children of men shot

10-year-old poem, nothing has changed

GONE TO DOGS

The century ends and a world has overcome.
Shelves of photographs in boxes simmer in the fecal basement.
The family suffocates under the protection of overgrown morning glories and siding made by vines, evolving hourly, green of unknown genesis.
The garage, so tired, decides to lie on its side, the attempted roof buckling, laughing at the faux paintjob no longer able to support its longing to sleep.
Rabbits in cages peer patiently at compost heaps and a computer box, stained black by saturation from seeping milk jugs filled with used motor oil, waiting for the toxic disposal day, Godot day.
The blind wife collects old socks and washrags lost beneath the clothesline, a task like sweeping the coast of sand.
Left-handed children, frustrated with the smears and jumbled spelling of pens beneath their fists, turn to television.
The husband watches the entertainment of employment as it recedes from reach, taking life with it, giving nothing back.
Spires of churches write edicts against thought and history, against old prison bars that turned invisible but never disappeared.
He averts his eyes from the collapse. Dazzling multi-million dollar images. Impromptu escapes to foreign deserts, rainforests, and landscapes of skyscrapers. He lopes back to cave, the shelter lacking rainspouts but has flowers.
His pot belly sloshes and his age exceeds others who molded in advance, Poe, Kerouac, artists with AIDS...
The jungle groundhog, fat and happy, thrives, building a parallel submansion beneath the floor of 1930s garage, what's left of it, cracked multi-level cement for rare basketball tosses and shows of forced energy. Form is lost; even the sonnet slinks away, looking for more money.
They pool resources and buy labels for clothes, named after gods of speed and ice: Nike, Calvin, Surge.

September 27, 1997

THE DUST SONNETS

Report, The Ides of March 2007

As predicted, the authorities moved me from Special Ed to another assignment, SRS, which means hall monitor, which means reading the newspaper all morning and handing out detentions to latecomers.  Teachers were in the hallway, arguing about the Chief. This morning, my computer clogged up and I had to rush out of the house without resolving the issue of no space on the "C" drive.  Neither did I have time to meditate or research the vagina picture in the Daily Illini.

 

Vaginas and the G-Spot were the subjects of discussion at poker. The booby prize won by Spike was a DVD of the new movie, Shortbus, which -- I hope my warning is not too late -- he should burn in the backyard rather than risk relinquishing his purity.

 

I could have done the crossword puzzle, sitting here in the hallway at station 1F, (note to TW: the Brazilian dance is MAXIXI and the actress named KELLY was not GRACE, but MOIRA), and I still feel enslaved and tortured by the IRS, but I will see if I can reconstruct last night's game from memory.

 

Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.  Half the time I didn't even know what game we were playing.  I can't remember.  There were some unusual hands, though.  Spike invented a hi-ball game that was convoluted (I didn't understand it at all), but turned out to be kind of fun.  I know we discussed Catholic mass and JD encouraged me to attend on Easter, since I lack ritual in my life. (Too much anarchy.)

 

"What are we going to do about the News-Gazette?" JD asked at one point.  Local news was discussed.  The Admiral suggested we place odds on when Gonzales will resign.  He says April 1.  I say May 1. 

 

I think we played too much Criss-Cross.  In various rounds of Baseball New Rules, no "3" turned up to force a doubling of the pot. 

 

We discussed Bush speaking Spanish at the Mexican ruins and the necessary exorcism of the space by Mayan priests. 

 

In short, I suppose the name of the evening could be called "Low Ball, Nothing Matters."

 

After the game, Lee and I opened a bottle of French wine I had bought for her birthday.  I bought it because I had never bought a very expensive bottle of wine before and I thought of washing the feet of Jesus with oil and how sometimes we need to be extravagant.  Uncorked, decanted, in new goblets, the wine was studied and tasted.  We drank the earthy liquid, more meaty than fruity, rich, deep, and haunting.  It was a success. Jon Stewart babbled on about Bush in Latin America ("Donde estoy?") and we were transported to the place where life is low key and nothing matters.

