#Hashbrowns

The Romans turned their lives upside down, with lords becoming slaves and vice versa. There was food and drink and song, and at the end of the festivities, everyone felt renewed for the coming year.

The Germans marked Midwinter with a feast; taking their fill of food and drink and song, and at the end of the festivities, everyone felt renewed, as they knew spring approached.

The Biblical story of Jesus is most likely a temporal transplant, celebrated in the wrong season for his actual birth, but giving a fine excuse to gather and enjoy food, drink and song.

We Jews celebrate a time we killed a bunch of Greeks for bossing us around (as good a reason as any) with, you might have guessed, food, drink and song.

When the wind whips the bones, and the nights swell past their customary borders, life becomes bitter. But humans are social animals, and we do so love to share our misery. So we drink and laugh and eat and sing and enjoy the company of others, because that’s the true meaning of any of the Solstice Holidays: to share our winter misery to lessen it, and to enjoy time with our loved ones. The story of Jesus in the manger or Amaterasu in the cave or Odin driving at the head of a furious legion of undead warriors on a Wild Hunt or just a bunch of Jewish Terrorists kicking the shit out of some foreigners are the instance of the holiday, not the substance.

Merry Midwinter, friends. Whatever your excuse, I’ll gladly grant you my brandy, tea, sweetbreads and company.

Just grant us peace.

Recently, I went on a drive to St. Louis. At the on-ramp for the interstate, an old man was hunched over with a set of bags; sitting, waiting, hoping to hitch a ride. I had space in my car this trip, and was happy to oblige. I pulled over. He asked how far I was going, and I told him. He needed a lift to Wentzville. An old military buddy owns a motel there, and he can usually stay at a discounted rate that his vet benefits can cover. The ride was quiet. He would occasionally mutter to himself, possibly praying. I offered conversation at the start, but it was awkward, the sort of exchange made between two people far more accustomed to listening than talking. Eventually, we settled into a comfortable silence as he would doze in the air conditioning, stirred occasionally by uneven panels of asphalt. The quiet drone of NPR churned off the radio, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what they were talking about. Instead, I focused on the quiet.

There was something real there, not merely the same commute in isolation, with the Air cranked and MP3s blasting without any connection to the world around me. This stranger had entered my field of artificiality. The experience was changed, I was no longer in my own little box, with my own little world. Looking out the window, although the sun was bright, somehow the clouds had left the world shadowless, and the wind made the crops and trees along the road shudder incessantly. It was calming and unnerving and deeply significant, a reality on the other side of reality from dreaming, more real than actuality.

I bought him a cheeseburger in Warrenton, then we continued, after he finished eating he resumed his sleep for 15 minutes before we reached his destination. He gave me directions through town to his friend’s motel, where I helped him out and waited until he had spoken and arranged for his stay for the night.

As I waited for him to finish discussing his arrangement with the motel owner, I stood outside in the warm breeze and turned over what that day meant in my head. In a different world, this elderly man would have been played by Morgan Freeman. On the ride, he would have dispensed worldly wisdom, and I would leave the experience a better person, having earned some enlightenment through the simple act of kindness of giving someone a ride. But the real world does not generate meaning this way. Things happen. People just exist. I am not a cynical urbanite who opens his heart to a lovable stranger, nor the closet racist who only performs kindness out of a sense of guilt. He is not a Modern Diogenes; neither a source of wisdom nor a freeloading bum who skirts courtesy, taking exactly as much as hospitality can demand of others. We spent barely 2 hours together. We encountered a human being we would otherwise not have known existed, and barely learned anything about one another. Any meaning we impose on that is artificial.

Although as I left Wentzville, I noticed the wind had stopped blowing.

Recently, I have moved to a new apartment, which explains but does not excuse my absence from my blog. Whist unpacking, I found a decrepit 80 gig external hard drive, purchased when I was a sophomore in college. Due to it’s bulk and requiring a separate power source, it established itself as a pain in the ass, and has been, packed up, quietly waiting, entirely untouched 2005.

This digital time capsule has reminded me what a horrible, horrible place the world of old was. Newsradio, currently cherished on DVD, saved at what appears to be a less-than 128 bitrate. A .SWF file of All Your Base Are Belong To Us. The Internet Archive version of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  A picture of a bronze guinea pig titled “ranjyu.”

Who were you, me-of-2005? And why was this significant?

Knowing what I know now, I recognize some of this as simply having shitty taste of being a barely-past-teenager. And some of this is a charming discovery. L5R fiction of an unpolished quality, but carrying a nostalgic value. Music I’d long thought lost due to crashed computers I can listen to again, and cringe at my awful taste. But the most cryptic thing is a document simply titled “projects;” a fragmentary arrangement of indeterminate origin and significance. There are flashes of familiarity in some of them, but the overall meaning of why this was saved in such a format remains a mystery. Like Ranjyu, but with far less clarity.

