American Born Confused...American

gifted

2011-11-15T19:02:00.000-08:00

My name is a promise that my father kept to an old man;
It is the hamburger grease fingers that
caught my body on his late arrival

It is my mother piercing the meniscus of afternoon
with sedated cries that could not page him
through converging acquiescence and strength

It is the heavy sacks in her lungs and skin imperfections;
My name is what remained of a house
that burned December to dust.

Meeting Notes III

2011-11-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

elimination

2011-08-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

as i clean my apartment,
rumination or is it
meditation since I count my breaths
or is it rumitation...

i dig through old college notebooks
and think about who i have been
reading old lines where
there is no beauty to me it seems
just myself and reality
both ugly

even still, a kicking regret
in my shoulders and neck
tight like a moving van
thinking those lines
could have at least been less lazy.
could i have not been a worse realist?

even after some minor notion
of empathy had begun to take hold,
the mememe and the themthemthem
still were platitudinous and farfarfar too
desultory

now filed away under to-do
i wonder what it would mean
to just throw it all away
nopenoway...too cliché

Final Draft

2011-08-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

Even if that noble truth (be it either),
love, should perish and be vanquished to
hell, I would follow that which I love,

For more noble, or so it now seems,
truth shall neither vanquish love nor commit it
to perish but strengthen those ties to bond, so...

Burden be gone, and shed concrete feet not
on thy way to the abyss, but leave truth and
love to shine the world's reflection from its glass face,

Because the world reflects more brightly when
love and truth trade favored glances and flirt neither
with should-not-be nor cannot-happen,

And skirting this danger, they alight softly to
conceive, moult through instars, then pupate in the
crevice of a pine cone, until the final imaginal stage:

A ruddy moth emerges to find itself sealed in a
plastic bag, flitting in frustration, only to be released
to wild the open night, far away from home

but free.

An Ode

2011-06-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

To the Most Beautiful Return

Between my screen and the door, a surprise at my feet on opening
Paleo softly rubberbanded between myth and meaning and a flourescent blue post it
A blue gem of kind thoughts flowing
Gently a bottom lip bit

The most beautiful return looks like peace
The most beautiful return smells like wisdom
The most beautiful return tastes like sunshine
The most beautiful return sounds like feathers
The most beautiful return feels like water

A warmth that seldom is the product of social brevity
beaming even more now

Freewrite #2 - Media

2011-06-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

On the media

Barren of restriction it oft seems and with rapacious swagger, barrelling its way through town like a hostile spirit on vacation. Go back to your haunt, I say, where you have developed a relationship with the inhabitants and there are a defined set of rules that you live by. That was long ago, I hear you plead. Generations ago, you say, back when standards limited action because standards actually existed. Besides, it has always been entertainment to some degree, you moan. Remember Murrow? Don't hold him up as a bearer of righteousness. An entertainer! Ta dah! You gloat. Just the facts, ma'am. Don't laugh at me, I plead. Allow an escape. With films, there is at least the notion of suspending disbelief. When reality's facts and opinions are entertainment, truth becomes a choice and belief a phantom.

Portrait Poem

2011-06-20T12:21:00.001-07:00

I am versatile and caring.
I wonder when anxiety and cycling will cease holding hands.
I hear pops and clicks of plastic bones.
I see hopes and dreams forever intact.
I want my love to remain constant.
I am versatile and caring.

I pretend to fly when cruising down steep hills.
I feel tackled by optimism.
I touch soft whiskers of truths.
I worry that simplicity will forever escape me.
I cry because I miss someone dearly.
I am versatile and caring.

I understand individual differences.
I say that we can accommodate them all.
I dream a hairy and scary mixology of memories.
I try something new whenever possible.
I hope that knowledge will never constrain.
I am versatile and caring.

Freewrite #1 - Change

2011-06-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

C is for canola oil, which I do not use. There is something soft about safflower oil that I prefer.

H is for halibut, which I rarely can afford. My mother turned me off of it with her homemade mayonnaise topping.

A is for apples, which I do not prefer in the summer. They fall in the Fall, so I eat them before they hit the ground.

N is for nutrition. It takes so much focus to get a balance. Don’t you agree?