The Road to Hell

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- The leading local newspaper here, El Tiempo, griped that Mr. Bush's visit was too short, and featured a front-page headline that read, "Bush: Seven hours are enough?" Above it read a smaller headline listing the visits by the last two United States president to visit the city: "Kennedy (1961, 13 hours) and Reagan (1982, 5 hours)."

Mr. Chávez, on his own tour of the region, gave a speech at a military base in Bolivia in which he accused Mr. Bush of plotting to assassinate him. Mr. Chávez, while pledging financial support for Bolivian flood victims, said capitalism was "the road to hell."

Sometimes I think money itself is the material used to pave the road to hell.  Nobody really thinks so.   As one of my bosses once said in a staff meeting, "We all want more money."  She was encouraging us to develop an ad campaign for a business ethics program to be offered by the college where I worked.  She seemed to think the way to sell ethics to business was to say ethics increases profits. 

I couldn't wrap my head around that idea.  Needless to say, they fired me.

Another boss at an agency once told me I had to be ambitious.  But I wasn't.  I couldn't get excited about promoting soy starches.  Or making money.  Money is kind of fun, but I already own too much stuff.  It's harder to throw stuff away than it is to accumulate it.  I don't want more stuff.

I always get fired.  The only place I ever would have fit in is New York City, but circumstances and that lack of ambition and then children prevented the move.

The only thing I really miss is travel, which I used to do with regularity (and without money -- I hate tourism).  Just a couple of years ago, I spent a month in Colombia.  I lived in a city north of Bogota and visited villages and people in the countryside. 

George W. Bush may have all the money in the world, but he couldn't spend more than seven hours in Colombia.  It's so sad.  I'll bet he had a nice hotel room and all, but -- in my opinion -- he really missed out.

ain't it strange

By PATTI SMITH
Published: March 12, 2007

ON a cold morning in 1955, walking to Sunday school, I was drawn to the voice of Little Richard wailing “Tutti Frutti” from the interior of a local boy’s makeshift clubhouse. So powerful was the connection that I let go of my mother’s hand.

Rock ’n’ roll. It drew me from my path to a sea of possibilities. It sheltered and shattered me, from the end of childhood through a painful adolescence. I had my first altercation with my father when the Rolling Stones made their debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Rock ’n’ roll was mine to defend. It strengthened my hand and gave me a sense of tribe as I boarded a bus from South Jersey to freedom in 1967.

Rock ’n’ roll, at that time, was a fusion of intimacies. Repression bloomed into rapture like raging weeds shooting through cracks in the cement. Our music provided a sense of communal activism. Our artists provoked our ascension into awareness as we ran amok in a frenzied state of grace.

My late husband, Fred Sonic Smith, then of Detroit’s MC5, was a part of the brotherhood instrumental in forging a revolution: seeking to save the world with love and the electric guitar. He created aural autonomy yet did not have the constitution to survive all the complexities of existence.

Before he died, in the winter of 1994, he counseled me to continue working. He believed that one day I would be recognized for my efforts and though I protested, he quietly asked me to accept what was bestowed — gracefully — in his name.

Today I will join R.E.M., the Ronettes, Van Halen and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the eve of this event I asked myself many questions. Should an artist working within the revolutionary landscape of rock accept laurels from an institution? Should laurels be offered? Am I a worthy recipient?

I have wrestled with these questions and my conscience leads me back to Fred and those like him — the maverick souls who may never be afforded such honors. Thus in his name I will accept with gratitude. Fred Sonic Smith was of the people, and I am none but him: one who has loved rock ’n’ roll and crawled from the ranks to the stage, to salute history and plant seeds for the erratic magic landscape of the new guard.

Because its members will be the guardians of our cultural voice. The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented.

