Soja and the Revelation of St. John

This is only the beginning. Much more will follow later. When Soja talks about Levevbre's Production of Space as a fugue I am reminded of the better way to read the Revelation of St. John, that poor misunderstood last book of the Bible. The misunderstandings highlight what happens when a nonwestern text (and possibly a reflection of Thirdspace) is read in a western, linear fashion. I will discuss this later.

Saturday afternoon. Beautiful day outside and I'm inside getting a few things done. A few things done. Odd sort of phrase, all ambiguous and abstract. How many is few? What is meant by things? Does a time limit commit itself to done? Or am I asking too many questions, or the wrong questions. Asking questions has tended to me in trouble because my questions arrive with multiple layers or try to pop holes in the illusions and lies which surround us. Like Socrates I sometimes ask questions to get people to think and thinking can be a subversive act especially when the authorities and experts are to do the thinking for us (but who is the us?) But I don't want to drink hemlock. Or, to go Biblical, earn a prophet's reward- which was the equivalent of drinking hemlock. But to not tell the truth for the sake of keeping some sort of peace for peace's sake is little more than drinking hemlock in a slow and as deadly way. I really didn't plan to off on philosophical veins again. That is part of my nature. A strong philosophical bent perhaps because philosophical discussions are safe in their distance. I can do that without getting into the nitty gritty of how I feel. I can keep feelings at a distance by being smugly philosophical. What sort of constraint is this? One that comes from the inside, or one that has been placed on from the outside by the controlling community. This is wrong, because as calm as I seem it is a bit of a facade; a facade I've worn for so many years that it almost seems real , but I know it isn't . I know the truth but it hasn't set me free. Instead, I feel chained, or caged, or alone. All are the same. "If you scratch me, do I not bleed?" Shylock's statement claimed in a different way.
I was envious of the folks hanging out at the Shady Nook. Yes, they were busy taking their shots and beer, possibly to a greater extent than needed, but I envied their friendship and creation of their third space. But I didn't envy them enough to want to join in, even though the Nook is but a few blocks from my house. We walk to Dairy Queen during the summer. But I doubt if I'll go back even though I still have a free beer token. One of the aspects of controlling constraints is guilt. Guilt used through generations to maintain control. Subtle control and so difficult to break from. So I try to tell myself in story and poem. Someone said that all fiction is autobiographical to some extent. I believe them. My difficulty is... what? honesty?... freedom?... courage?... who knows? I could ask you, but you wouldn't say perhaps because there is no you out there. In that regard blogging is like prayer. One blogs or prays in earnest but is anyone on the receiving end? How am I to tell? Ah, there must be faith. Faith is distant commodity. And this from one trained in the ministry, and... oh, you know the rest so no sense in the telling.
For the rest, I'm going to tack on a poem. I hope you enjoy it, Mrs. McGilicuddy, wherever you are (nod to Jimmy Durante)

I join the chorus of corpses

walking on deadened feet through

deadened fields of waving

conundrums already at blossom,

moving as one along the way

with arms linked tight and ankles

bound with silken cords,

attending life’s travails

in a slow melodious shuffle

raising clouds of mild despair.

I join the chorus of corpses

undead and yet still dying

gleeful of our brotherhood,

moaning our undead song.

