April? Fools?

CONCEPT

Will there be anything here?

You'll just have to check in on Sunday and see for yourselves...

END OF POST.

"Clash of Civilization"

BODY

I definitely don't have time today to put up a thoughtful post here, so I'll link to one instead. Awfully clever of me.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 10, 29.

DIARY

Not many people have been answering the questions of the day lately... I might get rid of them entirely if things don't pick up (at least a little).

- ALMANAC SAYS -
An anonymous buyer paid over $39 million for Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers", 1987.

- COUNTRY OF THE WEEK -
Barbados.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Assume that people tell you that you're ruining their world with your policies. What will be your objective?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 9, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
A problem well stated is a problem half solved. --Charles Franklin Kettering

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
Concept Unification Installation Tape, aka, Your Childhood Mercilessly Dismantled!

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
How will you respond to your critics?

END OF POST.

10 Things You Supposedly Don't Know About Me.

DIARY

A friend asked me to list ten things about myself that you didn't know.
I'm not going to list anything truly lurid (those are things you'll have to ask me in person), and I can't promise that nobody will not know any of these things.

But I think they're generally not well known.

PREAMBLE: An effect of this thing is that I get to tag some number of people. So I tag Milligan, Amber, Gemma, Sumara, Kennedy, Alan1, and Cody (good luck!) I think those are all of my generally comment-leaving readers, but anyone can do this exercise for health and fun.

---

1. I was a vegetarian for about two years. I want to say from the age of eight to ten. I ate a lot of cheese and peanut butter. I finally broke down in a McDonalds drive-thru and ordered McNuggets.

2. Jumping off from there... I really really do like a lot of fast food. Among fast foods, I like McDonalds and Taco Bell the best.

3. I never shook hands with Bill Clinton, but Lt. Stottlemyre once yelled at me to "shut up!" Also, Davy Jones of the Monkees asked me "Who the Hell are you?" and Alfred Uhry informed me I couldn't schmear a bagel like a good New York jew. I also drank cheap beer at a table next to Fiona Apple.

4. I cannot comfortably fall asleep lying on my back... only on my stomach or occasionally on my side.

5. If you cut me, I'll bleed coffee. I made that up. I'm very afraid of seeming to inelegantly scmhooze. This is occasionally an issue, because in classes I'll catch myself gunning for an argument or disagreement with the instructor, just to prove I'm intellectually independent. Interesting, how that ends up being kind of hypocritical. I'm obsessed with not seeming a kiss-up. Anyway, I don't think I've ever been a jerk about it, but the fear does cross my mind from time to time.

6. I have attended four senior proms: Flint Central as a sophomore, and Flushing as a sophomore, junior, and senior. I also sometimes visited friends while school was in session at Flint Central, Southwestern, or Powers Catholic. I wasn't however, born in the city limits of Flint. I did, however, live there until I was twelve.

7. Speaking of city habitations, in one twelve-month period, I lived in six different residences: a rented house, a borrowed basement, my bedroom in Flushing, two Chicago sublets, and a friend's.

8. I called it an early night at 4 AM at my own bachelor's party. While the results would have surely been catastrophic, I kind of wish I had soldiered on until dawn, whatever the consequences. Still, no complaints. It was a great night.

9. I'm expecting some very very good news any week now, of the personal livelihood variety.

A. I am planning on starting something rather commune-esque in the next year. Not commune-esque in the big banner of Lenin sense. Nor in the dirty hippie sense. Rather, it will be a commune of "soul power" (to quote James Brown) and it's going to be more a gut and cranial than a bricks and mortar thing.

END OF POST.

Lumberjack, by William Crowe.

CONCEPT

Part of the reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was required reading.

---

Actually, my comments on this book are best presented in conjunction with those on Tom Powers' book. This is partly because I was reading books more with a mind toward learning something new than toward studying a plot or characters, but also because they interestingly compliment each other.

That is... if Powers' was building on a body of 1950s literature that sought to immortalize the mythology of Michigan's lumbering era, then Lumberjack, which was originally published in the 1950s and 60s as a collection of newspaper editorials, sought to actively curtail that mythology.

As chief bookeeper (and eventualy stock-owner and liquidator (is that a word?)) of the Manistique-based Chicago Lumber Company was one of the most articulate and credible advocates of Michigan's lumber industry. Advocates has a special meaning here... usually an industry advocate promotes its interest as a going concern. By the time Crowe wrote, not only had the entire industry relocated, but its own practices and social role had largely changed.

Crowe, then, sought to rehabilitate both lumberjacks and "lumber barons" in a more positive social context. He did this in direct response to cother accounts of the post-lumber era that exaggerated or fabricated the extent of social chaos. He talks about the propriety and good business sense and practice of the large lumber companies, the reasonable-at-the-time wages and compensation they offered to their workers, and the particular circumstances surrounding the industry. His account was a sleeper success with Michigan's historical community, sufficient to allow a final compilation in the late 70s, and a revised reprint in 2002.

Having finally read enough material on this subject to have formed my own opinion, I think that Crowe goes too far. If others distored facts in depicting the region as completely lawless and wild, Crowe is equally partisan. In his attempts to rehabilitate the lumber industry (in which he admirably provides many citations) he utterly downplays and refutes social distress, to a much greater extent then, say, Fitzmaurice, who was also invested in painting the lumberjacks in the best light possible. In Lumberjack, for example, bagnios are listed as a passing concern, while numerous contemporary newspaper accounts argue quite convincingly that entrepreneurs like Jim Carr and Dan Dunn were for many years the most influential forces in their communities; almost as kind of self-styled political machines.

This fits in with what I was earlier saying about about the lumber industry expanding the frontier faster than social institutions could keep up. Powers' books and its companions testify to a truth, in the fact that these towns (Harrison, Seney, Meredith, etc.) were staging points before they were communities in any organic sense. They had the infrastructure for lumber transport and associated goods and services, but it was some time before they were equipped for municipal governance. Crowe downplays the extent of social disorder -- something which may have been affected by his arrival in Manistique some time after the CLC had been already established.

However Crowe is absolutely correct when he says that the presence of the industry, and the large companies in particular, had a stablizing long-term effect. Camp discipline was essential to production, and this emphasis eventually came to affect life in the cities. Brigands such as those Powers writes about actively contributed to log piracy, and so the lumber industry had a vested interest in promoting law enforcement. But most importantly, the industry brought money to the communities for a brief window of time. It was actually quite well known that an area would be logged off in a few years, so the retention of captial and diversification of the local economy absolutely depended on stable municipal governance and financial institutions. This was eventually reflected in lumber trusts and monopolies that dictated the use of property, but the election of reform tickets (such as the Clare Country Democratic class of '84) was also effective.