Human history abounds with idealistic movements that rise, then fall in disarray. The children of light. The journey to the East. The summer of love. The season of grunge. But just as we seem to repeat our follies, we also abide.

Rock ’n’ roll drew me from my mother’s hand and led me to experience. In the end it was my neighbors who put everything in perspective. An approving nod from the old Italian woman who sells me pasta. A high five from the postman. An embrace from the notary and his wife. And a shout from the sanitation man driving down my street: “Hey, Patti, Hall of Fame. One for us.”

I just smiled, and I noticed I was proud. One for the neighborhood. My parents. My band. One for Fred. And anybody else who wants to come along.

Patti Smith is a poet and performer.

How to bring home the troops

Op-Ed Contributor

Swiss Miss

By PETER STAMM

Published: March 10, 2007

Winterthur, Switzerland

MOST Swiss newspapers didn't even bother to report that on March 1, 170 Swiss Army troops crossed the border into Liechtenstein.

Not that we see that many invasions here in the Alps, but it soon became clear that this was simply an error in orienteering. The incident occurred in bad weather and in the middle of the night, when Switzerland is hard to tell apart from its neighbors. "It was all so dark out there," said one of the misdirected recruits.

The incursion caused no political stir, and was played down by the civil authorities as well as the army. Aristocratic titles may be forbidden in Switzerland, while the head of Liechtenstein is a hereditary monarch; and Liechtenstein does let people get behind the wheel who would classify as drunk in Switzerland. But there remain far more commonalities than differences between our two countries.

We speak the same dialect and spend the same francs, and we go from one country to the other as though there were no border. Many Swiss view Liechtenstein as a kind of 27th canton, even if the principality has acted more and more independently in recent years: it joined the United Nations 12 years before we did and became part of the European Economic Area — which we Swiss have yet to do.

But there's really no reason to invade, especially considering that Liechtenstein possesses neither a nuclear program nor any weapons of mass destruction. In fact, it hasn't even had an army in nearly 150 years.

The fact that our infantry units lost their bearings will hardly surprise anyone familiar with the Swiss Army. Nor should it come as a shock that although the invaders were armed with rifles, they had no ammunition. As a rule, the assault rifles (every soldier keeps his weapon at home) are used only for suicides and the occasional violent crime. In the service, they mostly function as ballast for long marches — one of the Swiss Army's most popular pastimes.

Switzerland has been neutral for 500 years, and these days it's hard to imagine who might attack us or what enemy the army should prepare to fight. Thus over the course of the past several decades the army has acquired an increasingly quaint character. Carrier pigeons were used until 1994, and the bicycle units were disbanded only four years ago. And it wasn't until the 1990s that the high command realized that two-thirds of the more than 20,000 fortifications scattered throughout the country were unnecessary and could be closed.

The Swiss Army has really been in crisis ever since a 1989 plebiscite in which more than a third of voters declared that Switzerland no longer even needed a military. That was the same year we lost our one halfway credible enemy — Communist Eastern Europe, which the army liked to call Redland during exercises.

Nowadays, the army tries to legitimize its existence by offering emergency relief and auxiliary support at sporting events. But compulsory military service remains as inviolable in Switzerland as the monarchy is in Liechtenstein, and so the only way to decrease the number of troops has been to shorten the time of service or declare as many draftees as possible unfit for service.

This has enabled a substantial downsizing of the army during the past 12 years, from 600,000 personnel to a still respectable 240,000. Likewise, since the cold war, military spending has declined to 9 percent of the national budget from 35 percent.

Because Swiss politicians are giving the army increasingly less money, economical means must be found to keep the troops occupied. Shoes being cheaper than ammunition, the rank and file just keep on marching. Switzerland may not have the most powerful army in the world, but it does have the most stalwart marchers. If the planet ever runs out of oil, our soldiers will be the last ones moving.

