Via Negativa

Awake around four with an idea for a blog post, I drift back to sleep a while later and sleep in until the disgracefully late hour of 7:30. Too late to write much of anything, I fiddle around, doctor up some old doggerel, then think better of it. Then I start remembering all the good stuff I’ve been finding on other blogs lately. It’s been a long time since I last did a digest like this, so why not? I love making collages . . .

For me, the pathos that certain aspects of Fahrenheit 9-11 conveyed spoke of something fundamental to the human condition, and the value was great because these are narratives that are only ever presented to us in fictional (and thereby dulled) form. Films are so often antiseptic, with their clinical and balletic depictions of violence, and their inconsequential battle-ground “action”. But here, somehow, in between the rollicking soundtrack and George W. acting like a prat on camera, something filtered through of the heart-seizing reality of what it means to live always with the possibility of death in mind.
– the vernacular body

Some with a soft dignity. Some without. Some
rattling and moaning. I go to the body. I go out
to this body when I see it coming. The traffic,
for a moment, ceases. The soft wick of moon. Boy

that I made, go out there. Go out to the seat
of judgment. Enter into me and hear it, whirr
of energy. The veins popping, exploding. Listen
to yourself cry out, go slack, stop.

– from “The Mercy Seat,” Awake at Dawn — Writing Journal

Does “Raytheon” really mean “the light of God” ?

For the ladies, they produce a swell line of ornithologicaly themed missiles — lark, sparrow, hawk, shrike, falcon, phoenix. For the gents, there are several phallically themed devices — javelin, stinger, excalibur — in addition to the ever-macho cruise, sidewinder, maverick and tomahawk missiles, the brilliant anti-armor tank submunition (BAT), the exoatmospheric kill vehicle, the aptly named HARM (High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile) and RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile). Why, they even produce a groundbreaking, post-modern, gender-inclusive device, the LGB, aka the Paveway Laser Guided Bomb.

– Paula’s House of Toast

Two nights ago: Many events, though I distinctly recall holding a cooked rabbit with my fingers, in an attempt to stuff it. I had pulled the skin up and there were bowls of nuts and stuffing, and a broth.
– fragments: dream a little dream of me

It didn’t take long to shut him up. When we finished beating the hell out of him, we thought it [would] be funny to shave his head. Much to our surprise, we found that underneath all that smelly grey hair was a tattooed scalp baring an elaborate anarchy symbol and a slogan that read, “Punx Not Dead”.
– A ‘Coon Named Legba

I told Tsuga to “sit” and “drop it!” while I fished around in his mouth for the bone. That’s odd. Whatever it is he’s mouthing is soft, squishy, almost flesh-like. To my horror, as the object came saliva-soaked from the dog’s mouth, I held in my hand a shrunken human calf and foot, complete with tiny toes. There for an instant, it weirded me out pretty seriously. My initial response was “Ooh me god! He’s ate Mr. Frodo!”
– Fragments From Floyd

I watched thought cells gently floating in the ‘bloodstream’, inactive, harmless little things with delicate, empty structures. I was taken inside a cell. It was completely empty, just a pregnant void. I was shocked. “Thoughts are empty!”

Suddenly larger cells invaded the picture and threw this quiet scene into chaos. These cells, two or three times the size of thoughts, hurtled through the bloodstream at a furious pace. Their multiple ‘arms’ splayed out in a star pattern. Hair triggers at the end of each arm guided the cells against the current as they actively hunted out thoughts. A small dark nucleus active in the centre of each cell fuelled this mission. “Emotions!” It occurred to me. These cells were emotions! Hungrily they pursued and attached to thoughts. Within a split second of capturing its quarry, the emotion would envelop the thought cell with its ‘arms’, and suck it into its own structure. (The thought remained completely passive in this process.) The instant the membrane closed around the newly merged cells the whole structure would ignite in ‘electrical’ sparks. The thought was now alive!

– A penny for your thoughts

I was underwhelmed at the time of the talk. Is it really this straight-forward? My mother said, “All she said was common sense. Love without attachment? I got it.”

But I don’t “got it.” I don’t have it so much that I go looking for Bodhisattva Goddesses where mortal women tread. I make holy and unholy out of gesture. What did I expect, really? That Kwan Seum Bosal would manifest right in front of me? That my mind would explode open?

– Ditch the raft

At the Sina pig farm, a man sits motionless out in the middle of his yard. In the morning sun, his skin is bronzed; he could be a statue.

Those pea fields that were harvested have been tilled again. What will come up next?

I am contemplating the division of lands: farm-land, wilderness, waste-land.

Once again, the monster-beast goes to work, like the good German he is.

– The Middlewesterner

Orion Online has just posted Engagement, the third part of Terry Tempest Williams’ series on the Open Space of Democracy:

In our increasingly fundamentalist country, we have to remember what is fundamental: gravity — what draws us to a place and keeps us there, like love, like kinship. When we commit to a particular place, a certain element of choice is removed. We begin to see the world whole instead of fractured. Long-term strategies replace short-term gains. We inform one another and become an educated public that responds.

