Quixotic Aesthetics Within My Black Scholarly Mind

The new translation of Don Quixote by Edith Grossman definitely has it's flourishes and nicely turned phrases...
but it's not enough to compensate for the cost that has been exacted upon the text.
At times, it is tiresome, and it feels uneven.

It is a long, almost breathless text. absurd, but moreover, I'm not sure that translation is all that was needed.
Don Quixote requires scholarship, commitment, contemplation and resolve.
Not just for the reader, but, especially so, for the tranlator.

The uneveness results in (my opinion) many unintentional consequences.
And, I'm assuming the consequences were unintentioned, because I can not see how someone could justify adding their own "interpretation" to the text that was not rooted in the standard and historically accepted interpretations and meanings that scholars througout the centuries have arrived at...

The passages are still very funny, but it plays more like a sitcom, than epic comedy.

I tried to be patient, to see where it was going, but when the new translation started calling Don Quixote,
"The knight with the sorrowful face"
instead of "the knight with the mournful countenance"
I completely lost my faith.

granted, I may get it back. Granted, come 2/3rd into the book, her version may wear me down to a level of acceptance. That would depend on many factors coming together, that have not as yet, in addition to some strong sentimental loyaties for the Ormsby-Douglas-Jones translation being thrown-over.

It seems that there could not possibly be all that great a difference in the translations, or at least one would imagine, that is, if the translator were "translating" and not interpreting or transforming.

It is rare that we have a book, like Don Quixote, that has been translated so many times, and so, readers become aware of the vast differences that can be had between translations.

Granted, the changes are subtle, but, that is canceled out due to the fact that the minor differences, then begin to take on a much larger importance, as they stack up.

but the intent it seems in this new text, was generally to take potatoes and to turn them into flakes that are unrecognizable, yet more easily marketed.

The effect is that the constant patter of language between Sancho Panza and Don Quixote at times makes one think, "Shut the fuck up!!" because whereas in the older translation, the conversation seemed to be at a conclusion at he end of every phrase, and yet, would continue for pages, whereas here, it's like two cute young first time drunks who are amusing, yet silly, lacking the feeling of immediacy of the faithful , non-colloquial, Ormsby-Douglas-Jones translation.

Edith Grossman has a few things working to her advantage though. 1. She's a beautiful writer, and translator and has a natural ear for smoothness and rhythm. 2. It's got to be fuckin' hard to fuck up Don Quixote, if you actually know how to translate 3. Most of the folks who have praised her work, have never read Don Quixote before (?) and so perhaps they attribute the greatness of the novel to her translation(?). 4. The Audiobook version performed by George Guidall is transcendent. Many readers today are not readers at all, rather, commuters who listen to books on CD. I've heard a bit of the Audiobook version and it's impossible to fully describe or even figure out how Mr. Guidall came to add so much seemingly appropriate and nuanced interpretation to the text.

In the Grossman version, the effect of all the "smoothing" also causes it to have less peaks and valleys which, are very much needed in a work so long-winded and verbose.

for instance, take the following passage from the old version, and compare it with the new,

The Old (Ormsby) translation:

"Thou art a bad Christian, Sancho,"
said Don Quixote on hearing this,
"for once an injury has been done thee thou never forgettest it:
but know that it is the part of noble and generous hearts not to attach importance to trifles.
What lame leg hast thou got by it, what broken rib, what cracked head,
that thou canst not forget that jest?
For jest and sport it was, properly regarded,
and had I not seen it in that light
I would have returned and done more mischief in revenging thee than the Greeks did for the rape of Helen,
who, if she were alive now,
or if my Dulcinea had lived then,
might depend upon it she would not be so famous for her beauty as she is;"
and here he heaved a sigh and sent it aloft;

The new (Grossman) translation:

"You are a bad Christian Sancho,"
said Don Quixote when I heard this,
because you never forget an injury once it has been done to you:
but you should know that noble and generous bosoms do not pay attention to trifles.
were you left with a lame foot, a cracked rib, a broken skull,
is that why you never can forget the jest?
For if the matter is viewed correctly it was merely a jest and a diversion,
if I did not understand it in this way
i should have returned and in avenging you
inflicted more harm than the Greeks did because of the abducted Helen
who if she had lived in this time,
or my dulcinea lived in hers,
could be certain of not enjoying the reputation for beauty she had now.
Whereupon he heaved a sigh, and sent it heavenward;

In a paper titled, "The Text of Don Quixote as Seen by its Modern English Translators" by Daniel Eisenberg,
he states, "The most textually ignorant of the modern translators is Edith Grossman (2003). She states that she 'chose to use Martin de Riquer's edition because it is based on the first printing'... remaining blissfully unaware that de Riquer has published two quite different editions...of which, she used the older edition solely.

Eisenberg also mentions that Grossman was, "A professional translator intimidated by Cervantes scholarship, who states, "A lifetime would not be enough time to read it all (Cervantes scholarship), and I had a two years' contract"

In contrast the approach taken by Ormsby and Putnam was to, "to study the available materials, make decisions, and present the reader with the rationale used" resulted in a translation that was "head and shoulders above the rest".

