(news)letter
"Say the thing with which you labor."
Thoreau
from the porter micro.press
Volume 1, Number 12 April 13, 1994
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Things need to lighten up around here! All kinds of events this
week have had me walking around all in a meditative funk,
worrying about things that were better left for the winter
months. Spring is here strong, bloomings abound and the people
should be happy!
Here's an example of what's been going on in my head: I
stopped in the Coffee Shop this morning to pick up a newspaper
and bagel. All of the parking spaces right there in front were
taken and I had to park, flashers on, in a spot that was clearly
marked as off-limits: "NO PARKING, LOADING ZONE 6AM-6PM." The
traffic cop had just passed by and I sat there, parked, wondering
if I should leave the car. It became such a huge moral decision
and I was very disappointed in myself even as I got out of the
car and went into the store. While they heated the bagel Mike
tried to make small talk while I wrestled with my conscience and
kept peering out the window expecting to see a tow truck
barrelling down the road to block me in and charge me thirty
bucks just for the privilege of getting my car back.
After I got the bagel and returned to the car, I realized
just what a rat race I was making of this life lately. So maybe I
morally erred but who's counting? Why not leave five minutes
earlier and park in the empty parking lot across the way there?
Why make this an ethical Rorschach Test? It was much too
wonderful a day to be thinking along those lines.
I wondered how I had gotten this way, how I had lost the
smile from my face, and I figured that it probably had something
to do with having to read Macbeth. I am leading a Shakespeare
discussion group on the internet and so must compose some notes
to provide a starting point. The responsibility has been on my
mind for a couple of weeks. I always put things off, of course,
but I had an actual reason to put off reading Macbeth: this play
is so dark and it makes me worry about my fellow men. The actions
of Macbeth make me contemplate the strength of my ethics, and his
failure is all too real: if the devil knocked at my door one
night to offer me all that I thought I would materially want,
right then and there, for just knocking off a neighbor whose door
was open, what would I do?
For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, Macbeth is a
Scots lord who encounters some witches, the weird sisters
("Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron
bubble"). They foretell that Macbeth will be king; coincidentally
that very night the Scots king invites himself to Macbeth's
castle. Macbeth kills the king and the witches' prophecy is
fulfilled. As I say it's very grim and bloody, the atmosphere is
a brooding one in Macbeth and things happen very quickly. Events
are a whirlwind that sweeps Macbeth into a scenario he might
never have sought out on his own. It becomes too easy to kill the
king because there is no time to really reflect on what he does.
It is afterwards that he has time, and given that time he becomes
haunted.
I began to wonder, pulling out of the illicit parking space,
if it was true that, as I once read, "in the absence of a
disinterested 'higher authority' any and all other 'rules' will
be ignored in favor of gain for the rulebreaker." But I came to
my senses and quit thinking about it. Maybe I should put the
Portable Nietzsche that's on the bedside table back in the stacks
and quit reading philosophy. Stick to novels and short stories
and movies because otherwise I'm too dour.
Frozen Frames
This past week hasn't been a happy week in the world news. For me
the week began ominously with a Newsweek picture that really
bothered me. I thought about copying it here but I don't want to
be mistaken for endorsing it in any way. But if you get Newsweek
it's on page 37 of the April 11 issue: it shows an African
National Congress supporter in Johannesburg with a big rock in
his hand; a bloodied Zulu marcher is sprawled in front of us,
back to the camera, an arm pathetically raised in an attempt to
deflect the coming blow. If you've ever seen the Reginald Denny
beating during the LA riots, you've seen this picture in motion.
I really wonder about the photographer who could take such a
picture. What happened next? Did the electric film winder go
BKUG-ZZZZZZUT while the photographer wandered off in search of
another shot?
I remember seeing video of the stampede last fall at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison and wondering about the
photographer then, too. Fans stormed the field after a football
game and several people died when they got caught between the
surge of the fans behind them, and a barrier that wouldn't give
in front of them. There, before my eyes, were people being
crushed: one young lady in particular was hysterical, yelling and
crying right into the camera; there were people all around, some
jumping in to try and help, and still the film rolled. I couldn't
believe that the photographer wouldn't do all he could to stop
the horror that was going on: instead he zoomed in. Certainly
shooting that video was no help to anybody.