G is for gout. Gout is a form of inflammatory arthritis that affects primarily the big toe. It has been called the “rich man’s” disease, because it is thought to be caused in part from excessive consumption of meat, seafood, alcohol, and fructose-sweetened beverages.

E is for eating, which everyone does. Some things we can change, but others we cannot. Try, though we may, it can be tough to not eat ourselves to an early grave.

altruism

2011-04-29T19:07:00.001-07:00

a boy fell after there was a pond,
making connections based on schemas
finding patterns,
like frogs jumping in
startled --
activity all on the outside, strength
on the inside,
like a rubik's cube.
would he have overplanned
had he known his destination?
pluto is a planet. definition
has changed.
indigo is a color, just not of
our new language rainbow.
people can solve, but have trouble
finding the problem.

Meeting Notes II

2011-04-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Comorbidity

2011-04-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

"Garlic, ginger, and echinacea,"
she recommended, as a counter
to my head firing the salvo shots of
war.

What a gift, the garlic, so
sticky to touch, smashed and
gnashed and mixed and swallowed at
meals.

As war dwindled to sporadic gunfire,
a minor insurgency, I crunched a
morning clove that made me
cry.

Its strength, then a vision of you, my
breathing deep held back
vomit -- a symptom of fulfillment
that is also one of lack.

Poison Man

2011-04-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

Poison man came today
Wearin' his mask
Sprayin' his spray

Sweet smell came waftin'
Through open windows
I'mon be coughin'

Those ants and roaches
Commit us to genocide
As summer approaches

Today, a wind blew into my town.

2011-03-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

Today, a wind blew into my town.
It blew in a Spring; sun and sky
filled with dust.

     While marching bands played
     a hip popping reverence to life,
The wind blew umbrellas up from tables,
     but the people held on, like we do
     have a tendency to hold on.
The wind blew fountain water into spray,
     but the people blocked their faces,
     hands dams to the misty deluge.

Today, a wind blew into my town,
and the people marched into Spring
blindly holding on.

Spring Birds' Morning Song

2011-03-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Whatshurename?
Who are you?
Do we?
Do we
When I passed by the fields yesterday, spring sun warming
all, baby birds screamed from the top of the field lights,
their families perched searching -- Like birds we look
so stable on our perches (our wires), even in high
winds, our tail feathers continuously shifting
balance back and forth. In rain, we nest,
nurse and nuzzle in trees and holes.
Do we?
Do we?
Who are you?
Whatshurename?

Spring in February, 2011

2011-03-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

Magenta of redbud
a tiny stick of which
picked to post

In Texas, Spring comes in February
the confluence of a captive bolt pistol
that stuns and retracts
that fights the light
and a goofy lanky tongue wagging lab
escaped from the pen
or mental institution
with a yen for freedom

Eyes blind to distance
What the hell is Spring thinking here?
Teasing us with a subtle sweet blow
glancing and off-balancing

Spring is a cataract the sun surges slicing
skin slides south as blisters saute
supine in skinny soft shorts
space separating shirtless swims

Sir George and the Green Knight

2011-02-20T19:44:00.000-08:00

“The liquor's gone to my head, Sir George!” he said,
or so I heard, though Doppler effected his voice,
because he shook his head to and fro, to and fro,
as I approached astride my coasting bike.

Deadpan he said, “Can I call you Sir George?”
“Of course!” was my reply. The shine of sun,
the chill against my knee of pale ale flask,
the alley gave way to spring but first the colors:

Red skin that set apart his bride's dress whiskers,
Blue shorts, bright blue that only set apart
A white turned fulvous shirt that could have been
a tawny shirt that years of sun bleached down.

The slosh that jolted round the jug he held
Held neither clear nor auburn ruddy meld,
But lips of “Oh!” surprise that I did greet
Until the jade bamboo marked my retreat.

Our eyes had met, the alley bum's and mine.
No longer set or dim, encroaching time.
To bear or not to bear another's weight?
A question meant to lure with tempting bait.

Thankful ain't tough

2011-02-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

"I can barely hold my gun,"
he said, "my hands are frozen."
Taking the rifle and gazing
on baby soft fingers stung
red with the chill of north wind,

We trapse back swiftly and jump
a ruddy axis babe laid up
hiding from us. So near its warmth
kissed our cheeks; we smiled together.
I left my youth in that field for you

(pistol in hand, chasing a feral pig).

