In Brooklyn, just outside the Gothamist office.
Fish Under The Bridge.
21-Sep-09The Bronx River…
21-Sep-09Wrote all day today. Did what, nine posts? And I interviewed Howard Dean. (Write-up of the interview should come out later this week). My fave post of today:
http://gothamist.com/2009/09/21/the_stuff_at_the_bottom_of_the_bron.php
Headed into the City…
18-Sep-09… to write for Gothamist for a week. Give us a visit.
Ernie Anastos.
18-Sep-09Someday maybe we can take apart just why this is so funny. But for now I’m just enjoying it:
http://gothamist.com/2009/09/18/catch_phrase_of_the_year_nominee_ke.php
Bears.
18-Sep-09Found bear scat right in front of my house, about forty feet from the front door. That’s unusual. Never saw the bear himself, but he must have come by.
[If this is my last post, you know why.]
Into the Cave.
14-Sep-09A friend alerted me to the following Sullivan post, which I highly recommend reading in full:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/not-racism-projection.html#more
One of the lessons of the spiritual life which can be put in brief form, is this: If you think of evil as something that someone else is or does, you don’t understand it and you don’t understand yourself. There is nothing alien about it. When Luke goes to cut off Darth Vader’s head in the cave, he finds on the head his own face. Until you recognize this, you must strain at gnats and swallow camels.
Sullivan is quick to point out that he does not want to engage in ad hominem psychologizing of the people who disagree with Obama: this is reductionist, obscures the understandable policy differences, and so forth. He’s right. But I think he’s also aware of this: if you say that this kind of hatred and projection is something the opponents of Obama do, because they’re evil and crazy and immature and fascist, you’d be doing precisely the same thing. This is always the problem: how do you oppose evil without becoming it yourself?
“But I say to you, do not resist evil. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
“You have heard that it was said: You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father in heaven, because he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and rains on the just and the unjust.”
As I have mentioned before, Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden because they begin to separate good and evil. The only way back is to put them back together again. The people who are most filled with hatred are the ones who believe they are all good.
Sayings of the Desert Fathers.
13-Sep-09Abbot Pambo questioned Abbot Anthony saying: What ought I to do? And the elder replied: Have no confidence in your own virtuousness. Do not worry about a thing once it has been done. Control your tongue and your belly.
An elder said: The reason why we do not get anywhere is that we do not know our limits, and we are not patient in carrying out the work we have begun. But without any labor at all we want to gain possession of virtue.
A certain brother came to Abbot Silvanus at Mount Sinai, and seeing the hermits at work he exclaimed: Why do you work for the bread that perisheth? Mary has chosen the best part, namely to sit at the feet of the Lord without working. Then the Abbot said to his disciple Zachary: Give the brother a book and let him read, and put him in an empty cell. At the ninth hour the brother who was reading began to look out to see if the Abbot was not going to call him to dinner, and sometime after the ninth hour he went himself to the Abbot and said: Did the brethren not eat today, Father? Oh yes, certainly, said the Abbot, they just had dinner. Well, said the brother, why did you not call me? You are a spiritual man, said the elder, you don’t need this food that perisheth. You read all day, and can get along without food. Hearing this the brother said: Forgive me, Father. And the elder said: Martha is necessary to Mary, for it was because Martha worked that Mary was able to be praised.
Thomas Merton’s Wisdom of the Desert.
13-Sep-09From the introduction to his collection of sayings of the Desert Fathers:
We cannot do exactly as they did. But we must be as thorough and as ruthless in our determination to break all spiritual chains, and cast off the domination of alien compulsions, to find our true selves and develop our inalienable spiritual liberty and use it to build, on earth, the Kingdom of God. This is not the place in which to speak of what our great and mysterious vocation might involve. That is still unknown. Let it suffice for me to say that we need to learn from these men of the fourth century how to ignore prejudice, defy compulsion and strike out fearlessly into the unknown.
Diseased, Mesmeric, Astonishing Music.
13-Sep-09Was with a friend last night and we discussed music that is astonishingly good but keeps you inside of your head too much, music you can listen to over and over again until your body feels diseased by the music’s mesmeric intensity. Well here’s Glenn Gould playing the conclusion of the first movement of Bach’s First Keyboard Concerto. This music would keep me awake at nights and when I put it on I would have to stop everything else I was doing. The effects on Glenn Gould I think were similarly ecstatic and destructive, as you can see even as he played. “Fire in the mind illumines but also consumes.”
The recordings are to be found here.
Interview with Howard Dean, from Gothamist.
23-Sep-09http://gothamist.com/2009/09/23/howard_dean_former_dnc_chairman.php
A good experience too. The transcription can only do so much. My favorite moment was when I told him that I had taught at Saint David’s, a school that would be familiar to anyone that went to Browning. The tone of his voice changed and he paused, as if some memory had just arisen in his mind whose goodness and warmth surprised him. There was a pause, and then we had to keep rolling. But the ice had been broken, and something human had occurred.
I have to say, I’m with him on healthcare. And I don’t see anything in Republican actions but naysaying and politicking.