And the point of a serious translation is an important one, because the text should be taken seriously,
and not moved or transformed or dumbed down,
nor should the humor and satire be played up,
or into, or in any other perpositionary or directional manner which differs from the original.

To treat the text as serious,
and to let the humor rest comfortably ensconced within the bosom of the ignorant "seriousness" of the characters,
rather than playing into their ignorance in a manner of lightly regarding their seriousness,
is to add an un-needed device or artifice to the text.

One of the many hooks of the novel is that all of us, on a deep semi-conscious, pre-psychotic level, hold vast narcissistic fantasies about ourselves that we feel may one day be realized, and in Don Quixote, we are allowed to view an indivdual, who, instead of waiting for fate to make the psychotic fantasy real, plunges headlong into the world, to force the hand of fate, and make his dream become real.

How does Don Quixote achieve this? by forcing himself into a conscious mental breakdown in midst of a mid-life crisis and his constant reading of chivalric tales, thus spurring his in-born desire to make a frantic, desperate and fool-hearty attempt to make something of his life before all is said and done. To think of himself as a Knight-errant, is a salvation to Don Quixote, and he is seemingly all too eager to die in the fantasy of attaining greatness, rather than to die in peaceful, anonymous repose in hermitage with his Books. He does what we all unconsciously wish we could do, and through the greatness of the novel over the centuries, he has surely, and undoubtedly attained his goal. Through the process of reading this book, and coming to know Don Quixote, we become a part of his inner circle and are transformed into part of his entourage, clinging desperately to his mighty arm for our own opportunity at greatness through association....

The fractionated, frequently interrupted and incessantly occupied and purged nation of Spain and it's subsequent national personality and history, includes a deep-set ethos of making ones own wealth and a tradition and dream to search and scour the lands, risking death, for the opportunity to earn greatness, wealth and a title or position. Such was the desire of the Conquistadores and the motivation for the colonization of the America's, the Phillipines and the world. The Quixotic desire was most certainly a Spanish dream, no less important, vital, nor seemingly graspable than for contemporary Americans who similarly seek an engagement with the American Dream.

As mentioned before, the version of Don Quixote I fell in love with, was the 1981 version based on the Ormsby translation. It had a bit of history to it, seeing that Dr. Kenneth Douglas, a French scholar began the translation, whereupon he died unexpectedly. His work was carried on to conclusion by Joseph Jones, a "cervantista" scholar who added 170 of supplementary materia for "the university student". It was known as the Ormsby-Douglas-Jones translation. It was widely used until it was suddenly and inexplicably replaced by a new, less authoritative translation meant for the general public.

Jones has the reputation for being one of only two translators who were Cervantes scholars prior to their translation projects. Therefore, as Eisenberg states, "it may be safely assumed that Jones consulted multiple editions and was aware of their textual differences."

In summary, it is hard to fall in love and to have those love letters replaced, revised, or even improved upon. If you fell in love with that person, through those letters, then they will always resonate more truly than any other.

so yeah, I love my old Ormsby-Douglas-Jones translation. I find it far superior.

I love you Don Quixote. Thank you George Shipley.

“Oh thou,
whosoever thou art,
rash knight!,
who cometh to touch the armor of the most valiant knight who e’er girded on a sword!
Lookest thou to what thou doest and touch it not!,
if thou wanteth not to leave thy life in payment for thy audacity!..”

...Don Quixote, perhaps the best work of fiction that I have ever read.

Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra was born in 1547 the fourth of seven children born to a surgeon father who was imprisoned in 1551 due to debt. After studying philosophy and literature in Italy, he served as a soldier where he lost use of left hand when he was shot. A few years later he was captured at sea and enslaved in Algiers for 7 years. it wasn't until he was 37 that he began writing in earnest professionally inbetween stints of imprisonment due to financial difficulty. And it wasn't until he was 58, in 1605 that he released the first part of Don Quixote. The second part was released in 1612, and he died a short time later, curiously, on the exact day as his contemporary, William Shakespeare on April 23, 1616.

From the publication of the first part of Don Quixote, the rest as they say is "history". De Cervantes Saavedra's flights of creativity resulted in the tale that has thrilled, excited, jubilated and pleased a great many millions since the day it was released.

It is interesting that in the second part of the tale, De Cervantes mentions several allusions to adventures of Don Quixote, not written by him, but by others, who, wishing to capitalize on the popularity of the tome, wrote unauthorized, forged "sequels" in the interim period between the release of Books 1 and 2.

Many things have been said about Don Quixote, but perhaps, the most and only important thing, is that it is an imaginative flight, to rival all others. One that deals with comedy in the proper way, that is, through the illustration of not contrived sequences, but sequences that could have happened, and so, due to the construction of truth and the exposition of the layering of various 'in" ironies, expectations, and sincere reactions of the "truth" of the parties involved, the tale unfurls. Reading Don Quixote is to be onboard a steam engine of misfortune as you chug scene after scene upon unsuspecting persons who found themselves in the presence of the strange and bizarre Don Quixote.

