Opening my Internet home-page today, found this missive from Mozilla Firefox:
Big corporations want to restrict entry. Fake news and filter bubbles
are making it harder for us to find our way. Online bullies are
silencing inspired voices. And our desire to explore is hampered by
threats to our safety and privacy. It’s time to join Mozilla and do our
part as digital citizens. Donate today to support programs that keep the
internet healthy, free and open for us all.
(1) It's not "big corporations"
trying to restrict Internet usage. (Are you kidding? Corporations want
ads, that's all.) It's the government seeking control, and sometimes rightfully so:
i.e., radical Muslims and Russian operatives being allowed uncensored access to the Internet. I applaud any
government that tries to limit any such radicals from posting their propaganda (via Firefox, for example).
(2) RE "Fake news and
filter bubbles making it harder for us to find our way." Are you
KIDDING? YOU, Firefox, are responsible for said
"fake news" appearing on any platform that you control. If fake news is a problem, then DO YOUR JOB and edit out the fake news.
(3) RE "Online bullies are
silencing inspired voices." Ha! I'm an Independent. And what's been
happening online lately is a concerted effort to stifle any voice that
doesn't correspond to current left-wing PC group-think. The leftists are the so-called "online bullies." Please maintain your independence, Mozilla, and don't align with the decidedly UNHEALTHY thought-fascists.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Not Situated
On quiet nights like this (what? Halloween?), I love my apartment. It's big (1200 sq ft) and pretty (I especially like the wall of white stone with fireplace), and there are a lot of things to work with, lots of decorating plans to potentially enact.
Trouble
is, the place is 50% placid, 50% ennervating. The "dudes" hanging out
from last April (when I moved in) thru July have been quieted thanks to
the firm actions of the apartment management. From July thru October,
the only "problem" I had was with the maintenance room being located
next door to my apartment. And I decided that I could handle those DUDES
banging around. Especially after a new "old guy" was hired; he's over
50, and since his hiring, the room is no longer a hangout. (As it should
never have been to begin with! Get out there and fix something, DUDES!)
As of early October , though, I have new neighbors on the other side of me: 20-something DUDES who have been blasting their music at various hours. There's also a new fat chick who lives behind me whose dog is a barker: for hours at a time, depending on when it gets triggered. Sometimes in the early morning, sometimes after 10pm, sometimes from 5pm on and on.
I can't relax. And, at $1300 per month, I want to finally be able to relax. One of the photos below shows the big stack of boxes left over from when I moved in last April: I don't want to discard them, because I might need them again this coming April! Another photo (by the kitchen table) shows a big box with an unpacked outdoor patio set. I initially bought this at my last apartment, thinking that my space there was relaxed enough to allow me to sit outside... it was not. Nor is my current space, even though it has a backyard area (fully in view of a whole bank of residents). In the spare-bedroom shot, you can see an unpacked carpet (new) plus framed turn-of-the-century Weehawken portraits that I have had from my last apartment and have STILL never hung anywhere.
I can't seem to get out of flux. Dang. $1300 should have bought me a bit of peace, I thought.
I can't seem to get out of flux. Dang. $1300 should have bought me a bit of peace, I thought.
Monday, October 30, 2017
Isadora Duncan harangue, 1915 American tour
"Don't you know what's wrong with you? It's those hideous brick buildings across the street! They would make anyone sick! That's what's the matter with you Americans! Why do you live in such ugliness? You are all going to die of it some day. It's going to kill you all, every last one of you... Where have you been, all of you, all your lives? Haven't you ever gone anywhere? Haven't you ever seen anything? Haven't you ever loved anybody? Hasn't anybody ever been kind to you? What is it that makes you willing to live with such hideous things around you?"
This is her screaming at an audience. This has been me screaming at the only audience I have -- on social media -- for the past 7 years, out of utter desolation and loneliness. True in a warped way, yet meaningless and emotionally self-destructive.
1895-1908 Loie Fuller's Serpentine Dance
Clips from various dancers, but all imitated from Loie Fuller's original dance performed at the Folies Bergere of Paris. Imagine seeing this at the turn of the 20th century! How unique and interesting! (While the clips here are colorized, Fuller actually incorporated colored lighting into her club show.)
