Observations on Sports 10.31

On Saturday afternoon Penn State beat Illinois 10-7 when Illinois kicker Derek Demke missed a 42-yard field goal with 5 seconds left on the clock. With his 409th win JoePa moved ahead of Grambling State’s Eddie Robinson for the most ever wins among Division I coaches.  Penn State is now the only unbeaten team in Big 10 play (5-0 Big 10, 8-1 overall) and moved into the 16th spot in the BCS poll.

If you ever wondered why I so live for Penn State football just watch this vid taken at the end of the Illinois game, it should give you a pretty good idea. Keep in mind that this crowd was about 40,000 short of the normal crowd of 110,000 due to it being snowtober.

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Observations from the Edge 10.29

I was at Liberty Square a couple days ago and had an interesting conversation. As we looked at the ring of interlocking steel barricades that now completely surrounds the park we started to talk about what the police in this country have become. In major cities they have become militarized to the point that it's hard to call some of the police departments anymore as they are more para-military organizations. They have all the toys and, in the case of Oakland, they want to play with them. I honestly think New York City probably has one of the best small militaries in the world, large enough to suppress all of Jersey in the event of any future Devils' Stanley Cup win.

You could use the so called 'War on Terror' as a reason for all that but none of these toys would have stopped the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. They don't seem to be able to stop drugs from entering the country or people from crossing the borders illegally. So what is their purpose? A question which we may all have to be answer one day soon.

But back to the barricades which started this whole ramble. I searched the New York Times archive and found an article from 2003 called “Steel Barriers Reinforce a Thinner Line of Blue at Parades, and the Bottom Line” (l, not sure if the link works without a subscription). At the time the NYPD already owned 12,000 of the stunningly beautiful things. I read elsewhere that the city now owns enough of them to completely surround the island of Manhattan in steel and right now they are everywhere, surrounding Liberty Square, the New York Stock Exchange, creating a veritable maze in the Financial District. Supposedly they are to keep protesters in the park and out of the street where they can restrict traffic yet the damn barricades themselves are in the street.

At a recent community meeting local resident Sabrina Espinal said “My biggest issue is the barricades, don’t care if they stay in that park 'til kingdom come. I just want the barricades down.”

Maybe the New York City Police Department is the real one occupying Wall Street.

Observations from the Window 10.27

I received a rather weighty package from Amazon yesterday that may signal the beginning of a cold weather reading binge, something I think my brain needs. It also seems to be the time to put Patti Smith's Just Kids on the shelf for a long deserved break. I first read the book back in April and have been rereading parts of it ever since, partly because I live near where so many of the scenes took place. But one part I have stayed away from is the end because it always brings tears to my eyes.

In late February of 1989 Smith saw Robert Mapplethorpe for the last time. In the book she shows the following note which she wrote to Mapplethorpe, but doesn't say whether she actually sent it to him than or was writing it to him in the book. If I should ever meet her that's the first question I'm going to ask.

Dear Robert,
Often as I lie awake I wonder if you are also lying awake. Are you in pain or feeling alone? You drew me from the darkest period of my young life, sharing with me the sacred mystery of what it is to be an artist. I learned to see through you and never compose a line or draw a curve that does not come from the knowledge I derived in our precious time together. 
Your work, coming from a fluid source can be traced to the naked song of your youth. You spoke than of holding hands with god. Remember, through everything, you have always held that hand, grip it hard, Robert, and don't let go.
The other afternoon, when you fell asleep on my shoulder, I drifted off too. But before I did, it occurred to me looking around at all of your things and your work and going through years of work in my mind, that of all of your work, you are still your most beautiful.
The most beautiful work of all.
Patti

Mapplethorpe died a few days later on March 9, 1989.

Like I said, tears.

Patti Smith - Paths That Cross

Observations from the Edge 10.27

Leave it to Jon Stewart to say it best and with the fewest words. "What the fuck happened in Oakland?"

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Cry for Oakland

Jane Tyska for The Oakland Tribune via owsbot

One has to wonder what has gone wrong in this country when a scene like above can be played out in a major American city. In the predawn hours Tuesday hundreds of police from Oakland and maybe a dozen other central California communities assaulted the Occupy Oakland camp in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza. I use the word assault because police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades in the surprise raid. It can be debated where the blame falls for the eviction but what can't be debated is that the show brute and, in the case of rubber bullets, possibly lethal force was totally uncalled for. It all made New York Mayor Bloomberg look rather tame in comparison. 

