When I awoke in the middle of the night with a throat so sore I could drink my wife's moisturizer, I began to cast around in the back of my head for what could have caused this new annoyance to enter my life.
Was it the 4 shots of vodka last night, that somehow inebriated my immune system sufficiently to allow a small virus past?
Was it that eating 5 meals of hamburger and chips in 8 days has left my body deficient on vital nutrients found in, say, pasta, which are necessary to stave of these small illnesses?
Could it be that right before bed I had drunk water from an unwashed mixer cup, still bearing the smeary remnants of a yogurt and raw-egg shake from the distant past? Could that somehow have caused a sore throat?
Then I remembered. The class I had taught Monday, yesterday, - one of the boys had said he had been sick on Thursday. Headache. Fever. Vomiting. The works.
I did a quick mental inventory, checking for any of the above symptoms.
Just because I didn't find any doesn't mean it isn't entirely his fault.
I poured the remaining orange juice into the filthy, smeared mixer-cup, then gave the box a last squeeze, which caused it to huff out a last wheezy blerp of orange juice. I crumpled the box without thinking , and threw it on the floor next to the trash. Two separate thoughts sat in my head, too lazy to form themselves into actual words.
When is my wife coming back?
That little bastard. He made me sick.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Monday, October 1, 2007
To sleep, perchance to dream
Last night an agent of divine retribution was dispatched from hell to my bedside. What I had done to attract the attentions of hell's minion I neither know, nor care to discuss.
It began with a dream - somehow I was making a video of a family, which was intended to be of a funny, youtube-esqe nature. During the filming of the family and their activities it becomes apparent that the mother and daughter (who are the only people I remember from the dream, although there were many more) typically spoke at cross-purposes, and were alienated from each other. The mother was around 50, a well-dresssed, well-coiffed suburbanite, who was meticulous about her house, lawn, and the pool. The daughter could be early to late twenties, or even early to mid thirties. It is hard to say, as something, be it hard living or a disease, or just a tendency toward chronic bitterness, had prematurely aged her. She had viciously short hair that may have been salt-and-pepper, but I couldn't really say, as she wore a kerchief over her head that reminded you of a cancer victim. That, combined with the drawn, bony face, and the downcast eyes, and the same dirty blue flannel shawl she wore every day combined to create an impression of illness, or at least some sort of deep discomfort.
Despite the appearance of physical weakness, or perhaps just mental exhaustion, the daughter would frequently, almost habitually, engage in activities which seemed miserably calculated in advance to demonstrate her as spontaneous, young, free and desperately fun-loving. Or to demonstrate that her mother's values were not her own. Whatever the driving force behind them, the impression I retain from them was one of awkwardness and slight embarrassment every time I bore witness to one of these scenes, in which the young skeleton in her kerchief and shawl, resembling for all the world one of the extras from Schindler's list, would by one of these displays grimly attempt to convince us all of something fundamental about herself.
The one scene that stays with me happened during a party out by the pool. It was night, and I recall thinking that the pool lights, working their way up through the water, made for a great diffuse lighting that shifted and slid over the subjects. I suppose this is my idea of what a cameraman-cum-director thinks about, though I really would have no idea. I was laying low, on my stomach, the camera practically on the ground, tilted up to catch the action, which in this case was the mother speaking of the mundane details of her impeccable existence. I don't doubt that such impeccability in household matters does indeed occupy a great deal of a person's mind and mental energies. In particular, she spoke of the pool filter, and how frequently it had to be cleaned. The words, typical of dreams, are no longer with me, but she gave the distinct impression of the tribulations she faced in keeping the pool filter free of clogging matter, all of which resulted from people's inattention to what they wore in the pool. Pieces of fuzz, lint, etc, that made one more bead in the cleaning rosary she worked daily.
It was at this moment that the daughter entered the frame, coming through the glass doors from the patio, and walked intentionally across the frame of my shot, and, removing her black leather clogs, sat herself down on the edge of the pool, right in the prominent left foreground of my camera-frame, and despite wearing heavy black cotton leggings, dunked her legs into the pool.
The sheer dream-like improbability of it, that the mother would have been speaking of clothing in the pool, and she should come from out of earshot, and immediately do exactly the thing her mother had been speaking of, seemed to lend something preternaturally sinister to the tension that existed between them. As I continued filming, she made every effort to appear that this was a thoughtless act of carefree pleasure in life, but the tension and rigidity in her back and around her neck seemed to belie this. Her mother came over to her and leaning over, addressed her as "honey," and asked her if she would be getting in the pool.
The simple presence of her mother beside her seemed to nearly push her into the pool by force of repulsion alone. As her mother bent over her and spoke, she reflexively gathered her strength, and pushing down with her arms, prepared to slide into the brightly-lit chlorine water, kerchief, brown-and-maroon plaid skirt, and shawl still in place. My last image of them was the daughter's neck and shoulders tensing to push off the edge, while the mother, still speaking, makes small frantic finger-plucks at the shawl around her daughter's shoulders, hoping to remove it, yet trying not to strangle her with it should she actually go, all the while trying to speak in a soothing voice that is only a thin veneer to the colliding forces moving inside and all around her.
But that was only a dream. I was pulled from the dream by the whining, small, high, screaming more loudly with every second with insistence possible only in machines of destruction boring down upon their targets or a mosquito bored at night. I waved him away with great vigor, wildly threshing the air around him, no doubt tumbling him (her) frantically about, sending her spinning, hopefully, out of range of being attracted back to me. Then I tried to go back to a restless and unhappy sleep.
I don't know if I succeeded or not - I may have, but it seemed not long when the intense, approaching sound of a dentist-drill came closer and closer to my ear. This time I could only muster a single wave at it - I knew it to be hopeless no matter what I did. You can't crush a mosquito in the dark - it takes two hands, anyway, and I could only muster energy to wave one. To vigorously churn the air like last time not only wakes one up unduly, but is completely ineffective. To wave one hand past one's ear may be equally useless, but it does have the advantage of less frustration at having expended lest windmilling energy into the ether.
She was back soon. I don't know how soon. It would be impossible to say. It would be impossible to say how many times I made a cup out of my hand, hoping to "scoop" her in a direction from which she might not return. I realized at one point that she had bitten my left pinky finger, and the persistent itch wound its way through my incoherent thoughts. My periodic dozing moments, if they were more than just simple tired dizziness moments, spun around options of putting my head under the blankets and sweating for a few hours, getting up and doing some work, and turning on the lights, hunting it down and killing it.
I got up after one of these waving incidents, turned on the hallway light, and got a drink of water. My plan was that the light would attract the mosquito out into the entryway, and then I could close the door, and sleep soundly. While in the kitchen I looked at the clock. It was 4:30. In a few hours I would probably get up anyway - why not now? But I didn't - I went back to bed. The next time it woke me (not many minutes later,) I grabbed my pillow, and one of the blankets, and went out to the living room.