Below, copy and pasted directly, without editing, I present to you: Projects

immortal warrior

365 greatest people you’ve never heard of:
Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf
Norman Borlaug
Hypatia of Alexandria
Stanislav Petrov

reng – spider
forðfor – death
gast – angel
hreosan – fallen

In the last 24 hours, I have been shot, stabbed, hit with a shovel, poisoned, blown up, thrown out of a building, and run over with a truck. If I survive this crap, I’m gonna write a book called “Stuff That Hurts.”

While not included inside the "projects" document, this image, intitled "mindora-learn2" was in the same folder. Perhaps this means something?

Rin
Pyou
Tou
Sha
Kai
Jin
Retsu
Zai
Zen
Alen Trivette

Split 1/4 bottle .187 liters
Half 1/2 bottle
Bottle 750 milliliters
Magnum 2 bottles 1.5 liters
Jeroboam 4 bottles
Rehoboam 6 bottles Not available in the US
Methuselah 8 bottles
Salmanazar 12 bottles
Balthazar 16 bottles
Nebuchadnezzar 20 bottles 15 liters
Sovereign 34 bottles 26 liters

The Sovereign is a new bottle, made for the launching of the
largest cruise ship in the world. The bottle alone cost 8,000 dollars
to produce and they only made 8 of them.
Most of the funny names come from Biblical people.
There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead
armadillos.
– Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner

黒白

When I first encountered him, he was wearing a hawaiian shirt and bathtowel, chasing an empty black sedan down the street. Had I known the circumstances, I would have been more impressed

aoenhime

I do not know what conclusions to draw from all this.

What is our obligation to nations that we have done harm? For decades, in the name of democracy, we have propped up dictators, for their violent opposition to communism, even overthrowing democratically elected leftist governments. What do we owe these people? Clearly we owe them our support, and an attempt to make things right. But how do we do this?

Do we oust the brutal thugs our own government installed and propped up? We have a military that dwarfs all others. We have the biggest hammer. These nails deserve hammering down. There are dissidents in these nations, some already rising up. If we ask, they will ask for more and more support for their incursions against the powerful. Which makes our obligation to refuse military force all the more teeth grating.

The Neo-Conservative Impulse, that if we have power, we should use it, is understandable. We want to make amends, using the military that supported the monsters feels apropos. But the consequences of exercising supreme force are more complicated than the superhero fantasy would inform us. We could use our unconscionably expensive military to support the Arab Spring, which would only begin to make up for our sins. But we cannot predict consequences. Rather than risking doing harm, we should do nothing. Oppression is not the same mechanism as a mugging. In using force, we are not Superman, swooping in to save the Kitty Genovese’s of the third world. Initiating force is instead responding to violence by triggering upheaval and destruction, like a natural disaster, and we can only hope that our Hurricane of Earthquakes will kill those that do evil, and few others. But others will die.

So what shall we do? Shall we wash our hands, fall into isolationism, acting only out of the sociopathy of “national interest?” Clearly no. But our action requires a light touch; Education, information, aid. Since Vietnam, thinking on military victory have included two components. The ground war, and the war for hearts and minds. This second war is the only one worth fighting. And we do not spend our resources on it well.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Takashi Miike is the hardest working man in Japanese Cinema, producing works in varying extreme styles. One of his more recent forays into theaters (which for anyone reading in Columbia, is currently playing at the Ragtag), 13 Assassins, is possibly the best L5R campaign ever committed to celluloid.

While I am avoiding spoilers, depending on your level of willful ignorance, some may follow, so be warned.

There is a foul villain, in the waining days of the Tokugawa era, there exists the sort of sadistic monster that only exist in Takashi Miike films, and a small band of committed and skillful samurai commit themselves to slaying this creep.

After the initial outlay establishing the villain is a villain for villains (in case you might feel sympathy for the guy being targeted by the titular Assassins) there is very little of Miike’s signature stylized violence, and instead we get a patient, paced, Kurosawa-esque travelling series along with quite a bit of plotting and preparation.

What this results in is a film made of overlapping films: a heist film more deserving of the title than Oceans 12 was, a slightly comedic brotherly road film on the order of Stand By Me (but with less Wil Wheaton)  followed by one of the better executions of a Chambara film in my recent experience.

I rarely think any film needs to be seen by everyone. But it does deserve some mention.

Transformers 3  cost just short of 200 million dollars. 13 Assassins cost roughly 6 million.

That money would be much better making 33 films to equal 13 Assassins. And knowing Miike, he could have those 33 finished inside of  5 years.

First we came for the landless, and we spoke up for them, because the suffering of the poor among us is the suffering of all.

Then we came for the enslaved, and we spoke up for them, because no man has the right to own another man.

Then we came for the the immigrant, and we spoke up for them, because we are the land of opportunity, where all can build a new life.

Then we came for the women, and we spoke up for them, because gender does not determine value.

Then we came for the people of color, and we spoke up for them, because there remained issues of the past which had not been resolved.

