today's date

[dragonlady7]

I'm not going to post any angst about the date. I have seen a lot of really important things since that day, I have learned a lot about my fellow humans, and then I have watched the whole thing get slowly sidetracked and made from a unifying thing into possibly the single most divisive event in American history. No matter who wins this election, we've all lost. And it just makes me sick, and I don't want to talk about it anymore. What happened is terrible and I still cry about it, but what has happened since is possibly worse, and is too sickening to cry over.

I didn't even know I felt that way until i sat down to compose this. And I think I don't want to talk about it.

Ed. Note: I was lying. Look behind the cut. It's different, at least...

It is a bit of a tradition for Dave and I to have a big heart-stopping breakfast on the 11th Sept., to kill ourselves slowly in the memory of those denied that pleasure. So we had bacon and eggs and these sorta hash-brown things. And we talked of inconsequential and pleasant things.

I had a lovely day. I took my new camera and we went to Niagara Falls, hoping to go to the Wintergarden there-- a big greenhouse full of cool plants and such.
It was closed. in fact, it was entirely closed. Empty. Nothing in it but glass and steel.
Astonishing. But. Oh well.
I got some photos on the way and on the way home.
Then we went to Delaware Park, and went to the Japanese Gardens down on the lake.

I should here mention that we were not unscathed by Hurricane Frances. It flooded one of the creeks northeast of Buffalo, causing tremendous damage and one fatality (a 3-year-old wandered out of the house while his mother was making a brief phone call, and drowned in the flooded creek). Dave's mom was watching the news and they showed someone's in-ground pool totally underwater-- the flood water was about three feet up on the fence enclosing the pool. What made it funny (besides the inherent schadenfreude value) was that the pool belonged to none other than Mr. Cellino, of Cellinio & Barnes Personal Injury Lawyers With TV Spots And Billboards All Over Western NY, and Really Famous Bald Spots. BWA-HA-HA!

Not that it's funny. It's not. That's terrible. That poor man. He cares, you know. He puts customers first. you know. He also crops his photos really close so you can't see the bald spot. Yes. Oh. Not funny.

So all my pictures of Delaware Park's lovely mirror lake are a little off, because the water is a vibrant brown from all the mud and the flooding. They had to do heavy cleanup of debris around the lake from the floods.

And here we felt annoyed that our back yard was a rice paddy! Pff. Well, we had one rivulet of water in the basement... and that was it.

following: a rant on dissatisfaction, art, and William Blake, of all people. With yes, politics, and the conclusion that I'm running away to Europe. Interesting for the transitions, if nothing else. And heartbroken patriotism, if that's your kink.

I'm not having much luck in finding good photographic subjects. I took about 200 pictures today, and don't know what else to photograph. I'm just not feeling it right now. I want to go home and visit my folks. The house there is so photogenic and there's so much to take pictures of...
I have to get out and get a job and get a life so I'll have a bigger world, so I'll have something to look at. I just... I don't get out enough. I need a damn job. I need a life. I had hoped to have more of a life here in Buffalo. I do have more than i did, I just have less than I'd hoped. I'd thought getting a job as a bartender would be easier. But nobody's got ads in the paper, nobody's calling the job placement part of the school I went to-- nobody's looking. I have to look. Dammit, I wanted to get into this line of work because it's supposed to be easier to find work. It took me over 300 resumes to get the horrible awful job at the last place I worked. I figured bartending wouldn't be such a big deal. But I've got no starting points here.
GUH.

I should've gone home this weekend, just to do something and get out. But y'know, my folks were busy. Next weekend. Anyway, i haven't taken care of the car's insurance stuff.

I think I need to paint. Or draw. I haven't drawn in probably two years now. I used to do a lot of art. I had a shitty teacher my last year of high school who gave me C's because while my assignments met all his stated criteria, they "just weren't good paintings". So I abandoned my plans to go to art school, and since then have only done photography. I took one painting class in college, and it was a resounding failure-- I did all right, but I knew far more than anyone else in the class, and hated the teacher's assignments. (We actually got along, but what was I going to do? They were dumb assignments and I was in a terrible place in my life. So I didn't get much out of that class.)

And it's true. I'm not a very good artist. Though the painting teacher told me I should pursue a career in illustration...