I cleared the books off the couch, unfolded it, and tried to crawl under the blanket. It was not folded very well, and so I was cold, and my feet were not covered, and the space where the couch folded let cold air up from below, along my back. I sat up and arranged the covers more meticulously - under and over and stretching down to where it should, and closed my eyes, and began to dream again. I suppose I slept, for there was a period of blankness that I recall with a feeling of gratitude, that probably lasted a half hour before my alarm, which some days ago I had set to 5:30, went off.
I had no intention of getting up at 5:30 today, and how this alarm had suddenly got turned back on is a mystery to me. But experience does seem to show that when the universe has decided to array its forces against you, mysteriously turning on your alarm falls well within the reach of its powers. Getting up or not, I had to get up and go back into the bedroom to turn it off. I couldn't see the face of my wife through the gloomy half-dark, which was just as well. I went back out, and lay down again in the now warm blankets on the couch.
When the mosquito returned I was beyond amazed and demoralized. I had left it in the bedroom long before. Mosquitoes are not, to my knowledge, capable of cognition. How had it managed to find me in another room, past doors that were almost shut? What kind of hideous radar for misery did this creature have that made this feat possible? Did I bring it with me when I shut off the alarm? Had it set the alarm, as bait, so I would have to come back, and it could then follow me to my new resting place? Anything seemed possible at this stage, and I gave up entirely on sleep. I knew then, with the certainty of despair that the condemned has when he actually feels the vibrations of the descending guillotine blade, that divine agents were working against me, sending mosquitoes of supernatural abilities, arming my alarm, and cursing me with tension fraught dreams.
I arose and made the coffee, and washed my face, turned on the computer, and sat down with a flyswatter across my knees. Staring blearily at the screen, I would occasionally hallucinate a movement in my peripheral vision, that was most likely just the smear of sleep sliding across my yellowed vision. As it turned out, I didn't use the flyswatter. She literally rammed into my head, her whining going off in my ears suddenly like a klaxon, and I reached out both hands and clapped frentically once, twice, three times and saw a black ball and the end of a red smear across my hand, and felt a surge of joy that I had at last triumphed over one small gnat.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The summer never really arrived here, but suddenly, now that we are back at work, we get an Indian summer. So today, (Sunday,) we packed some sandwiches and books, and went out for a long walk, across the river, to another side of town, and around, to a hill on the outskirts of town, on which sit the ruins of the old town "castle." I don't know how big it was to begin with, but not very would be my guess. It was blown up as the Nazis were leaving, though no one is really sure why or by whom.
So we had a picnic there, and ate our sandwiches while looking over the river, and then went and sat on the ruins and read our books in the sun. After we had read for a while, we went to a beer garden in the town square, and sat outside, drank some beer, and kept reading and intermittently talking.
When we finished, and the sun was slowly sinking, we went for a walk around the town square, looking in all the shop windows. One of my students has a factory that makes women's bags, and apparently one of the stores on the square carry his products. So we went looking for them, and though we never found them, we had a good walk, and looked at lots of interesting designs in the windows.
Now we are home, and Cynthia is making a potato soup for dinner. It has been a good day.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Adventurous I ain't.
I have been on vacation recently, (more or less, meaning I work one day out of every two or three,) which has resulted in my sitting around far too much. Which has led me to question "what the fuck am I doing here? Why am I sitting around locked in my house when I could be out having "adventures"?
Which, of course, was the exact same question I used to ask myself at Gouno. Then I would embark upon an expedition, to . . . hmmm . . . hmmm . . . hmmmmmmm. The river! Along the way I would accidentally collect about 47 small boys who would attach themselves to me like burrs to velcro, and would proceed to spend the next 4 hours attempting to climb, swim, wade, fall-down and otherwise stumble painfully about, till I tired of the utter green magnificence, and realized that, while interesting, unless there was something more of interest to be found here, it really was Milo time. It never turned out to be much of an adventure.
So, in a similar fashion, I have recently repeatedly set out from the house, bearing with me a few items, and bravely went to . . . hmmm. A pizzeria!! A cafe!! A bar!! Well, in all honesty, I wander about first, looking for . . . something, until eventually it occurs to me that a beer might be in order. So, although I have made it out of the house, it really hasn't added up to much adventure. Until recently.
My wife and her friends, (OK, they are mine too, I suppose) decided to go to Szczawnica, (yeah, go ahead, try and pronounce it.) I agreed because it was "lovely, and so beautiful." When we got there, it finally came out, (what had been rather indirectly hinted at previously) that there really was nothing there unless we were to take bicycles, and pedal toward the old Red Cloister in the hills, on the Slovakian side of the border. Not willing to be a poor sport, (but knowing that bicycles often sense my unease with them and attack,) I agreed to rent this two-wheeled contraption, and we set off down the trail. It was fun for a while, but eventually the sheer rock cliffs around the river, the rushing brown torrent, the green forest and gently rolling hills began to merge together into a somewhat red-faced, slightly out of breath and lightly bespeckled with mud experience dominated by overtones of extreme hunger. Shortly after this fact had blossomed into full prominence in my mind was the exact moment when people began enquiring cheerfully about my welfare, and making generally pleased noises toward the surrounding plant life.
"Isn't it beautiful?" they would breathlessly enquire, looking off into the distance at something I apparently had not seen. "Look at the trees!" they would say, leading me to wonder if they were referring to something in particular, or just the fact that there were, in fact, a very large number of trees all around us. "Oooh, isn't the river nice?" Which comment led me to wonder exactly what the difference between a nice and not-nice river might be, and if I really wanted to find out.
It wasn't too long after this that a sort of semi-detached hallucinatory rationality set in, and I began to analyse what this scene required to really bring out the beauty, and make it a really pleasant, top-notch experience. And it occurred to me that if we could just knock down some of the trees, and build a really nice art-museum which could have a nice coffee shop/bar with large, plate-glass windows maintained spotlessly clean, through which one might stare at the nice trees,and the rushing river, while drinking a good espresso, and pondering the delicacies that the delicate young thing in the apron was carrying to other patrons every time you glanced up from your book or conversation, then we could REALLY have something here.
Now, it rather deserves mentioning at this point that sometime prior we had crossed the border into Slovakia, and sometime prior to that my bicycle had begun revealing its true nature. Whenever it was necessary to pedal hard, the chain would attempt to slip gears, resulting in your feet flying off the pedals, and your teeth flying toward the handle-bars. But, of course, as long as you changed gears, (which it could kind of, sort of, do) you could avoid this problem, unless you were going up anything much resembling an incline, in which case you were shit out of luck, and might as well get off and push.
As we progressed further and further away from the cluster of houses behind us which I mentally referred to rather wistfully as "civilization," my annoyance at the monotony of nature's majesty increased proportionally with my hunger, till it was difficult to refrain, when asked "How ya' doin, Matt?" from answering "What part of mud-spattered, out of breath, hungry and sore-assed would you care me to comment on?"