I'd like to believe that there were extenuating
circumstances behind each of these cases. I hope that there was
nothing that either photographer could do: they were too far away
and caught the images on a screw-mounted telescopic 500mm mirror
lens moon camera, or some such distance-shortening contraption.
But given the human fascination with the gory -- how many times
have you seen the Reginald Denny tape? -- it's a good bet that
each photographer was paid handsomely for their film, and that
whenever the images are shown, some of us will be captivated.
And Blood Was Let Upon the Ground...
Speaking of horrors, what about the eruption of violence in
Rwanda? People are flocking out of this African country because
of the civil war that has turned into anarchy. Streets are
littered with bodies, ten thousand people are thought dead in the
capital city of Kigali, and maybe another ten thousand are dead
in the countryside. As savage as everything is, I find the
sentiments of those who are leaving depressing: those we see
interviewed worry so about the fate of their African friends left
behind. There was an article in Wednesday's New York Times about
the missionaries who are leaving: they came to the country to
help the people and now when some folks really need help the
missionaries are leaving. I don't blame them one bit for leaving
-- their own consciences' rebuke them. One of the refugees was
quoted as saying, "I think we have left a scar on our soul that
will take a long time to heal." What a dilemma to be in, to have
your faith tested like that, to judge your actions with a long
history of martyrs ever in the back of your mind.
"Pity Him, Leader of the Herd Again"
The nation often wonders about President Clinton's leadership
skills, when we're not being assaulted by Whitewater information,
so it was with interest that I read Garry Wills' article in the
current Atlantic Monthly, "What Makes a Good Leader?" (63-80).
The type on the cover hooked me: "What is Political Leadership?
Waffling? Acting? Following the Polls? Yes." These are political
"skills" that I have grown very tired of, but the implication
here was that all effective political leaders possess them and
use them in order to get their way. Wills used as examples George
Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and most especially Franklin D.
Roosevelt, and pointed out that they used political 'tricks' --
evasions, manipulations, prevarications -- to achieve their
desired end. In pointing out an obvious fact, that a leader needs
to have followers, Wills insists that the great leader must
engage the followers upon whom he depends. "The leader is one who
mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers."
Wills contrasts the example of FDR with that of Adlai
Stevenson. Before FDR was sworn in, the lame duck president
Herbert Hoover wanted the president-elect's endorsement of some
programs Hoover thought important to the country. FDR refused not
because he didn't like the programs, in fact he would later
introduce some of them himself; he refused, claims Wills, because
he wanted to convince the people that only something drastic,
only FDR's plan, could pull the country out of the hole, hence
the New Deal. Stevenson, on the other hand, never lacked for
supporters but they didn't do anything for him because he didn't
fire them up. He waited for them to put him into office instead
of convincing them why he needed to be the office-holder. Wills
credited FDR's skills in leadership to his losing the use of his
legs when stricken with polio: by having to appear strong all the
time, even when he fell, FDR learned how to act. He had to become
a master of control because he refused to admit to anyone else
that he needed help, when it was so obvious that he couldn't do
without that help. This article will make me re-evaluate my
position on Clinton's leadership, and though there might be
little change in that position, it might be fairer to the lessons
of political reality.
Bare My Foibles Will You?
I'm very surprised that the movie Naked even came to Greensboro
because the only mention I had seen of it was in the Village
Voice, and the impression I got was that it was very seedy,
lurid. This English movie deals with sex but I think the title
refers to the personality of the protagonist, Johnny. He's like a
bad dream, the guest who not only wouldn't leave but who berates
his hosts for their bad taste. I think we all know a Johnny,
someone who can tell us we wear no clothes, who exposes our
pretensions, but who invariably grates on the nerves. There are a
lot worse types of people out there than a man who mentally
shakes up your life for a while. While this film is disturbing in
parts, it's also hilarious and definitely worth a few bucks if
only for the philosophizing that Johnny takes to the streets of
London. His heated explication of some prophecies from the Book
of Revelations is one example: he convincingly explains to the
"insecurity guard" Brian the futility of living for the future
since all signs point towards an Armageddon before the year 2000.
Johnny espouses different theories depending on his audience, but
they're always thought-provoking.
Bonfire of the Banalities
I always search out any Tom Wolfe that I haven't read, and I
found an article in a book called Fifty Who Made the Difference.