In the end, Lumberjack is an interesting read, partly for its very colorful and nostaglic (and at a decidedly slower tempo than other works) rendering of the lumbering era. And partly as a historical document. Crowe writes from the 1950s of an era that he alternately fears is being forgotten and misunderstood, and the passion he puts into his account is palpable, even if his prose is typically austere. More, he uses his narrative to comment on political issues during the red scare, from a point-of-view that is unabashedly conservative, yet a style of conservatism that has essentially disappeared in the last thirty years. Reading the book then, is a fine cross-section of information on both lumbering and the financial practice of the lumber industry, but is also like peeling an onion. One confronts and reckons with multiple layers of history.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 8, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Has anyone else seen a Moon rainbow? If so, are they common?

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Gonzo and Camilla.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Go here.

What effect do you think your policies will have on your nation? What are you pushing your it to become?

END OF POST.

Political Spectography.

EVENT

First, I stumbled across this today: Street Prophers :: Faith and Politics. It's run in conjunction with Daily Kos with the slogan "the Right doesn't own faith"... sounds encouraging to me. We'll see.

---

Second, I'm really impressed with the Wikipedia article on the political spectrum. Wikipedia pieces in general seem to run the gamut, but this seems more like a well-written essay than an overview.

I find myself thinking a lot about political categories and continuums, and the way we describe ourselves. Just as identity with a religion seems to supercede the actual tenet of that faith in many peoples minds, it would seem that political identity is often more important than political positioning.

I realize this is probably all a foregone conclusion for everyone... I had a sense of it from the time I was in junior high. I describe myself as "centrist socialist" and that's pretty convenient in that it often enables me to vote for whoever I find most appealing in a particular context. That said, there always seems to be the idea, and sometimes the reality (in a flawed form) of a group (cadre?) of like-minded individuals, who not only share the same views, but for the same reasons, and whose similarity is liberating, not claustrophobic.

I will say I believe in the general existence political categories, and even more, a bit of judgment in terms of political capacity. Unlike some distinctions, say race, gender, occupation, even religion, our political identity is formed by how we believe we ought to relate to each other and an organized body of individuals. If there is a generalizing model to use to "judge" someone, politics is perhaps one of the most appropriate and fair, since politics are essentially ethical distinctions dressed pragmatically.

But to give the postmodern growd a nod (this time), the political dialogue is inherently social. That is why regions tend to identify politically, as races, as men and women, as faiths. We cohere to our other communities both out of our own experience and also to find consensus. Consensus and compromise is a democratic necessity. These are flawed and often vague categories used in a dialogue that is itself, its very foundation, compromised.

END OF POST.

Michigan Rogues, Desperados, and Cut-Throats: A Gallery of 19th Century Miscreants, by Tom Powers.

CONCEPT

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."

---

For me, this book was highly significant. I found it in the local section of the Flint Borders in 2003, and it contained, among others, the story of Jim Carr and Maggie Duncan which became important to Hungry Rats. That was one story, however, out of many.

I understand this book best as a tertiary source. When Michigan's lumber industry was at the end of its great age -- generally speaking from the 1870s to the 1890s when the northern lower peninsula and upper peninsula were logged off -- newspapers had proliferated throughout the region, telling stories, often lurid and highly partisan about local goings on. In other cases, individual writers provided a more circumspect and thorough treatment of the subject. John Fitzmaurice is in this category. These would be the primary sources.

The secondary sources followed about fifty years later when a whole generation of sensational pulp sprang up around the lumber industry. The revival of Michigan lumberjack stories were at their heyday in the 1950s, and probably formed their own cottage industry for a while. I can't speculate too far as to the timing of this, but I suspect it has to do with the close interection of the lumber frontier and the Wild West, and the popularity of the latter during the 1950s. I'll say more about this in a moment.

Tom Powers, then, has evidently drawn his material from all of the above. His chapter on the Carrs, certainly, could not have been compiled from one source, and seems to incorporate accounts by Forrest Meeks, Stuart Gross, and actual court documents. While his account tends toward the sensational, including a prose style that deliberately vamps "rusty old varment" storytelling, it provides a catalogue dense with characters: Dan Seavey, the Lake Michigan pirate; T.C. Cunyan, the maneater from Peterborough; P.T. Small, the Ogre of Seney; the Carrs themselves. All of these people really existed. They form the core of the regions mythology. It's a mythology that has been sadly diminished and neglected in the last generation.

What is the basis of the mythology?

It is most easily identified in the common nature of the Old West and lumber-era Michigan. Certainly, the similarities outweight the differences, at least similarities that we consider to be most meaningful.

First, there is a good amount of fantasy here, even when commingled with nonfiction. This partly has to do with the romanticization of what is most accurately "borderline-barbarity" of circumstances (in brothels or saloons, for example) and, at the opposite pole, the banality and routine of most peoples' lives in these times and places. In short, what is ugly is downright ugly, and yet, for many life was not as ugly as the stories might lead us to think.

Second, conditions in both regions came about as a result of an ambitiously expanding economic agenda. In the case of the West, in addition to rumors of gold and mineral resources, there was free land and space, and all of these things were needed to continue the growth of the United States. In the case of Michigan, the nation needed lumber, and was perpetually able to consume it faster than the production allowed. In both cases, then, the frontier of settlement and trade expanded more quickly than the institutions that stablize an industrial society. Hence saloon shoot outs, brothel abductions, highway robbery and the like.

As Powers himself says, Jim and Maggie got away with many crimes largely because Clare County refused to build a jail and hire adequate law enforcement.

As a gateway drug, I found this book addictive.

I would recommend it to anyone, simply so we could talk lumberjacks afterward.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 7, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
A fast-moving blizzard swept through eastern Newfoundland, 2006.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."
- Barry Goldwater

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Well, assuming you do agree. How would you justify it?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 6, 29.

DIARY

Exhausted from this past weekend. Lots of writing and revising. But it'll all be over in just over a month. Ugh... There was a lot of fun, though.
Last Wednesday I read from Hungry Rats at the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series, which was a blast. On Friday Jess and I watched Love, Actually and on the next day we visited with Marco, Scott, and Hannah for marathon sessions of Risk and Diplomacy. Jess won both games of course...
Tonight I desperately want to sleep.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Use beets or cranberries to make your own pink Easter egg dye.

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
There's a lot of news today, and from the HMS Cornwall to the Ulyanovskaya Mine disaster, it's pretty much bad. However, this bit is probably good, and will likely have the most far-reaching consequences:
Guardian Unlimited: China Passes Landmark Property Law.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
The president/prime minister/leader of your nation has asked if you will be the secretary of defense/military liaison. Do you accept?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 3, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
World Meteorological Organization established, 1950.

- COUNTRY OF THE WEEK -
The Bahamas.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What would be your country of the week.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 2, 29.

DIARY

- Hungry Rats reading went well yesterday. I managed to pass out four 40-rods, which people pretty much agreed "smelled terrible." I said they were supposed to... they're 40-rods! In this little role-play, it was determined that Liesel was murdered by Jim and Maggie and then buried out in the woods.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
First women's basketball game, Smith college, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1893.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
I thought this was pretty sweet: The Brick Testament.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What would be your link of the week?

END OF POST.

March, 1995.

EVENT

Wow. Drew a relatively eventful month, and I'm not sure how well I will be able to describe it in the ten minutes left on my break.