Word of the Day II

2011-02-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

With each passing fall day, his mother followed ebbs and flows emanating from the netroots, a Meissner’s plexus of political spin. As November approached, both certainty and uncertainty seemed concrete, and her anxiety rose exponentially. Trying to ignore the undercurrent of cynicism in election news stories was like holding back a freight train, but at least, she thought, these new forms of mediation did not leave her completely flummoxed.
Her name was Beth, and she was a member of the banded confederation of groups that stood inexorably for one form or another of ‘conservatism,’ although each grandee fresh to its ranks had an evolved definition of the term. At the gym, she would bandy them about amongst her friends in non sequitur discussions, until words melded into laughter and poking fun at superficialities.
Her people had their own world wide web, minus the techies and minus the world, for that matter. It was a social network with extreme purpose; they did not shilly shally on the issues that mattered. Business was conducted with comity, undergirded by a fierce resilience – they were not to be put down. For matters of national concern, they learned the party line and how to negotiate it. However, in matters of locality, the group’s gulosity for action was unmatched. Their tenacity was matched by a creative methodology.
There would be no woolgathering. They would explore any and all solutions, as long as they were working together and continuing to get along.

meeting notes

2011-02-08T11:52:00.001-08:00

bearing a brunt
bear with me
bearing down
bare your brunt
bare with me
bare down
bare down your brunt with me, bear.
down with me, bare brunt.

the grackles flew

2011-02-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

this morning
from the wire
like ink dispersing
in soap water sky

then returning
to the wire
like the inside of
your forearm skin

the grackles flew

this morning
from the wire
like butterflies in
the stomach of desire

then returning
to the wire
like truth perceiving
an infallible notion

the grackles flew

this morning
from the wire
like hair wild
escaping contentment

then returning
to the wire
like pins pinning
placated residuum

If...we (the first)

2011-01-31T12:29:00.000-08:00

If your lying down with me
were the wholeness that I desire
only bare essence of completion
We would never time travel together
--always alone

On Eros

2011-01-28T05:52:00.000-08:00

To confirm perfect incompleteness
epithalamium, dactyl, and spondee
triangulate desire

To become agents of change we:
accept the nothing of demand
emote the hate of denial, and
refuse to ignore the unspeakable

Acknowledging the lack—
encompassing this hole with
our whole bodies, our whole
minds, spherical souls

Cubical hole.

Premonition

2011-01-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

O, dream!

that began with she and I

moving to the northeast or

somewhere equally as snowbound,

Driven by

tragic events involving her parents

we stood outside our not so simple

solid timber towering three-story house;

Me, daunted

by prospects of upkeep, this homestead

so far from town, she grabbed my

shoulders with earnest force.

She, resolved

in the statement, "You will have to shovel

snow from the driveway and probably plow

our section of the road." I shivered.

Suddenly,

her multi pitch eyes became mirrors and

on my face lay the weight of such a task.

(Awake, I relish the challenge.)

Driving in

circles around the town, I stopped

at City Hall to stand with two tourists,

their placard gawking frustrates my forgetting

The reason

for my trip, so I leave and cruise

that green grandfather of a Chevy pickup,

asphalt and winter gray, fighting the forgetting.

O, dream!

that began with she and I

moving to the somewhere snowbound,

why did I wake up crying?

Possibilities

2011-01-19T06:29:00.001-08:00

If I had five minutes with the president of the united states
I would ask please more mornings like these
I would ask for a swath of orange-pink paintbrush
Over cliche pale blue skies

I would ask for ante meridiem with a bite to the breeze
that nip-nips a notion of sunshine across my earlobe

If I had five minutes with the president of the united states
I would ask please keep my father's teeth from falling out
So that we can sit and eat hot dogs together
I would ask for an end to time

I would ask for eternal graciousness in all humankind
so that it pop-pop percolates from one to two to all

If I had five minutes with the president of the united states
I would ask please fire patience through your lithe limbs into souls
Like lightning into kite and key; I would ask
Charge to the helm oh captain

I would ask for a tidal wave that will wash troubles down
and rejuvenate this hip hip far too hip and recumbent world

silence

2011-01-17T06:26:00.000-08:00

born before the brawn

before the inversion of

darkness

long before the ascent

of 'ness' and 'ism' and

long before

before

became a glimmer in

the eye of long before

before mattered

mattered

Patio Furniture

2010-12-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

The strange gesticulations and brushing of hair
with red and white plaid-encrusted arms;
creamed-coffee hands and cords of lounging licorice
dangling disks of gold dance down from ears to
shoulder brush.

