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M. Rothko: From the Seagram Collection

What do you see? Resist the urge to look away; instead look inside.  It’s ok to stare.

Repulsed? Curious? Already inside? Dull?

There is no right or wrong: no good or evil here- just you.

Guernica - Pablo Picasso

The story of the town/village of Guernica can be read in a few history books: the story can be experienced in the whole of Picasso’s work of the same title, the top half of which is shown above.  Woe to him to attempts to summarize art or history, something is invariably left out, someone is forgotten, the learner is spared by being given the plate with sympathy on it while the platter with empathy is hurriedly sent back to the kitchen.

An American Soldier, a young man in his twenties, shot himself in the head last week- that’s right, in a war he shot himself- not because the henchmen of satan, the dreaded ‘terrorists’ had him surrounded and he refused to be taken alive- but because a different terrorist, that of his own brothers-in-arms, his countrymen, the ones who would leave no man, even him, behind, were bored with the lack of killing and had turned on their own, subjecting the young private and others to a different kind of torture from the government approved variety, the kind of torture that the few can inflict on the one by virtue of highlighting in various tricks and teases that the one is just that – one – and not welcomed or part of the family.

The young man called home and told his mother he couldn’t take it any longer, and then he shot himself.  The ‘kill’ will not go on any side’s list, except the side of evil.  In war, as in life, the closer you come to it the more it is clear that the arbitrary labels of good and evil are not sufficient: in war the good side and the evil side reside in each man, woman and child; the battles are waged in the soul and projected out onto the canvas of humanity with bloody and horrific consequences.  We are all the tortured and the torturers, part of the group yet desperately alone, born with a gun in our mouth and dared to pull the trigger.

cSb

I read in the newspaper about a man who just wanted to be left alone.  His life was ordered towards this purpose: it was his wish, his dream, and yet, after taking every precaution, and after making every decision in pursuit of this goal, he among the billions who inhabit this planet was written about in the newspaper, and read about by more people than he had spoken to in his entire life.

He lived with his ailing mother.  She died sometime around 2002, and not wanting to bother with the hassle of dealing with the throngs of people death requires- medical personnel, funeral directors, grieving kin, and curious neighbors- he made the decision to take his dead mother down into the basement and reverently place her in the deep freezer.  There aren’t details in the released reports about the specifics of the burial; but I think he probably filled the freezer with about a foot of water and went to bed, letting the water freeze and provide a firm, frozen foundation on which to lay ‘mama.’  The next morning, I surmise, he awoke and had his standard breakfast, a bowl of cereal, and then went back down to the basement and respectfully lowered his mother’s body into the freezer; after which he filled the freezer with water and closed the lid.  People who just wish to be left alone are not usually longwinded, so I imagine he just bowed his head and said goodbye before going back upstairs to watch television.

Five years later a bratty neighborhood kid was getting yelled at by his half-drunk father and was in danger of getting another beating when the kid had a sudden epiphany: “But daddy, the crazy man hit me! That’s why I was late. He hit me!” The father’s drunken rage turned from the boy to the reclusive crazy man the whole town talked about, and the father stumbled out the door in pajama pants and work boots to confront his son’s abuser.  The father lost the fight as evidenced by the gunshot wound in his left thigh which shattered the bone and poured blood into the street outside the quiet man’s home.

According to the police report, the arrested man only said that he wanted to be left alone, and that he took nothing with him down to the jail.  The subsequent search of the home revealed mother, encased in ice, and resulted in an additional charge of ‘hiding a corpse.’  The trial was swift with the accused offering no defense, and the man was taken to prison.  He told the guard that he just wanted to be left alone, but they wouldn’t listen.

Prison is not the place for introverts, despite its reputation as being a place removed from society, it is, in point of fact, society condensed into a smaller world: it is like the concentrated orange juice- much stronger than the diluted version enjoyed by the general population.  As such, the man was miserable and informed a guard that he thought the guard’s mother was of unsavory character.  This calculated interaction landed the man in solitary confinement.  At last, his wish was granted.  He was now completely alone.

Ninety days later, a guard opened the door wearing a newly pressed uniform, brown shiny boots, and holding a shotgun on his hip.  He announced that the scumbag was now free to go back to his cell.  The man calmly looked at the officer and made up an elaborate tale of how, each night, his soul left his body and flew away to a nearby farm where it inhabited the body of an old stud horse, who under his possession broke out of his pen and galloped all the way to the guard’s mother’s house where he, in the body of the horse, proceeded to defile his mother on her living room sofa while she screamed and writhed in pain.  The guard slammed the butt end of his shotgun between the man’s eyes, and left him in solitary confinement for another 180 days.

According to the newspaper, the man is still in solitary confinement.  His court appointed attorney only had one comment: ‘Well, all he did really want was to be left alone.’

