Sophia Likes Puddles, Puddles Like Sophia

Chapter One: Scanning PreDigital Photos

CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE to see a slide show of predigital photos (as I go through storage boxes of old photos)...

Elephant is Dead, Long Live Elephant

In the 1989 earthquake this elephant bell was broken...


...but I glued it back together, and the ceramic bell rings again. It is marked inside with the date of that earthquake, and awaits its fate in the next major earthquake:

Happy 86th Birthday, George Birimisa

George Birimisa, author, playwright, teacher, friend, survivor, victorious....

Snake Dance

Stathi Stratis, teaching Greek dance in San Francisco, took Peter Arvanitis and me to see a man perform a dance with a snake. To see a slide show of the dance, click on the title above, SNAKE DANCE. At the end, he draped it on Stathi. Then let a woman in the audience try wearing a python.

San Francisco Greek Festival Many Years Ago

Before my friend Peter Arvanitis moved to Seattle, and then to Portland, he lived in the Bay Area and in his company I got to sample the local Greek-American community. Many years ago, we went to an annual festival next to the previous Greek church that stood on Valencia Street that later burned down. If you want to see some of the children who danced that day click on the title above, SAN FRANCISCO GREEK FESTIVAL MANY YEARS AGO. The children were undoubtedly prepared for the dance by Peter's friend (and mine, I hope) Stathi (Stathis Stratis) who went on to Rhodes in Greece.

Organ Concert by Olivier Latry, Notre Dame Cathedral

One day when I knew I would not easily make it from BART to my apartment in Oakland, I stopped in at the new “Christ the Light” cathedral to go to the bathroom (I feel I have that right as an ex-Catholic – they owe me for all the psychic torture and the time in therapy, but my body needed no such rationale); I noticed that they were installing an organ, in two separate parts, on either side of the altar. The mystery of the two wooden awnings there was finally resolved. As a notice of five recitals introducing the new organ stated that the fee was a “free-will donation,” I arrived at the official inauguration on 11 February 2010 only to find that you needed to have reserved tickets. We non-ticket holders were treated in a cold-blooded manner, left to wonder if we would be admitted after every possible ticket holder had been to Will Call, so I went searching for a way to sneak in, but all doors were locked. So I stood at the back of the cathedral, thinking I might just stand there, but soon the other non-ticket holders began to gather there so that I could not remain inconspicuous. Should I believe that it was “God” who intervened at that point? Right by the baptistery I saw Silvino Guzman, a Filipino with whom I had forged a good friendship when we both worked at California Pacific Medical Center Foundation. I truly only wanted to say hello, and persuaded an usher to let me by to say hello, but, of course, Silvino immediately sent me along the side to the front, which gave me the confidence that convinced other interfering ushers that I was permitted. Soon the other non-ticket holders were sitting beside me. It was a good place to sit, to the right of the organist, so that one was fully conscious of the “stereophonic” effect of the divided organ.

Of course, as this was the official inauguration of the organ, a priest had to speak, who then introduced the red-capped main guy, the so-called “Most Reverend” Bishop of Oakland, Salvatore J. Cordileone, the chief force behind the anti-gay No on 8 proposition*, talking about how the cathedral was “for the entire Bay Area community. Why didn’t I leave at that point, or shout my protest – well, for various reasons – but mostly because I know that there is never any way to reach Beauty except by passing through a pool of slime. Be it a Prince of the Church or a Captain of Industry, when have artists (or anyone) ever been free of sadistic control freaks, speaking with pious hypocrisy.

The Bishop hoped that “this organ will excite and inspire.” Lastly, the boyish Music Director of the cathedral spoke; his accent was sort of Dutchy, and the people beside me explained that he was South African. Of course, it made sense to compliment the builders of the cathedral, Skidmore, Billings and Owings [my friend Martha Hubert has since provided me a correction: "SOM is the architect, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. http://www.som.com/content.cfm/into_the_light ], and to thank Daniel Whalen and his wife Katharine Conroy Whalen whose gift paid for the organ. Later the guest organist pointed to the people who had created ”the Letoureau 92 ranks, four-manual, pedal organ with 5298 pipes.”

