Month: September 2013

It Didn't Bloom Until Tomorrow

The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail – A Play

Waldo: Henry! Henry! What are you doing in jail?

Henry: Waldo! What are you doing out of jail?

Re-read “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail” last night. First read was in 2004… I think. It is a two-act play that pretty-much summarises Henry David Thoreau’s life. Not only that. It’s also a literary window into what potentially could be the answer to what’s possibly ailing life/America today–maybe. That is. The answer we’re all searching for, including those not searching, could be in not so much the play but the summary of Thoreau. But then again. Assuming that there is  an “answer” might be a bit much. Still. While trying to understand what motivates some people to act the way they act it’s sometimes best to seek out their opposite. Does that mean we need to seek out the people that don’t act the way some/other people act? Hence. I was initially motivated by thoughts of Walden. Even with a very limited knowledge of his work, the mirror of Thoreau’s anti-social nature is an answer to the disease that is convention. I mean. One can only imagine what people at the time thought of Henry David Thoreau. Also. Did rumours abound of what this man was actually doing the whole time in a shack near a lake? Or. Since life today is all about compromise and appeasement isn’t it only natural that so many of us never miss a lunch and look exactly that way? Nomatter. Thoreau definitely spent a night in jail and the reason for that is enough to provide some insight into what is still so terribly wrong with America today. Great play about a dollar tax left unpaid. But I reckon a great play just ain’t enough for the voters of anti-greatness as they all continue to pay more than just their tax.

Rant on.

Tommi

PS

A Cypripedium, aka “Showy Lady Slipper” that Thoreau tried to show his students when he should have been teaching them math or history or civics. The authors of “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail”, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, put this beautiful flower in their text and added “Last year it didn’t bloom until tomorrow!” at just the right moment.

Connect Dysfunction Dots

Can it be said enough? I mean, can it be said enough before it becomes commonplace? No. Then let’s do it now. Let’s say it, dear worst-reader. For it is… American’t. It is The United Mistakes of America. And then there’s, The Land Of The Free To Be Stupid. Etc., etc. Alone the common misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment should give away how utterly dysfunctional a people can be when it comes to grasping even the tip of the floating iceberg that is sinking our ship. Ineed. If one heeds the creed of liberty and freedom and all that jazz, America is a über-dysfunctional place sailing along as though we have earned our vacation of doom. Or is it our nightmare of glory? Nomatter. But then again, if one wishes to continue on through life as though optimism is as real as the pill prescribed by our shrink or the golden shoes that match the iPhone bought at the mall or the ice cream licked from the corporate restaurant chain, then I worst-suppose all is well. We can continue on connecting the dots as though they contain the entertainment we seek in order to shut down for an hour or four before going out yet again to work for-the-man. For it doesn’t matter what those dots eventually turn out to be–the most important thing is that as soon as you’ve connected them the faster you/we can return to the intended state of disconnection–I mean, dysfunction. Comfort zone for all. Eternal holiday. Let the games begin. Ahoy!

****

(Update: unfortunately link to vid referred to is broke; seems MSNBC has removed it.) What is the most shocking part of the report by Rachel Maddow in the vid below? Is it the fact that the bad guy outed American intelligence services that helped prevent a suicide bombing in Yemen? Or is it the fact that the DOJ circumvented fourth estate journalists and their right to not reveal their sources? No wait. None of that is important because it also turns out that the bad guy, you know, the one caught because of DOJ fourth estate circumvention, was also a child pornographer. Wow. Stop the presses! Or should we, Miss Maddow, not stop the presses?

What’s fascinating after listening to this report several times is how Maddow forgets to mention one very important dot that is not connected. That dot is this: None of this would have been possible prior to the current crazed state of law enforcement in America. Put another way, it took 9/11 to set America on a path of radical anti-constitution law making, including government bureaucratic expansion that has put us in a state of perpetual bankruptcy ad-absurdum. Which brings worst-writer to this conclusion: When will Maddow tell the story of how American’t, while lost in connecting all the wrong dots, eats itself from within?

Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not an anti-government nutbag. In fact, I’ll happily stand up and sing the song titled You Get The Government You Deserve right after The Star Bangled Banner. It’s just that while listening to Maddow rip this story as though she were revealing something significant–probably because of how it’s all somehow connected to Hillary Clinton and her involvement in Benghazi and hence her chances of election in 2016–I can’t help but feel squeamish regarding all that is not said. And so, the most shocking thing is that Maddow, in her attempt to reveal the news, that is, play journalist, doesn’t really get around to telling American’ts what they really should know. But who am I to judge. She’s got the TV show, earns lots and I’m just a useless eater.

Links:

Update: Dead link above has made worstWriter VERY curious. Why would MSNBC kill such a link? And if they kill it, why then make it so hard to find? Any sys admin or website admin could have made the appropriate changes to whatever linked this vid to the world. But I should stop there. Not trying to fan the flames of Maddow conspiracy. Luckily (as of Nov. 2013) I was able to find a Tweet linking to this video but not able to find the video via NBC or MSNBC. Below the link to the vid from the tweet. Good luck.)

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/53089884/#53089884

Rant on.

-tgs-

Krapp vs Krapp

Eleuthéria by Samuel Beckett

All-time favourite word? “Krapp”. worstwriterdotcom is, fittingly, full of the word ‘krapp’. Oh, how I wish I could get credit for coining such a word. But all for naught. So much for worst-writer’s attempt at replacing the word absurd with it. I mean, what sounds better, dear worst-reader, “everything is absurd” or “everything is krapp”? Nomatter. If I could coin such a worst-word then the worst-world-over could forward me a nickel every time it’s used. And then maybe, just maybe, I would earn as much as Samuel Beckett earned from the receipts of his plays. But such is the absurd… I mean krapp. Which brings me to other earnings.

Curse the day I read Godot the first time. Although I’ve almost forgotten that special day, Godot hangs on to me like the stickiness of severed flesh where parts of my arm or leg dangle in a wind coming off the north sea coast, embellished and enriched with salty air and the million year murkiness of a future ready for more petroleum, less reading, absurdity status quo and sharks that bite but also forget. And all the above makes the (almost) forgotten day grand, to say the least. How counter intelligent, eh? For I realised at that moment after reading Godot that Theatre Of The Absurd ain’t such a damning thing and I need not lay waste to such days. What a great way to figure out the humdrum of this or that life, eh? Or to see through the valance covering the life of others. In this particular case, or valance, one can see through Samuel Beckett’s life–at least in part his literary life. I like to think of Eleutheria as Beckett’s first and last play. That is, he wrote it before he wrote Godot but Eleutheria was rejected for Godot and hence theatre has never been the same. When the play was finally published Beckett was no more. So who do we thank for this and what should have been published sooner? Again. Nomatter. Since publishers seem to be the ones that caused this to take so long (after Beckett’s death) then all that’s left is all the absurd… Krapp. Wait. Or do we thank death, the only real thing left?

M. Krap: One moment. Finding it therefore impossible to live and recoiling from the great cure, through a sense of decency, or through cowardce, or because of the very fact that he is not living, what can man do to avoid the oh so very discreet and unobtrusive insanity he has been taught to dread? He can pretend to be living and that others live. -Samuel Beckett “Eleutheria”

As is the case with all things of absurd  yet valuable, leave it up to publishers to have a shit-fit about who-when-where would publish this piece of literary history. Thank Godot it made it, thank Godot for human mortality, and thank him again for Beckett’s last breath. Indeed, a valued piece of literary history. Ad absurdum. Can be had by all.