Isadora Duncan
I've always disliked Isadora Duncan. I didn't like her face to begin with; I didn't like the stupid Greek tunics. I thought the legend of her childrens' drowning and of her own death via scarf ("Affectations can be dangerous," said Gertrude Stein at the time) were part of her pretentiousness.
Her magnate lover, Paris Singer, helped me understand. When Duncan asked him why he stayed with her, he replied: "You have the most beautiful skin, and you never bore me." He eventually left her forever after he'd rented Madison Square Garden for her and she mocked his gesture in front of others.
After reading "Isadora: A Sensational Life" by Peter Kurth for the past few days, I like her much better. She's still pretentious (and obnoxiously slutty---sleeping with over 1,000 men, according to her one and only husband, the 18-years-younger Russian poet Esenin, himself a drunken slut).
But there's also something THERE. I think she was sincere in her desire to express a universal music in dance, and to teach others to express the same. I'm not certain, but I believe she is considered the founder of modern dance; she especially hated ballet and its rigid forms. Ballet still survives, of course. But so does Duncan's then-newfangled concept of "natural" dance which, combined with Loie Fuller's elevated, enhanced "skirt dance" performed in Paris (with accompanying light show) at the turn of the last century, are together the foundation of modern dance. (Fuller the modern, technological innovator; Duncan, the "back to nature," "free-love" purist --- both a radical departure from the established mores of the time.)
Her magnate lover, Paris Singer, helped me understand. When Duncan asked him why he stayed with her, he replied: "You have the most beautiful skin, and you never bore me." He eventually left her forever after he'd rented Madison Square Garden for her and she mocked his gesture in front of others.
After reading "Isadora: A Sensational Life" by Peter Kurth for the past few days, I like her much better. She's still pretentious (and obnoxiously slutty---sleeping with over 1,000 men, according to her one and only husband, the 18-years-younger Russian poet Esenin, himself a drunken slut).
But there's also something THERE. I think she was sincere in her desire to express a universal music in dance, and to teach others to express the same. I'm not certain, but I believe she is considered the founder of modern dance; she especially hated ballet and its rigid forms. Ballet still survives, of course. But so does Duncan's then-newfangled concept of "natural" dance which, combined with Loie Fuller's elevated, enhanced "skirt dance" performed in Paris (with accompanying light show) at the turn of the last century, are together the foundation of modern dance. (Fuller the modern, technological innovator; Duncan, the "back to nature," "free-love" purist --- both a radical departure from the established mores of the time.)
Saturday, October 28, 2017
George Jones & Tammy Wynette - "Golden Ring" (1976)
This video, of the couple who had just divorced the year before, is cute until the weird "spitting" episode that occurs in the last 30 seconds of the clip. Tammy recoils, wipes her face, shakes her head; George clutches her to him, mockingly wipes his own face... Very awkward to watch.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Cher - Gypsies Tramps And Thieves (1971)
But for this, there would be no Cher. She is so great here --- enough for the next 40 years or more.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
"Places In the Heart" Final Scene
I woke up at 2am yesterday with TCM on, and caught "Places in the Heart" for the first time in over 20 years. Here's the final scene (some in the pews are dead).
I could not stop crying.
I could not stop crying.
Rescue Fantasy
I don't have one. Truly, I don't. I never have.
I think, while growing up, that my mother's hard-core judgmentalism always somehow outweighed my father's abusive tendencies. I was emotionally abused by both parents, and frightened by my father, but the latter was always stopped in his tracks when he tended toward sexual abuse. For instance: At age 12, I was sunbathing in the backyard. My father came outside to join me. He then suggested that I take off my bikini top. I didn't feel comfortable doing so, and refused. He then went on a tirade that involved making me take down every single Bay City Rollers poster on my bedroom wall. Emotionally traumatic, but, as I always did, I immediately told my mother when she got home. I "got to" put the posters back up a day or so later. And my father never suggested such a thing again. (They divorced later that same year, so I luckily got to avoid any further sexual suggestions on his part.)
That said... Was my "telling" a "rescue fantasy"? I guess it could have been. But I also had a firm belief in the power of telling "authorities" and thinking things would then turn out OK. I didn't have to fantasize because, while I was often under great mental stress at home, I also had a sort of outward structure: My mother was never going to let anything TOO bad happen. (At the very end of their marriage, that year, my father finally pulled a gun on my mother after she wouldn't go in the bedroom with him after he'd come from drinking. He chased her outside and shot at her a couple of times. That was the worst I'd ever seen. I was relieved to discover that THAT was, indeed, the very last straw for her --- she then filed for divorce.)