The most significant event of March, 1995 for me was my involvement with the Flint Youth Theatre play The Flame of Peace, an children's anti-violence story about an Aztec boy warrior, Two Flint, who goes on a journey to secure a blessing from the gods to save his village from warfare by neighboring tribes. Out of the literal couple dozens projects I worked on at FYT, this was just about everyone's least favorites. The cast divided neatly into two tribes, one physical and one cosmological. The former dressed in nude skintight unitards and loincloths, making them look naked. The latter (I was of this group) dressed in red skintight unitards and yellow velcro-on loincloths with metallic plates, making them look like Power Rangers. Moreover, we were all swinging three-foot aluminum poles about, meaning that just about everyone lost their loincloth at least once during the run. The set was an angular rake with trapdoors and the like, and lots of fog.

We performed for all of the seventh graders in the Flint Community Schools and they quite predictably laughed at us.

My favorite part, though, was where I confronted Two Flint as the skeletal God of Death.

Certainly there were redeeming moments. This was the production when the FYT group really congealed and cohered... it had been around in an embryonic sense ever since the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but we'd basically all rejected all of our high schools in favor of each other as a dominant social group. It's hard to convey to people... my Chicago and New York friends probably understand this too specifically, as peopel living together, growing up, being neighbors or from the same church or parish. Back home, it was strange because these schools were not close together. There was no truly comprehensive public transit. Most of us had just started to drive, and getting permission to drive was inconvenient. In short, we really did cohere as a social group that felt more important than our ties to Flushing/Powers/Central/Southwestern/Kearsley/Swartz Creek/Grand Blanc, and it may have assisted in this that seeing each other with regularity was actually quite a pain. Jon, John, Greg, Katie, Kate, Joy, Chuck, Gilbert, Amy, me. However things were evolving. Just as in politics, things didn't remain still (ie. April).

It wasn't all roses, though.

I had a crush on a girl, Clair M., who was 1) too young, 2) too immature, and 3) had no interest in me. It's one of those things you're retrospectively embarassed about; not the indecency of your conduct, but its impudence.

I'd just gotten over a relatively dangerous rift with another friend, and I liked moving in this circle.

I was too sensitive though, and that annoyed people.

I listened to my cassette of Pisces Iscariot by Smashing Pumpkins almost nightly. My favorite songs were Obscured, Landslide, and Starla.

I was invited to join the FYT cast of the summer production of Trace Titanic with an ensemble cast of profession actors that would tour to Minneapolis.

I got over Claire and started looking for someone new to crush on.

I decided to direct the Elysian Theatre production of a compilation of scenes and monologues called Maze. I typed up scenes and printed them out on our dot matrix printer.

Where were you in March, 1995?

END OF POST.

Drip.

BODY

I hope it rains soon.

Here's a rainy fractal (eight iterations):

drip ... ... drip ...

drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ...

drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ...

drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ...

drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ...

drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ...

drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ...

drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip ... ... drip ... drip drip ...

DROP!!!

END OF POST.

Reading tonight!

CONCEPT

Tonight I will be reading from Part 2 of Hungry Rats at the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series. There will be evil lumberjacks. There will not not be performance art.

Guerrilla Lit @ Bar on A
7:30 PM · 170 Avenue A
New York, NY

END OF POST.

Oneidine 1, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Conjunction of the Moon with Venus. Venus at greatest elongatino (28 degrees West). Singer Johnny Bristol died, 2004.

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Puddle.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What would be your picture of the week.

END OF POST.

The Pendulum, not the Pit!

EVENT

Jeff Danziger



c/o the New York Times.

The picture doesn't have much to do with the gyst of this post. Perhaps a tangential relevance.

---

For many years now a number of friends and family have been talking about the decline of the U.S., how our golden era is past. Depending on who you ask, several time periods are up for "golden era":

• The turn-of-the-century through the 1920s, when we emerged as a world power, stablized a gold standard, and built an economic empire around the world. (Of course, this was also when the Ku Klux Klan gained dominance, not only in the South, but in much of the Midwest and West, and Jim Crow laws were expanded and extended each year).



• World War II when we fought some of three genocidal and destructive regimes to a standstill, and then were well-poised as a world superpower to lead the West in the cold war. (Of course, this was also when one of our most beloved presidents signed an executive order transplanting hundreds of thousands of people to camps in the middle of nowhere; meanwhile our rhetorical actions against the Soviet Union not only created fertile ground for the Red Scare to grow, but increased our own hegemony in the fifties).



• The 1960s when the Civil Rights and Womens Liberation movements made their most strident victories. (Of course, the movers and shakers on these admirable fronts also misled the public consistantly with regard to an unwinnable war with its own impressive battery of ethical and foreign relations compromises).



• Even, in a limited sense the 1990s, when consistant and sane economic policies combined with radical technological growth to bring about widespread prosperity. (Of course, this very prosperity helped to incubate the social conservatism that overcame all branches of American government just a few years later, while our domestic prosperity was largely circumscribed by globalization in in which standards of living in the developing world, while improving on the whole, were increasing removed from our own.

My point could be, I suppose, that a "golden age" isn't really that... that the term "golden age" is erroneous. Rather, I think that any period of time is contentious and complex (and we can take another step and say the most fascinating people are contentious and complex). I posted about a week ago that I would love to have dinner with LBJ. It's perhaps because his Great Society is so sweeping and noble in its vision, and so encompassing in its ambitious for this nation that I find it profoundly moving. However, this is also a man who compromised the communications between the government and citizenry quite possibly as much as our current president has (is there really such a cedibility difference between the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and authorization for war in Iraq based on WMDs?), and whose deception (I think we must fairly admit) was much more dangerous and insidious, if perhaps less surface-sleazy, than Nixon's.

Again, I'm not hating on LBJ... or even Nixon. I will hate on W. Bush, but then, he's the only one of the three I've really seen up close.

I still haven't gotten to the fundamental point of this rant. In work for the last half year I've been editing a series of books on the last century of American policy, and while these books have their own perspective, I cannot help but contrast the very predictability of broad trends in American politics with what seems the short-sightedness of people when considering the future.

---

Most of the people I know have strong negative feelings not only for President Bush, but for his administration, his appointees, the congress he's worked with, his policies, and perhaps most of all, the attitudes he has encouraged and engendered in the people he governs. This is appropriate; he has brought about many terrible things: the Military Commissions Act; routine Geneva Convention violations; a catastrophic lack of budgetary insight; a weird hybrid of cultural isolationism and global ambition.

What is perhaps inappropriate is firstly our surprise, and secondly our despair.

---

With regard to our surprise:

We shouldn't be surprised because the national mood consistently begins turning before the symptoms of its change become conspicuous.

I've been saying for at least three years that a Bush administration has been inevitable ever since Reagan. To clarify, it might not have been the addled chimp-faced zealot we've come to hate so intimately. Perhaps it would have been Buchanan, or Gingrich, or someone else. But a president/administration radically conservative by all of our standards had been a near-future certainty ever since Reagan completed his tenure.