Then we came for the homosexuals, and we spoke up for them, because love is a virtue to be honored and cherished.

And so we have come for all: the rich and poor, man and woman, all races, all creeds, all identities.

And so we will continue to come for our brothers and sisters. Where ever there are chains, inequities, and hatred, we will speak and we will fight. There are voices that align against this, saying they enjoy the status quo, that raising others to their elevated status in fact diminishes them. Or that we cannot change the world.

On this last point, they are right. The world needs improvement. It will always need improvement. It will ever be enough.  And so, we will come to the aid of those that need, forever. Equality moves at the speed of Zeno’s Paradox. We can, and must, walk those infinite steps.

Stand up, speak out, and keep walking. For Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood. Until the end.

My father died 15 years ago.

In the time since then, my mother went from holding an unused BA in Anthropology to a Master of Nursing and teaches at Washington University’s nursing school. My sister has become a professional who helps graduate students complete their work. My brother has become a modest success as a musician. My grandparents’ health has slowly failed, bit by bit, but they are still quite alive and good for it.

I’ve lost friends, and gained others, seen people grow and relationships blossom. The people who mean things to me are, for better or worse, mostly healthy, vibrant, and taking life as it comes, and I’d like to think I’m keeping pace. Family, however we define it, is all we’ve got. And my family, here in St. Louis and Columbia, and extending out in Diaspora to Kansas City and Camdenton and North Carolina and Texas and New York and Florida and anywhere else you can name, is what I still hold very dear.

For me, Father’s Day offers little occasion for gift giving or family outings. It instead gives me occasion to think back to my Bar Mitzvah, one of the last times I can remember my father being able to attend a big, public event. I think back to that day, that declaration that “Today, I am a man,” and I consider if he would approve of the man I am today, of the family I surround myself with, and the ethical choices I make.

I think he would. I love you all.

Happy Father’s Day, family of friends.

In ancient Rome, among the bloodsports of the Arena, there existed classes of Gladiators. Enemies were paired off based on balancing strengths and weaknesses, or for the sake of quasi-reenactments. Two of the more common types, the Hoplimachus and the Thraex, were based on Greek and Tracian soldiers, using their arms and armor of the same style. These would be pitted against gladiators representing Romans, and the audience could vicariously live out the thrill of these prior conquests.

Every time we load up Call of Duty to re-battle the German Army, we engage the same behavior. the Modern Warfare series, portraying fictional conflicts with modern enemies, indulges the same cultural chauvinism without having to first win a war against that foe.

I refer you to this little tidbit wherein we celebrate our recent military history.

The attachment of the notoriously corrupt band of murderers makes this more uniquely vile, but the problems presented here arise industry wide. And this industry is symptomatic of the most vulgarly Roman Imperial habits of our nation. Of course we are superior. We won the war. Even wars we lost, we won. Just ask us. And so we collect these victories, and live in the nostalgia, celebrating our history of violence.

Francois Truffaut said “There is no such thing as an anti-war movie.” The same is true of video games, but perhaps to an even heightened intensity. Games thrive on shallow conflict. Not only is a war glamorized, it is mandatory.

20 some odd years ago, Wealthy Logging Industrialist Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha were gunned down outside the Vancouver Opera House. Known as Tom and Midge, they were beloved pillars of the community. Their son, Bruce, better known as “Young Dave” has sworn to honor their memory. He has dedicated a trust fund in their honor with a mandate to work toward the reduction and elimination of Cholera in the Third World.

Young Dave is widely considered the most eligible bachelor in the province; wealthy, intelligent and handsome with the training of an Olympic athlete, holding a Bronze for Skeleton from the Torino games. Despite all this, he has never married, declaring that he is married to his work. While he does hold the controlling interest of Wayne Industries, his primary work is that of honoring his parents, fighting crime as a Corporal in the RCMP.

Fucking Canadians.

I had a dream wherein I was watching an episode of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” the Nickelodeon horror show which uses campfire stories as a framing device for junior grade versions of Twilight Zone episodes.

I noticed right away the unusually low production values, looking rather like a low-grade film stock from the 1970s. The meandering story followed various counselors at a summer camp as they went about their day, in the fashion of typical horror movie set up.

It seems the show has decided to use normal film footage of a low grade schlock horror film, since all of a sudden, out come some tits. Nothing really titillating or interesting, just a girl decides to remove her top, as exploitation films are wont to do.  I think to myself “well, deciding seeing nudity isn’t going to scar kids for life? good for you? I guess? I suppose you just have Standards and Practices to worry about, not the FCC, so you can do that if you want. but this really doesn’t seem worthwhile.”

From there, the story sort of meanders without any real direction with occasional gratuitous, not-very-appealing partial frontal nudity without ever actually getting to the promised horror story, like the first act of Birdemic, but literally without ever getting to the promised birds.

Even in my dreams, I waste my time doing nothing in particular.