CSB

I have never been one to follow a ‘reading schedule’ or a sort of personalized syllabus; instead I have relied on fate, chance and the will of the god(s) to drop the next tome into my lap.  This has led to no discernable pattern in my literary consumption over the last few years with the exception being that I tend to get into ‘phases’ where I will focus on a topic or a particular author.  I just recently went through a Hunter S. Thompson phase, finishing off Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Generation of Swine, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.

An unfortunate side effect of playing this literary whack-a-mole game is the shameful tendency to start books but never finish them.  Consequently I have a plethora of unread, half-read or almost-all-read books on my shelves that can act as town criers in the middle of the night, waking me up from dreamland to remind me that there are still miles to go before I should dare bed down for the evening.  This used to produce a profound and palpable guilt that I felt the need to hide at dinner parties, like an untimely pimple the week before prom; but then I realized that I never go to dinner parties, just like I never went to prom, and I got over it.

So this summer, I decided to try to make a plan and stick to it.  I perused the shelves around my home and located a book that history says deserves to be read that I had started but not finished.  The lucky author: Herman Melville; the lucky book: Moby Dick.

Most people think Moby Dick is the name of the captain chasing the whale.  These are also the same people who think Frankenstein is the name of the monster the mad scientist created.  These are people that we should all laugh at.  Actually, the captain hunting the whale is Captain Ahab and the whale’s name is Moby Dick.  It is the classic man versus himself and his own demons projected onto a mythic Leviathan who taunts him while he runs blindly into the pit of his own darkness and inevitably pulls down all those around him into the abyss of his own psychosis story.  If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.

What sets Moby Dick apart, and what I would like to say to Herman, is that in between the ‘action scenes’ there are innumerable vignettes where the reader is subjected to endless minutiae concerning the profession of whaling and the biological structure of various types of whales that serves to lull the reader into a hypnotic trance in which he/she contemplates, subconsciously, driving a giant harpoon through his/her own skull and filleting his/her own fat on an open fire.  Enough with the whale information, Herman!  Damn it; just get on with the story!

The keen reader here will ascertain that I am still not through reading this ridiculously long book.  But just as Ahab scoured the seven seas in his redemptive quest, I am putting Mr. Melville on notice: I will not be beaten this time.  I will read your book from cover to cover if it takes every last part of my being to do it!  Carpe Balaena!

CSB- BAMDIV.com desk of literary affairs

Loyal readers,

Over the next week, I will be away from home office and the bamdiv.com satellite office and taking some family vacation time.  Do not fret, I shall return, hopefully with many words written and a new energy.  Have a good week: see you later…..

Check out the Politics Tab for a special Point/Counter Point.

The protagonist in my current ‘novel in progress’ has hit rock bottom. He is a schmuck, an evil man, the vilest of the vile. So, what should happen now? Cast your vote below. (note: the author is not bound by the results of this poll so you will have to read the novel when it is finished). Thanks.

New material will be posted soon…..

A few rambling thoughts on ‘Health Care………’

If it’s a moral right to have a doctor heal me regardless of my ability to pay, then is it also a moral right to have a prostitute pleasure me regardless of my ability to pay?

Everyone in this damn country has access to free health care, just pick up the phone, dial 9-1-1 and medical personnel will come to your house and save your ass.

If we turned half the churches in a city into free clinics and paid the staff with the tithes and offerings of the remaining churches, there wouldn’t be a health care crisis.

Everyone in America has a government-granted right to free education: see how many stupid people there still are?  Government-granted right to health insurance will not heal the masses.

Every hospital emergency room in the United States, by law, posts a sign that says they will treat you regardless of your ability to pay.  I have never seen a comparable sign in a church before.

My mechanic would laugh at me if I took in my car and explained that I put water in the gas tank, beer in the oil tank, drove it over a cliff, and expected him to fix it and to send the bill to my Uncle Sam.

Read about the recent coup in Honduras in the Politics section.  Also, be sure to check back for new snippets of original fiction throughout the week.

Please, please, buy things from the people on the ‘friends’ page- they are not multi-billion dollar conglomerates that are ruining civilization.

If you’re settling in to read the newest James Patterson book this summer at the beach, know this: James Patterson has a TEAM OF WRITERS that write FOR him- is that what you want to read?  Reallly? (also, if you know James Patterson, give him my contact information because I really could use a big break)

Finally, if you bought a book from Barnes and Noble to read this summer, know this: Publishers PAY B&N FOR THE RIGHT TO ARRANGE THE DISPLAY TABLES IN THE STORE!  That’s right, you’re drinking the Kool-Aid (also, if any of you know or work for a publisher….same as above.)

Shalom,

Christopher S. Brown