Whiskey Lullabye
She put him out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby
The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind
Until the night
She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby
Friday, October 07, 2011
Country sniffles
This song gets me every time. Brad Paisley and Allison Krauss.
Tru dat
Listening to a podcast with Lee Harris and Ayan Hirsi Ali on his book The Suicide of Reason. He makes it clear that Islam confuses Westerners, Americans because we have fundamentally different assumptions about what "religion" is.
Islam is a religiously-based all encompassing social and political and legal order which makes little if not distinction between public and private life.
It is a continual astonishment to me that leftliberals in America can imagine a Christian theocracy here but seem determined to remain deaf and blind to the inherently theocratic nature of Islam.
But there is an interesting overlap between the lefty mantra that "the personal is political" and Muslim belief that "the personal is religious."
Islam is a religiously-based all encompassing social and political and legal order which makes little if not distinction between public and private life.
It is a continual astonishment to me that leftliberals in America can imagine a Christian theocracy here but seem determined to remain deaf and blind to the inherently theocratic nature of Islam.
But there is an interesting overlap between the lefty mantra that "the personal is political" and Muslim belief that "the personal is religious."
A Fall morning
It may be that the date on the calendar makes me expect it, but there's a bit of a chill in the air this morning. Funny thing about San Francisco weather. In the summer, the mornings are temperate and it gets cold later in the day. In the fall and winter, the mornings are chilly, but things warm up later. I do like autumn mornings.
Re-read Lee Harris' review of Brokeback Mountain, which both as short story and film I love. Well, maybe love is not the right word. Reading the story and watching the film left me transfixed.
I miss Harris' writing; a very thoughtful and articulate right of center man who shares his life with another man. Since his last book on the Tea Party, The New American Civil War, I have not found much of him on line. Harris makes the point that the characters in the so-called gay cowboy romance were not gay. (Lesbian righty Tammy Bruce also made the unaccountably bitchy point, over and over, that they were not cowboys either, but merely sheep herders.) Although their lifelong love affair began in the pre-Stonewall era, Jack and Innis would certainly have been aware of the appearance of the gay culture. And they never made a move toward it. He argues that their rejection of being "queer", quickly but definitely announced, came from their identity as men. To become either queer or gay would have made them unrecognizable as men in their own eyes. And imploded the story.
Androphilia made the same point about gay identity and manhood. Years ago I was impatient with my AIDS organization's outreach to MSMs, Men who have Sex with Men but who did not identify as gay or with the gay community. I was at the stage in my coming out where my attachment to the gay community with practically tribal. In those primitive years, the coalition was just "gay and lesbian". The sexual Frankenstein of LGBT,etc. had not yet been assembled in the lab. And I still assumed (I think) that at the heart of it all was men loving men. But over the years, as always, I found myself working myself toward the margins. Nowadays I'd really rather be one of those MSMs.
Harris has been called "the philosopher of 9/11". He understands Islam. BTW, Muslims in Spain are demanding that dogs be excluded from public spaces and are poisoning them. And in Switzerland, they want the cross taken off the flag. The West needs no more Muslims. Not one more. On the contrary.
Reflecting on the various twists and turns of my life, I suggest an epitaph for my tombstone: "What was he thinking?!"
Struck me funny. On the website of conservative Jewish commentator Dennis Prager, whom I often like, this offering of an mp3 download
So American. And if he weren't a Jew, Pelagian. Key challenges and practical solutions! :)
Reading up on shame, occasioned by some clinical work. If you think guilt is rough, try shame. And yet it is an integral part of the human psyche, serving its purposes. We would not, I think, be homo sapiens without it. Right there in Genesis. It's one of the strengths of Jung's psychology that he recognizes even the most difficult and dark regions of our soul as natural parts of our soul rather than alien pathologies. He supports a far less grand version of Aquinas' saying that "grace does not remove nature but perfects it." Individuation does not remove nature but becomes conscious of it. I got from reading him --a grandly imperfect man--what I never really got from the Gospels: permission to be human.
Re-read Lee Harris' review of Brokeback Mountain, which both as short story and film I love. Well, maybe love is not the right word. Reading the story and watching the film left me transfixed.