Reagan's presidency galvanized the far right and gave them a more visible and "credible" position in the political conversation as a whole, and just as importantly, Reaganomics was sufficiently incompatible with the traditional Republican emphasis on fiscal restraint that the party started to be weigh towards social conservatism. Moreover, Reagan's severely spotty record as a president was eventually considered a great success, because the Soviet Union conveniently fell and his staff masterfully excelled at giving a scandal a pretty face.

If we look to the role of Reagan's successors, they may have adjusted the direction of the dialogue, but were not in the end decisive.
Bush Sr. was a moderate Republican... it is possible that if his tenure had been more successful and his personality more electric (as Reagan's had been), he might have arrested the drift to the right.
Clinton, on the other hand, did inspire the same levels of love and hate as Reagan, but significantly, while Reagan moved his party to the right, so did Clinton. If Clinton's agenda had been more successful across-the-board, he might have changed the course of events. If say, his Health Care Initiatives had passed, or if he had shrugged off Monica Lewinski as effectively as Reagan shrugged off Iran-Contra. Instead, his successes were mainly economic, and did nothing to dampen the sense of unity and momentum among social conservatives, and in fact, he spread Democratic votes between classic liberals and centrists just as social conservatives finished their consolidation of the Republican party.
We can fault Bush Sr. and Clinton for not halting a process in motion, but ultimately, we must thank Reagan for W.

Who do we thank for Reagan?

Carter? Ford? Nixon? LBJ? The seventies?

It's a more difficult question. Carter was certainly elected as a response to a combination of his three predecessors... LBJ compromised his own initiatives through his massive deception and bungling of Vietnam. Nixon managed to mess up his own career even more with his paranoid fanangling. Ford, who as far as I can tell seemed especially insubstantial as a president, shot himself in the foot (which he then tripped over) by pardoning Nixon then fooling around with the economy.
For more-or-less this whole time, Congress was dominated by the Democratic party in general, and by liberal Democrats in particular. But if Carter was a no-confidence vote in government, a hard-line populist stance was itself compromised by his administration being at perpetual loggerheads with Congress, and even his own party.

What I suspect this means is that Reagan was swept into office very much by positioning himself for a large group of fiscally weird and socially conversative voters... people who love god and hate taxes and don't understand the economy. But he moreover capitalized (with actor's finesse no less) on the perceived ineptitude of a whole decade of presidents.

This trend combined to make another victim: progressive liberalism. Because if Reagan's election was an ouster of a centrist Democrat, the public didn't forget that Carter was a Democrat, and Democrats ran Congress. The balance of political power was unable to decisively and satisfactorily resolve any of the issues that had been left hanging at the end of the sixties. The Vietnam War had ended, but everyone felt awful about it. The Cold War dragged on. Stagflation: Good Grief. In many peoples' minds (though I strongly disagree) civil and womens' rights were taken care of and a done deal. It was easy to cast liberalism - "bleeding hearts" - as motivated to excess, corruption, ineptitude, and a lack of understanding for their constitutents.

It is fair to note, just as with the Bush Sr. and Clinton administration, these developments were broad social movements, and maybe there was little that could have been done to arrest them. At the same time, even if a solution had been available, progressives did not show the empathy, perspective, or flexibility to adapt. Therefore, we have a national cohort of progressive and Democratic politicans to collectively thank for the Reagan Administration.

---

I am a progressive by most peoples' standards. So this ought to be pretty depressing.

I said, though, that despair is inappropriate.

I would say that the whole cariage of the Democratic party has been defensive, and as informed by progressives, thereby a little defeatest, and that's what make despair not only erroneous, but actively inappropriate.

But I ought to be able to make a case that there is an error.

As I said, the excesses of the Bush Administration have many parallels to those of Johnson and Nixon. The Rodriguez revelations this week suggest Nixon's plumbery, and the handing of Iraq is too comparable to Vietnam to warrant further discussion here.

Likewise, just as left dominated government for a few decades on top before crumbling under their own weight, the right is going through the same motions today. Political thought moves like a pendulum, and it's not going to be irrevocably stopped now. In fact, common sense should tell us that a meaningful, non cosmetic shift to the left is as inevitable now as the ascent of a W. Bush and a Reagan was in the mid-seventies. Already we have seen fruit from this in the new Congress. In fact, the most useful speculation maybe be how we can utilize the momentum for the best; to not take it for granted, but as an opportunity to genuinely reach out and have the political impact of the New Deal, of the Great Society, of a practically conceived and plausibly attainable better future.

Don't assume that things won't change.

They will change.

This is assured, and we'll probably all be surprised.

Moreover, don't convince yourself that some halcyon perfection is now lost and behind us.

Such arguments are necessarily compromised and contradictory, inherently subjective, and never firmly established until centuries after the fact.

Do what you can, and enjoy the fruit that it bears you.

END OF POST.

Vernaltide, 29.

DIARY

It's the first day of Spring! Enjoy it!

I didn't write about my last week yesterday, but it's been so cloudy (not outside; in my head) that I don't know that I will be able to write much more about it today. On Monday I went to the Small Press panel at New School, which is always one of my favorite events they hold. A friend of mine has had a really lousy, lousy time lately, and I went over to hang out... which was actually, not fun, exactly, but very right feeling. I haven't been useful in that capacity in awhile (what I mean by "capacity" is also a little vague; we complained about writers and drank beers) but it seemed to call to mind the best of what high school and college were. On Friday, Jess and I were going to go out and sing karaoke with some friends in the Village, but a winter storm shut that down. Saturday we met up with Scott and Matt at the Reade Street Bar, had about eight Guinness and Bushmills before going on a snowball throwing frenzy across TriBeCa. Highly recommended. On Saturday another old friend contacted me quite out of the blue, and she's had a rough go of it lately, but things seem to be shaping up. Mostly, I'm just glad we're in touch again. Yesterday, my peer group met. Below and around all this, revising, revising, revising. I revised about 40,000 words this past weekend, and the fifth revision is more or less done. But so is my brain and my memory.

It's seems I've remembered more than I thought I would.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Vernal Equinox. Thunder in spring, cold will bring.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
- Margaret Atwood

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Two today... one is an outside request. A writer friend of mine is curious how many words were are able to write in a day. Since plenty of people read this blog who are not writers, I expect a wide range of answers. Feel free to interpret the question broadly.

The other question is my own: What would be your quote of the week?

END OF POST.

Message I wrote to Billy Corgan.

CONCEPT

Happy Birthday!

Forty. Actually a very beautiful number, not just for Biblical reasons. It can cut into 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 20, and 40. 8 numbers. Beautiful from a perspective of number theory. Ask any mathematician.

You still look 33, so I know you aren't bellyaching right now.

And incidentally, I'm 28, which means that you've been a part of my life for 12 years. 12:28, 6:14, 3:7. Also kind of neat, when you look at it.

Looking forward to Zeitgeist,

~ Connor

END OF POST.

Occludine 27, 29.

