a real quick write on writing

can i say that i really love to write. no...not just fiction but...almost anything. well...mostly anything that causes me to use my brain and my knowledge.

I came home tonight, its a friday, and really needed to start on an essay. People are going out, the text messages are coming in but man...i feel so comfortable and content sitting here, struggling to write this essay as i drink my third cup of tea.

goethe once wrote, "Is one alive when other men are living?"

kundera believes that hidden within this question is the writer's condition. He explains that goethe is convinced that "a single glance of a single human being which fails to fall on lines written by goethe calls into question goethe's very existence."

i love sitting here and writing. but if i am not read, then do i fail to even exist? do i continue this in vain? perhaps...

"...everyone without exception bears a potential writer within him, so that the entire human species has good reason to go down into the streets and shout: "We are all writers!"
For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard or unseen, into an indifferent universe and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words.
One morning(and it will be soon), when everyone wakes up as a writer, the age of universal deafness and incomprehension will have arrived." - milan kundera from the book of laughter and forgetting

back to spewing words out into the indifferent universe filled with a sea of ears lost of hearing...
goethe wishes you were in weimar...

Godot

Am i cheating by throwing up my articles on here? I don't think so. Here is the most recent addition to Curmudgeon Corner. I think this is probably the best one I have written so far. Able to actually get my thoughts down the way I would like in 900 words or less.

enjoy...

The art of waiting for our Godot’s

“Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time? It's abominable! When! When!”- Waiting for Godot

November 3, 2007 was opening night for the outdoor performance of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Journalist Cain Burdeau of the Associated Press was in attendance and described the outside setting of the play as surrounded by “ruined houses still untouched since they were flooded by roof-deep water.”
The lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans is one of the poorest sections of New Orleans and was most affected by the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Today, much of area is still destroyed and has yet to be rebuilt.

This rendition of Beckett’s play, which centers around two men attempting to escape boredom while they wait for the elusive Godot, draws intentional parallels between the characters awaiting his arrival (which never happens) and the residents of a destroyed city awaiting the help of the Red Cross, FEMA Vouchers and other government aid. Marked with elements of existential doubt and moments of insanity, the themes throughout “Godot” additionally connect to the daily condition of life in the Ninth Ward that its residence must experience.
Director of the play and artist Paul Chan expands on the similarity between the play’s theme and the state of the place it is being set in.

“The longing for the new is a reminder of what is worth renewing…“Godot” was my way of re-imagining the empty roads, the debris, and, above all, the bleak silence as more than the expression of mere collapse. There is a terrible symmetry between the reality of New Orleans post-Katrina and the essence of this play, which expresses in stark eloquence the cruel and funny things people do while they wait: for help, for food, for tomorrow.”

The theme of waiting is something that seems to permeate our society on various different levels. Most of these experiences are not that of what Katrina victims have had to endure. However, all of us live our lives in anticipation. We are characterized by a perpetually waiting for something or someone that can be emblematic of our own, personal “Godot”. Despite its different interpretations, Beckett’s play is wholly connected the human experience in society and on a universal level.

If you are religious, you are constantly waiting for a savior, the after-life, or that moment when the space between the divine and one’s earthly existence can be bridged. For others, it can be a life constantly in pursuit of an ambition or that which will make you sense a purpose. Some live their lives as it comes but are not free from societal constructs leaving us in a long grocery line, or stuck on the freeway as time flees by, making us late or simply cheating us from our freedom of how to spend those lost minutes.

As Katrina victims in the Ninth ward know, waiting is tedious and unbearable.
"We waited for Red Cross. We waited for George Bush. We waited for rescue. We waited for housing…" stated 53-year-old Tyrone Graves as reported by to the Associated Press on the night of Godot’s opening.
Yet this can also further emphasize a great outcome or a tragic end. All of mankind must at some moment experience both these polarities.

Waiting was the prisoners of Auschwitz on those last few days before liberation. It is what the third-world child experiences as they await sustenance, the soldier for his target, the elder on their death bed or nine month pregnant mother. It is our sense of anticipation as we wait for our hair turning the color of ash, the orgasm, the alarm clock to ring, the day to be over, dinner, the light to turn green.

And yet all these are more that just solely the act of waiting; they are events that change and define our passing time. Thus the essence of waiting lies in the experience of the moments which we “wait”.

The characters of “Godot”, despite all their longing, are able to discuss and comprehend the nuances of their waiting. What is discovered is a necessary of the “now”. One is only “waiting” if one lets it be that. There is still time to operate until then.

Kierkegaard wrote that “unhappy individuals who hope never have the same pain as those that remember. Hoping individuals always have a more gratifying disappointment”. By constantly committing the recollection of what is to come but continues to not occur disallows us the ability to hope. Yet, to wait and constantly remain in a wishful anticipation and desire is a whole other kind of waiting. It allows us to forget and no longer see our waiting as idle, and ultimately allows us to better act and exist in that condition of waiting.