What this play is about is irrelevant. Yet its content should, somehow, be known. So. It’s about the Krap family. They are a bourgeois family and after the death of the father the son must cope. Cope with what? Well, this is a Beckett play and it either holds the seeds to what will come or it is the blossom of what has been. But even that doesn’t matter. And unlike Godot, Eleutheria doesn’t contemplate death but maybe it should. For in Godot the main character never appears but in Eleutheria the main character is everybody–even an “audience member” that, without trickery or other forms of drama-magic, appears in the play. This play is extremely complicated and for the most part in-cohesive. But if you concentrate on the words, the mis-en-scene, nothingelsematters. Yet while trying to find  a way through it I eventually realised that the family name Krap was used again by Beckett in his infamous play Krapp’s Last Tape. Ah, maybe there is trickery going on here. This play is indeed connected to much of Beckett’s work, probably more his prose than his dialogue. But I will not go down that analytical path–as I don’t think Beckett did either. Instead I will stick with the unknown and the in-cohesive and Godot and dangling limbs and north sea sharks with small Germanic spicy teeth and überpowerful jaw. And the fact that a poet of this magnitude could use the same name twice? Yes, it’s hard to let go–this wondrous absurdity. Or is Beckett actually writing the absurdity twice but hidden under a different valance? Ah. The genius nobel laureates, dear worst-reader, they all deserve their titles and their earnings for coming up with tricks and dicks. For you see, Beckett added a ‘p’ to the infamous name and thereby also adding a bit more absurdity he created Krapp. If only another ‘p’ could be added to absurd. Nomatter. Eleutheria means liberty in greek but this play frees no one except maybe a whacked-out doctor that preaches to those who cannot face the absurdity of life and judging it so. Here, ironically, a “doctor” explains life and what should be done about it.

Dr. Piouk: Here it is. I would prohibit reproduction. I would perfect the condom and other appliances and generalise their use. I would create state-run corps of abortionists. I would impose the death sentence on every woman guilty of having given birth. I would drawn the newborn. I would campaign in the favour of homosexuality and myself set the example. And to get things going, I would encourage by every means the recourse to euthanasia, without, however, making it an obligation. Here you have the broad outlines. -Samuel Beckett “Eleutheria”

Rant on.

Tommi

Shooter And The Sweet Doctor

Probably one of the best ad libitum responses yet to American’ts lust for blood, guts, repression-glory and forgetting about seeds sewn and moving on to the next mall purchase. Trauma centre head doctor, Dr. Janis Orlowski, did a great job responding to this dire situation (see also vid and links below). Yet worst-writer can’t help but see through the glaze of this persons attempt at speaking to the dumb-down. And so. Instead. Let’s get into the corporate bullshit that has once again spewed out and rejected yet another mother’s lost son? Not to compare apples with oranges, but, as soon as I started to read about the latest shooting in what is practically my home town, the fact that this guy was a subcontractor made me think not of his violence but of what corporate American’t culture is churning out day by day. And wasn’t Edward Snowden also a corporate subcontractor? I know, a terrible comparison. Or is it? I mean, both these guys have government clearance. Nomatter. What is known about this most recent shooter is that he was not only a subcontractor but he was a subcontractor to a subcontractor. And we all know what the word “subcontractor” really means, don’t we? It means: work more for less and follow those that think they are ahead of you because of where and when they took their seat, fall in line, pay your dues, know your place, reject real ambition, suspend any lust for life… be VERY THANKFUL you even have a job sucker, etc., etc.. Or something like that. Moving on.

In the interview below, trauma doc Orlowski gives a fairly honest and strained albeit naive response to all the death she’s trying to stop. Yet she clearly seems to be on the edge. The edge of what I’m not sure. That is, she fights back tears in one interview and at the same time tries to provide a nation that has long since been numbed by what it has become with a sense of how to deal with it all. She says, we all need to work on this together. But worst-writer, dear worst-reader, who left the very city she is speaking from, who is beyond familiar with the streets of the navy yard or the Capital building or most houses of ill repute, can only chuckle at what is being transmitted to the land of the blind and no-ears. No one will ever listen to what this sweet doctor has to say because everyone is burdened with consume to survive, to not fall down the rabbit hole of living one pay check to the next, waddling in debt as though it were the same fat surrounding either our minds or our waists. And to think that I’ll be on a plane home soon. I am also wondering if upon debarkation among Das Volk that has created such a diabolical place will it (life) end with a gunshot to my mind while I walk around the streets of the place I love and miss so much? Who knows. But maybe I should try to write a play about all this first. I’ve already found a title.

Links:

 

Rant on.

-Tommi

Fresh Ammunition

Some thoughts motivated after reading an article about the mechanics of nature and how certain stuff about nature just don’t seem right. Or does it seem right? Nomatter.