DIARY

... Probably won't have a chance to post anything substantial until tomorrow.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Feast of St. Joseph. Moon at perigree. Chipmunks emerge from hibernation now.

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
New York Times: Opposition Official Beaten as Zimbabwe Crackdown Grows.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What do you think has been the most exciting or important news this week?

END OF POST.

Occludine 24, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Conjunction of Mercury with the moon. Conjunction of Neptune with the moon. First Lady Pat Nixon born, 1912. [coincidence? I think not]

- COUNTRY OF THE WEEK -
Australia.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What is overrated?

END OF POST.

Occludine 23, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Beware the ides of March. Conjunction of the moon and Mars.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
Noah K. Kalina.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What was your ugliest year?

END OF POST.

Who Knew?

BODY

PERSIAN BLUE





SUBMERSION BLEW

EXCURSION TOO

PER YON GLUE

HEBRON GNU

VERSION BLOO

END OF POST.

In other news...

EVENT

...a house one block from where I used to live just blew up.

The residents of adjacent houses have to move because their homes are now condemned for structural instability.

They were homeowners without insurance.

Someone needs to do something about this place.

END OF POST.

In March, 1991.

DIARY

I was thirteen.

7th grade, 2nd semester.

I had been kept out of doing any theater because of bad grades, and my Mission (to get a "real cool girlfriend") had only met with occasional and haphazard success. I think it was roughly at this time that I briefly dated T. She dumped me after about 20 hours - mainly because dozens of kids had been harassing her over the inexplicable choice - and I was very mean in response. I'm kind of impressed that she actually decided to forgive me, and we remained on good terms from that point onward. For awhile, we were actually pretty good friends.

Putting on deodorant became necessary.

Classes:

• Physical Science - Mrs. Horton


• Literature - Mrs. Borek


• Phys. Ed - Mr. Kelly (Ms. Ebeling)*


• Cadet Band - Mr. Minert


• Math - Mrs. Brust


• Language Arts - Mrs. Borek


• Social Studies - Mr. Dion

*
This was actually a weird situation. There were too many boys in my P.E. section, so five or six of us were sent off with the girls. We all did the same activities, so it didn't affect things much.
Socially, it didn't affect things much either.

Classes were forty-eight minutes long.

I think I've got at least a couple of the classes in the wrong order, but I'm not sure how.

I had rotated into a new group of friends at school: Mark P, Jim McC., and Justin G., among others: also, Nicole G, who I talked with through Cadet Band. Cadet Band was a great class for conversation. I eventually came to like Mr. Dion, but I was very uncooperative during the class, and we argued a lot. My favorite teacher was Mrs. Borek, who gave us creative writing assignments from time to time, though there wasn't any teacher I really didn't like.

I had not only beaten Megaman 3, but I was able to win each day. I really loved the music for Topman and Needleman, but the graphics for Geminiman were impressive for an 8-bit system.

I was staggering toward a massive Dungeons and Dragons campaign, but this was stymied because I didn't have all the books or the money to buy them. My friends may have considered lending me theirs, but a combination of their living in Flint and my bad track record with returning borrowed things didn't help.

I was also becoming more politically aware at this time, though very slowly.

I was really into the show Night Court.

Where were you in March, 1991?

END OF POST.

Occludine 22, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Cotton gin patented, 1794. Musician Quincy Jones born, 1933.

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Evil Robot.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
I've been really indulging in my political brain this week.
So what I'm wondering is this: you have the chance to take any leader of your country out for dinner and an interview. It is understood that you will get a fair amount of candor (but, of course, if you are rude, he or she may refuse to answer). So who do you interview, and where do you go?

END OF POST.

EXXXXX-TREME!!!

EVENT

Picking this up from both Milligan and Gemma, based on a set of (now pilloried, at least among People I Know) criteria laid out by Time magazine blogger Joe Klein. The question being, does he think I'm a left wing extremist?

Let's find out:

---

A left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:

believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world.

What a fundamentally stupid statement, if only because it's impossible to measure or gauge. I can't put myself on one side or the other, because it doesn't engage actions or relationships but the very fact of existance. I understand that, in some sort of a sense, the issue is whether it "would the world be better if the U.S. weren't here at all?" but that requires a level of speculation such that I'm not willing to risk. In short, I want to say "no, it wouldn't be better," but I can't really answer, because the statement doesn't make any sense on an analytical level. Verdict: Hung jury.

believes that American imperialism is the primary cause of Islamic radicalism.

Milligan and Gemma say: No, it's one of three main causes, alongside Israeli imperialism and oppressive Middle Eastern governments. I want to add to that British and Soviet (and to a lesser extent, French) imperialism, a big source of the original mess, and a lack of responsible religious leadership on the part of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. Verdict: 20% guilty.

believes that the decision to go to war in Iraq was not an individual case of monumental stupidity, but a consequence of America’s fundamental imperialistic nature.

Whether or not we're monumentally stupid is of nominal relevance to our intentions in the first place. Our conduct during the conflict (evidence #1 - no bid contract to Halliburton) suggests an imperialistic arrogance and greed, not simply stupidity. Verdict: Guilty!

tends to blame America for the failures of others—i.e. the failure of our NATO allies to fulfill their responsibilities in Afghanistan.

Whether or not we're guilty for complete failure, we're certainly responsible for the actions or efforts we make. Shifting our resources from an important front to a non-front is stupid. And of course, the U.S. had both the greatest commitment to and debatably the most to gain from involvement in Afghanistan. So we have the lion's share of responsibility. Verdict: 80% guilty.

doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history.

Guilty as charged. Capitalism is an economic system built on recognition of property rights. It's a limited (and limiting aspect) of Representative Democracies, but is not necessarily "integral." Now Representative Democracies are better than monarchies and theocracies. And they were, in many cases, better than the preliterate chaos. I suspect that whatever follows will be even better. I like Milligan's answer, to the effect that "liberalism is the best liberal idea in human history." That, and good sanitary practice. Verdict: Guilty.

believes American society is fundamentally unfair (as opposed to having unfair aspects that need improvement).

Society in general is fundamentally unfair. But every society and institution has a responsibility to redress unfairness as best as possible. In the case of the U.S., these efforts are almost always delayed and compromised, and that is a complicated issue. However, I feel fair in saying we haven't done nearly enough. To address the comment directly, we have been frequently inattentive to those "unfair aspects that need improvement." Verdict: 50% Guilty.

believes that eternal problems like crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society.

Most of the time, they are. As above, government and society have to address crime and poverty. Take a glance a Canada's track record. Verdict: 80% guilty.

believes that America isn’t really a democracy.

We're not a democracy. We're a republic. Verdict: 50% guilty. (Is there an echo in here?)

believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.

Aw, shucks. Verdict: Guilty.

believes in a corporate conspiracy that controls the world.

No. There's nothing conspiratorial about it. Verdict: 80% guilty.

is intolerant of good ideas when they come from conservative sources.

Actually, I endorsed a couple Republicans for local office last year. Verdict: Not Guilty.

dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.