Then quite suddenly my self-pitying reverie was interrupted as my bicycle began doing a fair imitation of a drunk man on stilts. I slammed on the brakes, (to much cursing behind me,) and began fiddling with the front wheel, which was flopping back and forth freely, loose enough to be able to rub the brakepads on either side. I immediately could see that this was an emergency of the first order, and would require helicopter evacuation. To calm my sense of rising panic, I immediately ate my share of the lunch, which helped significantly. As my belly slowly filled with sausage and focaccio bread, I nourished myself mentally with thoughts of myself walking, pushing this damned infernal machine, suffering every step of the way, encountering pitying looks from passing hikers as I struggled up, and then down, one gentle incline after another, making my way back to civilization, where there would be beer and over-priced kielbasa.
My loving wife, eventually sensing that something gloomy was missing from her life, came back to find me. Despite all attempts to reason with her, she insisted that giving up was not the logical answer to most of the difficulties life presents one with, and suggested rather that we cast about for some tools with which to fix the problem. I half-heartedly tried the nuts with my fingers, and was delighted to find that they were rock-solid-tight. There would be no fixing it. Eventually the other members of our party returned, and after some debate, in which I felt I was doing well, and moving them steadily toward the idea that I must, for the good of all, begin walking back, Peter suddenly grabbed the bike, turned it back over (I had been enjoying the sight of the damn thing with its wheels in the air, like some sort of helpless beetle on its back) and pronounced he would ride it.
I cannot describe the humiliation of my defeat. After such a fortuitious turn of events, to be robbed of your martyrdom at the last second by someone who casually shrugs and takes your burden of suffering upon themselves and cheerfully soldiers forward was almost more than I could take. I fought back bitter tears of resentment as I watched him ride off, wheel wobbling like a wobbly wheel, while I was left with the better, still functioning bike. I was left with no choice but to follow.
As it turned out, the cloister was only another 10 minutes of muddy riding away, and as they had beer and over-priced kielbasa available there, they did a pretty good imitation of rudimentary civilization. After beer and kielbasa, I could no longer stomach the guilt of allowing someone else, (regardless of how brave,) to continue carrying what by all rights should be MY ticket to feeling sorry for myself, and so insisted that I would ride it back, despite the fact that he claimed to enjoy it, as it made the ride more interesting.
Which, it turns out, it did. The rubbing against the brakepads, the extra-hard peddling to overcome the extra resistance, the constant rythmic screech, and the side-to-side wobble were just the things for taking one's mind off the over-abundance of all things natural currently encroaching aggressively on one's person, among which had to be counted a fine layer of sweat.
The trip back seemed to take much less time than the trip out, which seems always to be the case. When we got back I forgot to dismount a little ways out and push it mournfully in, which meant we had to stand about longer, and stubbornly refuse to pay for some minutes before Rachel, for the benefit and better comprehension of the stubbornly insisting owner, did a fantastic impression of pushing the bike uphill and downhill, and sweating egregiously on the long walk, to the cloister and back. Which finally did the trick, and saved me 3 dollars.
On the busride home, before falling asleep, I pondered the whole concept of adventure, and finally came to the idea that adventure only occurs once one steps out of the zone within one's control, and allows chance and Mr. Murphy to play an unusually large role in determining one's happiness and comfort quotient. My final conclusion (which I suspect most people just grasp intuitively,) was unless one has a specific worthy goal in mind, (ie, we are going to hike through the woods to see an old temple in Cambodia) which will recompense one for the time, discomfort and expense, one really might be better off watching someone else's adventure on the discovery channel. Unless you just get off on mud and trees.
Or, alternatively, you can factor out the time and expense, add in extra pay for the discomfort, and set a price on the experience. At 30 zloty an hour, plus 5 zloty extra for discomfort pay, I have 35 zloty per hour over the course of 6 hours, (that includes time spent waiting for the bus) which is 210 zloty, plus 6.70 times 2 for the bus ride, plus 20 zloty for lunch, brings us to 233.40 zloty. Then, all I have to do is figure out how much satisfaction, monetarily speaking, I derive from telling the story. Roughly, I would say about 7 zloty worth. Maybe 8. Then it is just a matter of telling the story enough times to repay myself in satisfaction for the time and expense the story cost me in getting. Which means I only need to tell it another 28.175 times to break even.
Which, of course, was the exact same question I used to ask myself at Gouno. Then I would embark upon an expedition, to . . . hmmm . . . hmmm . . . hmmmmmmm. The river! Along the way I would accidentally collect about 47 small boys who would attach themselves to me like burrs to velcro, and would proceed to spend the next 4 hours attempting to climb, swim, wade, fall-down and otherwise stumble painfully about, till I tired of the utter green magnificence, and realized that, while interesting, unless there was something more of interest to be found here, it really was Milo time. It never turned out to be much of an adventure.
So, in a similar fashion, I have recently repeatedly set out from the house, bearing with me a few items, and bravely went to . . . hmmm. A pizzeria!! A cafe!! A bar!! Well, in all honesty, I wander about first, looking for . . . something, until eventually it occurs to me that a beer might be in order. So, although I have made it out of the house, it really hasn't added up to much adventure. Until recently.
My wife and her friends, (OK, they are mine too, I suppose) decided to go to Szczawnica, (yeah, go ahead, try and pronounce it.) I agreed because it was "lovely, and so beautiful." When we got there, it finally came out, (what had been rather indirectly hinted at previously) that there really was nothing there unless we were to take bicycles, and pedal toward the old Red Cloister in the hills, on the Slovakian side of the border. Not willing to be a poor sport, (but knowing that bicycles often sense my unease with them and attack,) I agreed to rent this two-wheeled contraption, and we set off down the trail. It was fun for a while, but eventually the sheer rock cliffs around the river, the rushing brown torrent, the green forest and gently rolling hills began to merge together into a somewhat red-faced, slightly out of breath and lightly bespeckled with mud experience dominated by overtones of extreme hunger. Shortly after this fact had blossomed into full prominence in my mind was the exact moment when people began enquiring cheerfully about my welfare, and making generally pleased noises toward the surrounding plant life.
"Isn't it beautiful?" they would breathlessly enquire, looking off into the distance at something I apparently had not seen. "Look at the trees!" they would say, leading me to wonder if they were referring to something in particular, or just the fact that there were, in fact, a very large number of trees all around us. "Oooh, isn't the river nice?" Which comment led me to wonder exactly what the difference between a nice and not-nice river might be, and if I really wanted to find out.
It wasn't too long after this that a sort of semi-detached hallucinatory rationality set in, and I began to analyse what this scene required to really bring out the beauty, and make it a really pleasant, top-notch experience. And it occurred to me that if we could just knock down some of the trees, and build a really nice art-museum which could have a nice coffee shop/bar with large, plate-glass windows maintained spotlessly clean, through which one might stare at the nice trees,and the rushing river, while drinking a good espresso, and pondering the delicacies that the delicate young thing in the apron was carrying to other patrons every time you glanced up from your book or conversation, then we could REALLY have something here.