This book is a compilation of pieces commissioned by Esquire for
their golden anniversary (in 1983). Fifty subjects were chosen,
the most influential personalities of the last fifty years, and
then fifty authors were recruited to write about one particular
subject. There are some interesting pairings here: Ken Kesey
writing of Jack Kerouac's import; Gore Vidal claiming Richard
Nixon as his literary creation; Arthur Miller discussing
McCarthy's hold on America in a piece on Edwin Murrow.
Tom Wolfe's subject is Robert Noyce, the inventor of the
microchip and subsequent founder and CEO of Intel. Wolfe credits
Noyce with a huge influence in the mindset of Silicon Valley in
the formative years when computer chips were making many a techno
wizard filthy rich. In the Noyce's company there never were
assigned parking spaces, there were no private offices, no rigid
flowchart detailed a chain of command. Wolfe is never content
just to describe and detail his subjects, he places them within
an historical and sociological context. Noyce becomes the symbol
of California and the New Economics against the staid, outdated
business practices of the New York and Wall Street, where CEOs
thrive on the exotic three-hour lunch at exclusive restaurants
and chauffeurs at the beck and call. And Noyce is compared
favorably to the founder of Grinnell, Iowa (his hometown), who
fled the confining East and imposed his spiritual vision on his
creation. Noyce did this as well, and his "town" was the center
of the computer boom of the Seventies and Eighties. This piece
takes its tone from the Midwest, as most of the major figures of
Silicon Valley "had grown up and gone to college in small towns
in the Middle West and the West" (298). For they were the people,
despite what the Eastern Establishment would have the world
believe, who were shaping the future at the time. This article is
not Tom Wolfe at his most entertaining nor is Robert Noyce the
most exciting subject Wolfe has treated. In fact, it's almost
boring (heresy!). But I don't think I stretch the point that if
it is blas�, Wolfe meant it that way: the larger scheme dictated
how he wrote. The Merry Pranksters would not be at home in
Grinnell, Iowa.
On the Net
I've spent a lot of time on the internet this past week, and I
can't really remember what I have been doing there. The internet
sometimes strikes me as a complex information arcade game:
sometimes the lights will flash and bells will ring and the
player comes away with his cyber fix. Other times one plays,
plays and plays some more, feed the quarters, and when you quit
the game is over, the player hasn't won a thing. It's so often a
chore just to find some interesting information.
One source that always interests me, to which I periodically
return is the Project Gutenberg. Here the user can find the
electronic texts (etexts) of many books on file -- I read one and
reported on it in the sixth issue, Bruce Sterling's The Hacker
Crackdown. The purpose of Project Gutenberg is to get as much
literature as possible out to the users and in fact their
ambitious goal is to "Give Away One Trillion Etext Files by
December 31, 2001." Here you might find the complete works of
Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll's Alice books, the Fables of Aesop,
the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the CIA World Factbook, Roget's
Thesaurus, etc., etc., etc. Much of these texts are already in
the public domain (i.e. they are old enough for the copyright not
to be privately held), and it's rare to find a contemporary work
on it such as Sterling's, but there are some interesting titles
that one can find. And they want you to copy the files, just
don't use them to make money for yourself. One problem is that
these "books" are merely text files: if you don't want to read
them on the computer you have to print them out. It might be
cheaper to buy a used paperback instead of printing out the text
file, but it sure is fun, the novelty of "finding" a book you can
have for free.
Quote of the Day
I've been looking for a daily paper to subscribe to, and I
believe I've finally found a suitable arrangement for The New
York Times, so it will be appearing more in the (news)letter. I
was told that the writing quality was superb, and in reading my
"first" issue, Tuesday, April 12, I came across this lead
paragraph in a story about the California bridge:
Less than three months after an earthquake shut it down and
more than two months ahead of schedule, the Santa Monica
Freeway, aorta of this city's circulatory system, reopens on
Tuesday. And if every public official claiming credit for
the rapid repair stood on them at once, the two newly
restored bridges over La Cienega Boulevard and Fairfax
Avenue might just collapse again.
A fellow named David Margolick wrote that and I think it's
beautiful. The imagery of the freeway system as the literal heart
of Los Angeles might not be original but I doubt it's been evoked
quite as well. And the cynicism of the second paragraph! I think
he won me to the Times.
Merry Christmas, IRS. :(