There is a fine line between mockery and curiosity, between gravity, and the grave, between that which is genuinely funny, and that which is pretentiously asinine. and one of De Cervantes Saavedra's rare talents is to dip and dodge into all of the above, in a manner so creative and seemingly, at the same time necessary and unexpected that no fault can possibly be found in the consistency and evenness of the tale.

I found that as I read the tale, i fell so in love with "Don". I loved him, as a real person, as i would have liked to have loved my own grandfather. How can one not love one who is so genuine, fallible, sincere, mislead, principled, and completely authentic and true to their construction?

is it not the strangeness, the uniqueness of life and situation that drives our curiosity? is it not the adventure, that is both adventurous, and yet, seemingly would not/could not have happened, without our own guiding hand and witnessing, that makes us feel both special, alive, and purposed in our existence?

I got "turned on" to Don Quixote by Dr. George Shipley, of the English Department of the University of Washington. I never took his class, but we had occasion to speak briefly on many occasions, seeing as i was a printer at the time, employed by the University of Washington and I was responsible for assembling and producing the readers for his classes. Somehow, through our interaction, Dr. Shipley got the idea that i would very much enjoy Don Quixote.

Dr. Shipley is now an emeritus assistant professor at the department of Spanish and Portuguese studies at the University of Washington. He received his Ph. D. at Harvard in "Golden Age Spanish Literature, Picaresque with emphasis on Cervantes". He was very intelligent, yet subtle. a very pleasant gentleman, who gave the air of a Englishman, who had lost all of his Englishness, save his countenance and manner.

It was the summer of 1993 when Dr. Shipley brought me one of his advance copies of a newer translation (1981) of Don Quixote, by Kenneth Douglas and James R. Jones. i remember reading it, The archaic language was a treat to my ear. The first real English class I took (after basic composition) I struggled, as all who first encounter Shakespeare. As is customary, soon I found comfort within it's pace, math and rhythm. Since that time, I must confess, that I have found old English speech to be quite pleasing and resonant with my own manner of thought. And so, by the time I had received my copy of Quixote, the device of old languages added a great deal to the feeling of being transported to another world, another time, another place and even another dimension of humanity.

In this old speech, I found that more easily than in contemporary speech, at times where complex expressions of wit, humor, or any type of situation where expression and complexity (time, situation, emotion, purpose, place, setting, etc) the words of De Cervantes Saavedra come through in such a fitting, complex explication of mind, that it had the effect of making one aware of a complexity of expression and feeling that must also reside within ones own mind and heart, but has yet to have been unearthed.

The reading of this piece was both patient and eager, as this great tale unwound and I savored every word, not really wanting it to end, and finding myself so fully absorbed in every sense, that i couldn't have been any closer to the action, had my name been Sancho Panza.

There are so many beautiful and sublime joys to be had in the great world of ours.

I express my deepest gratitude to Miguel De Servantes Saavedra, Don "Quejada" Quixote, and Dr. George Shipley

A New Theory for the Human Organism.

there are many different theories on the psychology of the human organism.

Some are more focused on development. Others, on relationship, and a slew of others on every possible aspect that hasn't already been mentioned above.

But, while these different theories all work and for the most part achieve what they purport, in many ways, they fail in terms of figuring out not only what issues tend to bedevil individuals from achieving "fulfillment", they may not be all that successful, in defining what it is about human beings, individually, and collectively, that answer "personal" issues within the context of phenomelogical issues.

That is to say, we may be "fulfilled' to a degree, but who are we?, what are we?, and what are we here for?

If we are "fulfilled" but we can not answer that question, then we can never know for sure, if we are living a lie. for if we do not solve the mystery of life, then we have not solved, or better yet, resolved anything. It is important that we should continually question our experience of reality. And it seems to me, that human beings have a great passion for becoming engaged in an unending series of tasks and distractions from reality... such that there is nary a difference (avoidance-wise) between someone that works 18 hours a day, for three years, at the end of a 14 year project, and wins the Nobel prize, and the cracked out junkie whore, who engages in deceit, mischief, deception and illicit activity, diversions, and dysfunction... We simply can not say for sure, which of the the above two individuals is engaged in a self-relationship which is false, or real at it's core.

what can be said, is that they both spend a great deal of time, engrossed in some shit, that may not ultimately answer any questions as to "who" these two individuals "are". But we can say, they spend a lot of time engaged in some Other bullshit.