I miss Harris' writing; a very thoughtful and articulate right of center man who shares his life with another man. Since his last book on the Tea Party, The New American Civil War, I have not found much of him on line. Harris makes the point that the characters in the so-called gay cowboy romance were not gay. (Lesbian righty Tammy Bruce also made the unaccountably bitchy point, over and over, that they were not cowboys either, but merely sheep herders.) Although their lifelong love affair began in the pre-Stonewall era, Jack and Innis would certainly have been aware of the appearance of the gay culture. And they never made a move toward it. He argues that their rejection of being "queer", quickly but definitely announced, came from their identity as men. To become either queer or gay would have made them unrecognizable as men in their own eyes. And imploded the story.
Androphilia made the same point about gay identity and manhood. Years ago I was impatient with my AIDS organization's outreach to MSMs, Men who have Sex with Men but who did not identify as gay or with the gay community. I was at the stage in my coming out where my attachment to the gay community with practically tribal. In those primitive years, the coalition was just "gay and lesbian". The sexual Frankenstein of LGBT,etc. had not yet been assembled in the lab. And I still assumed (I think) that at the heart of it all was men loving men. But over the years, as always, I found myself working myself toward the margins. Nowadays I'd really rather be one of those MSMs.
Harris has been called "the philosopher of 9/11". He understands Islam. BTW, Muslims in Spain are demanding that dogs be excluded from public spaces and are poisoning them. And in Switzerland, they want the cross taken off the flag. The West needs no more Muslims. Not one more. On the contrary.
Reflecting on the various twists and turns of my life, I suggest an epitaph for my tombstone: "What was he thinking?!"
Struck me funny. On the website of conservative Jewish commentator Dennis Prager, whom I often like, this offering of an mp3 download
"Why Is It So Hard To Be Good?" We all want to be good -- better than we are. Then, why is it so hard? Dennis identifies the key challenges that hold us back. And offers practical solutions.
So American. And if he weren't a Jew, Pelagian. Key challenges and practical solutions! :)
Reading up on shame, occasioned by some clinical work. If you think guilt is rough, try shame. And yet it is an integral part of the human psyche, serving its purposes. We would not, I think, be homo sapiens without it. Right there in Genesis. It's one of the strengths of Jung's psychology that he recognizes even the most difficult and dark regions of our soul as natural parts of our soul rather than alien pathologies. He supports a far less grand version of Aquinas' saying that "grace does not remove nature but perfects it." Individuation does not remove nature but becomes conscious of it. I got from reading him --a grandly imperfect man--what I never really got from the Gospels: permission to be human.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
True equality
One of the reasons I like the Brit dramas set in the pre-1914 era is that they are so egalitarian. Of course the dominant narrative is the "Upstairs Downstairs" model of social and economic disparity: the upstairs Family and the downstairs Servants.
What could be more unequal?
What I like about them is that both ups and downs are really moral equals, merely in different situations of power. In our current bleeding-heart culture the simple fact of inequality casts those upstairs as hypocritical oppressors and those downstairs as morally upright victims. But because the Brits --whose faults do not include sentimentality-- make good drama, the flawed humanity of both sets is more than readily apparent.
In America in the last several decades, for example, the mere fact of having black skin, once a mark of inferiority, now carries the automatic cache of moral rectitude. And by inane contrast, white skin, a mark of privilege, now implies some kind of ethical flaw. Which is bullshit. Just because someone treats you badly doesn't make you good. Merely badly treated. Both nice people and scoundrels can be upstairs and down.
If can remember back to the old "Upstairs Downstairs" --which holds up very well after forty years-- ask what the world would be like if the Family and the Servants switched places. Might not only not be better, but even worse. Who'd you like to be charge: Miss Elizabeth or Sarah?
Sarah, poor and uneducated, forced by that condition to live by her wits, is a narcissistic and histrionically manipulative sociopath, a compulsive liar living by resentment and illusion, without any loyalty. If you're looking for class solidarity, don't look at her.
Her upstairs "sister in spirit" is Miss Elizabeth who combines self-congratulatory social conscience about women's rights and the plight of the poor with an impenetrable snobbery and spitefully arrogant sense of superiority.
She is quite capable of chiding her cad of a brother for leaving things around for the servants to clean up and then dressing down a housemaid for dressing up above her station, utterly deaf and blind to the conflict.
Conservative though I be, I am not pleading for a return to Edwardian London. Just noting that human nature triumphs over every political and social structure meant either to contain it or, even more, improve it.
What could be more unequal?
What I like about them is that both ups and downs are really moral equals, merely in different situations of power. In our current bleeding-heart culture the simple fact of inequality casts those upstairs as hypocritical oppressors and those downstairs as morally upright victims. But because the Brits --whose faults do not include sentimentality-- make good drama, the flawed humanity of both sets is more than readily apparent.