Looking up to a table where a first date and I
argued over the pronunciation of pannier, which
her "French friends" would argue is "panyay"...
so now I just say
saddle bag.

Returning my gaze, an empty chair
whence once sparkling eyes
and mine never met
and now never will.

Open Air

2010-11-10T15:43:00.000-08:00

Take the stones from the drawer
rub your coarse skin soft

Let your head hang down
and shake your long hair out

Slide your hands back and forth
so kitchen oil becomes gloves

Moisture locked in, turning forty
to twenty until the gray opens wide

Calming my mind until its
whispers of condescension
dishearten against the words
from the mouth of good morning

Steaming tempeh and buck wheat
Miso soup that awakens me

So you will drive or will I
Until empty boxes filled

My move away through weeks
Once dressed then not I find

Your coarse black hair in bed folds
and sweep skin cells in piles to discard.

Apprentice Back Home

2010-04-20T04:54:00.000-07:00

The sheet rock powder falling into my face and
eyes will make me sneeze later

You say thank you,
and I feel happy
that you are proud
and we are accomplished

You say thank you,
again and I say
anytime

Just like old times
I say
You bet
you say
you bet
just like old times

A Reflection

2010-03-31T20:09:00.000-07:00

With these words the saint gifted me
came also the realization
that everything and nothing
has changed.

When I look at you,
reflected is all the faith
that I lack.
All your actions
reflect my inaction;
your patience
mirrors my angst.

With these words the saint gifted me
came also the realization
that all words are the same
in love.

When I speak unfaithfully,
reflected is your love.
When I speak apathetically,
reflected is your love.
When I speak impatiently,
reflected is your love.

So, as I thank the saint for her words and for her love,
I am also thanking you for reflecting my true nature.

Poems from Summer 2008

2010-03-07T16:16:00.000-08:00

(July 2008)

untitled

I played your songs this morning,
And the neighbors started fighting.
I think I am addicted to listening,
Or perhaps it's just a side effect of being lonely.

In that case, maybe I should not
listen to you.

-----

With Camera

There is a fog
   that I hope to see
      someday
         In the woods
            with my camera.

-----

(August 13th)

तुम्हारे बात

तुम्हारे गाने आज सुबह
मैं ने सुना और
मेरे पड़ोसी बहस करने लगे
सुनने की आदत हो गई
या शायद यह
अकेलापन का असर है
तो शायद सुझे
तुम्हारी नही सुननी चाहिये

-----

कैमरा के साथ

कहाँ वह कुहरा है
कि सुझे दूँदना चाहता हूँ
जंगल में और
कैमरा के साथ

-----

imagine a stain

this stain is all that
    is left
of a mosquito
that tried to attack
    me on
the Metra train

-----

तुम्हारी अलमारी

क्या तुम्हारी अलमारी ख़ाली है?
मैं उस को भरना चाहती हूँ ।
क्या तम्हारा कमरा काफ़ी साफ़ है?
मैं उस में रहना चाहता हूँ
और मैं उस को गंदा बनाना चाहता हूँ ।
क्या तुम्हारा बग़ीचा नंगा है?
मैं उस को फूलो से भरना चाहता हूँ ।

Romancing the Tome -- My Season with Ed Abbey’s Desert Solitaire

2010-02-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

“All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare, said a wise man. If so, what happens to excellence when we eliminate the difficulty and the rarity? Words, words--the problem makes me thirsty.” --Edward Abbey

When I was about twelve years old, in the dead of summer, my father and I made a trek to one of the farthest reaches of Big Bend National Park in West Texas. It was there I was introduced to Ed Abbey, but it took nineteen years for me to truly discover him. Following a read of Desert Solitaire, I find myself grappling with Abbey’s fearless exploration of and symbiosis with nature. In searching for deeper meaning, I find myself negotiating the true problem(s) of fact and the illusion(s) of philosophy.