The organist for this special concert was “Olivier Latry, titular organist of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris…one of the world’s most distinguished organists.”
http://www.cathedraledeparis.com/Olivier-LATRY,405
(He has recorded all the organ music of Messiaen.) It was hard for me to belive that Mr. Latry was not a sweetly gay man, in his bowtie and silvery grey jacket, and that would be a perfect "miracle," considering Bishop Cordileone's hatred of gay people, but I cannot label Mr. Latry. After a Toccata by Leon Boellmann, Latry talked with the audience about the introduction of this organ as being like “the birth of a baby,” and scanning the organ, added “—a BIG baby.” He devoted a good amount of time to demonstrating what the new organ could do. While the visible organ is large enough, he indicated other places where there hidden pipes. He sounded the low, low sound of one of those hidden pipes that is 16-feet high. Once he had filled the cathedral with the most immense sounds of the organ, all the distasteful Catholicism became irrelevant and a miniscule distraction. Now the building made sense – its chief reason for existing was to house that organ, for what other space could be big enough for it? At great length, Latry demonstrated the wide range of possible sounds, and clearly loved the chance to play it. “The building – we – are part of the sound,” he said.

I was making these notes, and did not want to be writing during the performance of any piece, but was going to look for some brief description for each piece, and one of the people nearby thought I was reviewing the concert, saying “Why isn’t this concert being reviewed? Why was no announcement? So you’re reviewing this concert?” The woman beside me said, “He’s been making notes.” I explained that any review I was writing would be brief, inadequate, intended for friends, but ended up agreeing to put it on my blog. The San Francisco man disturbed by the lack of news about the concert said to the pleasant San Francisco woman beside me, “Would you ever have believed we would come to Oakland to see something?”

Here, for the programme, not for my thumbnail descriptions…

Passacaglia & Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582 (Johan Sebastian Bach) – Except for a brief quiet visit with an angel, torrents of music.

Intermezzo from Suite pour orgue (Augustin Barie) – Sweet and gentle

Carillon de Westminster (Louis Vierne): Knocks your sox off

Choral variations on the theme of ‘Veni Creator’ (Maurice Durufle) – As one would expect of this composer, gentleness…beauty and magic without fear…and, as it is an organ, after all, a final triumph

Berceuse (Lullaby) in memory of Louis Vierne (Pierre Cochereau) – ethereal scintillation – then a lonely rocket wandering aimlessly

Dieu parmi nous (God Among Us) from La Nativite du Seigneur (Olivier Messiaen) – meditation as extreme drama, benefiting from the precedence of someone like Ives

Improvisation on submitted themes: Latry opened a sealed envelope in which the Bishop had suggested a religious theme. Latry played the theme, paused, then played his variations – colors sliding through water building to a wave that was like being inside an airplane engine – an exploration of the organ’s possibilities, probably, that may have gone too far.

The audience applauded him for so long that he returned with a wonderful encore I cannot identify. (Charles L., who was at the concert, emailed me later that it was the Toccata in F from Charles-Marie Widor's 5th Symphony, Widor also having been an organist at Notre Dame.)

For anyone who wants to visit my past slide surveys of the cathedral, one can be viewed by clicking on the title, above, for this section: Organ Concert by Olivier Latry, Notre Dame Cathedral

Another slide show is available somewhere earlier on this blog.

If you want more information on the malevolent Bishop Cordileone (“Shortly after his side’s victory in the Proposition 8 campaign, Salvatore Cordileone was installed as the new Catholic bishop in Oakland”), this from Chris Tompson’s article in East Bay Express, August 2009:

“All across the state, gay men, lesbians, and their friends picketed hostile churches and boycotted businesses that backed the amendment. And as they contemplated their fate, they asked themselves: Who did this to us? Was it the Mormons? The National Organization for Marriage? Black voters? White evangelical megachurches? Now, eight months after the election that broke so many hearts, the truth has come out. It was the new Catholic bishop of Oakland. …. What almost no one knows is that without Bishop Sal, gay men and lesbians would almost surely still be able to get married today. As an auxiliary bishop in San Diego, Cordileone played an indispensable role in conceiving, funding, organizing, and ultimately winning the campaign to pass Proposition 8. It was Bishop Sal and a small group of Catholic leaders who decided that they had to amend the state constitution. It was Bishop Sal who found the first major donor and flushed the fledgling campaign with cash. It was Bishop Sal who personally brought in the organization that took the lead on the petition drive. And it was Bishop Sal who coordinated the Catholic effort with evangelical churches around the state. Bishop Sal even helped craft the campaign's rhetorical strategy, sitting in on focus groups to hone the message of Proposition 8. …. Cordileone gloated about his work in an interview with an obscure Catholic radio network. He bragged about how gay men and lesbians never saw him coming and called gay marriage a Satanic plot by ‘the Evil One’ to destroy morality in the modern world.
“Now, Cordileone's work has been rewarded, and the Vatican has made him the most important religious figure in the East Bay. Alameda County is one of the most liberal and gay-friendly parts of the world; it arguably has the most lesbian residents in the United States, and voters here rejected Proposition 8 by almost 62 percent. And the man who leads some 400,000 Catholics from his new Lake Merritt cathedral, who articulates the loudest moral and religious voice in the region and has the power of the Vatican at his disposal, just got done taking the right to marry from every gay man and woman in the East Bay.
“When you first speak to Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, you're immediately struck by his sincerity and compassion. Throughout the Proposition 8 campaign, he took great pains to emphasize the humanity of gay men and lesbians, citing the catechism and a pastoral letter that denounces anti-gay prejudice....But along with a crackerjack mind and an intense identification with the poor, Cordileone has cultivated one of the most theologically conservative worldviews imaginable. Especially when it comes to sexual matters, Bishop Sal is conservative and uncompromising. In 2006, the US Conference of Bishops was drafting a pastoral letter that listed examples of sins so great that Catholics could not in good conscience receive the sacrament of Communion unless they repented of them through the sacrament of penance. Cordileone led an effort to include the use of contraception among them. The effort failed, but if Cordileone had his way, women on the Pill would be banned from receiving the body of Christ.
“…. Cordileone had been strategizing with ecumenical opponents of gay marriage for years, and a shadow network known as ‘Protect Marriage’ was already in place. The National Organization for Marriage, a New Jersey nonprofit dedicated to fighting same-sex marriage around the country, had what Cordileone called both the intellectual arguments and the ‘practical know-how’ to run the campaign. On December 23, 2007, Cordileone called organization president Maggie Gallagher and asked her group to come to California and get to work. Within weeks, the organization was helping to collect signatures. ….
“Eventually, millions of dollars would flood into the campaign, much of it from powerful Catholics, and especially from Catholic businessmen in San Diego, Cordileone's home turf. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, gave $1 million. Doug Manchester, a San Diego hotelier who sat with Cordileone on the University of San Diego board of trustees, gave $125,000. Terry Caster, who operates San Diego's A-1 Self Storage, donated almost $700,000. Throughout it all, Cordileone continued to speak at fund-raisers around Southern California. ….
