US added to list of ‘backsliding’ democracies for first time

_ The organisation’s secretary general, Kevin Casas-Zamora, said: “The visible deterioration of democracy in the United States, as seen in the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, the efforts to suppress participation (in elections), and the runaway polarisation … is one of the most concerning developments.”¹

… this article was noted by MSNBC last week… it made an impression on me, but truthfully, i already knew what it was telling us… we are backsliding and furthermore, i believe the next three years will decide whither democracy in the USA… there is far too little alarm about the slide and the tools for countering it seem to be lacking, or perhaps, the situation is at the precarious edge of the cliff with one having to be very careful of what levers they try to pull as the wrong move could plunge us over the edge…

… over the holiday weekend i had two brief but eye opening conversations, both with close family members…

… one believes that we will be able to resist the extremes of either end because we are, basically, a centrist country… they believe that the people in the middle, of which they are one, will save the day… i am not optimistic on that point… it might be true if the voting landscape were not in the process of being skewed to favor a radical minority on the right… voting rights legislation is required if there is to be hope of the middle being able to stave if off…

… another was anxious to defend the idea that the January 6th riot/insurrection was nothing more than an impassioned protest that was mostly peaceful… it was the first time i have experienced a close family member believing something that is utter nonsense…

… together they made me more alarmed than ever…

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

… i read the review in AnOther magazine which i have been avoiding for days, largely because it was primal me that was interested in looking at it and i was trying to resist primal me… it surprised (disappointed?) me that it was not about the porn industry and was instead about societal attitudes towards sex and woman and largely about the polarization we are experiencing around the globe… i now want to watch it though with subtitles and it’s subject matter it will be a more difficult sell to H… a link to the trailer…

First Thoughts

Weight: 231.8

… i will be writing my weight down daily to help me get it back under control…

… started the morning with a review of the first week of journal entries in 2021… i am hoping to review all 52 weeks during the month of December and identify themes that emerged over the year… my system of tagging and saved filters is proving enormously valuable in this effort… i am able to gather together the attention i have paid to people, books and topics by person, title and topic…

… yesterday’s FT with M and J was a little fraught… M and i got into it briefly over January 6, 2021… they have bought the idea that it was a legitimate protest… that infuriated me… i had hoped for better from them… J also got on my nerves a bit over website optimization issues… i need to do some further research into how Square Space handles search engine optimization before we talk more about that… they seem to think i have not done what could be done while i think we pretty much have…

… my weight situation, disappointing, but what should i have expected given two Thanksgiving dinners etc…

… it is already proving enormously satisfying to read through the past year’s journal entries… it is turning out to be time intensive because i am having to fill in keywords and set up filters for a plethora of people, readings and ideas… i don’t think i got super religious about this until about mid-year and i didn’t start gathering things together in saved filters until the end of the summer, beginning of the fall… if i can keep the pace and get it done for the year, i should have an impressive list of ideas, people and readings to share as a summary of my year…

Thanksgiving Part II

… we almost always go to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving so we like to make ourselves another one the weekend following so i can strut my cooking stuff and H can have leftover turkey sandwiches and soup…

The menu:

• roast turkey
• mashed potatoes with cardoon (the cardoon was my inspiration)
• celery root and rutabaga mash
• roasted Brussels sprouts
• cranberry, mushroom and lentil loaf

Buddhist Economics

… this is a profound essay that i come back to again and again… it makes so much sense… please excuse it’s antiquated approach to gender roles which are a product of the time in which it was written:

The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.¹

… i think about the work i currently pursue, and i will call it work even though it doesn’t produce an income which it doesn’t need to do… i read, write and make pictures daily, and that is rewarding to me… i also enjoy setting it down and spending time with H and the dogs, cooking and sharing nice meals… i am in a perfect place with very good balance between work and leisure…

It is clear, therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man’s work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products.²

… and this:

From the point of view of Buddhist economics, therefore, production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant peoples is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale.³

… are there exceptions?… aren’t there things better produced in large factories?… like smartphones, automobiles, computers, etc.?… don’t these things work better and interconnect better with a more unified system of production?… what we are left with then is a system where some (most?) things are produced and distributed locally and others are mass produced and distributed nationally and globally… factories will increasingly be automated, not requiring human labor… local production will be centered on handcrafting, on local labor…

… and this:

Just as a modern European economist would not consider it a great achievement if all European art treasures were sold to America at attractive prices, so the Buddhist economist would insist that a population basing its economic life on non-renewable fuels is living parasitically, on capital instead of income. Such a way of life could have no permanence and could therefore be justified only as a purely temporary expedient. As the world’s resources of non-renewable fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas—are exceedingly unevenly distributed over the globe and undoubtedly limited in quantity, it is clear that their exploitation at an ever-increasing rate is an act of violence against nature which must almost inevitably lead to violence between men.⁴