My dad is an avid ham radio operator. His call sign is W5OZI, and radio has been his hobby for seventy years, since his childhood. Amateur radio authorities have divided the world into tiny grids that he and his cohorts collect by talking to one another and exchanging QSL cards (a postcard confirming the contact). Some of the more adventurous hams go on DXpeditions to remote grid squares in order to open up that part of the map to ham radio operators around the world. It is an extant form of frontier colonialism that is temporary to all but those who participate and theoretically harmless to land and local. Radio operators visit a location, set up camp and a temporary radio antenna, make contacts for a week, pack up and leave. To highlight the frontier feel of DXpeditions, Yemen is the only country that does not open its borders to amateur radio operators for DXpeditions.

In June 1991, I joined my father on a DXpedition to a grid square that barely exists in the United States in the southernmost tip of Big Bend, just south of 29º N. latitude, approximately eleven square miles of land. When we entered the park to pay our vehicle fees and map the route in, the Ranger looked at us as if we were half mad. Three men and two boys -- well, really five boys -- in a 1980s Chevy S10 and a 1970s El Camino (described by my dad’s friend as “a truck”). We assured the Ranger that we had plenty of water and food, warm clothes if needed, tarps, ropes, stakes, gasoline, a generator, radios, antennas, and excellent communication skills. The latter was punctuated by our exclamations that there would be no stopping us. The Ranger highlighted some of the trouble spots on the road and informed us that there would be no one checking up on us in that remote area of the park. By the time we drove away, the Ranger must have known that we were completely mad.

That week was adventurous and fun. The best chance we had at reaching the grid square and operating was at Pettits, a site just a hundred yards from the Rio Grande. On the way there, we encountered a washout in the road that left the El Camino stranded. At Pettits, during the days, temperatures broke 110 degrees, and one day I got sick from heat stroke. At one point, I was so physically exhausted that I slept through a rain storm. Nothing stayed wet long. Like our DXpedition, the rain came and went, and the desert remained; heat, wind, and time eliminated any sign that we had arrived there at all. When we made it back to the park headquarters, the Park Ranger welcomed us back and entertained all the stories of our trip. My Dad bought me a book on poisonous desert dwellers and, on the suggestion of the Ranger, Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey.

As a fourteen year old, I thumbed through the book and quickly decided that I was not interested. Abbey’s book sat on a bookshelf at my parents’ house until about a year ago, when I retrieved it and added it to my short list of books to read. In finally reading Desert Solitaire, I did not want to simply understand why Edward Abbey is so inspirational to environmentalists and anarchists, since I act as a choir for most if not all of the issues Abbey preaches on. Instead, I sought (and continue to seek) connections for my personal life. My hope was that Abbey’s “elegy” to Arches National Monument would help me understand deeper philosophical concerns. At the least, I wanted to gain some insight into my own spiritual connection with the earth and with the desert.

Any recent upsurge in spiritual self-questioning is not really new for me, but part of a natural ebb and flow. I push the natural world away for society’s bonds, nature replies with a harsh sort of acceptance, like true love, allowing me to go until my life has become wholly unbalanced. Then, I return to some welcoming streams and hills of Central Texas, an earth that envelops me with warmth and only potential danger. Most nature I visit reflects me--somewhat wild, somewhat clean, somewhat honest, somewhat hostile, but surrounded by creeping progress that is constantly permeating my subtle bodies. This is not Abbey’s land.

“I am convinced now that the desert has no heart, that it presents a riddle which has no answer, and that the riddle itself is an illusion created by some limitation or exaggeration of the displaced human consciousness.
This at least is what I tell myself when I fix my attention on what is rational, sensible and realistic, believing that I have overcome at last that gallant infirmity of the soul called romance--that illness, that disease, the insidious malignancy which must be chopped out of the heart once and for all, ground up, cooked, burnt to ashes...consumed. And for so long as I stay away from the desert, keep to the mountains or the sea or the city, it is possible to think myself cured: Not easy: one whiff of juniper smoke, a few careless words, one reckless and foolish poem--The Wasteland, for instance--and I become as restive, irritable, brooding and dangerous as a wolf in a cage.
In answer to the original question, then, I find myself in the end returning to the beginning, and can only say, as I said in the first place: There is something about the desert....There is something there which the mountains, no matter how grand and beautiful, lack; which the sea, no matter how shining and vast and old, does not have.”