As I write this Tuesday night hundreds of protesters are marching on Oakland's City Hall and the days total arrests for the day in Oakland stands at over 150.

In another bit of OWS news protesters arrested during Occupy Wall Street's march onto the Brooklyn Bridge may turn down a deal offered by prosecutors. The deal would drop all charges in six months if the individual hadn't been arrested again in that time. Most of the 780 arrested were charged with disorderly conduct and have been offered the deal but the National Lawyer's Guild, the group that represents them, says most may turn the deal down and demand a jury trial clogging the legal system in New York City.

And so it goes.

late update - All hell broke loose in Oakland tonight and the words police riot come to mind. Welcome to George Orwell's America....

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Observations from the Coffee Shop 10.23

This morning I was looking at one of my recent OWS photos with a friend when she commented on a button the girl in the shot was wearing. The button said “2planes 3buildings 911wtf?” Now I know I have seen that line before but I didn't have an answer when my friend asked what it meant and all Ash knew was that it was a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Even though I may be superstitious at times and read my horoscope now and than I do try and stay away from wacko conspiracy theories because I don't need any more crap clogging my brain. I did look into this one a bit today because I have a soft spot for 9/11 and I wanted to know the answer to her question.

The 2planes party is easy, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. I found the 3buildings part stands for the twin towers and Building 7 which collapsed during the afternoon of September 11th. Conspiracy theorists seem to use that later collapse to prove that the towers were bought down by a controlled demolition rather than by the airliners. They don't seem to believe that being 400' away from a collapsing 1300' tower would cause enough damage to bring Building 7 down. You might be wondering who would want to do that but I'm not even going to get into it other than to say they believe it was super cabal involving everybody from oil companies, to the CIA, to your local hair dresser's cousin Louie. It was done to justify invading the Middle East and seizing oil fields.

To me the one critical flaw in the whole theory is this. The Bush administration failed at everything it did yet I'm supposed to believe it pulled off and than covered up the greatest conspiracy in the history of the planet? Even if I wanted to I couldn't do it. Along with them the cover up would have had to involve the FDNY, the NYPD, the Port Authority, the FBI, the FAA, NORAD, and on and on. Even scrap yards in the New York City area would have had to be involved because they sold scrap steel before it was all tested as probably they were asked to by the Bush people. Which means Mayor Bloomberg couldn't have been involved because at the time he asked the yards not to sell it.

Omg, I drank the tea, I understand now and I need one of those buttons of my own.

Seriously even conspiracies with a few people are doomed are to fail, like Watergate. The more people you involve in it the more likely it is to fall apart. The amount of people needed for this conspiracy could fill both of the towers so it's just absurd to think this many people could keep a mass murder a secret for this long. Totally effing absurd.

Yet people still believe.

Observations from the Edge 10.23

Friday night I was watching a live feed of an OWS march from 95th Street to Columbus Circle that featured the 92 year old Pete Seeger leading a march of almost 1000 people. It was 1 AM till the group reached Columbus Circle but there they stopped and they sang. Now I'm not about to start buying folk music but even just watching the feed it was one of those nice calm moments in time. Even the NYPD officers present seemed to relax and enjoy it. I have shared enough bad scenes since the protests began, I thought I would share the good too.

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Observations on Art 10.21

It may seem as if OWS is now taking over even the art portions of my blog but I have to mention something that irritates me a little. One of the problems of not yet having a central message is the fact that every small group within OWS is treated as if it were speaking for the whole of OWS. That is what happened this week with Occupy Museums which is the brainchild of Noah Fischer and his Art and Culture Group. It's message seems just heated rhetoric about "a corrupt hierarchical system based on false scarcity and propaganda concerning absurd elevation of one individual genius over another human being for the monetary gain of the elitist of elite." Fischer said in an interview that Occupy Museums isn't a personal project and was approved by the group but really I think the group itself is his personal project. He also said that all statements read will be approved by consensus but again this is in the group and not at the OWS general assembly.