“Cordileone even had a hand in crafting the message of the campaign. As professional campaign organizers shopped different angles around to focus groups, they decided to shift their pitch as far from the question of gay rights as possible. Instead, the campaign would be all about judicial activism, religious liberty, sex education in public schools, and the idea that children need both a mother and a father. Bishop Sal sat in on two of those focus groups as campaign leaders passed around a ‘proposed’ sex-education textbook called ‘My Daddy's Wedding,’ watching as people blanched at the gay-friendly subject matter.
“And as the campaign grew and grew, Cordileone was astonished at how complacent ‘the other side’ was. He quietly watched as gay men and lesbians took their victory for granted, never imagining that their foes were assembling a powerful and disciplined coalition. He would later gloat over them in his radio interview.
“ ‘What's interesting is what happened on the other side,’ Cordileone said. ‘They didn't realize until after we had collected a couple hundred thousand signatures that we were up to this. ...’
“ ‘Oho!’ chuckled the radio show's host, Father Thomas Loya. ‘That's a big switch, Bishop Sal. The other side — we caught them sleeping!’ ….
“On November 1, on the eve of the election, Cordileone found himself at another ecstatic religious festival. Pentecostal pastor Lou Engle organized ‘The Call,’ a massive pro-Proposition 8 rally at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, the home of football's San Diego Chargers. Tens of thousands of rhapsodic souls streamed into the stadium along with a Catholic procession from Mission San Diego. For twelve hours, they swooned and spasmed to fundamentalist hip-hop and frenzied testimony from young witnesses for Christ. Beneath the scoreboard, Focus on the Family leader James Dobson and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council exhorted everyone to save marriage. ‘Ex-gay’ men and women told their stories of deliverance from the ‘lifestyle.’ Cordileone watched as pastors called on the masses to repent of their sins of complacency and negligence, and he thrilled to what he called the ‘sacramental worldview’ on display.
“Three days later, gay men and lesbians lost their right to marry in California.
“Now, Salvatore Cordileone is leading the faithful in Oakland. Almost immediately after being named the new bishop, Cordileone sent a message that he has every intention of continuing the work he pursued so vigorously in San Diego. In March, Walter Hoye, a local minister and anti-abortion activist, was jailed for violating Oakland's law keeping protesters from coming within eight feet of the entrance to an abortion clinic. Bishop Sal visited Hoye in jail, where the two shouted encouragement to one another through the glass. ….
“Rebecca Kaplan, a lesbian member of the Oakland City Council, agrees that she, too, will try to work with the new bishop. ‘The scripture makes quite clear that hatred or prejudice toward the stranger is the worst sin. But the fact that he has committed that sin will not prevent me from working with him, because I believe in working with everybody.’
“But then Kaplan learned what Bishop Cordileone had to say at the end of his interview on the A Body of Truth show. As the show was winding down, Bishop Sal mused upon gay marriage one last time. ‘The ultimate attack of the Evil One is the attack on marriage,’ he said. ‘If you take marriage apart, everything comes unraveled. It's been frayed at the edges, and now moving more and more toward the center. But you take marriage out, it all comes unraveled. It all comes tumbling down. And again, the evangelicals, they understand that. They understand this is an attack of the Evil One at the core institution.’
“When Kaplan heard that, she hissed, ‘My great-grandparents were rounded up and put in Nazi prison camps by people who used that sort of language.’
“Recently, Cordileone clarified those remarks. ‘I do believe that evil exists outside of people's minds,’ he said. ‘What I was saying, there is, we have to be spiritually aware that society is decaying. I know that people on the other side are people of good faith. ... I don't think they're consciously working for evil.’
“And so, when gay men and lesbians and their friends and families lay down their heads at night, they can rest easy. Because somewhere in the grand new cathedral on the shores of Lake Merritt, the new bishop of Oakland doesn't think they're consciously working for evil.
…. (“The Father of Proposition 8,” East Bay Express, 12 August 2009