The Journals of Denton Welch

The day is messy. I’ve done some writing, but things are sloppy. I am a melting jelly. It seems that my happiness only comes from being a monk; and when I am not a monk, therefore I cannot be happy.¹

… how well i know that sentiment… i get up in the wee hours of the morning precisely because i need my monk time…

… DW mentions arum lilies which i look up… they are the same as calla lilies…

Why is it all so clear-cut the factories are a threat to a lone human being and green fields an invitation? We seem to be very frightened of our own contrivances and to call them ugly, evil, almost at once. We take what comes from them, hating their faces and breathings all the time. Biscuits please, but a biscuit factory is nearly as evil as a bomb factory to one’s heart. I do not mean just ugly visually, I mean wicked atmosphere. The threat the torture-chamber has.²

… when i was in college, i worked in a Ford factory near where i lived… a formative experience for lots of reasons… i don’t know that i felt about factories the way DW does, but i get what he drives at… and when i think about the degree to which i now purchase things made locally, in small workrooms, on farms, hand crafted… i think, couldn’t be a network of local economies and small workshops?… Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher wrote… he championed local economies that provided work that was good for the soul… and Buddhist Economics… Schumacher’s advice to socialists:

Socialists should insist on using the nationalized industries not simply to out-capitalise the capitalists – an attempt in which they may or may not succeed – but to evolve a more democratic and dignified system of industrial administration, a more humane employment of machinery, and a more intelligent utilization of the fruits of human ingenuity and effort. If they can do this, they have the future in their hands. If they cannot, they have nothing to offer that is worthy of the sweat of free-born men.

… is this not what the Biden/Harris administration is trying to do?… ok, we are not nationalizing industries, but we are attempting to bolster the working class and middle class and make their participation in the economy more rewarding and less harrowing for them… which will lead to greater productivity?…

Shots Magazine submission, Earthly Delights

… i didn’t submit to the last issue, theme Rebels and Renegades (and actually haven’t submitted in a long time)… i didn’t like the theme largely because i don’t do much portrait photography which seemed to be what was called for (and in fact, published)… the next theme is Earthly Delights and i am pretty sure i will submit to that… i am thinking some images from the series i am assembling of stones on the beach which waves have washed over, leaving erosion patterns that are often rather suggestive of female genitalia… it would seem to address the theme on at least two levels…

Lynn Hershman Leeson at Gazelli Art House in London

Lynn Hershman Leeson via AnOther Magazine

… this exhibition looks interesting to me…

… from an interview with the artist:

It’s really a series of humiliations, being an artist – but particularly a female one, and particularly at my age.

… what else was she going to do?… she tells us… you make the work… it isn’t make the work for the purpose of being discovered… its make the work and something will come of it…

… something i have to remind myself of all…the…time…

… from the Code of Arms exhibition website:

Over the last five decades, artist and filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Cited as one of the most influential media artists, Hershman Leeson is widely recognized for her innovative work investigating issues such as the relationship between humans and technology, identity, surveillance, and the use of media as a tool of empowerment against censorship and political repression. She has made pioneering contributions to the fields of photography, video, film, performance, artificial intelligence, bio art, installation and interactive as well as net-based media art. ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany, organized the first comprehensive retrospective of her work titled ‘Civic Radar’.

… her interest in the relationship between the human body and technology attracts me to her work… she was a pioneer in looking at that relationship and expressing it in her art… i am thinking i need to pull out my “What Intelligent Life is Made Of” talk, possibly update it and put it out there again…

First Thoughts

… long conversation with H at breakfast yesterday… went down a rabbit hole about their relationship with siblings and whether they wanted to see their brother while he was on the east coast… got in the middle of something i didn’t want to be in the middle of… the conversation so long and wide ranging that the day was permanently reorganized and no writing or photo editing was done…

… a bunch of grocery shopping followed, and then a couple of hours just hanging out waiting to do chicken chores because i wasn’t in the mood to do writing, reading or photography… once the chickens were tended to, i got us both a glass of whisky and more laying around and watching TV ensued… then dinner, which was a hamburger with bacon, swiss cheese and onion… no sides, that was it…

… today i will roast a turkey and we will have our second turkey day… H likes, especially, to have turkey leftovers for sandwiches etc…

… we have started to prep for the trip to Florida to see M… working out strategies for loading the car… ordering new suitcases… H got a couple of Timbuk2 roller bags for us… trying to decide if we should get a clamshell for top of car, or if we can even afford one… i had wanted something that wasn’t a big process to get in and out of… we are going to have to be very compact or we will need the shell… and can we even get it in time anymore?…