Well, I'm a practicing Catholic and not thrilled with abortion, so I'd have to say that out. I certainly mock sanctimonious hypocrisy, but pardon me for not thinking that counts. Verdict: Not Guilty.

regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives.

I don't think so. I think today's conservative philosophy is inherently inconsistent and logically flawed (note how I cleverly avoided the word "fundamentally," unlike Joe Klein). I think often these oversights are the result of a lack of perspective and judgment that could be avoided through circumspection. But I also think we're all human and essentially in this world together. And I don't think anyone has the answer. Verdict: Not Guilty.

---

RESULTS: 6.1 / 12 (I disqualified the first question due to its unanswerability) or 50.83% left extremist.

IN SUM: While I agree with Milligan that the criteria were sometimes too vague to be useful, I tried to answer based on their meaning as much as I could. I suspect that, to many moderate conservatives, I would seem "extremist" in my actual stances on issues: universal health care, welfare, first amendment rights, and so on. I think that few would find me closed minded, however, and that's the other side of that equation.

What do you think?

Where are you?

END OF POST.

Occludine 21, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Discovery of Pluto officially announced, 1930.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"Now are the winds about us in their glee,
Tossing the slender tree."
- William Gilmore Simms

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Wow, one answer. You must've really hated yesterday's question.
How's this: What's your favorite color?

END OF POST.

Thoughts on Thoughts.

EVENT

Some of my cohorts have been especially prolific lately. Today I particularly enjoyed Purple Scarf and EGAD.

Also, there's this to give me a headache.

And speaking of the devil, here are two surveys.

Finally, I don't find it particularly likely, but just FYI: If Newt Gingritch is our next president, I am officially going to puke. You can quote that.

END OF POST.

Thoughts on Writing.

CONCEPT

A few thoughts on writing that I recently shared with a friend:

I'm not putting this forth as a critic but as a writer, and that is that I am always aware of certain kinds of tension when I read and write. One of the most prevalent, and in some ways straightforward, is the divide between thought and emotion.

There are some writers, many, whose highest priority is to engage your mind: to provide a catalog of paradox and ambiguity and commentary, and so to supply an immense puzzle or algorithm that must be dissected: when I think of this sort of writing I think of Stine and Nabokov and Joyce and so on.

There are other writers, many, whose highest priority is to engage the gut: to arrest you with sensations that cannot be analyzed, not because they are not rational, but because an over-vigorous rationalization deprives them of their beauty. Which alone is enough to account for this distinction, if we allow sufficiently broad definitions of the word "beauty." When I think of this sort of writing I think of Barnes and Artaud and Faulkner and Hurston and so on.

Of course, the best writing does both: engages our minds and our guts. But I still feel most writers make a bedrock assumption of trust or mistrust of emotion, and that this assumption either precludes or forestalls the importance of empathy.

Anyway, I am definitely of the second group.

END OF POST.

Occludine 20, 29.

DAILY

Interesting this week this week. I actually recently received some very exciting news but I'm going to sit on in until I have something substantial to say.
On Monday I met with Jeff, my advisor. On Thursday there was role-playing. Other than that, it was a hard-working stay-in week and weekend. Lot's of writing and reading.
These days, it feels like spring out more often than it feels like winter.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Moon runs low. If you take a leap in the dark, you usually land in a pit.

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
The Guardian: Tearful protesters fail to save historic centre.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What would you call your commune?

END OF POST.

Occludine 17, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
12" snow in parts of Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina, 1960.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Brian, of the Vulgarians!

- COUNTRY OF THE WEEK -
Antigua and Barbuda.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Oi. You try thinking of new questions every day for three years.
How's this?:
What are you so good at, it's not even funny?
That, and:
Do you like Cake?

END OF POST.

Occludine 16, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
First train crossed Niagara Railway Suspension Bridge, Niagara River, 1855.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
This Made Me Smile.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Do you often lend out books, CDs, etc.? Borrow? If so, what is the disparity in what is returned (by you / from you) to its original owner?

END OF POST.

The Collector, by John Fowles.

CONCEPT

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."

---

Something that wouldn't have changed my choice of thesis project, but that would have nevertheless been good to consider, is the fact that where one is writing about serial killers, institutional dysfunction, adolescent rage, and the holocaust, research will delve into the same subjects. It's been an interesting juxtaposition. My life is great. I'm in touch with friends here and elsewhere, the future looks bright, and I even have a new Smashing Pumpkins album to look forward to.

On the other hand, I'm reading the most depressing stuff in the world.

So it went with The Collector by John Fowles. Not only did the creepy, first person noir launch Fowles career, but has purportedly turned up in the collections of all kinds of sex murders. Even though I was reading the book at Tom's of Seinfeld and Suzanne Vega fame, when it was over I had a headache and wanted a good cry. So. Taking a look at that.

It would be wrong to say to say that the story does not have a plot, though this is a simplified statement of my impression. More to the point, the novel has the texture of having been crafted only on the levels of character and setting, and that the plot moves deistically: the pieces are put into motion and swing about according to their own laws.

The storytelling itself doesn't suffer as a result of this. Sometimes the characters themselves are surprising. Throughout, conventions of perspective are disrupted in a way that not only challenges readers to empathize with a somewhat loathsome narrator, but also requires second guessing in both other characters as well as the narrative itself.

That being said, a byproduct of the deistic approach is a feeling of inevitability. The ending feels as predestined at page twenty as at page one fifty, and in a book that dwells in the muck of sociopathic hungers, this is more than exhausting. It feels enervating.

Yes, I learned something about writing from unconventional points-of-view. Yes, I learned something new about the progression of sociopathy. But it's not the sort of book I'd read for pleasure. As I picture it in my mind, everything just seems to wind down.

This is, ultimately, a call I'm making based on taste and not craft.

Then again, I also start to think that a case can be made that inertia itself can be seen as a social and critical liability.

In short, if you like dwelling on criminal obsessions in a stifling environment, Fowles storytelling will surely work for you. Mxzzy?

END OF POST.

The Collector, by John Fowles.

CONCEPT

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was "required reading."

---

Something that wouldn't have changed my choice of thesis project, but that would have nevertheless been good to consider, is the fact that where one is writing about serial killers, institutional dysfunction, adolescent rage, and the holocaust, research will delve into the same subjects. It's been an interesting juxtaposition. My life is great. I'm in touch with friends here and elsewhere, the future looks bright, and I even have a new Smashing Pumpkins album to look forward to.

On the other hand, I'm reading the most depressing stuff in the world.

So it went with The Collector by John Fowles. Not only did the creepy, first person noir launch Fowles career, but has purportedly turned up in the collections of all kinds of sex murders. Even though I was reading the book at Tom's of Seinfeld and Suzanne Vega fame, when it was over I had a headache and wanted a good cry. So. Taking a look at that.

It would be wrong to say to say that the story does not have a plot, though this is a simplified statement of my impression. More to the point, the novel has the texture of having been crafted only on the levels of character and setting, and that the plot moves deistically: the pieces are put into motion and swing about according to their own laws.