Now, it rather deserves mentioning at this point that sometime prior we had crossed the border into Slovakia, and sometime prior to that my bicycle had begun revealing its true nature. Whenever it was necessary to pedal hard, the chain would attempt to slip gears, resulting in your feet flying off the pedals, and your teeth flying toward the handle-bars. But, of course, as long as you changed gears, (which it could kind of, sort of, do) you could avoid this problem, unless you were going up anything much resembling an incline, in which case you were shit out of luck, and might as well get off and push.
As we progressed further and further away from the cluster of houses behind us which I mentally referred to rather wistfully as "civilization," my annoyance at the monotony of nature's majesty increased proportionally with my hunger, till it was difficult to refrain, when asked "How ya' doin, Matt?" from answering "What part of mud-spattered, out of breath, hungry and sore-assed would you care me to comment on?"
Then quite suddenly my self-pitying reverie was interrupted as my bicycle began doing a fair imitation of a drunk man on stilts. I slammed on the brakes, (to much cursing behind me,) and began fiddling with the front wheel, which was flopping back and forth freely, loose enough to be able to rub the brakepads on either side. I immediately could see that this was an emergency of the first order, and would require helicopter evacuation. To calm my sense of rising panic, I immediately ate my share of the lunch, which helped significantly. As my belly slowly filled with sausage and focaccio bread, I nourished myself mentally with thoughts of myself walking, pushing this damned infernal machine, suffering every step of the way, encountering pitying looks from passing hikers as I struggled up, and then down, one gentle incline after another, making my way back to civilization, where there would be beer and over-priced kielbasa.
My loving wife, eventually sensing that something gloomy was missing from her life, came back to find me. Despite all attempts to reason with her, she insisted that giving up was not the logical answer to most of the difficulties life presents one with, and suggested rather that we cast about for some tools with which to fix the problem. I half-heartedly tried the nuts with my fingers, and was delighted to find that they were rock-solid-tight. There would be no fixing it. Eventually the other members of our party returned, and after some debate, in which I felt I was doing well, and moving them steadily toward the idea that I must, for the good of all, begin walking back, Peter suddenly grabbed the bike, turned it back over (I had been enjoying the sight of the damn thing with its wheels in the air, like some sort of helpless beetle on its back) and pronounced he would ride it.
I cannot describe the humiliation of my defeat. After such a fortuitious turn of events, to be robbed of your martyrdom at the last second by someone who casually shrugs and takes your burden of suffering upon themselves and cheerfully soldiers forward was almost more than I could take. I fought back bitter tears of resentment as I watched him ride off, wheel wobbling like a wobbly wheel, while I was left with the better, still functioning bike. I was left with no choice but to follow.
As it turned out, the cloister was only another 10 minutes of muddy riding away, and as they had beer and over-priced kielbasa available there, they did a pretty good imitation of rudimentary civilization. After beer and kielbasa, I could no longer stomach the guilt of allowing someone else, (regardless of how brave,) to continue carrying what by all rights should be MY ticket to feeling sorry for myself, and so insisted that I would ride it back, despite the fact that he claimed to enjoy it, as it made the ride more interesting.
Which, it turns out, it did. The rubbing against the brakepads, the extra-hard peddling to overcome the extra resistance, the constant rythmic screech, and the side-to-side wobble were just the things for taking one's mind off the over-abundance of all things natural currently encroaching aggressively on one's person, among which had to be counted a fine layer of sweat.
The trip back seemed to take much less time than the trip out, which seems always to be the case. When we got back I forgot to dismount a little ways out and push it mournfully in, which meant we had to stand about longer, and stubbornly refuse to pay for some minutes before Rachel, for the benefit and better comprehension of the stubbornly insisting owner, did a fantastic impression of pushing the bike uphill and downhill, and sweating egregiously on the long walk, to the cloister and back. Which finally did the trick, and saved me 3 dollars.
On the busride home, before falling asleep, I pondered the whole concept of adventure, and finally came to the idea that adventure only occurs once one steps out of the zone within one's control, and allows chance and Mr. Murphy to play an unusually large role in determining one's happiness and comfort quotient. My final conclusion (which I suspect most people just grasp intuitively,) was unless one has a specific worthy goal in mind, (ie, we are going to hike through the woods to see an old temple in Cambodia) which will recompense one for the time, discomfort and expense, one really might be better off watching someone else's adventure on the discovery channel. Unless you just get off on mud and trees.
Or, alternatively, you can factor out the time and expense, add in extra pay for the discomfort, and set a price on the experience. At 30 zloty an hour, plus 5 zloty extra for discomfort pay, I have 35 zloty per hour over the course of 6 hours, (that includes time spent waiting for the bus) which is 210 zloty, plus 6.70 times 2 for the bus ride, plus 20 zloty for lunch, brings us to 233.40 zloty. Then, all I have to do is figure out how much satisfaction, monetarily speaking, I derive from telling the story. Roughly, I would say about 7 zloty worth. Maybe 8. Then it is just a matter of telling the story enough times to repay myself in satisfaction for the time and expense the story cost me in getting. Which means I only need to tell it another 28.175 times to break even.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Women are the answer!!
Intersections of any sort are fascinating. Intersections are frequently where it is at, (whatever it may be.) Intersections are the reason the blood begins to smear and the contemplation comes to a crushed conclusion. Take the intersections out of a story, and you will have one long, self-involved noun. Physics equations show the balance between intersecting forces. Crashes occur at the intersections. Boxing is nothing but dancing while looking for a good intersection between Fist A and Jaw B. If I were either the assassin or the detective, I would still be looking for the intersections.
The reason for this is that it is when two forces meet that eddies and swirls and counter-currents and whirlpools are born. Currents under momentum suddenly meet, are deflected, transfer forces to other parts, cross again, re-establish direction, and shoot out under greater momentum than before, moving with greater force as the new single, larger, mass establishes a new direction that synergizes the incoming force of both.
A week or so ago I wrote my brother an email in which I laid out, in not precisely exact order, the issues I would most like to see prioritized by our next president. They were:
Climate change
The health of our environment
The population boom crisis
World poverty
Education
Human rights
Women's rights
Civil rights/Political freedom
Employment
The international economy
Various domestic economies.
The order of importance, (rough and subject to change as it is) is based on my perception of the number of people who would be affected over the period of time the problem affects us. Thus, you can imply, I perceive the problems posed by climate change and/or pollution to affect a wider number of people for a longer amount of time than the overpopulation of the earth. Or, conversely, I view the beneficial by-products of one as being greater than the other - so it could be said that I view fostering education in an area as producing further long-term benefits for a greater number of people than fostering civil rights, or the local economy. However, Education is placed higher on the list than civil rights or employment because it will result in not only a better educated person, who calls upon a wider set of resources to formulate solutions to his problems, but results in a more employable person, who will in time promote his local economy. Thus some issues may be more important because they exert a "trickle-down" influence on others in the list. To go further, the newly educated person, who now enjoys greater employment opportunities, who is operating in an expanding economy, will most likely then begin to seek greater civil protections from his state, thus increasing his civil rights. So we see that some issues on the list could also exert a "trickle-up" effect.