Invading Liechtenstein was admittedly a foolish thing to do, but at least the Swiss Army has shown it knows how to bring a failed military action to a happy conclusion. You just turn around and sneak back home as quickly and quietly as you can before anybody notices.

And the next day you call on the head of the foreign territory and offer a formal apology.

Peter Stamm is the author of "Unformed Landscape," a novel. This article was translated from the German by Philip Boehm.

Spalding Gray

"The unobserved life doesn't feel like living.  Once I no longer felt God watching, I began to watch myself."

"I can't be creative without being self-destructive."

I thought "The Matrix" was a documentary film by Frederick Wiseman

In my old age, my actual occupation every day is to read the New York Times, to savor it.  Profiles of each juror in the Libby case. New exhibit in midtown.  Avant-garde theatre in Chelsea.  New restaurant on 95th street that you can't get into, except for lunch.  Cracking the puzzle without using a pencil.  Well, only on Mondays is that possible.  But the whole experience is beautiful.  I have carefully learned to live vicariously and avoid those horrible airport experiences.  In my old age.

Yesterday, Jean Baudrillard died.  I read about it in the New York Times. When I came home from my daily drive, I picked up The Ecstasy of Communication and read through the underlined parts.

"The promiscuity which reigns over the communication networks is one of a superficial saturation, an endless harassment, an extermination of interstitial space."

And he wrote that before the invention of cell phones.

The Gazette didn't cover this, of course.  They didn't even cover the Libby Trial.  While the NYTimes had a nice headline and inside pages listing all the jurors and charts and everything you ever wanted to know about the corruption and lies of the Bush Administration, the Gazette was pretending it didn't happen at all.  The headline buried in the third section said something like, "Jury doesn't believe Libby."  Just a few paragraphs.  Hilarious.

Because people don't want to know the truth.  They want the comfort of their illusions.  Or, as Baudrillard would say, the illusion has overcome all pretense to reality anyway.  We live in Disneyland.  We shop for the experience of spending money.  

I've been going through this tax audit for six months now.  And just as the final letter comes from IDES, stating that their total summary of all this paper sorting and dread and agony has resulted in my owning $10.56.  They probably spent $20,000 auditing me.  I owe ten bucks.  Nice.

The audit has reminded me of the six months I spent in Cook County Jail in 1969.  It has that kind of restrictiveness, a gnawing dread more than actual fear, something paranoiac brewing in my gut...  that kind of thing.

But being reminded about Baudrillard today -- not that I was glad about his death, but... -- made me feel liberated.  I remembered how illusory everything is.  How my last two months of meditating on the subjects of love and prayer and withdrawing from many social obligations (trying to gather again to myself some interstitial space) may be bearing fruits of consciousness.

Similarly, the method I am taking to sort through my tax papers for the 2006 filing has set up a methodology, a work plan for proceeding with what I refer to as my Moby Dick, my East Bend comic/novel memoir, that I'll speculate now will take me at least until spring of 2008 to wrap up.  If I'm lucky.

So, in the end, with Libby convicted and Baudrillard reminding me that life is Disneyland, I drove home in a minor flashback state, the memory of my old license plate HLOOSN8, glimpsing the dreamspace that we inhabit, inside a world that glowed anew in that indefinable moment that the Grateful Dead referred to singing "such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there" and William Burroughs (with horror) described as the naked lunch that sits on the end of every fork and the Doors, quoting Huxley, referred to when the "doors of perception are cleansed, everything will appear as it really is, infinite."

People in the other cars, even those with their peeling Bush bumper stickers, were beautiful again, not strange.

Everything is forgiven, because Scooter was dying for the sins of the fathers, because Baudrillard passed on and still lived, because there was a hero, a warrior for truth, Patrick Fitzgerald, an Eagle Scout who insists there is truth to be told, and -- at the same time -- there is Baudrillard, who reminded us that for every thought one has "one must expect a strange tomorrow... Truth has withdrawn (just as one pulls a chair out from under a person about to sit down)."