I remember watching a show on a spiritual gathering in India. There were literally hundreds of Yogi's from all across the land and they interviewed this one yogi, and he said, "people say that they are too busy to meditate for an hour a day, and yet, if they meditated for an hour, they would get more out of that, than in the rest of the day."

humans avoid shit. sometimes they avoid shit in such a way that it seems that they are really doing shit. sometimes not, but the bottom line, is that they love focusing on "something" which means that they are not focused on everything other than what that "something" is.

and so if i were to engage in a new form of psychology, it would be the psychology of "realness" vs. the avoidance of man, the work would break down the reasons for this, and provide an outline a form of treatment to help individuals to lose their fear of coming to know the last great expanse.... the human spirit. Once we had achieved this lack of fear and fear/avoidance reactions, we could then re-build individuals as real, "known" individuals, now engaged with life in the manner of a vital embrace.

that would be my great contribution to the understanding of man.

the great advantage would be that 1. you may actually come to understand who/what you are before you die, essentially as an anonymous entity to everyone and yourself 2. you may find peace of mind and forgiveness on a scale heretowith incomprehensible to your present self 3. it may help to facilitate a more equitible and less adversarial relationship with our fellow beings and in our relationship with the planet 4. many personal, health and addiction issues may be more readily ameliorated, or even downright pre-empted, if folks could become centered.

ya never know. it may not work at all, or go anywhere. but at least i would have a nice little noble plan to work on, to avoid getting in touch with myself. and that my friends, is the true beauty of this proposition.

The Minds of Animals

I Could Live Forever...

If i had no urge to speak.
to watch and feel and move about my way

like a moon in orbit about a larger body
observng things in an innocuous manner
like a rock above water, unmoving, inanimate
sometimes wet, sometimes dry
always there.

a sun with energy and brightness
having a feeling of being circles
feeling warm, so alive with notions
and yet, dead in such a positve way
a few million years and then nothing

changing form

having dispersed for so long
finding new rest
something that has become aware of the eternal silence of non-animation

life and non-life which gives birth to life
which is greater

life
or that which allows it?
which is more incredible?
the birth of a universe full of nothing?

or our being aware of it when what we are, is that same stuff, combined in a new way,
still being "nothing" and yet now, aware?

only one who thinks in words can write about such things.
only one who thinks about it can stroll so far away from that which is inescapable
and yet has a built in escape, from that which never was...

the implication that there is such an answer...
is that not the assumption which has driven us all, headlong, blind, into our chosen destiny?

such is the weight of the proposition

only echos remain.
between the particle and wave, down to the smallest
from the before, to the during, to the after

only echos remain.

the truth is, that we are not composed of something.
our entire world is the echo of something that existed and disappeared
the evaporation of such, caused an echo that gave birth to our world.

when you think of it, it makes perfect sense, that time can only exist
in the counting of the moments from the end...

regardless of "how"
if, and when there comes to be something that actually exist..
it will signal the sleeper to awaken,
and like all dreams, we will disappear...

It's All How You Look At It

What psychodynamic theory do you adhere to?

Object Relations? Self-Psychology? Jungian? Cognitive Behavioral? Freudian? Individual Psychology? Attachment Theory?

it doesn't really make a lot of difference, and yet, all the difference. Each theory has it's own way of looking at things. Each theory emphasizes different aspects. An aspect understood in one way, under a certain heading in one theory, may be understood slightly differently in another theory perhaps as a different heading.

And then comes the way that you think or conceive of that theory. Depending on the value different terms have for you, meaning, how you were taught, what definitions and implications they have, you may think of one thing in one way, and another person in an opposite way, yet, when you really dig deep, you may find that you are talking about exactly the same thing.

And then there is the whole other aspect, of how different cultures look at things. From one culture to the next, we understand one another in ways that we do not understand ourselves. We can look at someone from an entirely different culture, construct and language and that does not hinder our ability to class them according to our own constructs.

Perhaps the differnce of the new culture is the reason that we attempt to change that indivdual. perhaps through "teaching" what we are really doing is altering that individual in such a way that it's easier for us to class them and conceive of them.

Ethnologist and Anthropologist have been making this error for centuries. Asking question over and over again, not thinking for a moment that perhaps their translators had as little ability to comprehend what they were saying as the person they were translating it to... and asking until the scientist had found an answer suitable to be classed within their own narrow understanding.

The point is, that for example, if someone that believed strongly in the universality of Freudian theory, attempted to understand the Id, Ego and superego, and devleopmental stage impacts upon a tribal community in Africa that had never had contact with Whites, they could impose their system of beliefs upon that culture, and draw all manner of conclusions as to the inferiority, lack of development, or lack of stage progression... and then draw all manner of conclusions from those conclusions... whereas the truth may be, that the psychology of one from another environment may be such that none of your systems hold true... and to truly understand them, perhaps you can use "your" system as a basis, and then construct a new system, that hold's "truth" for the indigenous culture and by assuming equality and yet allowing for difference, learn something entirely new and profitable to you, that could have some profound insights and hint at hereto unknown possible strengths and avenues of exploration within your own culture (?).

If our goal is to arrive at some form of truth, we can not allow ourselves to make this error in judgement. If we are to observe "reality" then we can never assume that we know what reality is, merely, what it has been.

If you hold the idea, that man is made of living differentiated cells, made up of molecules, made up of atoms, made up of subatomic particles, all created moments after the big bang (that is, if you subscribe to such a theory), then, you should assume the equality of all living beings, on a level beyond your comprehension. the information from certain beings, may not be of a form that is useful or even meaningful to you, but it is just as wise, and old, and real as you... and parts of that creature could become a part of you... and if you are within a distance where you are breathing the same air, it is definitely true that the separation of "you" and "them" is only possible, due to a particular point in time.