Once one begins to consider these "intersections" it becomes apparent that the most critical issues may not be the most important, since some, ostensibly of less import, could effect greater results among a wider number of areas, at possibly less expense to resources invested. It is these intersections producing synergistic relations among elements which should most grab our attention, and to which we should direct a greater proportion of our resources.
Unravelling the ball of string from the perspective of intersections necessitates asking slightly different questions. Rather than asking which issues are most pressing, or affect the greatest number of people, perhaps we should be asking which particular issues affect the largest number of other issues. In other words, which issue enjoys the greatest number of intersections?
We have already belabored the quite evident symbiotic relationships between employment, economy, poverty, civil rights and human rights. It does not take much thought to establish a similar relationship between population growth, pollution, and contributing to climate change. The more people eating, drinking, pissing and making plastic, (barring the emergence of new technologies) the greater our collective carbon emissions. The less people producing babies who require plastic diapers and toys, the less people who will someday leave on lights, drive cars, and replace remote-controls for their numerous TV sets.
To my mind, then, the way to most effectively reduce poverty, grow economies, promote civil rights, reduce pollution and thus avoid worsening the effects of climate change are to A. promote employment, and B. discourage reproduction. The obvious solution proposed by the intersection of these two concerns is mandating a 17 hour working day for all males, with selective forced sterilizations where any remaining over-abundance of amorous energy might necessitate intervention. The main problem with this scenario, unfortunately, is the reduced energy levels brought about by the lengthened working day, so critical for reducing population levels, may cripple the ability of the individual to agitate for greater rights, thus short-circuiting the synergy of our cycle.
(The other problem being that governments employing forced sterilizations have a record of being taken out of power at the first opportunity. Apparently people resent them.)
Education has already been named as a factor which has an immediate and obvious bearing on not only personal efficacy, but employability, and economic growth. Could education also be used to lower the birthrates? Some agencies have tried the direct approach, educating the population regarding birth control, such as condoms and contraceptives. The main problem encountered is that men intuitively recoil from stuffing their most acutely concentrated collection of nerve-endings into a tight rubber bag with a constrictive rubber-band at the end, before engaging in something commonly thought to be "fun," simply because the woman is concerned about avoiding another pregnancy. Men are rather comparatively short-sighted at the best of times, and famously so as the moment of truth approaches. The pressing physiological concerns hardwired into their being to take precedence over rationality tend to override most other concerns for a thankfully brief period, which has been known to result in shortsightedness during, chagrin shortly thereafter, and offspring some time later.
Fortunately for all concerned, the reproductive process typically entails the presence of another individual, for whom the "oops" factor presents a slightly greater measure of inconvenience, and who thus tends to favor a more reasoned approach to reproduction, if at all possible. Unfortunately for all concerned, among the majority of societies, this cooler-headed half of our species is traditionally expected to bow before the wishes of her husband at home, is often credited with less native intelligence, and is endowed with less political power in the society at large. This results in lessened earning potential, as men are more favored for jobs, as a result of having been favored for more education. Thus the woman, who could naturally act as a brake on the reproductive rate, is, due to her lower social position, economic dependence and lower level of education, placed at a significant disadvantage when attempting to reason with her more physically, socially, politically and economically powerful partner.
The solution, then, to this particular confluence of unfortunate facts is general education for women. Reproductive education alone is clearly insufficient to act as a counterweight to generally held perceptions regarding reproductive roles and rights. What is needed is education for women which results in greater economic independence, higher social standing, and improved sense of their own legal rights. Thus a woman who does not wish to risk pregnancy could negotiate with her partner on firmer, more equal ground, to the long-term benefit of all.
Research upholds, and further reinforces this conclusion. Not only is women's education the single greatest correlating factor with falling birthrates, but an increase in women's education also leads to a greater improvement in the health of the society at large than an equal increase in education among men. This is because of the money which a woman earns, a greater portion is saved, and invested back into the family. A greater proportion is spent on household and collective needs, as well as on children's needs, such as clothing and healthcare. Contributing to the cycle is the fact that the lower number of births per family results in freeing up more resources to be invested into the education and advancement of of the already existing children, thus ensuring the continuation of the benefits onto the next generation.
So just as education has an impact on employment, the economy, and on one's perception of one's natural rights, so education of the world's largest marginalized group could have a direct impact on population growth and pollution, in addition to applying more hands to our economies, and more minds to our remaining problems. Education of women, and the furtherance of women's rights, is a key component to every issue listed above, from reducing worldwide poverty to promoting the health of our environment. And who knows, it could well be a woman scientist who eventually encounters the key to reversing climate change.
The reason for this is that it is when two forces meet that eddies and swirls and counter-currents and whirlpools are born. Currents under momentum suddenly meet, are deflected, transfer forces to other parts, cross again, re-establish direction, and shoot out under greater momentum than before, moving with greater force as the new single, larger, mass establishes a new direction that synergizes the incoming force of both.
A week or so ago I wrote my brother an email in which I laid out, in not precisely exact order, the issues I would most like to see prioritized by our next president. They were:
Climate change
The health of our environment
The population boom crisis
World poverty
Education
Human rights
Women's rights
Civil rights/Political freedom
Employment
The international economy
Various domestic economies.
The order of importance, (rough and subject to change as it is) is based on my perception of the number of people who would be affected over the period of time the problem affects us. Thus, you can imply, I perceive the problems posed by climate change and/or pollution to affect a wider number of people for a longer amount of time than the overpopulation of the earth. Or, conversely, I view the beneficial by-products of one as being greater than the other - so it could be said that I view fostering education in an area as producing further long-term benefits for a greater number of people than fostering civil rights, or the local economy. However, Education is placed higher on the list than civil rights or employment because it will result in not only a better educated person, who calls upon a wider set of resources to formulate solutions to his problems, but results in a more employable person, who will in time promote his local economy. Thus some issues may be more important because they exert a "trickle-down" influence on others in the list. To go further, the newly educated person, who now enjoys greater employment opportunities, who is operating in an expanding economy, will most likely then begin to seek greater civil protections from his state, thus increasing his civil rights. So we see that some issues on the list could also exert a "trickle-up" effect.
Once one begins to consider these "intersections" it becomes apparent that the most critical issues may not be the most important, since some, ostensibly of less import, could effect greater results among a wider number of areas, at possibly less expense to resources invested. It is these intersections producing synergistic relations among elements which should most grab our attention, and to which we should direct a greater proportion of our resources.
Unravelling the ball of string from the perspective of intersections necessitates asking slightly different questions. Rather than asking which issues are most pressing, or affect the greatest number of people, perhaps we should be asking which particular issues affect the largest number of other issues. In other words, which issue enjoys the greatest number of intersections?
We have already belabored the quite evident symbiotic relationships between employment, economy, poverty, civil rights and human rights. It does not take much thought to establish a similar relationship between population growth, pollution, and contributing to climate change. The more people eating, drinking, pissing and making plastic, (barring the emergence of new technologies) the greater our collective carbon emissions. The less people producing babies who require plastic diapers and toys, the less people who will someday leave on lights, drive cars, and replace remote-controls for their numerous TV sets.
