On Becoming Aware (Again!) of One's Nothingness

This allergy to cinnamon comes on,
From flavored Mini-Wheats (from Kellogg's! New!).
I stare outside the window as I chew,
Repressing burps to watch the snow beyond.
This allergy will pass; it is not fact,
A chemical reaction for one day,
A day when I have nothing hard to say,
And nothing on my plate, no tasks to stack.
In truth, this day, like those I knew before,
Is matched by every day that did precede.
There is no work to do, no field to seed,
No effort to endure, no need, no chore.
Perhaps I'll plumb the sink that doesn't drain,
Or write these words as they emerge in light.
Perhaps I'll watch the snow into the night,
Or change my name, or craft a dance for rain.
I've eaten every pillow.  Here's the cat.
I'll walk his path today, and that is that.

The Death of God

Zorio speaks.

War

I couldn't understand why Werner Herzog made Rescue Dawn. A fictionalized remake of his documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, it seemed the kind of war movie that Herzog once would have rejected for not being bizarre enough. As I watched the DVD recently, there were some obvious Herzog touches... the outrageously beautiful and harsh landscape, the quirky details in the POW camp, the acts of lunacy performed more for the camera than for art (eating grubs, deliberate starving of the actors, etc.). But didn't it glorify war? Unlike any other war movie I've seen, Rescue Dawn seemed completely without moral convictions one way or the other. The celebration at the end came across without glory, without much true feeling, a perfunctory act that just went with the territory. Dieter, as played by Christian Bale, gets it and knows he's not fighting any kind of ideological battle, not anti-Communist. No, he just wants -- no, he needs -- to fly, at any cost. Fly he does. The war is just one of the necessary costs of his spiritual quest to be airborne. It's a strange movie, right from the beautiful bombing sequences that open the film, sequences that should appall us, but fascinate instead. Herzog is still fascinated with the world and all its cruelties.

But society's relationship to war -- clearly more a love than a hate relationship -- continues in Rescue Dawn, and how little things have changed since this Vietnam era picture. In fact, another movie I watched this past week, King Vidor's 1918 silent 26-minute short, Bud's Recruit, is remarkable in the way that war was sold even then, the way consent was manufactured, and the way peace workers were shown to be cowardly, misguided, feminine. Of course, WWI was a very bad war ideologically and horrible in its devastation and death. But here again, young boys play soldier, carry sticks, pretend to be older in order to join the army, and the entire process is glorified. It is a fascinating film. The glasses-wearing young man who objects to war -- and is the only male to sit in on the Peace Group meetings -- is eventually shamed into joining the army and marching off to war. It was a propaganda film of the day, but it could have been commissioned by Karl Rove. Le plus ca change... (The film is available on the recent American Treasures film series, Series III, disk 4).

Footnote to the previous post

Another aspect of the use of the word "gay" is the perception that, apart from the minor affection that now is attached to the word, there is also a sense of envy. There has always been a bit of envy buried under the hatred -- envy for the freedom, the sexual liberation, the separation from the oppression of conformity -- but it was usually manifested as disgust. That's not so much the case today. People who profess disgust at homosexuality are seen as ignorant and bigoted. Some non-gay people feel freer to admit their envy of gay people (while acknowledging, still partially as a boast or a declaration of their own sexuality, that they could never themselves be gay). Witness the "metrosexual" phenomenon, wherein straight men take on the taste and perspective and style and speech patterns of gayness.

Neither does any label boil down easily to behavior, although that's how the Kinsey scale is based. I've been married for 28 years now, with an active and imaginative physical relationship (although, I must admit, lately... not so much), and there is no way I'd either fit or be able to reject this or that label, one way or the other. Call me Ishmael. Nothing makes me flinch.

And thus ends my decades long crusade against the label! At last! Free at last from the burden of being shoved into a pigeonhole, uncomfortable and invalid!

Holy the lack of labels on Ginsberg! Holy Lincoln and holy Melville and holy the grandfathers of New Jersey and Brooklyn! Holy footnote to Howl and Holy Footnote to the Previous Post!

Feud with The Crockhead

He would probably disagree with me on this, but... Wait, of course he would disagree with me, that's the nature of the erstwhile relationship... But, I believe the schism in the friendship between me and the Crockhead boils down to differences of taste and judgment. He played judge (perhaps a frustrated career turn?) and called it criticism. Whatever. The gap was too wide to bridge between what he considers good art, "masterpieces" even, and what I see as uninspired product, between what he sees as profane nonsense and what I see as rich craft and inspiration.

So, we don't speak.

But I did post something on his website this morning, since I am stuck in a high school classroom for the next four hours, subbing in a physics class where the students are self-contained and I have the Internet at my disposal.

He had posted his musings on Larry Craig and using public toilets. I commented the following.

The reason I'm reading A Crockhead Abroad today is because I'm subbing in a high school classroom for the next four hours with no students and nothing to do except use this computer.

Plus, I've been wanting for some time to comment about the use of the word "gay" and how it has mutated in the last so many years. The Larry Craig incident inspired much reflection.

Craig said famously, "I am not gay. I have never been gay," as though "gay" was something one could take on and off, like a dress.

Much, if not all, of that restroom flirtation etiquette and language probably came as a surprise to non-gay people following the Craig incident. That's probably why so many gay people think of non-gay people as oblivious in general. They can't read the codes of nonverbal communication all that well.

There's a graffito inscribed on a UI dorm wall, "Homophobia is so gay."

I observed a group of middle school black boys talking during a study hall. One walked past the other and gave a little punch. The other said, "You're gay," and it was just the common discourse. One hears similar talk in popular movies, straight guys joking with their friends by calling them gay -- 40 Year Old Virgin famously has the "I know you're gay because..." scene, also in Superbad, and many other movies.

To be called gay no longer carries the stigmatic weight it once did. Of course, if the taunt is actually true, maybe it has a little more sting. But even so, there is some affection in the word used in the popular discourse.

Homophobia is so gay.

Actually, one can't define what calling someone gay means any more. Just like Larry Craig saying "I am not gay. I have never been gay." It is nonsense.

He has had and clearly sought to have more sex with other men. But he's not gay.

Because gay doesn't mean anything anymore. Or, rather, nobody knows what it means.