Buy BURNED

Louise Nayer's amazing account of the tragic explosion that occured in her early childhood has been published -- and you can order your copy: http://www.louisenayer.com/

New Green

A big event to no-one but me in my little domicile....I had a great variety of plants that I nurtured on the balcony at my previous apartment building. I had to pass most of them on to a pleasant young couple in that building. In the new building I found I had very little light for the four plants I brought along. The maidenhair fern thrives in this light, but the bonzai I had nurtured for years was finally down to two leaves, then one leaf, then was irrefutably DEAD. But a guy at the local nursery recommended the first plant below (I need to get the name) that looks so glossy but requires no light and very little water, and my friend Kenneth recommended the second plant, a spathiphyllum, which looks nice against Martha Hubert's painting -- and I am happy again with these new companions. Plants being my only pets, I feel less alone!

1 February 2010

A Brief Visit to the deYoung Museum, San Francisco

CLICK ON TITLE ABOVE TO SEE A BRIEF SLIDE SHOW -- a brief visit to the deYoung Museum to see the exhibit of Amish quilts -- and took a few other photos besides. In order, glass sculpturs by Nicolas Africano, Mary Ann Zynsky, Dale Chihuly; woven basket by Honda Syoryu; Mayan figures; etc.

For Those in the Turtle Tribe

Earth and Its History

Earth island slid about – a turtle
that began a journey of millenniums;
it split into continents that lowered
arms to make peninsulas, with beaches.

Where the land spread and cracked,
rain created lakes. Oceans begat,
along each drifting continent,
the lacey edge of bays and inlets.

Now all wait for the great turtle’s return –
a Oneness that none on earth may see again –
a longed-for perfect fit that might reunite
and reveal the original earth – Pangaea.

Sweet search in every person – Why do we
wait? Children of the Turtle, we are whole,
while divided, complete in the great Heart
revealed because the Earth fell apart.

– James McColley Eilers
copyright 2010

COYOTE

CLICK on title above to see a slide show of a few photos of the Coyote I met in December 2009.

People seemed to like this email I sent out...

...so I guess I should add it to my blog.

In the brief midwinter, we dare to celebrate. Today, after tai chi, and after the breakfast we have after tai chi, we sat for a long time in the garden at the Crossroads Cafe, which usually contains families with children who play safely in that enclosed and friendly space. I noticed a big family around one table, clearly a warm and intelligent bunch of humans, and from their conversation, it was clear that they were Jewish. Code Pink friends arrived with rectangles of cloth on which we were to write appropriate and positive words as they would then be strung on lines, as with Tibetan prayer cloth that are hung out to endure all weather until they disintegrate. These lines of "prayers" -- our efforts to create positive, healing sentiments -- are to be taken with a large contingent of Code Pink women about to make another trip into Gaza. For example, one of mine read: "Two Nations, One Hope: Peace."
Soon the sweet children from the Jewish family came over and wanted to know what we were doing and why, and they asked if they could also make some of the prayer cloths, and soon we were one group, writing messages, drawing, discussing what colors to use, the children outstripping us in the number of prayer cloths they made and making creative suggestions, coming up with their own messages, one girl calling for justice on one that she created. As you may can surmise, it was a moment of serendipity -- one that could not have been arranged or predicted -- a sweet gathering. It was wonderful to see children eager to participate in such a task, and more understanding of peace, perhaps, than those they were helping, so adult and overwrought. Something that could be and ought to be perfectly "natural" drew us into its circle, the circle that is so seldom completed with such felicity.
To wish that we all might have a luminous and illuminating Winter Solstice, I am calling back to life a Winter Solstice drawing from many years ago where this grinning fellow seems to be giddy, having a peace dove on his brain!

Marin in Early December 2009

CLICK on heading above

A Personal Letter to Everyone

Reading 50-year-old letters I am discovering in old storage boxes that have surfaced because of the fire that forced me to move from one apartment building to another, I remember that people used to write letters, and that much was lost when emails replaced letter writing. As I understand it, people who "Facebook" and "twitter" must limit what they say to a small count of characters, and must even amputate words. Should I assume they are contact with his because it sufficient space for what little they have to say, although they already save so much time eating Fast Food
As a 90-year-old woman poet said on the News Hour recently, "I like to write longhand. It puts my body into the work." It is the same with letter writing. Where you are as you write the letter, the seconds go by like the flow of ink from the pen; writing by hand (as I did with this before typing it up) places you in the flow of real time, organic time, and so you write very much about what is happening in the living momentt. Just now the sun is falling on the green moons of a large begonia...


in this house full of plants as various as the garden around the house (the house where I am about to housesit and catsit).


As I read and prepare to contact the people who wrote those letters 50 years ago, I am tempted to quote some of the great thoughts and poetic turns of phrase and the beautiful rhetoric that flows out as they were carried along by the flow of ink from a pen. Outside the window here (where I should pay THEM to housesit), there are always a crowd of greenback goldfinches clinging to special long sock of seeds designed to feed finches in particular.


There is frequently no space left on the red plastic saucer that feeds six hummingbirds at a time. Hmmm, I just got it -- the sound when you are around them is of the constant humming of their wings -- You see? Writing long hand has made me slow enough to finally hear the hum of hummingbirds...