To my mind, then, the way to most effectively reduce poverty, grow economies, promote civil rights, reduce pollution and thus avoid worsening the effects of climate change are to A. promote employment, and B. discourage reproduction. The obvious solution proposed by the intersection of these two concerns is mandating a 17 hour working day for all males, with selective forced sterilizations where any remaining over-abundance of amorous energy might necessitate intervention. The main problem with this scenario, unfortunately, is the reduced energy levels brought about by the lengthened working day, so critical for reducing population levels, may cripple the ability of the individual to agitate for greater rights, thus short-circuiting the synergy of our cycle.
(The other problem being that governments employing forced sterilizations have a record of being taken out of power at the first opportunity. Apparently people resent them.)
Education has already been named as a factor which has an immediate and obvious bearing on not only personal efficacy, but employability, and economic growth. Could education also be used to lower the birthrates? Some agencies have tried the direct approach, educating the population regarding birth control, such as condoms and contraceptives. The main problem encountered is that men intuitively recoil from stuffing their most acutely concentrated collection of nerve-endings into a tight rubber bag with a constrictive rubber-band at the end, before engaging in something commonly thought to be "fun," simply because the woman is concerned about avoiding another pregnancy. Men are rather comparatively short-sighted at the best of times, and famously so as the moment of truth approaches. The pressing physiological concerns hardwired into their being to take precedence over rationality tend to override most other concerns for a thankfully brief period, which has been known to result in shortsightedness during, chagrin shortly thereafter, and offspring some time later.
Fortunately for all concerned, the reproductive process typically entails the presence of another individual, for whom the "oops" factor presents a slightly greater measure of inconvenience, and who thus tends to favor a more reasoned approach to reproduction, if at all possible. Unfortunately for all concerned, among the majority of societies, this cooler-headed half of our species is traditionally expected to bow before the wishes of her husband at home, is often credited with less native intelligence, and is endowed with less political power in the society at large. This results in lessened earning potential, as men are more favored for jobs, as a result of having been favored for more education. Thus the woman, who could naturally act as a brake on the reproductive rate, is, due to her lower social position, economic dependence and lower level of education, placed at a significant disadvantage when attempting to reason with her more physically, socially, politically and economically powerful partner.
The solution, then, to this particular confluence of unfortunate facts is general education for women. Reproductive education alone is clearly insufficient to act as a counterweight to generally held perceptions regarding reproductive roles and rights. What is needed is education for women which results in greater economic independence, higher social standing, and improved sense of their own legal rights. Thus a woman who does not wish to risk pregnancy could negotiate with her partner on firmer, more equal ground, to the long-term benefit of all.
Research upholds, and further reinforces this conclusion. Not only is women's education the single greatest correlating factor with falling birthrates, but an increase in women's education also leads to a greater improvement in the health of the society at large than an equal increase in education among men. This is because of the money which a woman earns, a greater portion is saved, and invested back into the family. A greater proportion is spent on household and collective needs, as well as on children's needs, such as clothing and healthcare. Contributing to the cycle is the fact that the lower number of births per family results in freeing up more resources to be invested into the education and advancement of of the already existing children, thus ensuring the continuation of the benefits onto the next generation.
So just as education has an impact on employment, the economy, and on one's perception of one's natural rights, so education of the world's largest marginalized group could have a direct impact on population growth and pollution, in addition to applying more hands to our economies, and more minds to our remaining problems. Education of women, and the furtherance of women's rights, is a key component to every issue listed above, from reducing worldwide poverty to promoting the health of our environment. And who knows, it could well be a woman scientist who eventually encounters the key to reversing climate change.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
The America Second Party
I don't suppose there are many of my stateside brethren who are currently unaware that the US is going through yet another Presidential cycle. It seems every time you turn on the telly you are confronted with some aging patrician with politician's hair and smile and an indistinct air of oiliness about the way his shirt sleeves are rolled up. Sometimes you even get more than one of them on the screen at the same time, and I begin to weep and dry-heave for America.
In the midst of writing my brother a wandering email-almost-epistle yesterday, I had occasion to ask myself the question, "What are the issues that are most important to me?" And, oddly enough, "Domestic Security" didn't even come up. I didn't realize it till just this instant, but it's true - the main issue that is currently cornerstoning every Republican's platform never even entered my mind. Well, I suppose that just shows why I will never be president.
In fact, my whole list is replete with examples of why I will never be president. Frankly, almost everything on the list is horridly America-Second. I am an America-Seconder! Does such a designation exist? I must go check . . .
OK, not so surprisingly, the America First Party has been reborn, and surprisingly, I half agree with one-quarter of what they say. However the America-Second designation doesn't exist at all. The closest thing is America's Second Harvest, a nationwide foodbank. So now that I have finally found my true political designation, what are the philosophical underpinnings to this one-man movement?
Basically, the belief that the already best-fed can go to the back of the line for the buffet, and wait till others are served. Primarily, it is my belief that the already richest and most powerful nation should not place economic growth as the primary consideration for making larger decisions. It is not necessary that we, the rich, continue to grow richer at the expense of taking action on other issues.
Secondly, that power, true power, is only partially derived from having the biggest guns. When we see a large, overly-muscled policeman humbly doing his job, and assisting small children with finding their mommies, we feel a natural surge of goodwill toward those who protect the weak, care for the insignificant and small, and seek the good of others; how much more so when it is a person who could by right of force be overbearing and insufferable without fear of consequence? Yet when the same fellow swaggers, and appears to glory in his strength, his untouchability, and shows even the slightest disregard for the well-being others, we naturally detest him, and wish to resist him, for we see two of the most dangerous traits of humanity combined in one entity: selfishness, and a desire for power.
To those who say that they wish to restore American greatness, and American primacy, I say this - you can spend all the time you want trying to herd cats with a stick, and they still won't listen. But strap a sausage to your ass and start walking toward the milk dish, and every single one of them will follow you. When the rest of the world, (and there are some who are just too culturally blinded to see it even when it is true) sees that America is leading toward a better future for all, most will listen, and most will follow, more whole-heartedly and with less effort on our part, because they perceive that we seek a greater good.
I fully recognize that this sea change will not be immediately evident, that not all nations will be able to perceive this, or believe it, and that the great majority will continue to seek their own good as a primary goal. Be that as it may - the difference between a tycoon and a leader is the tycoon seeks his own good by whatever means are available, and the leader seeks the good of those who are led, often at personal cost to himself, by operating according to deeply held values. I leave it to you which word you would rather see applied to our country.
For the truth is this - as travel, exchange of information and transaction of commerce occur between ever further removed points around our world, we will find the common good ever more important. What issue affected only a region, a nation, or even a continent before, now comes to affect all of us, as everything from trade goods to market volitility to infestations and infectious diseases spread more quickly and widely than ever before. Whole labor forces move across borders en masse these days, bring with them the power of their sweat and the problems of their own country. Interdependence is the inescapable future, and the nation that recognises this and leads the way toward a more healthy interdependence will be the global leader, and will, on some level, earn the respect and admiration of those it assisted and led.
