Month: June 2010

5 More: Am Erica I?

1. BUT WHAT “IS” IDENTITY?

2. One empirical definition: a synergetic syncretism — specific, all-encompassing perspective resulting from every experience particular to a localized body-consciousness (i.e., “me”) — not so much the part which says “I” as what completes the sentence “I am ___.”

3. “All encompassing” and “localized” are the key terms here. E.g.: I have been enculturated with a linguistic, ethical and conceptual toolbox through which I can manipulate and “make sense” of the world of my senses, intuition and reason. To the observer, however — and exclusive of certain mindstates — this toolbox is largely indistinguishable from the thing it serves/describes: it resembles in every detail “just the way things are.”

4. But identity can also change with circumstance or with conscious choice — thus changing the observer’s “reality.” The experience of a self-identified “American” will be different from that of a self-identified “Pakistani” or “Celt” or even another “American” — the more so if the self-identifications are mashed-up or tinkered with — but may at least be more immediately comprehensible to other affiliatees. (Thus too is culture consensualized, strengthened and spread; it may begin with a specific spacetime event whose down-the-road permutations often become unrecognizable to the original witnesses/provocateurs — sort of a backwards-incompatible open-source project. “Nobody wants to feel left out, but t’ain’t like it was in my day.”)

5. Given all this, and given that we may no more shed at least our sense of identity than we may shed any other perceived part of ourselves, we might at least enjoy the hot dogs and fireworks, or bratwurst and bier, or mamalige and slivovitz, or whatever suits our skills and palates. It’s tempting to argue with the chef — to anguish over our human frailties, bemoan our benightedness — but does that better equip us to solve them than a full belly, good fellowship, and patience?

5 Thoughts: I Am Erica

1. MY FOLKS ARE FIRST-TO-SECOND generation Americans, who (along with my immigrant and immigrant-descended relatives) taught me that, “In America, you can do anything you want as long as you play nicely with the others.” To them, that meant speaking, thinking, building and living as you choose — as well as helping out those less fortunate.

2. It may be hokey, but that philosophy is still the basis of my sense of patriotism, national pride or cultural chauvinism: “Come here and make a life for yourself — and help the rest of us do the same.” It’s also why I vote the way I do; if I think someone/thing will help make life better for everyone, I’m in; if not, I’m out. (Call me a bleeding-heart libertarian, if that helps you any.)

3. Sadly, we have also earned a reputation for poisoning the local air, land and water in exchange for tax credits; polluting the local mediasphere with rank invective, militant chuckleheadness and recreational character-assassination; and waging unnecessary wars. Environmental criminals (who for the purpose of this piece I would define as anyone who values their profit over the happy lives of me and mine) should take a lesson from the second half of my ancestors’ exhortation. It may already be too late to fix their foolishness; it already shames me to admit these bozos live in my conceptual neighborhood.

4. Most of my formative years were spent in the Northeast, where it seemed “ethnic identity” was something taken for granted as an organic part of oneself. Northern California is way different — folks here tend to be more self-conscious about their own and others’ identity. While that’s better than bigotry, I’m not sure it’s entirely good — for the same reason that it’s not good to think too hard about breathing, or riding a bicycle, or making music, or love.

5. The whole “melting pot” idea, where ethnic refugees drop everything to “become Americans,” is obviously not working (neither, thank “God,” did “separate but equal”). (After all, by definition, Americans can live and look like anybody.) What makes America my currently preferred home (or, as Abbie Hoffman put it, why “my last meal would be a burger, fries and Coke”) is the idea that we’re all pieces in a puzzle, looking for a fit. I heartily deplore the stupid things “my” country has done (especially where that stupidity costs lives and slack). But I am glad to live where people want to do something about the crimes which come to light — and to discover the ones which haven’t.

Pithyism #2<1

MARRIAGE IS NOT A MATTER of being with the one you get along with better than anyone, so much as one with whom not getting along is preferable to being alone — and without whom you wouldn’t get along at all.

(On the occasion of his 16th wedding anniversary, which is three months shy of their 22nd meeting-anniversary, which latter is (two years less than) half his life, which really isn’t long enough at all)

Sizing Science Fiction

ADMIT IT: YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED to compare the Millenium Falcon to a Danube-class runabout. Well, they’re about the same length according to Jeff Russell’s STARSHIP DIMENSIONS. SD scales nearly every species, starship and space station in the visual science-fiction universe (I mean, he’s got Robbie the Robot and the whale probe from Star Trek IV and the space stations from 2001 and DS9 and even real vehicles like the Apollo rockets and ISS and and and GoshWowBoyOBoy).