The storytelling itself doesn't suffer as a result of this. Sometimes the characters themselves are surprising. Throughout, conventions of perspective are disrupted in a way that not only challenges readers to empathize with a somewhat loathsome narrator, but also requires second guessing in both other characters as well as the narrative itself.

That being said, a byproduct of the deistic approach is a feeling of inevitability. The ending feels as predestined at page twenty as at page one fifty, and in a book that dwells in the muck of sociopathic hungers, this is more than exhausting. It feels enervating.

Yes, I learned something about writing from unconventional points-of-view. Yes, I learned something new about the progression of sociopathy. But it's not the sort of book I'd read for pleasure. As I picture it in my mind, everything just seems to wind down.

This is, ultimately, a call I'm making based on taste and not craft.

Then again, I also start to think that a case can be made that inertia itself can be seen as a social and critical liability.

In short, if you like dwelling on criminal obsessions in a stifling environment, Fowles storytelling will surely work for you. Mxzzy?

END OF POST.

March, 1981.

DIARY

I don't remember anything from this month.

Where were you in March, 1981?

END OF POST.

Occludine 15, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Feast of St. Perpetua. Mercury stationary. Brilliant nationwide aurora borealis, 1918.

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Those crazy kids.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
It's you vs. a gang of nunchuck and sabre wielding vampires. Which kid from the Scooby Doo team do you choose to fight at your side?

END OF POST.

Notes for the Day #3: Defending Flint's Rock.

EVENT

In response to this story: The Rock under attack again.

I have written the following to SUE SMITH, Director of Education of Training at Keep America Beautiful. Her email is sue@preventlitter.org.

I will also be sending off letters to HILLARY CLINTON, a supporter of Keep America Beautiful, as well as STEVE WALL of the City Nuisance Task Force and KAY KELLY of the Kearsley Park project.

---

Dear Ms. Smith,

My name is Connor Coyne and I am a former resident of Flint, Michigan, and a former painter of the landmark known as "the Rock." I was dismayed to read your statements in last Sunday's Flint Journal in which you rhetorically equated the painting of the Rock with graffiti, vandalism, and gang tags. You are right in that as a publicly maintained site, the Rock is owned by all of us. But, it seems, you neglected to inform your audience that the Rock has a well-established history that includes official sanctioning of artwork.

In 2004, thirty years of work (mainly birthday wishes and get well requests, though I understand by your argument content is immaterial) were stripped away at the order of Mayor Don Williamson. He put up signs warning of $1000 fines for painting the Rock.

Now it is easy to point out that the signs deterred everyone except for gang taggers who continued to hit the rock indiscriminately.

It is easy to point out that the expense the city incurred (again, public funds) in this massive cleanup obviously far exceeded a more routine cleanup of spillover graffiti.

It is easy to point out that there is absolutely no distinction in cost or effort in repairing graffiti surrounding an officially sanctioned space and "repairing" the space itself.

But here is the easiest of all: your argument presupposes that public art in an informal setting can only be considered vandalism or a public nuisance. In the present case, within days of the mayor's action, city residents responded with letters to the editor, at city council meetings, and at all levels of community governance. The Flint Journal covered this extensively. In the end, the outcry was so great the the mayor removed the signs and began offering a $1000 reward for the best painting.

Flint, Michigan is a city confronted by many grave issues: poverty, crime, unemployment, a crumbling infrastructure, and a school district losing funding to the tune of one thousand students a year. And I am both angry and upset that you would direct Flint's limited energy and resources back to a issue that has not only been resolved within the community, but whose resolution has been the result of rigorous public debate. You are right that the Rock is public property.

The public has decided that the Rock should be a work of art.

I hope that you will respect that.

Sincerely,

Connor Coyne

END OF POST.

Notes of the Day #2: Glen vs. Rodney.

EVENT

Evidently Rodney King was actually a man named Glen King. The pressed mixed up the two names.

Question: In what way does "Glen" sound anything like "Rodney"?

END OF POST.

Notes of the Day #1: OMG!

EVENT

END OF POST.

Questions for a Chilly Day.

BODY

When the wind winds from the west to the east, you could at least do your best to be a good sport and curl up with a story and make some hot chocolate and watch a movie or something. You could water the plants or feed the cats or try to count the pigeons. The question, then, is why you get so down when it gets so cold when you know its already March, and anyway, it's going to be warm out soon enough won't it?

Also, would you prefer Swiss Miss with water, or Swiss Miss with milk, or the real deal: authentic cocoa (which will take forever, because you know it's very bitter)?

Also, do you prefer the stories of Edgar Allan Poe (Ambrose Bierce? Ann Radcliffe?) or something more contemporary, Stephen King and all that. Something more plausible? Patricia Cornwell? And if so, the fiction or non-fiction? Agatha Christie, a happy in-between?

Also, have you cleaned your apartment recently?

Also, do you enjoy the weeks for themselves these days, or are you basically (whether enjoying them or not) just waiting for something new to come along?

Also, is it refreshing for the sun to come out, even when it's completely frigid, and the wind seems harder when the sky is blue?

Just a couple things to think about...

END OF POST.

Occludine 14, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Moon at apogee. Renaissance man Michelangelo born, 1475.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"Now are the winds about us in their glee / Tossing the slender tree."
- WIlliam Gilmore Simms

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Just grit your teeth and answer the question. Who would you rather have as your president: Giuliani, McCain, or Romney?

END OF POST.

The Shanty Boy, by John W. Fitzmaurice

CONCEPT

I've kind of worked myself into a conversational corner, in part, with this thesis project. There's no incentive to share my research with people who aren't fixated on serial killers (only a few of you) or lumberjacks (only very few of you). That said, for anyone who doesn't have a reading list murderously sorted by relevance to your LIFE, I really would recommend The Shanty Boy by Fitzmaurice. Of all the background I've explored on lumbering, which includes not only contemporary accounts but collected stories, newspaper articles, and even museums such as that at Hartwick Pines State Park, nothing was as enjoyable as The Shanty Boy.

Which is probably what it would be: enjoyable. There is something to learn there, certainly. The specialization that developed in 1800s lumbering led to skills such as swamping, cutting, and river driving, accommodated by a specialized vocabulary: "toot" "bagnio" "stake" "chummy." Fitzmaurice was a journalist who became an insurance salesman traveling from one lumber camp to another. He was at the center of this world for long enough to familiarize himself with the language, and then he evokes his experiences quite vividly. As such, there is a lot to learn here about lumbering at a time when it was integral to national growth and expansion, and two, was antecedent to the sometimes quite different practices used today.

At least as significant are what a 21st century reader can glean from Fitzmaurice himself. He was relatively well-traveled for the time, having spent time in Chicago, and New England, as well as Michigan. But he was also involved politically with the temperance movement. His prose is a verile example of the ornate and sparkling prose favored during the gilded age and his politics has a practical, pragmatic edge which seems to visibly germinate the midwestern work ethic many of us still identify with today.