Don’t know what it is. Is it my face? The way I walk? The boring way I dress? There has to be a reason why, when walking around certain cities in Germaninland, black & white dressed automatons from whatever church of J-Christ and late-day-saints throws me a smile and says something like: have you found your way yet, sir? Usually I turn to the person and say: why no, but I’ll take the Nike store behind you. Of course, every once-a-once I’ll stop and check out the person questioning his faith by questioning whether or not he truly believes that I have to have his faith and why. After that things get going and I say: you first need to prove to me that your god exists. At that moment he usually whips out his Joseph Smith book and makes some preposterous claim that the word of god is alive. He then gives me a card with the address of their next sermon but I say, before taking the card, ok, if you can first explain to me the evolutionary process that led to the bacterial flagellum then I’ll come to your sermon but I reserve the right to be improperly dressed and a bit inebriated. Bacterial who, he asks with a sodden smile. You see, I add. If you want to convince someone of this nonsense then you should at least be prepared. The thing, my young evangelical friend, is that I am a anti-theist. Do you know what that is? In short, I am a nightmare for most atheists because most of them have an emergency escape hatch they call Pascal’s Wager. I’m going down with the ship, my friend. Look, I then added, and at this point the young man was somewhat intimidated, you seriously need to get your guns in order, and once you’ve done that you need to get some ammunition. The young man was truly taken aback by this time and even his partner, for they never travel the evangelical road alone, was stepping away in the hopes they both could move on to other more intellectually weaker shores. Look, I said, don’t be scared. I’m not gonna give you guys a hard time. It’s just that, sometimes dogs bark up the wrong tree. And even though you obviously won’t get very far with me you should keep this in mind for the next sucker you meet: not only should you know about bacterial flagellum in your argument to prove that your god exists but you might want to also look into the Planthopper which I was reading about just the other morning. The two young men stood still for a moment and I realised that I was the one that had won their attention. You people, I said. You people believe in all that creationist krapp, right? The two young men nodded. Well, bacterial flagellum and possibly the Planthopper are two biological miracles–if you ask me. And I don’t use the word miracle lightly. For you see, even though evolution can explain why some creatures have special powers, it will take the average dumb-down working stiff a few courses in college level biology to figure out that this is actually not a miracle but something worth pondering regarding as to how it came to be. And if your adversary decides not to go the education route, they might just be yours for the taking. Yes, I understand, the partner of the first young man said to me. I’ve tried, he added, to use the same argument with the human eye. And how’s that been working for you, I asked. Not to good, he said. Why, I asked. I don’t know, he said. Could it be because you’re in €urowasteland where most people are fairly educated and have a few biology course under their belt, I said. And then I added: and there’s nothing special about the human eye. I pointed to my thick glasses. And then I added: plus there’s boat loads of scientific evidence about the evolution of the eye from light sensitive biological photoreceptors to lenses and fancy eye lashes. I smiled but they didn’t get the joke. So let me make it somewhat less unclear, I added. The whole thing about bacterial flagellum is really a doozy and could sway a few to your flock. Why are you trying to help us, the young man asked. I guess its in my nature, I said. Plus, I’m fascinated by the fact that nature could make an organism that propels itself with a free rotating axle where neither nerve or muscle tissue can get twisted and in the way. Even though biologists have not found this to be a very efficient form of propulsion, it is clearly a great example of something creative about evolution–whatever that means. So get your guns in order and get the right ammo if you want to argue your way to evangelical heaven. Good luck.

Rant on.

Tomas

 

Exceptional Mediocrity

obama-putin

Barry O is trying. You have to give him that. Vladimir Putin is trying, too. I guess. But there’s something else about these two men. It’s as though they’re already bored with a history that will, in the most important ways, pass them by because of über-under-achievement. Thank goodness that rational human beings know that in these days of centralised governments, embodied by these two men, opting to control worldly resources at the cost of humanity, are nothing more than figures of mediocrity run amok. One does nothing because he’s probably afraid to do anything. The other is just hanging around because his country is destined to be ruled by a two-bit dictator. Pick your own.