All of this is to say, regardless of how, what, where, who... it's all a matter of how you look at it. So, instead of looking for any particular thing. We should concern ourselves with seeing, coming to, becoming aware, or, realizing, speaking and being engaged in, the process of truth, regardless of who we are, where we are, or what we are doing. Because what is, "is" but what we think of it, has to potential to either "be" or "not", and we should be very, very cognizant of that. And that isn't dependent on how you look at it. It simply "is".

It's not coincidence that Christianity, marks the distinction in man's ascendency

I've been thinking about it for a while. Ever since I finished the biography of Sitting Bull.

There's such a distinction between religions that worship a single "God" and religions that are essentially earth-based, whether they worship god or not.

There is a huge distinction between a God that is made in our own image (and not the other way around) and a God that is the mysterious force that serves as the answer to the riddle of life and existence.

Judaism to me, represents a link between the old religions and the new.

Judaism is the story of one God, who creates existence, rather than the Gods of so many indigenous folk, who is one with existence, in the grandest sense, inseparable from creation.

Judaism, talks of the one God, and more. It represents a stretch of imagination, and spiritual yearning. It could not say that God was man. Yes, it knew of prophets, but God was God, and man was man. The old testament serves as a basis for something, and that something is the coming of the lord. But that lord, would now be a man. Man, as the literal son of God. Elevated from Gods creation, and made in the image of God, to God's flesh and blood son.

The old testament begs the question of man's evolution. As the story of the old testament was told and retold. at some point just before, or after the creation of written language, the story of God grew. And, logically, the story of God and the meaning, in fact every aspect of God, grew, in proportion of our own understanding.

And so, after many tellings and re-tellings, the intellect of man, yearned for more. It had yearned for, and gotten fire, metal, technology, complex societies, Kings... and Kings chosen by God... and now, it was clear, that soon, man would be God.

In a form of Freudian type sublimation and introjection, man knew he did not have the power to crown himself "King". And so, he wrote the story such that God, would crown man, (his son) as king. And so the story wasn't of how man had become God, but how the true prophet of God, the "son" of God, would come.

And anticipation built such, that when the prophet of God came, and he was killed, the telling of his gospel, became not just the word of God, or the "way" of God, but the prophet became a door to god, and the one true door, such that he became literally, "God" and his death, the cleansing way... what else was there to be done? the prophet had come, he had been killed, and now he was gone. Were we to say, "wow, gee, that was it? that's what we've been waiting for?" no. we made some lemonade out of the lemons. we pored over his life, his disciples.. the word, simply had to be spread. and so, he became God, and to accept his teachings became the way... and they found that the story of his coming, his life, and his crucifixion became so much more than the tragedy, it must have surely seemed to be as unfolded at the time.. they had been handed a Gold mine. And then, surely the perfection of what had occured, must have dawned upon them all...

What would have happened had Christ lived? what would have happened, had he not been crucified? Had he not worn a crown of thorns? had not Mary Magdelene come to his side? had not Pontius had the spear thrust into his chest? Had there not been apostles, or gospels? but, he had lived and written his own tale? at the very least, we would not be wearing crosses.. perhaps more... had Christ died of old age... would his blood have had cleansing powers? would a death in old age or in infirmity, be understood as a death, "for our sins"...

I can envision at this moment the followers of "Christ" looking dumbfounded, staring blankly, wondering where they would be, where we would be, what the world would look like, had there not been that cross, that crown, those nails and that tragic death... there is nothing godly about those things.. and yet, those were the tools, the cross, the crown, the nails and the crucifixion... those were the tools, that transmogrified man into a God... the old testament had paved the road, and there was no turning back... all that was needed, was for man to ascend and to continue to evolve, and one day, we would have our one true lord and God...

and I'll go one step further. With the comfort of knowing that we were not only made in God's image, but that we were God's, the psychological bonds of man, were completely loosened. Man's intellect was free to create and imagine unfettered... The discoveries of science, of technology, were only made possible, when man became God... it's not so much that we needed a savior. what we needed was freedom and a breaking of the bonds as creatures that were "less than" and an elevation to creatures that had the keys to existence itself... and so the sexual union of mary and God, meant that God had fallen in love with man... and the "son" is a symbol of his commitment to earth, to humans, and that we had become "blood brothers"... and the death of his son, meant that forever, we would have the body of christ sown into mother earth... and so we, with our voodoo of jesus' blood on our hands and on planet earth, had been elevated to the home of Gods.. Heaven was on earth. There was nothing to stop us now.

What I'm saying is, that 2,000 years ago, Christ was surely killed, and in the previous 4 million years, man had achieved little, more than written language, and shame. 2,000 years after Christ, we stand on the brink of unlocking all of the secrets (non-spiritual) of existence... yes, the timing, was incredible...

and I'll go one step further... All utterances are spiritual. Every city is full of spiritualist... the yearning of man, is what turned christ into the one true God... for he surely could have been known by the name of Steven, Rebecca, John, Jonah, David... man would not be denied his God, and Man would not be denied his Godliness... But the Jews did not accept him. The Jews knew he was a man. You can not say, that they denied his Godliness. you can only say that he was not recognized as God. I think any fool can realize that if he was God, then he never would have been able to be denied.