… continue to be in a pretty good mood… holiday spirit and all that…

… realize that i haven’t had notification of S’s fruitcakes available for purchase… hoping it is not too late…

… HCR about the Ahmaud Arbery case… how justice was done in this instance, but about how close it came to justice not being done… it was one of the accused that made and then released a video, believing it exonerated the three of them… it was what finally brought the case out in the open and ensured prosecution… one moment of justice in a sea of injustice…

… this makes me think about my feeling that we are still a long way from justice on 45’s shenanigans and my despair about ever getting there…

…

First Thoughts, remembering Thanksgiving…

… a good Thanksgiving… in attendance, H and me, M, L, S, B, J, M, W, G, and L, a friend of B’s(?)… L is a star of the afternoon show… vivacious, outgoing, attractive… we learn later in the evening that they are gay and recently out of a relationship that, i surmise, didn’t end well… L and B have a very warm connection to one another and spend part of the afternoon rendering show tunes, mostly from Rent… in fact, show tunes figure prominently throughout the afternoon…

… we brought the dogs with us but had to leave them crated in the car as no pets were allowed in the rental house… the dogs were very cooperative though not entirely happy about the situation… we did find out that they will stay nicely in the crates in the car for extended periods of time which might be useful Christmas Eve in Florida when we are scheduled to go out to dinner…

… L brought herbs they grew in their garden and everyone got some…

… i find out M is concerned about extremism (on both sides) but believes the population in the middle will get things back on the middle track… this conversation comes up as the result of their statement about how scary The Sound of Music was to them… M is Jewish and TSOM is about a Jewish family escaping Nazi Germany just before they are hauled off to a concentration camp… i asked M if they worried about fascism in this country which is when the middle-will-rescue-us thought was expressed… i think that would be true if the voting machinery wasn’t being bent to favor the extremist right… i think there is a very strong possibility for an authoritarian government to arise, possibly even fascist… the extreme right which is currently stacking the voting deck is, in significant portion, a white supremacist extreme right…

… the food was the standard American Thanksgiving fair and possibly a little less well prepared than in years past, but we were in a rented house and so not in anyone’s natural cooking environment… it was good enough… there was turkey of course, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, rutabaga (i think), bread stuffing, sautéed fennel and leaks, green beans almandine, brussels sprouts with pomegranate, gravy… for desert, pumpkin, apple and pecan pies… i found myself wishing for some vanilla ice cream to go with the pumpkin pie i had…

… M wanted us to do a recognition of the fact that the land we were currently having our dinner on was originally Native American land and taken from them by the European settlers… i had mixed emotions about it… land has been ceded by weaker populations to stronger populations since the beginning of time, and i am not only talking about people… as Bertrand Russel once said, the goal of every living thing is to turn as much of the planet into itself as possible… my broad view is that the Euro descendent white patriarchy sucks and that the sooner we kill it and bring forth the multiarchy the better… M reminds me of J… so in earnest…

… i managed to escape a big weight gain, partly because i had no alcohol (i had to drive us back) and partly because i took small portions of everything and didn’t have seconds of anything, though i did have way more cheese, pate and crackers than i should have before dinner…

… i got very tired during the afternoon… to the point i could barely think straight and had trouble remembering the names of the most common things i might be talking about… later, when we were home and i had a brief cat nap, my lucidity came back to me… will have to remember to sneak off and do a quick nap in future… i found myself wondering if Prevagen, an over the counter product marketed as a brain function enhancer, works and whether i should try it… i don’t generally have trouble with my memory early in the day, so i am thinking it really is a function of being tired to the point of not remembering things…

… during the day i find myself wondering if S has a drinking problem and B is a little too fond of L…

… a slightly awkward conversation with M who wanted to know what H and I thought of Dia Beacon… they apparently went their and found it didn’t do a very good job of making the art “user friendly”… they had been a docent in a Chicago Museum and thought that museums had an obligation to make art accessible… it was really difficult to talk about it across the table… there was so much to say in answer… i pointed out that there were the equivalent of docent tours, (which they had not taken advantage of), that i personally did not require translation of what i was looking at (though i don’t object to getting other ways of thinking about the art i am looking at) and that their experience was their experience, neither right or wrong… there is a lot more i could have said… i would have liked to have the conversation with them… of note is that to the extent i understand what M does for a living, it involves the design and implementation of user experiences on the internet… so, you might say, that is their thing and possibly of more interest to them than the art itself?…

… the drive home was in the dark and on the Taconic Parkway… i was concerned about deer, it’s the time of year they are mating and more reckless, and there was at one point a buck grazing just feet from the edge of the highway, cars whizzing by… that was the only deer i saw and we arrived home safely…

Life, A User’s Manual, Georges Perec

… the book opens up with an exposition on the nature of a puzzle, more specifically, the relation of the pieces to the whole and the whole to the pieces…