And that will constitute a greater power.
In the midst of writing my brother a wandering email-almost-epistle yesterday, I had occasion to ask myself the question, "What are the issues that are most important to me?" And, oddly enough, "Domestic Security" didn't even come up. I didn't realize it till just this instant, but it's true - the main issue that is currently cornerstoning every Republican's platform never even entered my mind. Well, I suppose that just shows why I will never be president.
In fact, my whole list is replete with examples of why I will never be president. Frankly, almost everything on the list is horridly America-Second. I am an America-Seconder! Does such a designation exist? I must go check . . .
OK, not so surprisingly, the America First Party has been reborn, and surprisingly, I half agree with one-quarter of what they say. However the America-Second designation doesn't exist at all. The closest thing is America's Second Harvest, a nationwide foodbank. So now that I have finally found my true political designation, what are the philosophical underpinnings to this one-man movement?
Basically, the belief that the already best-fed can go to the back of the line for the buffet, and wait till others are served. Primarily, it is my belief that the already richest and most powerful nation should not place economic growth as the primary consideration for making larger decisions. It is not necessary that we, the rich, continue to grow richer at the expense of taking action on other issues.
Secondly, that power, true power, is only partially derived from having the biggest guns. When we see a large, overly-muscled policeman humbly doing his job, and assisting small children with finding their mommies, we feel a natural surge of goodwill toward those who protect the weak, care for the insignificant and small, and seek the good of others; how much more so when it is a person who could by right of force be overbearing and insufferable without fear of consequence? Yet when the same fellow swaggers, and appears to glory in his strength, his untouchability, and shows even the slightest disregard for the well-being others, we naturally detest him, and wish to resist him, for we see two of the most dangerous traits of humanity combined in one entity: selfishness, and a desire for power.
To those who say that they wish to restore American greatness, and American primacy, I say this - you can spend all the time you want trying to herd cats with a stick, and they still won't listen. But strap a sausage to your ass and start walking toward the milk dish, and every single one of them will follow you. When the rest of the world, (and there are some who are just too culturally blinded to see it even when it is true) sees that America is leading toward a better future for all, most will listen, and most will follow, more whole-heartedly and with less effort on our part, because they perceive that we seek a greater good.
I fully recognize that this sea change will not be immediately evident, that not all nations will be able to perceive this, or believe it, and that the great majority will continue to seek their own good as a primary goal. Be that as it may - the difference between a tycoon and a leader is the tycoon seeks his own good by whatever means are available, and the leader seeks the good of those who are led, often at personal cost to himself, by operating according to deeply held values. I leave it to you which word you would rather see applied to our country.
For the truth is this - as travel, exchange of information and transaction of commerce occur between ever further removed points around our world, we will find the common good ever more important. What issue affected only a region, a nation, or even a continent before, now comes to affect all of us, as everything from trade goods to market volitility to infestations and infectious diseases spread more quickly and widely than ever before. Whole labor forces move across borders en masse these days, bring with them the power of their sweat and the problems of their own country. Interdependence is the inescapable future, and the nation that recognises this and leads the way toward a more healthy interdependence will be the global leader, and will, on some level, earn the respect and admiration of those it assisted and led.
And that will constitute a greater power.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Max
I have been more than fortunate in my life. I am, in fact, one of the most fortunate of men on our entire planet. I am exceedingly wealthy in friends.
Which is not to say I have that many. The contrary statement could well be true. I have only a few. Yet those I have are friends exhibiting qualities by which the word itself ought to be defined. Among this small number I count Max, and his wife Maria.
This post is about Max. It has a specific purpose, intent and aim. It is, (and I am not bothered to say it) intended to prompt Max to continue writing. The aim, intent and purpose of this posting is to inspire not guilt, but inspiration. By addressing here the role Max has played in my life, I hope to prompt, persuade, prod, propel and provoke Max into writing again.
You see, Max has achieved what few others could ever lay claim to - Max has created a community, in his own name. Without intention of ever doing so, Max has brought together people on different sides of our world, by sheer interest in his words - in the words he has written.
Max writes (normally) everyday. Nonsense shit, often. Pointless but interesting shit, frequently. And not so occasionally, true gems. Things that make the whole internet sit up, stop fondling its own balls, and pay attention. Suddenly, because of something Max said, people's inboxes fill up with mail from unknown and nevertheless welcome quarters, because we are discussing something that Max said. And underlying the whole conversation, often between strangers, is the idea that "you must be a half-way decent person, if Max is your friend, (despite the fact that you sound like an idiot..)" And oddly enough, the theory seems to hold true.
Max has thus created around himself, by investing nothing more than 10 minutes a day, an online community. A group of people who, if they met each other for the first time, would know a lot about the other already, simply by virtue of having discussed the ideas that Max leaves us with. Thus, technology combined with brilliance and persistence has made, or re-made in a new form, that most basic of human necessities - a community.
I met Max my first year of college - an impressionable year by any standard. Max was an unmoving beacon of stability even then; he was a rock, upon which events and turmoil (of which there would be plenty,) smashed and spent their energies.
We spent much of the first semester of our acquaintance discussing literature, and by the end of the first month of our acquaintance, had established a deep and lasting respect for each other. One of the first things I noticed about Max was the quality of his friends. I can assume he noticed the same about me, as my friends and roommates of that period were, and are, people of the highest caliber. Max and I spent afternoons sitting in fields discussing literature, liquor and love, (to steal a phrase from him, "the quivering relations between man and woman.") Which was appropriate as Max was getting married that summer.
I came to recognise a quality of thoughtfulness, a premeditated air to all that he did. Max was no fly-by-nighter. Max spent time deciding what he wanted, where his effort would be spent, and then moved with conscious steps in that direction. His solidity of character was to serve as an anchor to my own life later.
The second year of our acquaintance, Max made his home in a truck-stop. He came to have his own table in the greasy-spoon cum-drunkard hangout which masqueraded intermittently as a business enterprise under the name Stateline Cafe. He would stay at his table, drinking coffee (50 cents, at that point, bought you all you could drink for as long as you could stay,) for 24 hours at a time. He achieved a grudging respect from the toothless waitstaff, and the hapless owner, who would even tolerate his books and such remaining on the table when he had to leave for class, from whence he would return immediately thereafter. I do not recall if Max ever received flying jelly-packets to the head, with the salutation "Hey, college-boy!" (as I did,) at 2:00 in the morning, but if he did, no doubt he handled it with dignity and aplomb.
Because that was what characterised Max. Max was steady, steadfast, sure, with temerity, poise, firmness and a presence of person that could put many global leaders to shame. If I had to, I would compare Max with Chirac. Always talking, always sincere, and always sounding suspiciously as though he knows you know he is right, if you would have just taken the time to listen earlier.