Yesterday Occupy Museums descended upon a strange, and probably befuddled, group of institutions, the Museum of Modern Art, the Frick and the New Museum. I have no idea how they missed the Met other than my theory that Fischer has something there and you don't seem to see anybody from the group stopping the Smithsonian from collecting flyers and signs in Liberty Square. Another complaint I saw was that public museums charge a fee to get in, currently $25 and $14 for students at MOMA. It seems like almost nothing compared to a ticket to a major concert or sporting event. Will the group be occupying stadiums next? Count me in on that one if they protest a Flyers - Rangers game.

Occupy Museum's manifesto also stated, “Recently, we have witnessed the absolute equation of art with capital. The members of museum boards mount shows by living or dead artists whom they collect like bundles of packaged debt. Shows mounted by museums are meant to inflate these markets.” At the risk of stabbing myself in the back I tend to agree with this but they are blaming the entirely wrong people. I think this is becoming a problem the art world will have to deal with at some point but the problem comes more from the larger galleries and art shows and not from the museums. The museums are just an easier target with a much better chance of publicity.

As Kyle Chayka said in ArtInfo's gossip blog, “museums, public institutions as they are, don’t really seem to be fitting targets for such vitriol. Try Gagosian gallery, maybe?”

10/22 update - After I posted this yesterday I found a couple of things that add some to it. The first is a Twitter account I ran into called @OccupyArtWorld that is similar to Occupy Museums. It's about two weeks old and again filled with misplaced rhetoric. Among other things it calls out the art blogs Hyperallergic and Art Fag City for taking ads when these are two blogs that made their reputation before taking any ads at all. It fails to mention ArtForum whose posts seem to go with whoever is buying ad space at the time.

The other thing was a post in yesterday's New York Times ArtsBeat (l) blog that gave a good description of the protest. You can follow the link and read it if you want but I love the last paragraph of it so I'm posting it here.

"At the New Museum, a protester mentioned White Box, a small gallery off the Bowery that was having an opening that night. After a consensus vote, the group marched their protest over to its doors. But the exhibit there, “WALLmART,” turned out to be in solidarity with the 99 percent movement. So after a few minutes, the Occupy Museums group abandoned their sidewalk chants and went in.“We occupied, and now we’re going to schmooze,” Mr. Fischer said."

Artists, what are you going to do with them?

Observations from the Edge 10.17

Liberty Square turned one month old today and in that month Occupy Wall Street has received over $300,000 in donations to it's website. Some randomness.

I stopped at home lunch today and caught some of Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC. What is so ridiculous about most media coverage of Occupy Wall Street is they just don't seem to get it at all. Before going to a commercial Mitchell said the next report was on OWS, basically she said it's getting too big to ignore but is it drawing the right kind of attention. Well no, not when your 5 minute OWS report is following a 15 minute report on the record money being raised for the next presidential election and your “expert” for the OWS report is Jim Kramer from CNBC. Unreal.

Did you ever want a pen pal? A pen pal to share your problems with, your hopes and dreams, that can help when you lose your job or home? Thanks to a website called Occupy the Boardroom now you can. From here you can send an email to all the top execs at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo. Alas they can't release the email addresses because of the Computer Fraud and Abuse act, funny how your bank can sell your email address though.

This is just a follow up to the previous post on the message of OWS and is from a post on their website marking the one month anniversary of Liberty Square. “Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.”

However there are problems with not having a central demand. In today's New York Times there was an article titled “Protesters Debate What Demands, if Any, to Make.” The article talks with and about the Demands Working Group which was formed over a week ago. The problem is the group was self formed by its members, not by OWS itself, and I have heard it's being called a hijack attempt. Another group has formed to formulate a response to the demands group and talk about principals not demands.

Finally today Citigroup announced a third quarter profit of $3.8 billion, its seventh consecutive quarterly profit, and a 74% increase from last year.

Is it any wonder people are pissed off?

the Message

If you listen to main stream media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement one of the complaints you hear is that they have no stated goals. I find it so funny that they all seem to feel the need to suggest appropriate ones. But the left and the Democratic Party have always been that way, it's both their curse and their blessing. It has always been a far more inclusive party and movement than the right. As I wandered through Zuccotti Park I saw people of all ages and backgrounds who all seemed to have one thing in common, they are terribly pissed off at a system that is totally messed up and corrupt. They are all just tired of it and aren't going to take it anymore.

Still there is a message to be heard if they would just listen.