I miss doing it. I miss actually making images from scratch. There's tremendous satisfaction in making pictures, even when they're not very good.
Though, I think my #1 thrill in the world remains that feeling when you finally take the film out of the cannister and hang it up to dry, and realize that YES, there are PICTURES on it, YOUR pictures, that YOU made.
You get that with digital, but it's a less concentrated thrill, because you haven't just spent most of an hour with your hands in 68-degree water (that's cold, believe me) and noxious chemicals, in an isolated room in a dark building, convinced that psychos are coming to get you, getting high on chemical fumes and getting tired from doing your agitating by hand (a thunk-a-thunk-a crap, was that one minute or two? I wish i could read a clock. It'll be a miracle if this comes out-- and yet it always does).
I used to go into the film-winding room, a completely dark chamber inside which you roll your film from the metal canister it comes in onto a metal or plastic spool that holds it apart so the chemicals can wash across it evenly-- I used to go in there and sing William Blake's rousing hymn Jerusalem because it suited my range, was challenging, was dynamic, and left no room in my head for monsters to leap out and kill me while I was isolated in the dead-end room behind the light trap in the basement of the abandoned art building in a passage where nobody ever went.
I shall not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand! DEAR GOD WHAT WAS THAT NOISE oh god, i can't turn the light on or I'll lose my entire roll of film, holy shit, start the verse over, BRING ME MY BOW OF BURNING GOLD! BRING ME MY ARROWS OF DESIRE! BRING ME MY SPEAR, O CLOUDS UNFOLD! BRING ME MY CHARIOT OF FIRE! Ahh... nothing burns lyrics into your head like looming terror.

I think I have not one, but two mp3s of that hymn. Should I post one? Which do you want-- Charlotte Church, or Billy Bragg?

Meh. Charlotte's version is classic, and is how I know the song, but I don't think she's all that good. She's a little breathy on some passages, her transitions are weak, she doesn't crescendo enough where she ought, her consonants are fucked up, and for the love of God what's a Welsh girl doing singing about England's green and pleasant land? Bah!
Instead I give you Billy, Billy the punk rocker, singing you an apparently sincere (if wistful) rendition of what from his mouth becomes a controversial song. It has more meaning from him. Listen to it and think about it.

And was Jerusalem builded here, amongst these dark satanic mills? (2.5 mb)

[If you want to think of me, imagine that it is being performed with great bravado and conviction by a rather-too-powerful alto whose consonants, thank you very much, are crisp but unobtrusive. (I sang better back then. I remembered how to control my breathing. I used to be good, you know.) Rather than an adenoidal Cockney.]

This rant is continuing into nostalgia. Just warning you. And politics. It might get interesting.
Jerusalem's a bloody good song. You don't hear it this side of the pond. Not that you can blame them. It's all about England. It's a patriotic song. But shit, it's an excellent patriotic song. It's the best fucking patriotic song I've ever heard.
I have to confess, the Anglicans do church singing better than the Catholics. When I was at St. Leonard's (the girls' school in Scotland, year abroad, post-highschool, '97-98), we had to sing hymns. It was an Anglican school. We sang hymns every day.
And you know, many of them were good. i didn't like them all. I had just come from an environment where we spoke non-specifically about God and didn't force our beliefs on anyone because that wasn't polite.
And Jerusalem was the best. The melody is great (and perfect for my range. I'm not conceited. Honest). And the lyrics are beautiful, and challenging.
The first verse is all questions.

And did those feet in ancient times rest upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God in England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine shine forth upon these clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark satanic mills?

I'm not sure what he's trying to say-- Blake was a fascinating and possibly insane person. He can't be insinuating that the events of the Bible actually, geographically took place in England. Is he expecting that the answer must be no? It must be. The Holy Land is thousands of miles away, and England, as he mentions, is a besooted industrial country of dubious direction.
But then he goes on, with this fabulous second verse that you have to be terrified and stuck in a totally dark room and singing as if your life depended on it to appreciate. Imagine it, if you must. I'll come over and lock you in a closet and sing it with you if that helps. Just email me. I'll be happy to do it.

Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear-- O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hands
Till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land!

Understand that at this point, Jerusalem was not the chaos it is now. There were no suicide bombers. Jerusalem, to the northern European Christian mind, was a holy, ideal city.
Blake is saying that he will gird himself and struggle until his country reaches its ideal state, until they have built perfection out of the best parts of their nation.

This is a song about reaching within your collective identity and creating something better than you are, from within yourselves.

Not that Britain did that. They went outside, and sought glory through domination. This did not, in the end, give them lasting power. No. Where are they now? Well. Let's not get into it.

I love the song. It's not about crushing others and ruling over them. This should be the national anthem, except of course that it is divisively singular in its denomination, and the church and the state must be separated for peace to be maintained in a democracy. (Christ, I will not go further into this for fear of dragging you someplace you wish you weren't. You can all debate amongst yourselves what I meant by those second-person pronouns.)
It's about looking inward, about creating something out of yourself, to make yourself better and to make your homeland better. It's not about destroying. It's not about conquering. It's about building.

And it makes me cry.
It makes me cry.

Why does patrioism have to be about destroying, about conquering, about subduing? It has never worked for us. Our greatest achievements (and now I am speaking as an American) have come from overthrowing, from building, from rebuilding, from investing. We have never succeeded at colonialism, at imperialism. We have never succeeded as a global brute squad. We will not succeed. We will implode.