All fell at the feet of the Buddha. All fell at the feet of Muhammad. Few fell at the feet of Jesus and with good reason. Now we all fall, and we fall, because we want to fall. we need to fall, because we have too much invested in it. And that is why Black clergy and worshippers are so forgiving. For Jesus was a man, and he was flawed, he was was killed because of his flaws, and the message is that we are made in the image, and in our imperfection, we can find beauty in forgiveness. and if we can forgive Jesus, then we can surely forgive man. for we are one and the same.

And so if we are to condemn Whites for what they had done to the world, we must also acknowledge that Christ is one of our own, and his story resonated so deeply within the white europeans, that they saw their "salvation" they saw that through Christ, they could not only be absolved of their sins, but they found the way to become what they had always desired, except this time, legitimately, this time, with God's blessing. This time, under the direction of God himself.... And so if we are to condemn White men, then we must condemn him for daring to become God. For daring to push humanity to it's inevitible end. We must also, condemn ourselves, for plunging so headlong into the fever and lust of Godliness, which so surely plunged their entire race, over that sublime abyss...

But the power of Spirituality is such, that it may be projected upon, or shone upon any idea, man, or concept, and gleam with the supernatural glow, of the almighty...

that's why I can be found crying, shouting, stomping and screaming the lord of Christ our king, and praying to him for wisdom, guidance, thanks and forgiveness...

it's that powerful...

And so, we began to worship man, over all else. And so the needs of man, the desires of man, the wars of man, the power of man to administer God, and in the worship of man, became paramount to the fate of the Earth.

But the trinity was needed. For man was not God, but God's son was man, and so God is eternal, and man is too, in spirit, but God as man dies, and so there must be God, and the holy spirit, which binds us and serves as a medium between the two worlds....


how strange it must have been for those native cultures in Africa, The America's, and Asia to Find these invaders who worshiped the one true God, who was a man who died on the cross and thus transmorgified, human flesh, into Godly flesh... and what more proof did they need to see that God was man, than to look at the magic, the medicine, the spells, the possessions and devilry of the white man... who worshipped an all powerful God-man...

And so the doom of Earth was sealed. Man claimed dominion over all lands, all creatures, all spoils. Earth, was man's treasure chest.

Christianity was such a strange religion. Through it White, Red, Brown, Yellow and Black peoples have all been elevated to the status of Gods, and as we have been crowned, we have knealt besides the Whites at the treasure box to greedily claw out our fill.

God as man. The power to start time back to Zero. And now we are at 2008... it didn't take long did it? Maybe it's not too late, for us to do this thing all over again, and to this time pray for the Wisdom of Gods that should have accompanied our pleas for the prophet...

Catharsis, Forgiveness & Survival

It's been really great.

It's hard to know exactly what White people have in mind. Even though they do a damn good job of explaining themselves in thorough, rational, graduate-level vocabulary, it's still difficult to understand what they really mean.

The main issue in understanding what they are saying is that although they are inexhaustible in their explanations, they assume so damn much. Essentially, everything that they don't say, they assume you already understand.

For instance, I saw a paper on, "The playing through of selfobject transferences of a nine-year-old boy." by Iris Hilke.... it's like, "Huh?"

They assume that they way they express themselves, is the way one should express themselves, which is to assume all of the cultural and social pre-suppositions, experiences and understandings that would allow one to even understand what a cultural and social pre-supposition was, in relation to white thought.

As a side note, that's probably why English is a popular language to learn. First off, more people speak english as a second language than any other language, also, english, isn't just a language, more than any other language, it's a code and the code of choice to explicate the multi-phase, multi-leveled, multi-disciplined psychological arena of white conception.

whew! just writing that really tosses me back into the deep pit from which I have slowly been extricating myself over the last 5 decades.

Writing, must be easier for white folks, seeing as they only have to learn to write, and all of the cultural, social, and psychological pre-suppositions do not exist... for they ARE what is pre-supposed. for the rest of us, we must conform to that.

I contend that the only way we (as people of color) can conform to the white english standard, is by focusing, and thereby tapping-down, our own indigenous thought patterns, as well as experiencial and cutural realities that form the basis for our own forms of written expression.

Let me take a moment to interate that written expression, does not arise in a vacuum. rather, it is a code, that allows us the ability to express thoughts, connections and experiences, etc, that are pre-verbal in origin.

To say that you went for a walk, is not the whole story. No one really knows what you did, but we can assume that walking may be the most succint and easily expressive way to describe what you did (in the written form). an error of assumption is made, whenever we assume that the written word, IS the experience.

Which brings me back to English. It's ability to become completely abstract.. and the idea that it was created to facilitate the expression of the wholly abstract, is a hallmark of it's trait.