Some of the irridescent birds seem clearly to be the Black-Chinned Hummingbird I find in a bird book.



There is also the bird feeder for larger birds, but all the birds, large or small, scatter when the scrub jay hits the feeder like blue lightning, pecks up a few seeds, then rushes off again as if it were the creature most hounded by fears:


One of the owners of this house and of their cat Lucky is still at his job in the city, while the other is doing last minute work in the back of the house on his computer, so this room with windows onto the garden is quiet and sunny, a tapestry of autumn colors outside, but also the virant blue of the plumbago at the door...


The apple tree is a pleasing blend of green and gold leaves, the apples themselves as gold as myth against the blue sky.



From the bedroom where I sleep when I visit or housesit for these wonderful friends, I see radiant autumn colors and the bright yellow gift of the December cycle of lemons.


The last of the yellow roses burn in the dusk.


On a walk near sunset last night I came upon the local congress of crows that congregates, skitterish, in various dead oaks, ever debating over place, full of loud purpose.



This morning I heard I single crow above me when I stepped out under the tall pine tree; in a voice like a squeaky wooden screw turning in a wooden screw hole, it called out ag, ag, ag-ag. A crow some distance to the west echoed with precisely the same call: ag, ag, ag-ag. A crow about the same distance, but to the north, called ag ag, ag-ag. They were triangulating the territory. They repeated the same “cawl” in the same directional order for the brief time I listened – marking the borders of a territory, triangular in shape? Calling out the location of the dangerous human? Does anyone know the language of the crow? (I supposedly have a drop of Crow Indian in my DNA, but it doesn't seem to help.)

Lucky, sleeping nearby, moans in his sleep the same as a lonely hman may whimper in his sleep from lack of love, with a sad desire. A letter,ike the time it takes to let the ink flow from a pen, may tap into Now's slow time where small things are noticed, and are worth noticing. The flowers in a room, dropping petals, may seem as important as the cries of crowds caught up in cruel rapid fire somewhere and shown on the daily news, the ongoing tragedy.


Write someone a letter.