Now don’t get me wrong. As far as Barry O is concerned, I’d take his level of mediocrity any day compared to the dipshit before him that, it seems, sealed America’s dumb-down fate. (Hence my old saying: Bet you wished you voted Hillary now, eh!) And when Barry gets started waving that fist with half a finger pointing no place, I love to listen to him. Also, I think, he’s a president that is kinda smart and not trying to play stupid for a stupid voting constituency that ultimately deserves no better. Barry talks from the heart and is believable and his political faux-paws have been few and far between–I mean, it really does look like he’s well on his way to having a fairly scandal-free presidency. But we’ll find that out soon enough.

Enter the other side of the mediocrity coin. This level of do-nothingness is exemplified in a recent article, self penned, in the New York Times. Wow. While reading Putin’s “plea”, just after Barry O’s television plea, I didn’t think once about Syria but instead about Russian journalism. Or has everyone forgotten how many journalists have been murdered in Russia since this under-achiever took over. But I supposed we have to give mediocre credit where it’s due, eh. Not only is Putin a sexy, topless man on a horse or by a river fishing, etc., etc., but he’s also a journalist spewing opinions on the world stage about other countries (mis)behaviour–opinions that ultimately say nothing other than covering up the murder of real journalists in Russia.

And so. Let us all give credit to Putin for one thing in breaking up the world’s recent mediocre events. His journalistic endeavour might just be a one-up on Barry’s mediocre statesmanship. Indeed, dear worst-reader, mediocrity has just been taken to new heights. And Putin is doing so by finally calling out, on the international stage, America for what truly ails it: the fact that no one can come to terms with our own digression into being exceptionally mediocre.

Links.

 

Rant on.

-tgs-

Awash In Projection

zombie customersAs I’ve waddled down the creek of trying-to-say, failing to say before, one of the main reason I’m skeptical regarding the significance of Edward Snowden and his data dump–which we all have to wait to see based on advertising revenues of those who posses the data–is that I’m not sure what exactly motivated him to do what he has done. I’m not trying to question his patriotism. I’m sure he is as confused as any subordinate in the land of the almost free. But here’s the thing. What is clear about today’s American’t culture of failiing-upwards and corporate dysfunction mixed with greed that runs on gasoline and mall visits with over charged credit cards, is that a once great but now only militarily great nation must figure out how to address all that ails it. Indeed, that is a dilemma above and beyond spying and one that is much more complicated.

For worst-writer where all this began is fairly clear. It all began with the modern interpretation of American’t conservative politics and the fact that so few people are actually capable of getting to the truth of what’s really going on–let alone the fact that so many people don’t really give a hoot about what truth is and how it affects them, hence the success of conservatism and it’s promotion of a consume-to-survive society. This leads to the question of where or when or if any of this nonsense will ever end. The answer to that question is two-fold. First, it will end when the funny business is over. That is, when all the humour has been sucked out and all that one can face is laughter without a cause–because that usually leads to tumultuous tears. (And tears, btw, are usually the only way to get really, really stupid people to actually think about anything–nomatter if it can be measured in milliseconds.) At that moment everything will dissolve like toilet paper in spiralling water and you will stare at regretting what you ate the night(s) before. Second. Once the funny stuff is done, then it’s time to face the piper. In this case the piper is called psychological projection. Remember, a drunk never drinks too much–until AA helps with the realisation. Eventually the pot calling the kettle black has to stop. What about that old saying of never throwing stones when you’re standing in a glass house? No? None of that working for you, dear worst-reader?

Ok. Here’s the thing. As you can read in the slide above, psychological projection is alive and well in the gallows of American’t spying bureaucracy. And ain’t it all funny? I mean, come on. As an iPhone owner I laughed. People who buy iPhones are zombies. But so are people who shop at WalMart or pay almost as much for their car as their mortgage or rent. And what about people who work for a government that creates things like the NSA, i.e. Big Brother incarnate? Not pictured here (see links below) is another slide where Apple’s 1984 ad is used as a way to communicate the idear that Apple itself has become Big Brother. (When in fact, the ad was portraying companies like IBM as Big Brother. More on Big Brother here.) Anyways. The thing I’m trying to get at is this. The summer of 2013 should go down in history as the summer of spying and how it became fashionable. For look who is being spied upon and look who is doing the spying and then look at who is revealing this to us all. Or something like that.

Links:

Rant on.

-tgs-