I have visited and revisited the Southwest since that first trip to Big Bend in 1991, and each time I experience a dramatic emotional appeal. Visits to Marfa and Alpine, Texas, invoke, as do hikes through Nevada’s Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire, a grand and expansive clarity that is impossible to fully explain. Bits and pieces are exposed in my poems and songs, but nothing of the sort of grand philosophical treatise that will explain life and earth or nature and man. Abbey was clear on the problems that the desert faced, as I am on the Marfa land grab and the Vegas lights. It is apparent, too, that Ed Abbey grappled with more ethereal concerns.

“The magpies and jays squawk among the pinyon pines, which are heavy-laden with clusters of light-green, rosin-sticky, fresh, fat cones--we’ll have a good crop of pine nuts this year. A variety of asters are blooming along the road and among the dunes; with yellow centers and vivid purple petals, the flowers stand out against their background of rock and coral-red sand with what I can only describe as an existential assertion of life; they are almost audible. Heidegger was wrong, as usual; man is not the only living thing that exists. He might well have taken a tip from a fellow countryman: 'Wovon man nicht spraechen
Kann, darueber muss man schweigen.'
Also the chamisa, bright and stinking as rancid butter; and the mule-eared sunflowers, enjoying a great autumnal renascence; and the wild buckwheat, the matchweed, the yellow borage, and on the mountain slopes a league away, the preliminary golden dying of the aspens. Like a fire ignited in the spring, smoldering through the terrible summer, my desert world flares up briefly and brilliantly before the coming of cold and snow, the ashy winter, for the last time this season.”

Abbey’s refutation of Heidegger appears sophomoric on a first read, a claim of preference for one philosopher over another. The quote within the quote is from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and has been translated as “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” So, it can be easily assumed that Abbey is simply using Wittgenstein’s words to discredit Heidegger without disproving anything. However, if we consider Abbey’s Desert Solitaire as a whole, it becomes more apparent that Abbey’s descriptions and inquiries promote Wittgenstein’s proposals.

Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus while a soldier and prisoner of war during World War II. It outlined a “picture theory” of meaning that basically states that facts necessitate language, and language allows thought to “picture” these facts. One of the most influential passages was:
Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from our failure to understand the logic of our language. (They belong to the same class as the question whether the good is more or less identical than the beautiful.) And it is not surprising that the deepest problems are in fact not problems at all.
This quote from Wittgenstein's proposition 4.003 seems to directly address Abbey’s deeper philosophical concerns. Whenever Abbey becomes wrapped into questions of God or nature or spirituality, he begins with and returns to his reality. Each of these instances of philosophical or spiritual inquiry is bracketed by brilliant descriptions of the desert, the facts of his surroundings.

“Off in the east an isolated storm is boiling over the desert, a mass of lavender clouds bombarding the earth with lightning and trailing curtains of rain. the distance is so great that I cannot hear the thunder. Between here and there and me and the mountains is the canyon wilderness, the hoodoo land of spire and pillar and pinnacle where no man lives, and where the river flows, unseen, through the blue-black trenches in the rock.
Light. Space. Light and space without time, I think, for this is a country with only the slightest traces of human history. In the doctrine of the geologists with their scheme of ages, eons and epochs all is flux, as Heraclitus taught, but from the mortally human point of view the landscape of the Colorado is like a section of eternity--timeless. In all my years in the canyon country I have yet to see a rock fall, of its own volition, so to speak, aside from floods. To convince myself of the reality of change and therefore time I will sometimes push a stone over the edge of a cliff and watch it descend and wait--lighting my pipe--for the report of its impact and disintegration to return. Doing my bit to help, of course, aiding natural processes and verifying the hypotheses of geological morphology. But am not entirely convinced.
Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear--the earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break. Turning Plato and Hegel on their heads I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.
Under the desert sun, in that dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore sublime.”