I am a patriot. I have always been a patriot. I have always loved my country, its history, its constitution. I have had ancestors involved in that government since its inception. A grandfather some dozen generations removed sat on the colonial council for Connecticut, in Hartford, until he died in the 1680's. I have had ancestors involved in the building of this country, serving in the military-- several in the Revolutionary war. I had an uncle five or six generations removed die in the camp at Andersonville in 1864.
I was raised by history geeks. I went to revolutionary war re-enactments. I have fired flintlock muskets. I have visited all the historic sites of New York State. I marched in Veteran's Day parades as a child. I never let the flag touch the ground. I never leave the flag out in the rain, or after dark. I know how to fold it properly, and do. I know all the verses of This Land Is Your Land. I have read firsthand accounts of Iwo Jima and Omaha Beach. I have written passionate papers about Belleau Wood. I have eloquently defended Federalist No. 10 in debates. I know where Midway is. I am proud of who I am and where I am from. I can recite the Preamble to the Constitution with fewer errors than i can the Ten Commandments.

But where am I going? What are we doing?

Was Jerusalem builded here among these dark Satanic mills?
No.
Will we?
No.
What will we do?
Put bombs and blood into foreign sand.
Can we do anything else now?
No, we haven't much choice.
Does the rest of the world hate us for this decision?
Well, I can't answer that.

And I must here point out that this is not something George Bush started. Not W., not Sr. This is something that has been going on for thirty years or more. We started trying it out with Monroe. We tried it again under the first Roosevelt. There has never been a perfect time in this country's history. But of late it has been worse. We have not been looking inward. We have not been taking the positive parts of ourselves and using them to build. We have been using the negative parts of others to destroy them.
I am not advocating a return to isolationism. I am simply saying that we have never figured out how to be global citizens, and that may destroy us.

You know, no matter who wins the upcoming election, we all lose. The country is so divided and so unable to view the other side as being worthy of consideration-- I think we are more divided than we were in 1860, to be honest, and hundreds of thousands of us DIED over that. Does no one else remember?-- that no matter what the result, chaos will ensue. Half the country will feel itself betrayed. And half the country won't take the government seriously. half the country will undermine this government that is supposed to be for them, of them, and by them.
No matter who wins.

I am running away to Europe. I feel desperately that I must run away to Europe.
But i can't even get a job here. What will i do there? And they're no better. Who tried to colonize the Holy Land and left it the mess it is today? Who tried that whole colonize-Iraq thing? Well. Let's just say that the countenance divine does not shine forth among those clouded hills. Not today, at any rate.

And let me just close, now that I've spent all that time listening to that song, by saying that I miss Ursula so much it makes me want to cry even more than the song already did. She left me a comment in my blog at the end of May saying that she had a computer now and would email me soon, but she never has. This is no different than it ever has been since we last saw one another for any length of time. I need expect nothing different. We will speak again someday, and it will be as if we never parted. She is that kind of friend. We are that kind of friends.
But I miss her.

Comments

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

Random comments to match your stream-of-consciousness post...

Morgan wants to run away to Europe too. He worked there for six weeks once, and was thisclose to telling me to fly over with his resume and portfolio, he wanted to stay. He felt more accepted and at peace there than he does here in the States.

I feel your depression about your new home. I hate that feeling - being in a new hometown that doesn't feel like a hometown yet, not having any friends or job or social circle to call your own. Nothing that makes it feel like home, except your honey, and then you feel like a hermit because the only person you want to talk to is him. It's a sick, sad feeling and I know it well. My advice, if you want it, is join a group, take a class. Any classes or clubs around for digital photography? Then you can learn more about making your camera sing, and can meet some people who love it too.

Will download the song when I'm on my computer and not Morgan's.

Ambulance-chasing lawyer's flooded pool: heh. Love it when things happen to the deserving.

I know all the verses to This Land is Your Land too. Lots of other Woody Guthrie songs too. I worked on a version of Woody Guthrie's American Song about ten years ago in Wilmington, Delaware (my last show before getting an engagement ring). Whenever I work a show, by the time it closes I'm damn sick of it and can't wait to see it end. That was the only one that I wanted to just go on and on, because listening to those fantastic voices sing those great songs was pure joy and goosebumps every single night.

That's all for now. My coffee cup's almost empty. But let me know if you want to talk. I think I know how you feel.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I was starting to respond to this but it was just ballooning into more stream-of-consciousness, and I think I should just post it as a post! That way it's not directed at you so you don't have to feel like you should answer. :)

I don't know as much Guthrie as I should, but I know all the patriotic songs because I had a vinyl album of Mickey Sings American Songs or something-- amusingly, it put This Land Is Your Land right next to Irving Berlin's God Bless America, and apparently Guthrie wrote his in an angry response to Berlin's song, which he felt was jingoistic and stupid.

But that's all I really know about that.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

My father and I talked about a lot of this over dinner last night.

He feels perfectly justified in the war because "The Islamists don't think like us. They feel we are wrong and want to kill us because we are not like them. There is no negotiating with people like that, only killing."

It's fairly obvious which side my father would rather be doing the killing.

All I could think, though, when he was saying that was, "And gee, who did they learn that from? Oh right. The Christian Europeans who did THE SAME THING TO THEM DURING THE CRUSADES."

While I don't believe any of this justifies any of the rest of it, it's something that really should be thought about. If you're condemning people for a behaviour, why not try and figure out where they learned it, and then take it from there.