(updated 1/4/12 with a youtube version of the video, the vimeo one has apparently been deleted.)

Occupy the World

Today, October 15th, people will protest in over a thousand locations in 87 countries. There are almost 7 billion people on this planet and maybe it's time a majority of them are heard from.

In Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chez Republic, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hawaii, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenia, Korea, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisie, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, Uruguay, USA and Venezuela they will Occupy the World.

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Observations from the Edge 10.14

I went down to Zuccotti Park early Friday morning where the city was poised to use the cover of park cleaning to evict Occupy Wall Street. If what follows seems a bit confusing it may be because I was running, and still am running, on three hours sleep and most of it is off the top of my head because I was traveling without my usual backpack of toys. All I took along was Ash's old Nikon, the largest cup of coffee I could find at 5 AM, my phone zipped tight in my jacket, and the cell number of Ash's lawyer who I am quite sure was already expecting my call.

When I got to Zuccotti around 5:30 there were already thousands of people crowding the park. Broadway was partially blocked by steel barricades and maybe a hundred NYPD officers, a sight which sort of blew my mind. Not so much seeing all of them there but the fact that they were blocking one of the main arteries of the Financial District just before rush hour. Not only that but it was perfectly timed to be broadcast live on all the morning news shows and I began thinking somebody really hadn't thought the whole thing through. That may have been the scariest thought of the day. Ringing the park were cameras from networks all over the country and the world. I could easily pick out ABC 7, NBC 4, CNN, Univision, AP, German ARD, and the BBC.

I found a nice clean and comfy trash can to sit on than settled in to drink my coffee and see what dawn bought. My trash can was in a good spot just outside the park with an open street behind it so I figured I had a nice exit route should I need one. Just after 6:00 my escape plan went to hell when about a dozen officers arrived on scooters I could only think they borrowed from meter maids. I have to admit that made me more than a little nervous so I quickly double checked that lawyer's number. Not long after the scooter cops arrived a rumor began to spread through the crowd that the whole operation had been postponed if not canceled and it was officially announced at around 6:45. It was a slightly emotional moment because the crowd began chanting “we won, we won” over and over and I know I saw some of the younger cops smiling. By now I had my phone out and was back in contact with the rest of my world.

At this point hundreds of protesters poured out of the park and headed north on Broadway in an impromptu celebratory march on City Hall. I hoped off my perch and followed part of the way but turned back when I started to see riot police, horses, and those damn orange nets the police used to gather up marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge. During this march protesters clashed with riot police outside City Hall and this is where most of the days arrests took place. I wandered back through Zuccotti taking photos and talking a little including to a guy who had just been arrested in the big Occupy Boston arrest, got out, and than traveled to New York fully expecting to be arrested yet again. One of the most discussed topics is also one of the least reported facts of the day. Diana Taylor, Mayor Bloomberg's live in girlfriend, just happens to be on the board of directors of Brookfield Office Properites, the owners of Zuccotti Park.

Personally I don't think the cleaning operation could have been planned without the approval of Mayor Bloomberg himself and so the decision not too do it must have been his as well. Probably laying it on Brookfield Properties was an easy way for him to wash his hands of the whole affair should it have gone bad. I have to agree with what a Village Voice writer said in a column later in the day. If the decision not to clean the park had been made the night before why the hell didn't they announce it than. Announce it before thousands of people, some of them very heavily armed, stood in the early morning light of Zuccotti Park just waiting for something to happen.

What I do know is that the word postponed was burned into the minds of everyone there this morning. Not cancelled, just postponed.

Observations from the Gallery 10.13 Randomness

Some days I just get all kinds of things in my mail, for instance today I got an invitation to the 12th Istanbul Biennial which runs through November 13th. Now I'd go in a heartbeat because I would love to see the Hagia Sophia and museums but it seems the folks at the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts forgot to send along the airfare. I suppose I need to pass on Istanbul this year. I also received an invitation to a Halloween party at a major gallery in the Village, now that could be fun and far cheaper than Istanbul, but it seems a $100 donation is necessary to attend this event. I guess I pass on that one too or maybe we'll just have our own Halloween party that night. I spend far too much time on my multiple tumblr blogs but I like looking at photos so I would probably be looking anyway.