Here in the redrock desert, which now carries the weight of more leases for oil and gas than its fragile red skin can support, due to the aggressive energy policy of the Bush administration, the open space of democracy appears to be closing. The Rocky Mountain states are feeling this same press of energy extraction with scant thought being given to energy alternatives. A domestic imperialism has crept into our country with the same assured arrogance and ideology-of-might that seem evident in Iraq.

It is easy to believe we the people have no say; that the powers in Washington will roll over our local concerns with their corporate energy ties and thumper trucks. It is easy to believe that the American will is only focused on how to get rich, how to be entertained, and how to distract itself from the hard choices we have before us as a nation.

I refuse to believe this. The only space I see truly capable of being closed is not the land or our civil liberties but our own hearts.

“Here’s the thing,” he said, and proceeded to outline an abstract situation. The vernacular always insists upon concreteness.

***

As my grandfather aged, his memory for the names of things and of people grew poorer and poorer. “Take the, the thing – you know – and give it to that woman!” would be a typical communication. His speech grew as cryptic and open to interpretation as the utterances of an oracle. The thing, that woman: though the particulars escaped him, he held tight to the facticity of life. He clung to life, too, because the whole notion of an afterlife always seemed suspiciously mystical to him, religious (and otherwise orthodox) as he was.

***

“It’s raining cats and dogs!” It’s interesting how a purely formal “it” that doesn’t even rise to the level of an abstraction can be presumed responsible for such outrageous acts of violence against household pets.

***

“Literally”: figuratively, as in “The stream was literally alive with fish,” or “His eloquence literally swept the audience from its feet.” These examples are courtesy of Ambrose Bierce,Write it Right. It’s easy to understand why a linguistic prescriptivist like Bierce would be so outraged by this all-too-common subversion of the meaning of literal meaning. “Write it right”: there’s only one way to do things. But vernacular speech will readily abandon semantic precision in favor of maximal playfulness and color.

***

“Biblical inerrancy”: a doctrine that imputes to the Christian Bible the unique property of lending itself only to one kind of interpretation – my own. These interpretations are said to be literal, operating on the assumption that whatever words and phrases mean to me is exactly the same as what they have meant to all people throughout history. For this to be possible despite the vagaries of linguistic change and the necessity of translation, the device of divine inspiration is trotted out. But if such inspiration is available to all sincere believers, why do we need to insist on doctrinal rigidity in the first place? Biblical inerrancy thus constitutes a hermeneutics of suspicion, even paranoia, predicated on a complete lack of trust in one’s fellow human beings. Can anyone so lacking in trust really be considered a person of faith? I can’t help thinking that the advocates of Biblical inerrancy and other forms of fundamentalism are the enemies of true religion. For such people, belief is a simple matter of unthinking obedience. Revelation is confused with the unfolding of power, a making so rather than a making whole.* They love Big Brother.

***

To the authors of the Bible, believing in superficialities and placing one’s trust in mere words are the primary attributes of the fool:

Lying lips cover over hatred, and a fool utters slander.
Proverbs 10:18

The heart of the righteous meditates on its answer, and the mouth of fools babbles forth evil.
Proverbs 15:28

The heart of the wise seeks out knowledge, the mouth of fools pursues foolishness.
Proverbs 15:14

(Translations by James Kugel, from The Great Poems of the Bible, The Free Press, 1999.)

But though believers have an obligation to seek out wisdom, the inner meanings of some things are inaccessible.

There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:
The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.
Proverbs 30:18-19 (KJV)

***

I can’t help wondering what a Biblical literalist would make of the preceding passage. Three or four, which is it? Are we to presume that only the first three of the four “things” listed are “too wonderful”? And if so, are we meant to suppose that “the way of a man with a maid” is just wonderful enough?

(Well, it’s enough for me!)
__________

*This is a slight modification of something I wrote here in a recent comments thread.

Here’s an entrepreneur who should be an inspiration to us all.

Of course, the idea of making art from garbage is nothing new. Back in March, I wrote about a Senegalese Sufi sect that takes the art of recycling to a whole new level. In that essay, I suggested that biological existence is largely a matter of recycling, and that culturally speaking, we are what we discard. But art should really be a verb, not a noun. Once you finish with that big ol’ apple, what will you do with the core?

In the generally confused condition of society at that time, many diverse and some dubious enterprises were linked with the cause of religion. One electrical appliance dealer founded a sect called Denshin-kyô (Religion of the Electricity God), dedicated to the worship of its eponymous deity and Thomas Alva Edison. Another sect, called Kôdôji-kyô, was organized specifically for the purpose of tax evasion. The founder, a man knowledgeable in the law, saw an opportunity under the then existing legislation to register any business enterprise as a religious juridical person and thus gain exemption from the payment of income taxes. For instance, the owner of a restaurant could call his business a church and could say that its purpose was to propagate the teaching that “life is religion.” His customers would be devotees. The satisfaction of hunger would be salvation. Money received would be offerings made by the faithful in gratitude for salvation. Ergo, the restaurateur really would receive no income, hence he need not pay income taxes. This idea proved so attractive to business proprietors that for about two years (1947-1948), the founder was the head of a thriving organization that licensed as churches a wide range of enterprises, including restaurants, dress shops, art shops, beauty salons, and even brothels. Needless to say, the law was amended to close these loopholes.

H. Neill McFarland, The Rush Hour of the Gods: A Study of the New Religious Movements in Japan (Harper, 1967)