Ouch

Inhale: the pain can be no worse;
I sink into nothing but spirit.
I breathe the pain inside out,
the colors subside into gray.

Exhale: the pain will be worse still-there's no scale
of one to ten or one million-

Blah, blah, blah...I'm just sayin'. Decent day w/my boys and awesome Old 97s concert tonight but still hurting :-(

Hare I go, hare I go, hare I go again...

Sorry, you’ll see what prompted it in a second (you know beside my obvious love for Salt-N-Peppa since my Blacks’ Magic cassette circa ‘93).

It’s Columbus Day, an almost over Columbus Day, but I am just now getting around to posting. I thought maybe I’d get all tangential about the number of government employees that were comfortably lounging today while I sat utterly annoyed in my office and read more about our (insert sarcasm now) flourishing economy – how ‘bout that Dow today? – I know I’m convinced that all is well now! Then I thought: why bother? Why begrudge them their paid holiday? Am I not elated when Labor Day and Memorial Day roll round?

Instead I starting thinking about how when you’re in grade school you’re force-fed some historical nonsense as to why you will have Monday off just prior to being reminded that you should use that time wisely to work on whatever your big project is for the semester. With Columbus Day, in particular (yes, my Catholic grade school was closed), I can recall a cheesy Bugs Bunny cartoon (that I probably saw 10+ times thanks to my paternal grandfather’s love of Bugs) helping to form some of my ideas on Christopher Columbus’ historic role. Of course, the older I got, the less credence I gave to cartoons as historic references (wink), but just for the sake of discussion I think it’s a bit crazy that I ever allowed it into my psyche at all. That’s what we do though right? Form a popular consciousness with regard to historical events via a pervasive cultural layer that's been added like that of Bugs and Chris?

The cartoon delivers that same ol’ story of Chris attempting rather unsuccessfully to convince potential financiers of his voyage that the world is round, etc. Historians know very well that in addition to a majority of well-traveled sailors, most educated people in early modern Europe were perfectly aware that the world was not flat. If anything, Columbus was kind of deluded, just not about the shape of the world, but its size. He thought it was much smaller than it actually was.

When you ask why people have heard otherwise, you can’t really zero in on any single text or source that is responsible for creating an alternative folk knowledge about Columbus and medieval European knowledge. Even when you can find a source like that housed within a Looney Tunes there’s often so much whimsy or simplicity, something intended for children, that is maybe infused with a sense of reference to common sense knowledge about past events, are we really getting anything historically accurate? It’s not that the cartoon teaches you about Columbus, or even that it purports to; it’s more like it’s human capability at work. Together we strive, whether consciously or sub-consciously to innovate, to accumulate and to diffuse culture. While there is of course, always going to be someone trying to write and teach history to his/her advantage or protection (see Lies My Teacher Told Me for some examples), there are also cases like that of Bugs; there’s no malicious agenda in the cartoon to rewrite history, at least I don’t think.

Crap! I'm not going to do it, but the whole thought processes for tonight have ended me at memetics...ugh, another time perhaps. I am tired and extend my apologies for messy though without any fun or informative hyperlinks; what can I say?...I suck tonight. Only blogging to distract myself from familial drama.

Just coming up for air

I have been a naughty blogger and promise to try to whip something thoughtful up this week. Debate was entertaining, yes? Anyway...

You contained me in your universe,
fed me, educated me, bedded me in slippery

sheets, removed my blankets as I slept.
I needed not to leave you except to star gaze.

You were red, and crushed apples along
a stream frozen save for bursting rocks.

Stealing me away from I, we spoke,
listened, lingered over other.

A pearl is round and smooth and lustrous,
Yet your floors slant and porously grit.

You slam doors and disturb dreams,
enter without knocking, give me no key to lock

Your slide-shows warmed the cold church,
And articulated metaphor, design, and thought.