The residence of the ninth ward assuredly believe that to be able to continue and exist in their devastating condition, they must find a certain balance between all of that which is, and an attitude of continual hope for what may or may not come. It an unfortunate lot to be in. However, to a certain degree it is something that is universally experienced. “Waiting for Godot” and the situation of the ninth ward is a precisely appropriate coupling and a stirring testament towards our human condition. The result is an uncommon example of real life closely interacting with art.

“Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed…But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us!” –Waiting for Godot

Get active(tense)

Second installment of Curmudgeon Corner coming out in a week or two...getting sorta serious and political in this one. And dare I say...hopeful too...


Our Idle Crime

A popular sticker ambiguously stating the date 1/20/2009, implying Bush's last day in office, has been a common sight in Portland for the last several years. I eagerly wait that day along with many of us. However the sticker instigates more than just feelings of hopeful anticipation, but also reveals a much bigger predicament that much damage can still be down from now until that date.
The easiest thing to do in America right now in regards to issues of politics and the state of our civic environment is to point the finger at Bush. And while Bush and co. are the primary individuals for the mess that we and a new cabinet come 2009 will have to face, it is no longer enough to simply sit and discuss it. Does anyone actually believe that getting Bush out of office will suddenly change everything? Continuing to put our faith (and vote) into those opposing him and his policies is proving to do very little. More must be done.
Unfortunately the American people are looking passive and easily controllable. Comparative to our history, the drive of the American people to organize and instigate social and political change is at a low point. The lack of organized protest against the policies of our government is a clear indication of our disillusionment. Yet the absence our dedication is the greatest crime that any anti-war, anti-Bush or anti-conservative American can do right now. Stickers and conversations are not enough. Scrawling “fu*k Cheney” on a bathroom stall in thick, black pen is a mute point.
Is this passiveness the fate of our future? Or can we once again become a country that doesn’t so easily draw their opinion according to party lines but whether or not the social welfare and interest of the greater population is being addressed and met? United we are not, but divided does not need to imply idleness and inactivity.
The issues at hand are not one’s that many of us would disagree over. One would be hard-pressed to find a strong contingent of people in this country who openly supports the justification of torture, the deterioration of privacy or the growing dictatorial inflation executive powers.
The war in Iraq, the failing infrastructure of our nation, our growing national debt, the destruction of our education system, and the increasingly important issue of climate change are all enough to make you mad. But how much of is a priority to you? How much do you really do? What does it take to cause mass strikes and protests in America today?
The answer has yet to be determined. However the likelihood is seemingly bleak. Why? Well, consider your life:
Can you still go to the movies? Can you still play your Nintendo Wii? Can you still check Myspace? Can you still spend an evening in a bar with your opinions and friends? Yes, you can. And as long as a majority of us are still can participate in these activities then major social or political change seems doomed to fail.
In the most recent issue of Harpers, author Garret Keizer wrote an article determining that the greatest depredation Bush’s presidency has caused is the pillaging of hope in the American people. Keizer goes on to call for a general strike by all Americans that would entail a major curtail of consumption, work and activities involving communication such as watching TV or utilizing a cell phone. Despite its passion and logical points of contention against American idleness, the article reads like an unlikely pipe-dream. However, Keizer is quick to attack such disbelief:
“…how readily and with what well-practiced assurance would your find yourself producing the words “It won’t do any good”? Plausible and even courageous in the mouth of a patient who knows he’s going to die, the sentiment fits equally well in the heart of a citizenry that believes it is already dead.”
Over the last seven years America has proven to be almost unwilling to habitually participate in such movements. On Sunday we are protesting, but by Monday we are back at school and our jobs. It is as if we have forgotten how to properly and effectively demonstrate. And that should bother you.
Right now, closing the growing disparity between us and the bureaucrats that run this country is an essential action that must be taken. We must show not only our current administration but those that will come after it as well that the future of our fate will be determined by us.
Can we be assured that a new president will be enough to steer us back into the right direction? The state our current situation should be enough to not allow one to feel safely guaranteed.
Consider: How many soldiers and civilians will die while we wait for the next president, or congressional discussion to arrive? How many prisoners at Abu Ghraib will get tortured? Or as Keizer presented in his article through the eloquent words of the Chilean poet César Vallejo:

“A man shivers with cold, coughs spits
up blood.
Will it ever be fitting to allude to my inner soul?...
A cripple sleeps with one foot on his
shoulder.
Shall I later on talk about Picasso, of
all people?...
Someone is cleaning a rifle in his kitchen,
What’s the worth of talking about the Beyond?”


A bomb explodes in Iraq killing civilians and soldiers?
Shall I play videogames?