But again, mostly the book is just enjoyable. It's fascinating to pick up a book published in 1892 and read stories as collected and chronicled from the woods themselves. Even poetically rendered, I cannot imagine a river drive depicted with more force and investment than Fitzmaurice's account. His stories, which tend toward the sentimental, are placed directly alongside fanciful accounts of time travel (in one instance, a lumberjack falls asleep in a brandy barrel and wakes in the year 1988, where all travel is conducted in Velocipedes, and Chicago has a population of some 130 million). His lurid accounts of the Catacombs in Bay City (think of a wilder version of the barn you saw in the opening credits to The Gangs of New York) segue into an eloquent speech on the evils of alcohol.

In short, Fitzmaurice was both educational and enjoyable to read. It was impossible to not read him un-selfconsciously, because the differences between his perspective and my own were so conspicuous. It was difficult to read him ironically, because of his skill and imagination. I would probably recommend above any other book I've read on Michigan lumbering.

END OF POST.

The Shanty Boy, by John W. Fitzmaurice

CONCEPT

I've kind of worked myself into a conversational corner, in part, with this thesis project. There's no incentive to share my research with people who aren't fixated on serial killers (only a few of you) or lumberjacks (only very few of you). That said, for anyone who doesn't have a reading list murderously sorted by relevance to your LIFE, I really would recommend The Shanty Boy by Fitzmaurice. Of all the background I've explored on lumbering, which includes not only contemporary accounts but collected stories, newspaper articles, and even museums such as that at Hartwick Pines State Park, nothing was as enjoyable as The Shanty Boy.

Which is probably what it would be: enjoyable. There is something to learn there, certainly. The specialization that developed in 1800s lumbering led to skills such as swamping, cutting, and river driving, accommodated by a specialized vocabulary: "toot" "bagnio" "stake" "chummy." Fitzmaurice was a journalist who became an insurance salesman traveling from one lumber camp to another. He was at the center of this world for long enough to familiarize himself with the language, and then he evokes his experiences quite vividly. As such, there is a lot to learn here about lumbering at a time when it was integral to national growth and expansion, and two, was antecedent to the sometimes quite different practices used today.

At least as significant are what a 21st century reader can glean from Fitzmaurice himself. He was relatively well-traveled for the time, having spent time in Chicago, and New England, as well as Michigan. But he was also involved politically with the temperance movement. His prose is a verile example of the ornate and sparkling prose favored during the gilded age and his politics has a practical, pragmatic edge which seems to visibly germinate the midwestern work ethic many of us still identify with today.

But again, mostly the book is just enjoyable. It's fascinating to pick up a book published in 1892 and read stories as collected and chronicled from the woods themselves. Even poetically rendered, I cannot imagine a river drive depicted with more force and investment than Fitzmaurice's account. His stories, which tend toward the sentimental, are placed directly alongside fanciful accounts of time travel (in one instance, a lumberjack falls asleep in a brandy barrel and wakes in the year 1988, where all travel is conducted in Velocipedes, and Chicago has a population of some 130 million). His lurid accounts of the Catacombs in Bay City (think of a wilder version of the barn you saw in the opening credits to The Gangs of New York) segue into an eloquent speech on the evils of alcohol.

In short, Fitzmaurice was both educational and enjoyable to read. It was impossible to not read him un-selfconsciously, because the differences between his perspective and my own were so conspicuous. It was difficult to read him ironically, because of his skill and imagination. I would probably recommend above any other book I've read on Michigan lumbering.

END OF POST.

More Hating on the Rock. WHY IS THERE MORE HATING ON THE ROCK?!?

EVENT

More news from Flint:

The Rock Under Attack Again.

She's Ours.

END OF POST.

Occludine 13, 29.

DIARY

Last July in trying to make these daily posts manageable I stopped writing about my day-to-day life here, but I've found that I haven't started writing about it anywhere else. That, and the daily posts are so spare now, there isn't an urgent recent to post them. So I'm going back to giving a quick rundown here.

Last Monday Hallie was in for a visit so I met with her in her hotel in midtown. We ordered room service and read each other's writings, then took the subway out to Brooklyn to meet Jess for cheesecake at Junior's.
After that, it wasn't on the whole the most productive week ever. I got a lot of sleep (until last night), finally launched the Hungry Rats website, finished Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and started out on James Cain's Mildred Pierce. To my own astonishment, I'm not roughly halfway through the massive reading list I got a couple months ago. I don't know if I'll actually finish everything, but I'm sure I can get two third the way through. Next up: more reading on Elie Wiesel and the Smashing Pumpkins, and hopefully some Oates and Morrison.
On Thursday we started the new d20 campaign (Twilight 2000) with Marco and Scott.
On Friday Jess had a girl's night out and I went to Spain and had a little adventure there but didn't see anyone I knew. I got a little worked up walking home because I was thinking of all the friends I've had from 1980 on, and feeling very lucky, and when I got back I only waited for fifteen minutes before Jess called to see if I could meet her at the subway. It rained on us as we walked back.
Saturday was beautiful, and I got out for a few hours with Daniel. There was an eclipse of the moon. I felt a little woozy and tired, so I missed Amy's party. Yesterday, I went to church with Barb and out for Indian food with Barb and Jess and we talked about politics, etc. The evening was taken up with dishes, napping, Google Earth (on our new computer), You Tube, and finally, Escape to Witch Mountain. Jess has found and downloaded some super super super Smashing Pumpkins rarities which will help me with my thesis project.

Out.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Feast of St. Piran. Piano maker William Steinway born, 1835.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Amy!

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
New York Times: Court Declares Bosnian Killings Were Genocide.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What is your favorite song by the Smashing Pumpkins.

END OF POST.

Occludine 10, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Ember Day. Puerto Rico became U.S. territory, 1917.

- COUNTRY OF THE WEEK -
Anguilla.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What's your price?

END OF POST.

Hungry Rats, the Website!

CONCEPT

Dear Friends,

As you may know, right now I'm working on earning my MFA in Creative Writing from the New School. My Creative Thesis is a novel, Hungry Rats (formerly Adrift on the Mainstream), and by the end of the semester I hope to have ready a polished manuscript to submit for publication. I am happy to announce the launch of a website to help with this effort:

http://hungryrats.hereisnowhy.com

The beautiful layout and graphics were created by Sam Perkins-Harbin (www.forge22.com). Elisabeth Blair has composed and recorded a song featured in the novel. It is her rendition of "Some Love To Roam" by Charles Mackay. Elisabeth titled her version "Hungry Rats Theme." The site iteself includes sections on the novel, its historical context, links and acknowledgments, images from the story, and my own background. There is also a secret section, if you can find it.

This website and song are truly evocative of the project and I am very proud of them. I invite you to check it out, and if what you see excites you, pass the word along. It's difficult for a first-time writer to be published, but with your help and a little word-of-mouth buzz, who knows what can happen?

http://hungryrats.hereisnowhy.com

All the best,

Connor Coyne

END OF POST.

Occludine 9, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Congress authorized first U.S. Census, 1790.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
The Emo Scourge.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What frightens you in a book?

END OF POST.