This precise quality is what has allowed Max to beget "the intangible extasy of Maxness," a concept that has yet to take the world by storm, but will probably end up becoming the intellectual forebear of a great philosophical movement someday, on par with the "Chicken soup for (insert your demographic name here)" series of books.
The intangible extasy of Maxness is less complicated than many of the worlds leading paradigm-arrangement systems. It has as its underlying belief something we can all comprehend and admit into the realm of possiblity - that inside Max there is a small man, called the Ego-man. He is probably round in shape, and broadcasts a general air of vague sketchiness about his character, the kind of fellow you wouldn't want to turn your back on, for suspicion he would be found either smearing your wife's chest with chocolate and bad intent, or cleaning the last scrap of meat off your chihuahua's bones by the time you turned back round again. (Were it not for the total absorption he showed in his current task, which precludes all else.) He is clad in nothing more than a loincloth, red body paint, and abundant chesthair. Said fellow has all the self-conciousness restraint of a mongoose in a chicken coop, and spends his whole day beating out interesting rythms on his drum.
And while he beats his drum, and admires his own chesthair clumped with paint, he dances a little dance, and chants a big chant. And he chants :
Max is Great.
Fuckin Great.
Yah, yup, yum and yahoo.
Great fuckin Max.
Max eats a cheesburger
cuz its fuckin great
Max read his book
cuz its fuckin great.
Great, great, great,
Max is great.
And then he goes on to sing the cigarette song, followed by the coffee song, the Maria song, the family song, the work song, and then he sings an antihistab song, and then he starts again, with minor variations on the theme.
And the fact is, if you sit around Max for too long, you begin to hear the song, too. And you start to sing along. But you don't realise it until he gets up to go to the loo, at which point you have that odd feeling that you are singing a song that has left the room. And then you understand.
Which is not to say I have that many. The contrary statement could well be true. I have only a few. Yet those I have are friends exhibiting qualities by which the word itself ought to be defined. Among this small number I count Max, and his wife Maria.
This post is about Max. It has a specific purpose, intent and aim. It is, (and I am not bothered to say it) intended to prompt Max to continue writing. The aim, intent and purpose of this posting is to inspire not guilt, but inspiration. By addressing here the role Max has played in my life, I hope to prompt, persuade, prod, propel and provoke Max into writing again.
You see, Max has achieved what few others could ever lay claim to - Max has created a community, in his own name. Without intention of ever doing so, Max has brought together people on different sides of our world, by sheer interest in his words - in the words he has written.
Max writes (normally) everyday. Nonsense shit, often. Pointless but interesting shit, frequently. And not so occasionally, true gems. Things that make the whole internet sit up, stop fondling its own balls, and pay attention. Suddenly, because of something Max said, people's inboxes fill up with mail from unknown and nevertheless welcome quarters, because we are discussing something that Max said. And underlying the whole conversation, often between strangers, is the idea that "you must be a half-way decent person, if Max is your friend, (despite the fact that you sound like an idiot..)" And oddly enough, the theory seems to hold true.
Max has thus created around himself, by investing nothing more than 10 minutes a day, an online community. A group of people who, if they met each other for the first time, would know a lot about the other already, simply by virtue of having discussed the ideas that Max leaves us with. Thus, technology combined with brilliance and persistence has made, or re-made in a new form, that most basic of human necessities - a community.
I met Max my first year of college - an impressionable year by any standard. Max was an unmoving beacon of stability even then; he was a rock, upon which events and turmoil (of which there would be plenty,) smashed and spent their energies.
We spent much of the first semester of our acquaintance discussing literature, and by the end of the first month of our acquaintance, had established a deep and lasting respect for each other. One of the first things I noticed about Max was the quality of his friends. I can assume he noticed the same about me, as my friends and roommates of that period were, and are, people of the highest caliber. Max and I spent afternoons sitting in fields discussing literature, liquor and love, (to steal a phrase from him, "the quivering relations between man and woman.") Which was appropriate as Max was getting married that summer.
I came to recognise a quality of thoughtfulness, a premeditated air to all that he did. Max was no fly-by-nighter. Max spent time deciding what he wanted, where his effort would be spent, and then moved with conscious steps in that direction. His solidity of character was to serve as an anchor to my own life later.
The second year of our acquaintance, Max made his home in a truck-stop. He came to have his own table in the greasy-spoon cum-drunkard hangout which masqueraded intermittently as a business enterprise under the name Stateline Cafe. He would stay at his table, drinking coffee (50 cents, at that point, bought you all you could drink for as long as you could stay,) for 24 hours at a time. He achieved a grudging respect from the toothless waitstaff, and the hapless owner, who would even tolerate his books and such remaining on the table when he had to leave for class, from whence he would return immediately thereafter. I do not recall if Max ever received flying jelly-packets to the head, with the salutation "Hey, college-boy!" (as I did,) at 2:00 in the morning, but if he did, no doubt he handled it with dignity and aplomb.
Because that was what characterised Max. Max was steady, steadfast, sure, with temerity, poise, firmness and a presence of person that could put many global leaders to shame. If I had to, I would compare Max with Chirac. Always talking, always sincere, and always sounding suspiciously as though he knows you know he is right, if you would have just taken the time to listen earlier.
This precise quality is what has allowed Max to beget "the intangible extasy of Maxness," a concept that has yet to take the world by storm, but will probably end up becoming the intellectual forebear of a great philosophical movement someday, on par with the "Chicken soup for (insert your demographic name here)" series of books.
The intangible extasy of Maxness is less complicated than many of the worlds leading paradigm-arrangement systems. It has as its underlying belief something we can all comprehend and admit into the realm of possiblity - that inside Max there is a small man, called the Ego-man. He is probably round in shape, and broadcasts a general air of vague sketchiness about his character, the kind of fellow you wouldn't want to turn your back on, for suspicion he would be found either smearing your wife's chest with chocolate and bad intent, or cleaning the last scrap of meat off your chihuahua's bones by the time you turned back round again. (Were it not for the total absorption he showed in his current task, which precludes all else.) He is clad in nothing more than a loincloth, red body paint, and abundant chesthair. Said fellow has all the self-conciousness restraint of a mongoose in a chicken coop, and spends his whole day beating out interesting rythms on his drum.
And while he beats his drum, and admires his own chesthair clumped with paint, he dances a little dance, and chants a big chant. And he chants :
Max is Great.
Fuckin Great.
Yah, yup, yum and yahoo.
Great fuckin Max.
Max eats a cheesburger
cuz its fuckin great
Max read his book
cuz its fuckin great.
Great, great, great,
Max is great.
And then he goes on to sing the cigarette song, followed by the coffee song, the Maria song, the family song, the work song, and then he sings an antihistab song, and then he starts again, with minor variations on the theme.
And the fact is, if you sit around Max for too long, you begin to hear the song, too. And you start to sing along. But you don't realise it until he gets up to go to the loo, at which point you have that odd feeling that you are singing a song that has left the room. And then you understand.
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