And so, that brings me to the point.

Through writing this blog, I have found myself recently overcome with a feeling of forgiveness, with attendant feelings of healing, and understanding.

perhaps the ability to transport oneself psychically outside of oneself to contemplate oneself, is the greatest tool in becoming self-aware, and surely, indispensible in the process of self-critique and self-analysis.

By reading the wretched histories of the people of color of this world, as well as the white people of this world, I have arrived at an understanding that white people, do not need to be forgiven. If they need to be forgiven, then we all need to be forgiven, from the most high, to the lowly. from the mighty, to the weak. everyone, everywhere, for all times....

it is really no mistake in my mind, that Christianity has flourished. The idea of forgiveness, and the washing away of sin, and the suffering on the cross, for the sins of all, is so deeply resonant and so factually true in metaphor and in the view of history, that christianity, can surely find a home, within any peoples of the earth.

I have found forgiveness in my heart for white folks.

The irony that I myself am part white, perhaps a larger part white than anything else, is not something I have been allowed to fully appreciate or contemplate. To be black in america, is to be in any respect, recognizably black, to the exclusion of all else. such that an individual who is even 80% white, must contemplate blackness from a perspective of who they are, and whiteness as something foreign and unrelateable.

By looking at the history of the world, the history of conquest, the history of tribal, chiefdom, state and charsimatic leadership conquest has brought me to see the... .and this is strange to say, benevolence and fortuitousness of the black/white/people of color interchange.

while in Philadelphia recently, i had bad reception on my television. As i stared at this gigantic city block sized hole next to my hotel, the hotel television maintenance man appeared to take a look/see at the television. He was a native Jamaican. We talked about things. The war in Iraq came up. the ongoing challenges of urban warfare came up. and then, he and I found that we both had the same conclusion. Mine, from my understanding of world massacres and conquests as well as recent conflicts in Africa. I'm not sure where he gathered his perspective, but nonetheless, he had it and it was this. that in the conquering of another peoples. If you have, say, a neighborhood of 300 individuals, and you know that, say 22 of them are your sworn enemy, and they have been attempting to kill you, and they are sworn to attempt to kill, foil, foul-up, or otherwise disrupt your conquest, then the solution, (before there was media, accountability, and a lack of "full and total" investment) was simple. You killed all 300 individuals. You killed them all, because there were 22 sworn enemies. You killed them all, because there were 278 potential sworn enemies. You killed them all, because then, you didn't have to worry about them, or concern yourself with them, their earthly needs, the threat they posed, or the any form of future dealings with them.

You killed the children, because children grow up. You killed the women, because they loved the enemy and bore their children. You killed the young boys, because a few of them would one day wish to avenge the death of their people. You killed them all, so that no one would be left to tell the take. You killed them all because you didn't want to have to look over your shoulder or sleep disquietly. You killed them all, because keeping them alive was not the reason why you invaded...

I think you get the point.

but white folks did not kill all of us people of color.
We had value to them, as scouts, kapos, slaves, to satisfy their sexual urges, to serve as their army, to guide, interpret and inform. to study, understand and experiment upon...

they did not kill us.

and that's how the native american population, at his pre-conquest height of 54 million individuals is now equal to, or greater than that number across the america's.

anyway, we could have been completely wiped out.
but we weren't.
there's no way we could have ever conquered whites, unless it were by becoming joined with them, rising to power and overthrowing them... a process that would take multiple generations to achieve.

and so, now, if we can remember our history, our indigenous culture, values, society... we are in a position in this non-discriminatory world, to take over, to let our ideas be known, and to propogate, and to rule.

and so, i have forgiveness in my heart, because we are here, we have survived, and they have too, after having endured, in all cases (depending on how far back you want to look) have also survived and endured to spread their seed.

Hollywood is Real, our Fantasies are Fake, All Praise Goddess Earth

I didn't see this one coming until it hit me right between the eyes. Reality is a strange thing. We can all agree on that. As sober and lucid as it is, it's generally accepted that it's strange than fiction. Whereas anything is possible in our imaginations, the strangest things happen in reality.

Yesterday I realized another aspect in which we completely delude ourselves. By "we" I mean Americans and so-called "1st world" societies. Deep down, as we destroy ourselves and our environment, we believe that one day, when this earth is destroyed, we will float out in space, visiting other cultures, other worlds, and at times, landing on other earth like planets for Mediterranean type sojourns with alien connoisseur's, charismatic-Christ/Einstein-like geniuses, gourmand's and hyper attractive tantric alien sluts of every known and previously unspeculated upon gender.

I gave a loud laugh as I realized the foolishness of this fantasy that we all, individually, and collectively harbor.

When a "crazy" individual talks about floating in space, space travel, future worlds and alien cultures, there is nothing about that vision that we find any basis or justifications for, other than the understanding that this sick, narcissistic, delusional, manic, regressive, inattentive-to-reality individual is insane and attempting to avoid the harsh realities of both their previous life traumas, as well as current life challenges of finding meaningful work, fulfilling relationships and opportunities for self expression and self-actualization... however, when a so-called science writer, scientist, futurist, or genius talks of essentially the same fantasy, in an admittedly more organized fashion, we marvel at the sheer beauty, wonder and also, unavailability of the some day, coming-to-fruition, of this perfected vision. It's as if through the seemingly inexhaustible mental prowess of such individuals, we are snatching reality glimpses of the future of mankind.