Spring break is past and the rivers have crested. I'm sitting at IVYtech, Harshmann, Adjunct Lounge. Listening to others talk about the flood and the amount of sewage that runs through the water which led to a discussion of sewer systems. Sewer systems and the subterranean lands underneath. Hidden worlds beneath our feet. Secret tunnels. Follow Jean Valjean down the sewers of Paris, a place of excitement. Tours are given daily. Step in the boat but please don't let you fingers trail in the water (or whatever the liquid may be). I'm going to stop this because I have to go teach in a few minutes. I'm never quite ready but it usually goes well. I'm goin to add more to this later.
Now I'm home. It's late. Everything has been graded and Pat Benetar is wailing on Barracuda. Four Gummi Bears are living in fear because the gods are going to snatch one up deus ex machina but not in rescue but in sacrifice. One will be taken and three remain. Which one? Because three are red and one is green, the red ones assume the green will be gone. That, in red Gummi Bear logic, is justice. The odd one is justly removed, restoring homogenity to the system and their world is in equilibrium. What they don't know is that the gods they fear are capricious and have no logic. Only desire, only hunger and a lust for Gummi blood. A rather primitive religion. And yet... Don't we often see life in this way? Don't we have a sort of Gummi logic, or Gummi theology, fearful of what the gods might do to us? Forgive me, the theologian creeps out once in a while. (The red Gummis were wrong; one of their kindred was taken from them. Now there are three.) I must be in a theological mood because of reading "The History of God" over spring break. I find that what I read often gets under the skin and influences my thoughts, at least for a while.
One of the things I did not get done was clean up the study. I did, however, come across a card with a note. I like to use blank 3x5s for random notes and ideas. The card reveals a work that was birthed by a spelling error: worskopping. Sounds sort of Scandinavian. With the mood I am in, I could apply it to the Gummi to describe the taking of one of their kind by the gods. "What happened to Fred? Worskopping. And the Gummi crowd suddenly quiets at the word, the word they would rather never hear, a word that strikes terror into the hearts of all. Worskopping, when the fingers of the gods blacken the sky, throw shadows over them suddenly and then one is gone, never to return. Some have suggested that in worskopping the Gummi is assumed into heaven, but that is a pious lie told to soften the blow. The truth they wish not to see. The writer brings a mind to the Gummi and creates thoughts and language into lumps of gelatin and high fructose corn syrup. The writer's task to give life and voice to the dead and voiceless.
Want a Gummi?

Does feeling mellow count? Odd question perhaps but so often it seems that I must be dealing in angst as the Weltanshauung impedes upon the Zeitgeist. Forgive the German which may have been used incorrectly. I was playing with the term angst. Playing with words instead of wringing meaning out of them. Two ways to look at the same event perhaps but with very different results. The anguished writer wrings out words like a washerwoman (feminists forgive me) of yore wringing out rags with mighty arms and a vice-like grip. The anguished writer trapped by the spirit of the age, rebelling against all comers like a tent-show wrestler, past his Champion Slapdown prime but still strong and able, eking out a future by taking on the town bully until... you know the tragic ending with the long-lost daughter coming on the scene at the last moment in order to cradle the dying wrestler's head in her lap, a tear falling from her eye. Camera moves in for the close up. Unless the wrestler is from Gaul and then he becomes the subject of an ancient Greek sculptor, Pergamon by name, copied by the Romans (those great forgers) and will live on forever reproduced in countless Art History books. So goes the writer, a Dying Gaul, seeking immortality by way of anthologies.

That is, the writer wrapped in anguish. What of the other kind. Not trapped in Romanticism. (I wish I had discovered them later in life and not in the impressionable teens.) The Romantic myth of the anguished writer may have served us ill these many years. Writers, like all heroes, live by the myths of the forefathers. Seek out Homer to live the hero's life. Who are your forefathers? Who are mine? Who are those I seek to emulate. Like a chameleon, I tend to pick up on the colors of my surroundings. Leave me too long with Shakespear and my speach patterns begin to change. Gingsberg's Howl sent me off down a strange verbal path. But what of my voice? (the mellowness is changing to introspection). This course has brought me to examine the issue of voice- the real and valid voice, the bare voice, the pure voice, the living voice--viva voce! Or some such linguistic butchering. Where is it? Or is it? Have you found your voice? The one you use to call out in the dark, not sure if you truly want an answer? Or the voice to speak love? Or the voice to... maybe not a single voice but a plurality of voices. More voices than meets the ear. A choir of voices (and they may not be so heavenly). A mellow voice in all this? I wonder. Why not? As long as it isn't as mellow as Manilow for such is the way to dullness, and excited ennui--the attempt is made but the excitement manufactured. Then the voice again. Where do I find it? Jump down my own throat and sit among the vocal cords, reaching out to pluck them like the harpist on the strings or the piano tuner with head under soundboard? Pluck, pluck and send the sound out around the world for distant pleasures.

For those who have made it this far, thank you for putting up with the ramblings. I hope you had fun.