One thing I have discovered is I'm far from the only person alive who loves quotes. I rarely get photos reblogged, well rare for the number I post, but the quotes always seem to get a couple likes or reblogs or likes. Two of the most popular are Hunter S. Thompson quotes, "life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously," with 98 reblogs and "who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed," with 52. Seems there are a lot of Thompson fans out there.

Another thing I've been spending some time on is trying to keep up with the Occupy Wall Street protests and others around the country. There is a video on YouTube of the Boston Police breaking up a demonstration and tearing a flag out of a man's hands. I wont bother sharing because it isn't of the best quality. What I want to share is a comment to the video that just shows how damn myopic some people are in this country. The comment said, “Boston Police officers are doing an outstanding job. These so-called "protesters" are the most ignorant and arrogant misfits around. They were repeatedly told to leave the area. The fault clearly lies with these ignorant misfits. It is a shame that the Boston Police officers are forced to put up with these arrogant crapheads. Keep up the good work, Boston Police!!!!” The group protesting was the Veterans for Peace, a non-profit humanitarian organization of vets dedicated to increasing public awareness of the costs of war.

Finally today was one of those days where one topic of conversation seemed to linger all day in the gallery. That would be thanks to Ash who, when I got the party invitation, commented that before she dies she would just like to get a little respect from those, well, people. I shan't elaborate on the exact language she used but I will say she has a point because the bigger galleries do tend to look down on the smaller ones. Respect is a tricky thing in that it's earned, given, and sometimes taken for granted, sometimes until it is gone. But should a large gallery have our respect simply because it is large or should there be more to it than that? I suppose more art world bridges have been burned over that one simple word than almost any other reason. Damn arrogant artists.

My only fear is that any hits taken out during Ash's campaign for recognition will have to be handled by me.

Michelle Branch - Loud Music

Observations from the Edge 10.13

This short film is a little overboard in its fervor but it does contain some awesome clips and it is rather well made. I especially like the scene at 5:30 where the protester thanks the police for "participating in our media publicity campaign." The comment I added below the video was posted on YouTube by the person who posted the video. It gives a better explanation of the vid. Also the powers that be have deemed it should be age restricted so I have no idea how that effects the embed, there is a link below.

“Hypocrisy has its own elegant symmetry.”
 Julie Metz

Link

"I appreciate your thoughts, just wanna be sure all is clear with the video. It is NOT a comparison, rather a WARNING that if the police keep repressing people's rights, America COULD turn into Egypt. If the police arrest the War Vets who risked their lives to protect the police, how long can you Americans stand for this?! It is their blood that makes USA possible. All americans should agree and demand a? stop to arrests now. The First amendment trumps local ordinances."

Observations on Art 10.9

As you may or may not know for the past week or so I have been wandering around the Occupy Wall Street protests. I've been taking photos, taking it all in, honestly trying to understand what it means and I want to write about it some but that isn't what this post is for. You can ask ten people what makes a good photo and get ten different answers most of which have to do with composition or lighting. Depth, lines, perception, all have their place in a good photo but I have my own opinion. I really don't worry about any of it much when I'm taking shots, I just shoot what I see, and I don't think my work is any better than average.

I took this photo yesterday near the OWS protest in Zuccotti Park. To me a good photo needs no title and I posted this on Flickr (l) without one. A good photo tells the viewer everything he or she needs to know, it pulls at your heart and kicks you in the gut at the same time. It makes you think. You may not think this is a good photo, you probably don't think this is even the best I have ever taken, but it fills all my criteria.

I look at her and I just hurt.

Observations from the Edge 10.8

I was sitting in the bar watching the Penn State game as a crowd reported to be in the thousands was forming in Washington Square Park, just blocks away from our apartment. After the game I'm going to go and see what is happening there because I heard most of the protesters were planning on moving back to Zuccotti Park in a march they don't have a permit for. There is also a large NYPD presence around the Square and they are saying they will not allow anybody to remain in the park after the midnight curfew. The curfew thing was rather surprising to me because in my almost two years here I never knew there was one. I figure they can't arrest me anyway because I live there but I'm hoping it doesn't turn into a repeat of last weekend's Brooklyn Bridge fiasco and its 700 arrests.

This video has some totally awesome photos in it but I'm not so sure about the choice of music. I would have gone for a Muse tune or something like that because one can be an anarchist but one doesn't have to be a bore.