If indeed, individuals truly believe such visions, it makes sense why the rich, super-rich, obscenely-rich and incomprehensibly rich individuals seemingly have no satiation point in their desire to accumulate yet, even more riches. I have known for some time, that if even on an unconscious level, think that they will be able to purchase entree on board a vehicle that will transport them to the aforementioned Mediterranean sojourns (when that crucial moment comes and the apocalypse reaches all corners of the earth, and pandemonium, mayhem, chaos and social disturbances reel, peel and rock the entirety of earth, such that it no longer becomes habitable, and all resources are exhausted, and the previously fertile soils of mother earth are as dry and barren as an octogenarians womb and bosom... and they will simply go ) where they will be able to take their riches (which by then, they would have been able to somehow been able to exchange their vast wealth into some form of universally acknowledged credits, or token that will be easily and immediately recognizable by all alien cultures as a sign and symbol of not only their vast wealth, but also, be the basis for their being granted inexhaustible credits upon within their alien culture) and live happily among such peoples until they get the itch to pack up and move to the next world and sample new delicacies, deepen their cosmic knowledge and pleasure themselves with new types of alien sluts and forms of sexual release.

I could go on and on, but rather than to drag you through a Dan-brown-esque 500 or 600 page thriller before bottling the air, let me say:

1. this is the only planet, humanity will ever have, forever and ever.
2. only a fool, would leave the womb of earth, for a man made craft to seal their fate as a lonely, planetless, delusional idiot.
3. the perfection of mother earth to provide for all of our needs, is not, sadly, inexhaustible.

the only Epiphany I have when I thin of future travel, is that there is no planet, no world, no individual, that i would want to go, know or be with, that was not from mother earth.

when you look at our society, and even the most urban, technological environment, you must (or at least should) marvel that mother earth, not only was able to sustain life for the simplest of organism, or even the earliest form of human, or even humanity 500 years ago, but that she has been able to also provide the materials, environment, and safety that has allowed us to reach the point of culture and diversity that we enjoy today. Indeed, the problem with the Mediterranean type alien sojourns isn't that other planets don't exist, nor that the earth can not provide all of the materials necessary to construct the type of craft that we would need. no. the problem is that we do not live long enough, the distances are too vast and even if life and distance were not factors, there is no place we would, could, or should ever want to be, than here, on earth, with our people.

Our love affair as beings for earth, is a story billions of years in the making. Which brings me to the final and most important realization about this whole thing.

We are still within the Earths womb. We are the earths children. We have been developing for millions of years, and we will continue to develop. And we are not through. But, we are at a point, where the only thing we are about to achieve with our delusional passion for advancement, is the aborting of the human species.

It's as if the fetus, is eating it's own placenta, ensuring it's own doom, prior to birth and an existence within a new form of reality, that it can be ready for, if it can only sustain it's developmental process.

Or you can think of it, as if the fetus, has expelled itself at 5 months gestation, refused the mother's nipple, and decided that it knows enough to strike out on it's own.

If we leave this planet, (the handful of people that is that could at most execute such a journey), we are ensuring our doom, to an even higher degree, than if a 5 month old fetus left the womb. At least for the 5 month old, it could be rescued and nursed back to health. No such relief exists in the vastness of space. Get over it.

And this brings me to the final point, or the epilogue. Hollywood is real.

I also realized that if space travel is a fantasy, an unreality, a joke, then Hollywood must be real. Meaning, the point isn't that we travel the universe, rather, that we have the ability to execute our imaginations. Hollywood allows this. We can be moved, inspired, fulfilled and nurtured within our own yearnings by watching the greatest possible imaginings realized on the silver screen.

We will never travel the vastness of space. Only the vastness of our own "inner" space. and if we can use that inner knowledge, to execute a better reality on earth, by making the crucial realizations, then we may be able to stay in our vital clutch and loving embrace, of mother Earth.

Isn't it a bit odd, that we pray to a God that we can not see, feel, that does not sustain, or provide for us, while we trash the Earth, the only true God or Goddess, that has provided for every possible element of our existence, and constitution?

I Feel Much Better

wow, i feel much better this morning.

i made a major breakthrough

as you know, i've been worried my whole life about all the stuff we're tossing into landfills.
well, today i was slicing some cantaloupe for the boys and i realized that there are so many canyons, holes, valleys, etc, that we will never run out of holes to toss our trash in.

this may seem like a minor thing to you, but this thought has brought me considerable relief.
one day, i think we all realize that we will all be shoulder to shoulder out in the landfills trying to scratch out an existence, but until that day, we have plenty of holes to fill up, so the next time they ask you if you, " do you want paper or plastic?" say, "plastic, and a lot of it!"