This kawing koncatenation in the midst of kalm (how the K sound saws at things) provokes a particular memory -- Why? -- and I will go on now computer, having finished typing the letter I had written by hand -- I guess the computer unleashes a different kind of talk. Dealing with the move after the fire in my old apartment building led to many days or weeks of being intensely present to deal with an endless number of challenges and complications; then, abruptly, I am opening up decades-old storage boxes, from which ghosts fly out, and I am then traveling, by these letters, back fifty years in time. Something about this sudden upheaval, or clash of times, or this dipping suddenly into the calm of the countryside, able to stop and take a breath, along with the daily witnessing of the shallow lives walking through the debris of outdated values where Americans are persuaded to live with this week's new electronic toy, or distract themselves with some other shallow pastime, has led me to a particular memory. I guess because it touched in 1960 on a social illness that has persisted from then until now.
When I was a soldier boy wandering the streets of various cities, in San Francisco a sweet African American man took me in for a day or a day and a night -- I don't remember exactly -- but I won't say "picked me up," although there was sweet lovemaking . No, in fact, he treated me like a fellow human being, with intelligent conversation, and kindness, and so did his mother who welcomed me as if I were not a stranger and made lunch for both of us, in no way resembling the current stereotype of the church-going African American who despises homosexuals. But that was the other San Francisco, the one that used to exist. No-one who living here then (I can almost feel confident that it is a generality with a great deal of truth) was judgemental toward anyone else (well, maybe out where Dan White was growing up). That was before world publicity very thoroughly trampled that San Francisco, left it behind as an earlier geological stratum, and was replaced by this later San Francisco (where the people of that former San Francisco can no longer afford to live! -- It's O.K., I prefer Oakland now).
In that sweet time, the lithe and loving African-American man insisted on sending me off with a valuable gift, It was not in my nature to distrust someone because of the color of the skin, and a good thing for that because I was thereby able to enjoy the company of a loving nature and received a special gift from the man, a gift that seemed rather ironic considering that people associated African-Americans with violence, yet he gave me the key to why violence exists, insisting that I accept it as a gift -- the slim volume of J. Bronowski's THE FACE OF VIOLENCE. J. Bronowski had some strange attitudes in one long television series he made, but this book on the causes of violence should not languish as it has.
In our current world of short messages punched out with one finger, individual thought and feeling has as much value as bird droppings even to those having those thoughts and feelings.
Allow me a brief aside before I return to Bronowski. I was a journalism major my first three semesters in college, which required me at one point to research the history of my hometown paper. Like most small town papers, the Nappanee Advance News was not, in spite of its name, prescient -- able to write the news in "advance" of it happening; in fact, it lacked news almost entirely. It had become little more than ads for sales, with a few brief personal news items. But I found in the library archives that at its beginning in the mid-1800s, the hometown newspaper was a forum for ideas and debate, and the participants in those discussions were intelligent and informed. Through their newspapers, small towns had what Bronowski calls small or local Centers of Recognition by which every individual citizen had a worthwhile and recognized identity, and with the strength of that identity found something to say and tried to make it worth saying because there was a place where someone would hear them say it.
All that was replaced, with a deflation of local identity by Centers of Recognition that became only national or global. Now, the only degree of recognition acknowledged to be of any real value is "celebrity," and hordes are chasing it like whippets at a racetrack chasing the mechanical rabbit.
Bronowski's notion that recognition of each individual, providing them a sense of identity, is a notion that should not be dismissed as too simple or too obvious, but celebratedd for being so simple and obvious -- and yet people appear to still be puzzled by the causes of violence. Nothing hurts an individual soul more than a sense of having no identity (regardless of how the comfortable and secure may have a philosopical regard for the value of a concept of "non-being," or spiritual thinkers treasure the "still center" of "emptiness"). Without awareness of the social need for local centers of recognition, the only recognition is "celebrity" (It is like everyone voting conservative with the delusion that they will one day be rich), so the only way the human of average talent or means can achieve this inflated notion of identity is by killing a celebrity or a well-known person, or, on a smaller scale, killing on a scale that will assure a place in the national news. No matter what else the motivation, the desire to really feel they exist is behind the violence. Along with the names of assassinated people that you had loved and respected, you know the names of their assassins, who have thereby achieved celebrity, or, rather, have stolen a well-known identity that they can wear then as if it were naturally their own.
And how does any gang member, anticipating no life of note beyond adolescence, achieve identity-- through violence. The daily news is easy to understand in the light of Bronowski's observation. To lose your job or be fired or be divorced may cause some individual to feel they have lost their identity, and, clamber insanely to get it back like a drowning man trying to reach the life-saving ring.
That was the key I was shown 50 years ago that I have seen no-one in power or influence to consider how to resolve the ongoing violence experienced by a population that feels invisible and powerless; few, like Conrad's sailors, can see the beauty in a "glorious and obscure fate."
Should I believe that television talent shows and reality TV shows are some effort at democracy -- or still the delusion of "celebrity"? How about the individual centers of recognition that are Internet forums, or blogs and websites? How about the Blue Elephant? Does he exist? Ha! He laughs, content to be a cloud. If you believe in the existence of the man naked inside the diaphanous cloud of his Blue Elephant costume -- avert your eyes! And do nothing but enjoy your own life...I close with this ironic "Merry Kitschmas" -- There is too much of this across the U.S.A. -- How many are willing to call this Beauty?:

It's a Lovely Place to House Sit....

Click on the heading to see....

And I'm NOT, I'm NOT, I'm NOT afraid of their cat Lucky!

CLICK on the heading above, and you will see that he is NOT Satan...truly...

And I'm Not Afraid of the Ghost in the House....

Or is this the ghost, like a firefly Michael Cheda captured in a jar in the mid-1960s? http://www.flickr.com/photos/8391810@N07/3463724671/

I Went to a Die-In,

a roaming die-in, with various stations for dying, around the Ferry Building, but I could only die twice before a dizzy spell made me drop out...

Before the Rain and the Cold...

Martha sent me these messages spelled out by her and her sisters.

Late November, Oakland

In the Pardee Mansion...




Full Moon on Lake Merritt