As Wittgenstein proposed, and I think Ed Abbey would agree, our “deepest problems are in fact not problems at all.” A primary conclusion of Wittgenstein’s Tractacus is that any language that does not illustrate fact is, in a word, nonsense. Ed Abbey takes this a step further in claiming that man is merely an illusion on the stage of time, that all our names and claims, our semasiology and onomasiology, are all merely futile. In the expanse of desert, a nature that quickly eliminates the unprepared, human existence is wispy. However, Abbey points to a pervasive human culture that, in 1958, was worrisome and increasingly threatening. Indeed, Abbey addresses the true problems -- material culture, paved roads, vehicles, dependence on modern technologies, the inability of people to slow down and enjoy their lives and their surroundings. He does so quite eloquently, and thus we remember him neither as a romantic nature writer or grand philosopher, but as a persistent defender of our environment.

My first trip to the desert was a success in more ways than one. It is remembered among ham operators as one of, if not the only productive DXpeditions to that grid square. During the trip, I made contact with Fred Fish (W5FF), and we helped him become the only ham radio operator to collect all the grid squares in the contiguous United States. My father collected the grid square on the trip and currently requires just one more grid square to match Fred Fish and earn the Fred Fish Memorial Award (FFMA). I hope that he does it, not for status, but because it would serve as a fitting tribute to our trip to Big Bend. It was there that my father reviewed the “not a trace” theory of wilderness excursions. This was the most important success. We left nothing for the desert to remember us by, just some buried toilet paper, tracks in the dirt, and a piece of my soul that invites me back now and again. For what? I do not, nor do I want to, know. I choose not to name that which I cannot define. I choose not to speak of that which I do not understand.

Refresh 2010

2010-02-13T12:49:00.000-08:00

I began this blog a year ago with a specific mission statement. Because my writing and time have so varied, my postings last year were limited. I would like to post more frequently, so in order to re-focus my efforts, this post will act as a review and revision of the mission of this blog:

1) To provide a weekly musing on any topic.

1) To create a location for personal creative writing production available for public feedback.

1) To create a space for poetry and writing in a foreign language.

1) To establish a space to break rules 1-1.

Signed,

John Rose

MGM Foods

2009-05-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

Upon entering MGM Foods on North Burnet Road in Austin, Texas, a smell overwhelmed me. It took me back to my days of walking up and down Devon Avenue in Chicago. Usually, after volunteering in the computer lab at the Indo-American Center, I would pick up some groceries at Patel Brothers -- whatever I could carry back on the hour-long Red Line trip to Hyde Park. Being able to purchase South Asian specialties was always a treat, so it is nice to find a store in Austin that allows for a similar experience.

After being swept to Devon by the initial smell at MGM, I began to take in their large selection. One of the first aisles I noticed was filled on two sides with various pickles and chutneys. They not only carry standard Udupi and Patak’s brand but also a number of specialty pickles and chutneys. MGM stocks fresh fruits and vegetables, bulk bags of rice and flour, a large selection of dal, and big bags of spices. In addition, shoppers will find a number of necessary kitchen tools (such as tea strainers) and shelves of South Asian audio tapes, CDs, VHS tapes, and DVDs. If you are not in the mood to cook, MGM also has frozen and box meals, homemade samosas, sweets, and other tasty treats.

The most impressive aspect of MGM Foods is the helpful service. There was a gentleman there who answered all of my questions readily and directed me to goods that I was having trouble finding. He showed me to the tamarind and explained the differences between the varieties. A friend visited MGM and asked for the ingredients for chai, and someone got exactly what she needed. I consider this marvelous service.

MGM Foods may not be one stop shopping for most, but it is the place to go for South Asian essentials. It has been open in Austin since 1985; their hours are 11a - 9p, Monday through Saturday, and 12p - 9p on Sunday.

Find them online: http://www.mgmindianfoods.com/index.html

Intangible Materialism: Critiquing the Linguistics of the Virtual Marketplace

2009-05-02T13:52:00.000-07:00

A recent article by Rob Walker explored the notion of ‘immaterialism’ in the virtual marketplace. Using examples such as virtual gifting, digital collectibles, avatars in virtual worlds, and even phone apps, Walker explores the notion that the virtual goods we purchase online are just as effective as material items. He very perceptively notes that conspicuous consumption exists albeit in a virtual environment, therefore one can be a ‘material girl’ in a virtual world. However, the conception of ‘immaterialism’ is in itself contradictory and a proper term should be forwarded.