In America in the last several decades, for example, the mere fact of having black skin, once a mark of inferiority, now carries the automatic cache of moral rectitude. And by inane contrast, white skin, a mark of privilege, now implies some kind of ethical flaw. Which is bullshit. Just because someone treats you badly doesn't make you good. Merely badly treated. Both nice people and scoundrels can be upstairs and down.
If can remember back to the old "Upstairs Downstairs" --which holds up very well after forty years-- ask what the world would be like if the Family and the Servants switched places. Might not only not be better, but even worse. Who'd you like to be charge: Miss Elizabeth or Sarah?
Sarah, poor and uneducated, forced by that condition to live by her wits, is a narcissistic and histrionically manipulative sociopath, a compulsive liar living by resentment and illusion, without any loyalty. If you're looking for class solidarity, don't look at her.Her upstairs "sister in spirit" is Miss Elizabeth who combines self-congratulatory social conscience about women's rights and the plight of the poor with an impenetrable snobbery and spitefully arrogant sense of superiority.
She is quite capable of chiding her cad of a brother for leaving things around for the servants to clean up and then dressing down a housemaid for dressing up above her station, utterly deaf and blind to the conflict.Paradise
is always lost.
Watching a story of two souls in impossible love in Edwardian London. As soon as he says, "How can this small room be Paradise?"...
...Well, my boy be prepared to pack your bags. Once you think you've arrived in Paradise, you won't be staying long.
Watching a story of two souls in impossible love in Edwardian London. As soon as he says, "How can this small room be Paradise?"...
...Well, my boy be prepared to pack your bags. Once you think you've arrived in Paradise, you won't be staying long.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Gratitude
Two friends comforted me today.
One is a soulful and empathetic fellow, familiar and at home with the ups and downs of feeling, is happy to hear my story, my concerns, --even thanks me for telling him-- who was supportive and kind and warm.
The other practically shudders at the word "soulful" and when I am feeling bad --unless I am mourning a death-- prefers not to get into the details. In fact, he offers distraction, humor, including humor directed at me and my mood. But he doesn't leave me alone. Frequently contacts me in fact...to not talk about what's bothering me. In his own way, though, he is just as kind.
Both these men are friends. Both of them comforted me today.
One is a soulful and empathetic fellow, familiar and at home with the ups and downs of feeling, is happy to hear my story, my concerns, --even thanks me for telling him-- who was supportive and kind and warm.
The other practically shudders at the word "soulful" and when I am feeling bad --unless I am mourning a death-- prefers not to get into the details. In fact, he offers distraction, humor, including humor directed at me and my mood. But he doesn't leave me alone. Frequently contacts me in fact...to not talk about what's bothering me. In his own way, though, he is just as kind.
Both these men are friends. Both of them comforted me today.
Cho dependent
Margaret Cho was funny once. Then whiny. Then bitter. Then a PC trainwreck. Here's a sample of her brilliance: "It is tragic that people who are incarcerated are unable to vote. They
are probably the most important voices to listen to because they can
tell us what we need to change."
What a waste.
What a waste.
Rhythms, seasonal
Well, summer in SF has been given notice.
The rains have arrived. And the morning has a chill on it that in summer we don't get until the afternoon. October begins the rainy season and the strange paradox of this place: it will get chillier, but wetter, and therefore at its greenest.
But no snow. No ice. The trees and flowers, rather than dying off, thrive. Winter here feels like a wet chilly autumn and looks like spring. One of the city's many fine qualities. Now that I have lived here 20 years, I appreciate it no less than my first autumn.
The rains have arrived. And the morning has a chill on it that in summer we don't get until the afternoon. October begins the rainy season and the strange paradox of this place: it will get chillier, but wetter, and therefore at its greenest.
But no snow. No ice. The trees and flowers, rather than dying off, thrive. Winter here feels like a wet chilly autumn and looks like spring. One of the city's many fine qualities. Now that I have lived here 20 years, I appreciate it no less than my first autumn.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Forgotten trivia
religious politics
political sex
sexual religion
religious sex
sexual politics
political religion
There's a figure of speech, or a literary structure,
horse-shoe or arch shaped,
like the above,
relating
1 and 6
2 and 5
3 and 4
usually with an oddnumber'd capstone,
and for the life of me
I cannot remember the name...
Ah. Ah. Wait....
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