Occupy Wall Street from Vas on Vimeo.

sunday update - Penn State beat Iowa 13-3 and now have an overall record of 4-1 and are 2-0 in the Big Ten. Far from the best State team ever, no settled quarterback and the wins are sloppy, they have an awesome defense and they do seem to win. JoePa continued his trend of leading the team onto the field and coaching the first half from the sideline and the second half from the box. Attendance was announced as over 100,000 compared to 46,000 at Friday night's Phillies game.

As for Washington Square Park, until I got there everybody had left except some NYPD officers and a man with green skin. I honestly didn't want to know about green skin man so I just wandered through and kept going. As far as I know no arrests were made at the WSP protest and the crowd was supposedly around 3,000.

Observations from the Window 10.8

This blog has evolved into something part vent, part, thought, and part directionless rambling. Sometimes I just want to share something without sending out emails and that is what you have here. I ran into this blog post following one link or another and the problem is the actual links for the blog don't seem to work. It was written by Rosemarie Urquico and I hope she doesn't mind my using it here, it's doubtful she will ever know anyway. What caught my attention is the title of the post, "CarrollBlog 9.30," you gotta like somebody that thinks like me. It's not anything I would have written but I really like it and wish I had.*

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."

*a little update - With some help I managed to track down the blog where the post originated. The line at the top of it is simply brilliant, why don't I think of these things? "A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes– it’s a love letter to someone I haven’t met yet." Jonathan Carroll

Observations from the Coffee Shop 10.7

At times I 'm just so disgusted with the conservative holier than thou tea party politics in this country that I sometimes wonder if any of them care about anything other than money. Than something comes along that snaps me back from the edge and makes me realize that it's not them all, it's just that far right lunatic fringe that somehow has come to dominate politics in this country, that applauds executions, and cheers allowing a cancer patient to die because he doesn't have health insurance. They don't all want to do away with Social Security and cut first responder funding to pay for hurricane relief.

While I probably don't believe some of what I just wrote it was good to think it for a moment and it is nice to see that some of the right do have a mind of their own and didn't drink the tea. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is far from my favorite politician but it was nice to see him decide not run for the GOP nomination for President not because he thinks it isn't his time, it probably is, but because he doesn't want to drink the tea. Even he is too moderate for the current version of the Republican Party.

Than there is this which prompted this post. David Frum is a former economic speechwriter for George W. Bush and in his column for the National Post yesterday he wrote that the Republican Party is seriously flawed in its plans for recovering from our current mess.

"It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.

It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.

It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”

It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.

It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.

It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.

It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.

It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.

It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.

It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.

It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.

It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.

It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment."

That about covers it.

Observations on Art, The Muse

The muses of the ancients were divinities. In Greek mythology Apollonis, Cephisso, and Borysthenis were known as the three muses, the goddesses who were said to inspire works of art and literature. The word museum finds its root in the Greek word mouseion which was a place where these daughters of Apollo were worshiped. The mythological muses met their end in Dante's Devine Comedy which was inspired by his very earthly muse Beatrice Portinari who he claimed to have met when they were both 9 years old. From than on the muse has come to be known as an artist's source of inspiration, whether real or imaginary, and generally refers to a person who inspires an artist.

During the Renaissance the model for two of Raphael's most famous Madonnas was a Sienese baker's daughter named Margharita di Luti, who was probably Raphael's lover. In one of my favorite stories the painter Fra Filippo Lippi went in for a riskier muse relationship when he seduced a young nun named Lucrezia Buti and went on to live with her, using her as the model for several portraits including one of the Holy Mother. Renaissance muses were subordinate to their artists, bound to their sexual needs while the artists were free to do as they pleased.

Modern muses seem to be powerful and creative women in their own right like Georgia O'Keeffe who didn't just inspire photographer Alfred Stieglitz, but influenced the direction of his art as well. I could write all day about Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, mutual muses and collaborators. They were in and out of each others lives and art for over two decades until Mapplethorpe's death from AIDS in 1989. People will debate till the end of time on whether Yoko Ono was good for John Lennon's music but nobody will ever debate the effect she had on him.