Metaphorager say: 5 beanies. Click ’em out.

5 thoughts: James Joyce

James Joyce
Fig. 1: James Joyce
IN HONOR OF BLOOMSDAY 2010, five thoughts on the man who made it possible:

1. James Joyce is yet another proof that one man’s mind can be bigger than his skull. (If not, generational banks of Joyce scholars would have quit writing about him long ago.)

2.) Until Finnegan’s Wake, no Irishman had ever beat the Jews for mind-stretching eloquence. (Since the Talmud, the best we’ve done is Groucho Marx and Yehuda Amichai.)

3.) Come to think of it, FW and the Talmud do make two nice bookends for the Western literary tradition: what the Talmud does to Aristotle, Joyce does to Webster. (Said comeuppances piercingly beautiful to see.)

4.) If a man can spend a quarter of his life writing his Perfect Book, there’s hope for the rest of us.

5.) But only if we can manage not to be humbled by such wit-wraps as “Nations have their ego, just like individuals,” “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake,” or “Men are governed by lines of intellect – women: by curves of emotion.” Or: “Agenbite of inwit.” Or even:

O

tell me all about

Anna Livia! I want to hear all

about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course, we all know Anna Livia. Tell me all. Tell me now.

(O, now, what’s the use? Another Guinness pour my muse, poor favor, purring kittenkilkenny of katzenjammers … [tape ends])

The Face That Launched A Thousand Orbits

PUT YOUR FACE AND/OR NAME on the Space Shuttle while you still can[1] at NASA Face in Space, then download and print the evidence. (This is a metaphor for something or other; p’raps best not think too hard on’t.)

[1] Said shuttle program being shut down soon. Accept reasonable substitutes.

Life? On Titan? Maybe.

Titan Saturnsmoon
Fig. 1
FROM THE “THANK G?D I Lived Long Enough To See T*H*I*S” file: While life isn’t the only explanation for the unexpected acetylene/hydrogen findings, it is by far the coolest. (ObJewGeek: Bless the One who makes the makings of creation.)

. Astronomy Now: Something strange is happening on Titan.

. Science Friday: Titan’s Chemistry and the Search for Life.

How To Say Thank You

THE ROOT OF RELIGION, SOME say, is our need to express gratitude for being alive. Sometimes we need to express it to others, but don’t know quite how. Here’s one way: http://www.gratitudecampaign.org/. (Note to hipster friends who don’t dig the military: It’s really for everyone.)

It’s simply the American Sign Language sign for “thank you,” but as the website says, “It means so much more.”

Bad, Bad News

YES, THAT WAS MY EMAIL which KQED’s Michael Krasny read during his second hour this morning, which program concerned the effect of bad news on man-in-the-street audients. The show is worth a listen — archive available at http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201006091000. (I riffed on the concomitant effect of bad news on the reporters who witness it.)

Many listeners discussed the heartbreak of our instant-everywhere media and the dangers of being desensitized by a flood of horrible real images about which one can do nothing or too damn little. Some said they’ve switched off radios and TV sets and canceled newspapers; some severely curtail their media intake to the non-visual or (more often) The Daily Show. One woman addressed the desensitization issue thus: When she sees the faces and names of American soldiers killed most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan (A”H, PBUT and rest in peace), she “goes into a little prayer for them” — she tries to connect her inner spark-of-what-some-call-God to theirs, to their lives and those surrounding them, and to the hole left by what was formerly their presence.

She says that helps. I believe her.

One of the most difficult aspects of living a “religious” or “spiritual” life is reconciling the universal amazingness of God with the frustrative pettiness of some humans. (“Monotheism isn’t for wimps,” as my old buddy Sputnik sometimes said.) It’s the sort of thing which worried Job, at least until God said, “That’s just the way it is.” It worries me too; these days I’m finding it difficult to keep from turning my eyes away from the horror. (Granted, I’m sort of dealing with a lot right now.) But this morning I discovered that not only am I not the only one who feels that way — I’m not alone in thinking that’s unacceptable. I don’t want to be ignorant of what’s going on in the world; I don’t want to be paralyzed by the knowledge either.

Maybe the answer, an answer, or anyway what my tool-using Mr. Fixit primate brain will substitute, isn’t to switch off but to find something you can do something about. Wherever you live, someone needs help — find them and offer it! (In Sonoma Valley, you can do that through FISH, or friendsinsonomahelping.org; if you don’t have something similar near you, start one. )

Even if we can’t directly affect what enrages us, we can channel that rage to productive ends. It may be hard work — but isn’t anything better than paralysis?

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