In considering ‘immaterialism’ as a concept, it is important to first accede that “time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.”1 By allowing for change, Saussure recognized that when linguistic signifiers (words) change, so might the linguistic signified (meaning). One of his examples is the Latin word necare, kill, which became the French word noyer, drown. So, it is natural for words to change and meanings to change along with them. However, in the linguistic tradition, “the action of time combined with the social force keeps language from being a simple convention that can be modified at the whim of interested parties.”2 Simply put, meanings cannot be changed or amended haphazardly.

In the case of the term ‘immaterialism’, it is important to note the definition of the term. Immaterialism refers to a critique of materialism made in the 18th century by Irish philosopher and bishop George Berkeley. In refuting materialism, he argued that “if all knowledge comes from the senses, nothing has reality for us unless we perceive or have perceived it.”3 The philosophy of immaterialism forwards that even tangible items exist only in the subjective realm. Any additional meaning ascribed to the term ‘immaterialism’ should recognize the potential to be affected by and also to circumscribe this previous philosophical definition.

Departing from philosophy and linguistic tradition, what Walker suggests is assigning a new and, I will argue, incorrect definition to the term ‘immaterialism’. This new conception of ‘immaterialism’ takes the term materialism (highest value is placed in material objects or material well-being) and adds the prefix im- in order to recognize that the good purchased is virtual rather than tangible. This presents a contradictory definition since, on one hand, the prefix im- denotes ‘lacking’, but while the virtual marketplace may be lacking a great deal, I think that Walker will agree that it is abundantly materialistic. On the other hand, the term immaterial refers to that which is unimportant or irrelevant, but as Walker argues, virtual gifts, apps, and collectibles are important, relevant, and effective. So, then, what is the form of materialism that is occurring through the practice of virtual consumption?

If we are to agree that (a) virtual consumption is occurring and (b) virtual consumption generates a form of materialism, the practice should be defined correctly. The form of materialism that occurs through virtual consumption is tangible by proxy. Virtual consumers need certain tangible resources and tools: electricity, a computer, a modem, a router, an internet service provider. The ISP, in turn, needs resources and tools: labor, servers, racks, an office. In all of this, there is no lack of tangible goods and services being consumed. However, when we purchase and consume a virtual item, we are also engaging in intangible materialism, where a high value is placed on the consumption of intangible goods or services. Any argument otherwise would be immaterial.

1 Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Eds. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye. Trans. Roy Harris. La Salle, (Illinois: Open Court. 1983), 77.
2 Ibid., 78.
3 Durant, Will and Ariel. The Story of Civilization, Part VIII: The Age of Louis XIV. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), 594.

Understanding Islam

2009-03-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

In the last several years, and especially since the initiation of the “war on terror” that the United States has been waging, I have heard many things said about Islam and Muslims. Some of what I hear is true. For instance, Muslims are not Christians. That is true, however typically I hear this statement in the following form: “They aren’t Christian.” Much of what I hear is at least partially, if not wholly, false. Often, I am unable to contradict falsehoods with fact. So, I have dedicated a group on the faith- and family-based social networking website, tangle.com, to answering questions about Islam based on historical fact, rather than presumption, assumption, and hearsay.

My hope in doing this is that quality questions are asked and answered in an environment that is readily accessible to people of the Christian faith. The goal is to try to bridge enclaves with understanding, regardless of belief -- to eliminate the “They”. Through this ‘de-Othering’ process, my goal is to point out particularities, regional differences, and the multiple interpretations in the Islamic faith. In part, this is an exercise for my benefit as well. I am not a scholar of the Islamic faith, and I know very little compared to those who study Religion, South Asia, or the Middle East. However, I hope that the process serves all well and those who graduate it will do so with more love in their hearts for all humankind.

So, please join me: tangle.com/understandingislam

Message me anytime with a question that you think needs to be answered.

इन्टरोदुक्शन (Introduction)

2009-02-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

Mission Statement:

1) To provide a weekly analysis or musing on one or more current issue in global society, with a primary focus on South Asia.

1) To create a location for personal creative writing production available for public feedback.

1) To create a space for poetry and writing in a foreign language.

1) To establish a space to break rules 1-1.

Signed,

John Hall Paterson Rose