Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Hope, Joy, Misery, & Lindsay Lohan

The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain

Really Important Announcement: Yoga for Cynics is not coming to an end, despite any and all disdain expressed for the internet in that last post....I was talking about all the other crap on-line, consuming my precious time like a cat unhappily placed on a diet finding freshly baked key lime pie carelessly left within reach on a kitchen counter (and no, I’m not ticking away the precious hours looking at porn, as a commenter who will not be named so outrageously suggested—though, okay, maybe, after all that stuff about masturbation in the previous post, I had it coming) (no pun intended) (jeezus, getcher minds outta the gutter, people) (and of course I’m definitely not talking about any of the wonderful sites affiliated with the erudite, interesting and really, really good looking people who read this blog) (particularly not those of Lydia or Fancy Sweden, who’ve recently been kind enough to give me blog awards). (Listen, I check out important news, then hit links for less important news, then completely unimportant news, then stuff that really isn’t news at all, and then...basically, end up knowing way too much about Lindsay Lohan’s personal life, particularly since I’ve never even seen any of her movies) (oh wait...was she in Mean Girls? Okay, I saw that one...but my point stands). Anyway....

There’s this obscure Dylan song with even more obscure lyrics, each verse ending all I see are dark eyes...always seemed like one of those vague free association things with some good lines that didn’t really add up to anything...Dylan’s written a few of them...but then I read Chronicles: Volume 1 where he describes walking into a hotel lobby and seeing a call girl walking out with two black eyes...they tell me to be discreet, for all intended purposes, they tell me revenge is sweet, and from where they stand I’m sure it is, but I feel nothing for their game, where beauty goes unrecognized, all I feel is heat and flame, and all I see are dark eyes....

Did Beethoven write the 9th Symphony despite being deaf and lonely and old and washed up and all that? I’m inclined to think it was more because of it—not in some stupid romantic sense, fetishizing depression as a source of inspiration rather than something that deadens. No, more in the sense that, in such murky darkness, he had to find some amazing light if he was gonna live at all....

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.
Ludwig Van Beethoven

Thomas Jefferson famously cut up the New Testament to create what’s known as The Jefferson Bible or The Life and Morals of Jesus and Nazareth—essentially an Age of Reason holy book, portraying a moral philosopher, without all the miracles and such. I don’t think that was a bad idea, though it’s kinda like reading Moby Dick to learn about whaling. Then, I guess that’s how most people read it, anyway...seeing walking on the water as walking on the water, rather than a metaphor for hope—the impossible that sometimes isn’t....

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think Ludwig was onto something with music being a "higher revelation" ... and anyone stuck with a name that reminds me of an earwig, just has to get my sympathy vote anyhoo.
Lindsay who? Some of us are not from there!!!
Ah, now I know what you mean about the 2nd coming ... you mean your one. Hehehehe!

Lydia said...

"No, more in the sense that, in such murky darkness, he had to find some amazing light if he was gonna live at all...." I love this, metaphors for blindness to relate to deafness. No light is easier to grasp/describe than no sound.
In Salem, OR, there is a budget-saving movement afoot to merge two separate long-standing institutions: the School for the Deaf and the School for the Blind. The actual students, faculty, parents involved are hotly contesting it - saying the issues and needs of each have nothing to do with the other.
And this relates to your post how? Maybe there are Mean Girls in both schools.....

Anonymous said...

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks!!

Wait, did I just write gentleman? Well, you know what I mean!

The imagination is more important than we give it credit for. To imagine is to be. To make possible.

So the creative force that generates such beauty... well, yeah, sometimes as we both know the darkness can be a leap towards a raw and truthful exploration of the origin of the depth of our being and life as it really is... and so on.

This Brazen Teacher said...

I love that you post artwork with your musings. So I copied you. Yes- I am a dirty copier that felt guilty and had to confess.

Love the stream of consciousness thing you have going on in your writing (but with punctuation... sort of.)

Kim said...

Even if you were spending all day looking at internet porn, who cares?

The internet is like a bad penny...it follows you around when you don't want it and it's never there when you need it (unless you've gotten a Blackberry like I have...then it's just pure addiction).

I'm glad you're not going away though!

human being said...

you know what?... i love quilts... first, that overall unique and perhaps unfamiliar pattern... then you can sit... watch and find fabulous details... each time you look at the quilt, you find something new... it's a neverending story.... i love such stories... and can we scold the quilt maker why s/he is wasting her/his precious time search and sorting among the pieces of fabric and cloth... or why s/he is keeping tons of useless shreds of fabrics other people simply throw away?....

man... s/he is searching... sorting and creating a new world... so unique... and s/he lets us to enter it.... to explore it... to enjoy oursleves each time we discover part of the story...

and why i'm expressing my love for quilts here.... hmmm... guess why...
:)

WorldmedTourism said...

This picture is good