Than again artists and muses seem to traditionally take a toll on each other. Salvador Dalí's wife Gala shrewdly tortured her sex-averse and masochistic husband with her affairs and the dancer Suzanne Farrell, George Balanchine's astonishingly beautiful muse, married another dancer the day his divorce was finalized. Pablo Picasso met Marie-Thérèse Walter in Paris when she was 17 and immediately made her his mistress, sometimes having his chauffeur wait outside her school to pick her up and take her to the artist's studio where she modeled for countless paintings. Walter later bore him a daughter though he refused to marry her, and killed herself in 1977, four years after Picasso died.

So what do I think a muse is? Somewhere in the past or present is a person that comes back to you again and again in your thoughts and dreams. You may have barely known them or you may know them well but either way they left an indelible impression on you. I had a professor who used Carl Jung's animus when she described her muse and the idea works for me too. Jung described the animus as the unconscious male dominated part of the female psyche. In my professors description this core part of your being, part of your very soul, is projected to the other person and when you look at them you see its reflection. You want desperately to speak to it but find it impossible and so turn to the only language that works, your art.

In an LA Times article on the death of the muse UCLA sociology professor David Halle wrote, "The concept of the muse is part of the Romantic tradition and this is just not a romantic age.” I don't agree at all and I'll finish with the words that best sum it up for me.

Everything I did I did for you.

Observations

With all the things going on right now this seems a strange post for a Monday morning but I was paging through an old book, saw this, and it made me smile. Too long for twitter and not right for tumblr I'll just post it here and hope it makes somebody else smile too.

“If I knew that today would be the last time I’d see you, I would hug you tight and pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul. If I knew that this would be the last time you pass through this door, I’d embrace you, kiss you, and call you back for one more. If I knew that this would be the last time I would hear your voice, I’d take hold of each word to be able to hear it over and over again. If I knew this is the last time I see you, I’d tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already.”

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Observations from the Edge 10.2

This is a segment of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell from last week that shows, rather graphically, the pepper spray incident I mentioned in my last post. The video speaks for itself so I won't say much but I am a little amazed how little attention it has received in mainstream media. Keep in mind the officers wearing the white shirts are actually senior commanders and don't miss the part about the video camera.

Below the video I added a link to the blog post that he mentions in the clip. I like the first comment found below the blog post. Charles wrote, "Soon some of these "heroes" will be explaining to their children why Daddy lost his job."
     
Link
Rewriting Police vs Protesters

Observations from the Edge 10.1

After being warned by Ash not to 'get maced and bring back the smell' I wandered over to Zuccotti Park to see what was going on and and take some photos. Ash was referring to the unprovoked macing of four protesters by a senior NYPD commander. It was a move that made it look as if New York's Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is a closet supporter of the protests because they seemed to be heading nowhere and getting no national media attention until that incident. It now seems that shouting and annoying bankers is grounds enough for getting maced.

People were beating drums, blowing whistles, carrying signs, and chanting “Banks got bailed out, you got sold out!” and “We are the 99 percent!” Many of the protesters carried computers as they marched and I found out that this was for tweeting and live streaming what was going on. I heard no mention of plurking so I guess that's left to me.

At one point I listened to a never ending lecture by an unemployed professor looking type about how corporate CEOs and Wall Street chieftains had staged a silent coup in America. I also learned what a human microphone is, it's when one person shouts something and everybody else repeats it in unison. They use a human microphone because the protesters are forbidden from using amplified sound. After all one doesn't want to disturb the executives on the 20th floor does one.

Next week New York labor and community groups including The United Federation of Teachers plan on joining the protest and MoveOn.org will help promote it. "We're getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers," a spokesman for Transport Workers Union Local 100 said. A solidarity march scheduled for Wednesday that is expected to start at City Hall and finish a few blocks south at Zuccotti Park. By the end of the week there could over two dozen 'solidarity occupations' across the country.

My two trips to the park have me thinking and I'm sure I'll stop back from time to time. I just won't tell Ash about it ahead of time.

Rage Against The Machine - Testify

Observations from the Edge

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Quote seen on a sign seen in Zuccotti Park

We Are The 99% from socially_awkwrd on Vimeo.

"On September 27th, 2011, we marched on the Financial District's Luxury Night Out, where couples wore outfits that cost more than we will ever make in a month and looked at cars that cost more than we will ever make in a year, afterward, they went back to one of their many houses that cost more than we will make in our lifetime."

OccupyWallStreet