So that's me. A shitty, violent dad; a mother drawing lines only after it came down to truly horrible stuff. I survived it. And I'm glad for the line-drawing. 99% of my adult life, I've been self-sufficient.
I do have a question, though, about someone that I've known for about 9 years now. When I met her online in '08, she had just lost 18 years of child support, was then being supported by an older Sugar Daddy. When he was declared senile by his children, she lost her sponsored apartment and was forced to beg relatives/friends for support. One old family friend paid her rent for year; after that, a fellow AA member gave her a spot on his couch. Even that is now about to end.
Now, this woman was raised rich; her father died early, her mother lost his money to vultures... I think she has a perpetual Rescue Fantasy.
I've tried to help her, for years, to get a job: Working up a resume for her, sending job notices that I found online, explaining how easy it was to get a simple, cushy part-time job with the state... No desire at all for any self-help. She'd prefer to sleep on someone else's couch rather than work for even a one-room place of her own.
She's nearing 60. At what point does the "Rescue Fantasy" end? Of course, it doesn't. Even when speaking to her a couple of weeks ago, she joked about a "Russian" rescuing her from her financial plight. (That wealthy Russian oligarchs might prefer 30-ish nubile young women to a 60-year-old didn't seem to deter her.)
Me in this equation: I care about her, but my idea of "rescuing" is offering a room for a few months and helping with a job search. Not sexy. Not the stuff of fantasy. Our internal needs don't intersect at all.
I think, while growing up, that my mother's hard-core judgmentalism always somehow outweighed my father's abusive tendencies. I was emotionally abused by both parents, and frightened by my father, but the latter was always stopped in his tracks when he tended toward sexual abuse. For instance: At age 12, I was sunbathing in the backyard. My father came outside to join me. He then suggested that I take off my bikini top. I didn't feel comfortable doing so, and refused. He then went on a tirade that involved making me take down every single Bay City Rollers poster on my bedroom wall. Emotionally traumatic, but, as I always did, I immediately told my mother when she got home. I "got to" put the posters back up a day or so later. And my father never suggested such a thing again. (They divorced later that same year, so I luckily got to avoid any further sexual suggestions on his part.)
That said... Was my "telling" a "rescue fantasy"? I guess it could have been. But I also had a firm belief in the power of telling "authorities" and thinking things would then turn out OK. I didn't have to fantasize because, while I was often under great mental stress at home, I also had a sort of outward structure: My mother was never going to let anything TOO bad happen. (At the very end of their marriage, that year, my father finally pulled a gun on my mother after she wouldn't go in the bedroom with him after he'd come from drinking. He chased her outside and shot at her a couple of times. That was the worst I'd ever seen. I was relieved to discover that THAT was, indeed, the very last straw for her --- she then filed for divorce.)
So that's me. A shitty, violent dad; a mother drawing lines only after it came down to truly horrible stuff. I survived it. And I'm glad for the line-drawing. 99% of my adult life, I've been self-sufficient.
I do have a question, though, about someone that I've known for about 9 years now. When I met her online in '08, she had just lost 18 years of child support, was then being supported by an older Sugar Daddy. When he was declared senile by his children, she lost her sponsored apartment and was forced to beg relatives/friends for support. One old family friend paid her rent for year; after that, a fellow AA member gave her a spot on his couch. Even that is now about to end.
Now, this woman was raised rich; her father died early, her mother lost his money to vultures... I think she has a perpetual Rescue Fantasy.
I've tried to help her, for years, to get a job: Working up a resume for her, sending job notices that I found online, explaining how easy it was to get a simple, cushy part-time job with the state... No desire at all for any self-help. She'd prefer to sleep on someone else's couch rather than work for even a one-room place of her own.
She's nearing 60. At what point does the "Rescue Fantasy" end? Of course, it doesn't. Even when speaking to her a couple of weeks ago, she joked about a "Russian" rescuing her from her financial plight. (That wealthy Russian oligarchs might prefer 30-ish nubile young women to a 60-year-old didn't seem to deter her.)
