chicago Botanical Garden, which is gently cradled by an expressway, somewhere in the northern suburbs. Admission is free, but there is a hefty $15 parking fee, which seems outrageous at first but is in all actuality a good thing because it, at least in theory, encourages forms of transportation aside from the automobile.
We drove anyway with the unspoken intention of skirting the fee, hoping maybe we’d getting some apathy from a Sunday afternoon park worker, but instead we received the constant vigilance that now must be expected from the personnel at such venues.
Before entering the park, we tried looking for spaces along the residential area opposite on the other side of Lake Cook Road, which side it was determined was the southernmost boundary of Highland Park, where Mr. T once resided.
The fine city (median family income $117,235 in 2000) had planned for the likes of us, however, and our planning turned out to be quite poor indeed. Most of the streets were No Parking Anytime, a scant few were permit only, and the remaining scraps were No Parking after 5pm beginning June 1. I wish I was joking when I say it was 5:01pm at that very moment.
Conceding the first round, we slinked (as much as a car can do so) up to the booth, having decided to tell the ticket dude we were lost and only wanted to turn around and get back to the expressway. He was okay with that, seemingly understanding even, and waved us through. We drove past partial rows of cars and surmised that we could simply park without anyone being the wiser. Just as we made the left into the lot I glanced in the rear view mirror, noticing a tubby fellow following us in a golf cart adorned with an emergency light of the orange, rotating variety. We hoped for coincidence after he made the left as well, but any hope for a free lunch were dashed when he stopped directly behind us. He just sat there and watched us. I quickly grabbed for the Reagan-era map stuffed into the door map spot and pretended to pore over the intricacies of the Chicagoland highway system. This seemed to convince the guy, but we knew better than to leave the car subject to further scrutiny (and potential booting), so we got the hell out of Dodge.

On Saturday afternoon, at the poorly named Do Division Street Festival, I was lucky enough to catch the performance by Mucca Pazza, self-billed as an “astounding circus punk marching band”. The thirty-odd band members pretty much rock, despite the presence of a Sousaphone.

I am going to do my part as a good citizen to quickly spend a nice chunk of my additional tax rebate on an expensive electronic good. I had planned to buy an external hard drive for probably two years now but always seemed to find a better (and even more impulsive) purchase. And at this moment, thanks to the federal government's generous decision to give back a few hundred of my dollars, I can set aside the cash before I have it. I suppose I can thank the state for letting me loan it money, with no interest paid mind you, so that I can have it back at a useful time, to stave off system collapse.

In keeping with American fiscal policy since WWII, Washington is linking economic growth and stability with consumption, particularly of disposable goods that appeal to materialistic impulses. The so called stimulus package amounts to a payment, per person, that is just big enough to blow on a sweet new ipod or jacket, but not yet large enough to make any sizeable debt in, say, a mortgage or car payment. Whereas $600 might cover one month of a mortgage, a television lasts forever. Or at least a good five years, which might as well be forever. After that point, you can conveniently dispose of the television in a local landfill or lake to clear space for the next generation. It's no contest. The shiny thing always wins out over the tedious bank transaction.

Having said that, I do plan to keep the rest of the stimulus money hidden away inside my mattress. So take that, Federal Reserve.