Me in this equation: I care about her, but my idea of "rescuing" is offering a room for a few months and helping with a job search. Not sexy. Not the stuff of fantasy. Our internal needs don't intersect at all.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Gordon Craig on Isadora Duncan
 |
| Isadora Duncan by Edward Gordon Craig. |
All things have only an imaginary existence...
For the remembering of an act --- "I went with her
through those lighted streets and we
bought our supper from three or four shops" ---
is greater than the act itself....
Beyond wonder wonderful --- that seemed and seems
as I see those shops --- that street ---
the lights, it becomes again so wonderful
that I turn sick with pain of gazing --- It is gone
by --- that glimpse.
----------------------------------------------
An earlier recollection of Craig, after seeing Duncan dance for the first time in 1904:
Only this can we say --- that she was telling to the air the very things we longed to hear, and till she came we had never dreamed we should hear...
Traveling Wilburys - Handle With Care (1988)
I've been uptight and made a mess
but I'll clean it up myself, I guess
Oh, the sweet smell of success
Handle me with care
Oh, goodness
I've recently been in sporadic e-mail contact, via Facebook, with the subsequent "best friend" of the girl I loved my senior year of high school and "left" when I went off to college at UT Austin. (I put "left" in quotes because neither of us knew anything about "love." She and I were very close. Closer than I've been to anyone since. Once I went off to college, Ginny found a new "best friend"; she left me.)
A couple of weeks ago, I Facebook-messaged the friend: "Happy Birthday to Ginny!" (who had died in 1988).
She messaged me back, saying she'd called Ginny's mother on that day...
I replied back with my shallow memories: "I remember that Ginny always spoke harshly to her mother; and is her father still around? I remember that he always drank a dozen Cokes per day..."
What was I trying to prove? That I also had memories of Ginny's parents? Ginny and I used to want to explore different religions. We once tried to find a Unitarian church in Fort Worth and got lost. Her parents questioned us upon our return --- we didn't look like we'd been to church. I also traveled with the whole family to Georgia in the summer of '83 to visit Ginny's grandmother. The car trip, the hotels, the bedroom, the return...
At the time, I thought, "Oh, this is just the end of high school. I'm going off to college. I'm a hotshot. I'll experience hundreds of other intimate moments like this." In fact, I have never since experienced such intimate moments.
A couple of weeks ago, I Facebook-messaged the friend: "Happy Birthday to Ginny!" (who had died in 1988).
She messaged me back, saying she'd called Ginny's mother on that day...
I replied back with my shallow memories: "I remember that Ginny always spoke harshly to her mother; and is her father still around? I remember that he always drank a dozen Cokes per day..."
What was I trying to prove? That I also had memories of Ginny's parents? Ginny and I used to want to explore different religions. We once tried to find a Unitarian church in Fort Worth and got lost. Her parents questioned us upon our return --- we didn't look like we'd been to church. I also traveled with the whole family to Georgia in the summer of '83 to visit Ginny's grandmother. The car trip, the hotels, the bedroom, the return...
At the time, I thought, "Oh, this is just the end of high school. I'm going off to college. I'm a hotshot. I'll experience hundreds of other intimate moments like this." In fact, I have never since experienced such intimate moments.
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Traveling Wilburys: End Of The Line (1988)
Well it's all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right, if you live the life you please
Well it's all right, doing the best you can
Well it's all right, as long as you lend a hand
You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
Maybe a diamond ring
Well it's all right, even if they say you're wrong
Well it's all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it's all right, as long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it's all right, everyday is Judgment Day
Maybe somewhere down the road a-ways
You'll think of me, wonder where I am these days
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
Purple Haze
Well it's all right, even when push comes to shove
Well it's all right, if you got someone to love
Well it's all right, everything'll work out fine
Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line
Don't have to be ashamed of the car I drive
I'm just glad to be here, happy to be alive
It don't matter if you're by my side
I'm satisfied
Well it's all right, even if you're old and gray
Well it's all right, you still got something to say
Well it's all right, remember to live and let live
Well it's all right, the best you can do is forgive
Well it's all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it's all right, if you live the life you please
Well it's all right, even if the sun don't shine
Well it's all right, we're going to the end of the line
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
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