… a wooden jigsaw puzzle – is not a sum of elements to be distinguished from each other and analysed discretely, but a pattern, that is to say a form, a structure: the element’s existence does not precede the existence of the whole, it comes neither before nor after it, for the parts do not determine the pattern, but the pattern determines the parts: knowledge of the pattern and of its laws, of the set and its structure, could not possibly be derived from discrete knowledge of the elements that compose it.¹

… this reminds me of the concept of holons… the idea of self contained, self sufficient entities being also part of a greater whole that relies on the sum of its parts for its ability to be… in the puzzle example above, the parts can exist on their own as objects in and of themselves, but we recognize them immediately as part of something bigger that can be read as a sum of the parts… in the holon concept, the parts can be extracted and have the ability to exist without the whole, but the whole cannot exist without the parts… and in the case of a puzzle, if parts are missing the whole is damaged… incapable of moving forward with its full state of being…

… in reading about holons, i find out that the term was coined by Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost in the Machine…

… i am made aware that puzzles can be wooden and hand cut, which i imagine is expensive… i do a search and quickly find a maker in NY… these are puzzles for the rich… the cheapest one is $900, the most expensive, $3200… i imagine they are exquisite, but really, aren’t there better things to spend money on?… i imagine it a sign that one has too much money…

First Thoughts

… i was hoping for a turkey icon to label this day’s folder, but alas, there was none…

… we drive north with the dogs to hook up with L, M, S, B, and five other family members… 11 of us all together… the dogs won’t be allowed in the house (rental, no pets) so we will keep them in the car with regular visits to be sure they are ok… don’t really like this but don’t like leaving them home either…

… HCR meter, instructive, maybe hopeful… she gives us the history of Thanksgiving, which, in the most tenuous way, does go all the way back to the Pilgrims and Native Americans having diner together in the 1600’s… however, it didn’t become a thing until the Civil War when, in the states of the Union, it became a way to remember the sacrifices on the battlefield and give thanks for the strength and fortitude being shown by citizens of the Union in their struggle to preserve Democracy…

… i made two versions of the fiskepudding yesterday… i am perfecting my technique… perhaps we will have some for Christmas…

… i dived down a rabbit hole on the fiskepudding… was trying to find some historical information but none to be had easily… then i moved on to pickled herring and a search for salted herring which is used to make pickled herring… i will look for it in the local groceries first… Adam’s might have it… maybe fresh market…

… such a rabbit hole this AM… trying to find recipes for fiskepudding, i buy two cookbooks, one on Scandinavian cooking, the other on Norwegian cooking… the Norwegian one has the fiskepudding…

… time to move on to other things…

Kitchen and Coffee Cafe

… cold this morning… i decide to stop at K&C at opening, 7 AM, it’s a bit of a madhouse… the Thanksgiving orders in the final stages of assembly… the tables all covered with bags of gluten-free baked goods… much busier than i expected…

… i open up Shifting the Silence by Etel Adnan… she writes about Barrett Watten, Plan B…

… i finish Shifting the Silence, read about Etel Adnan… she studied philosophy, became a painter, became a poet, became a novelist, a journalist… very accomplished…

The Journals of Denton Welch

… DW was continually meeting strangers, having extended conversations with them and often being invited into their homes… he seems to have met people easily… more easily than i do… was it an easier time for people meeting?…

… DW has incorporated the people he knew into his fictional work without much disguise, often changing their last names while retaining the first… i have a feeling that i should read at least one of the fictional works, but i am anxious to move on to the so-many-other books i have waiting… to dive further down the rabbit hole or not, that is the question…

… after 10 years, Evie leaves him to work for some ladies in Cornwall though it seems it didn’t last more than a month and it seems Eric and DW didn’t expect it to last long…

… this:

_ I know tonight it is best for me to be alone most of the time — near people who wish me well and like to see me, but alone; for in loneness everything seems to grow into its proper place and there’s hardly any waste of spirit. What little there is does not offend, it’s is one’s own fault, one lets it pass._¹

… how well i relate to this sentiment… precisely the way i like my world to operate…

… and this:

_ yet it is most important to have people near one that one need hardly see. Without this consciousness of other human beings I think almost all of us are liable to be swamped by the power of matter. One’s strength is not enough to bear this with no other help near._²

… this makes me remember the countless hours i have spent in coffee shops and lunch shops, just to be near people but not, generally, to talk with them, unless they were attractive young women…

… i miss pre-covid life… i felt comfortable with more people around me then… i have chosen Trax on 52 as my winter “headquarters,” precisely because so few people go there in the morning… i would rather go to Big Mouth or even Kitchen and Coffee (despite it’s plain vanilla decor and music)… there are more people there as the hour gets later… i like to start with a place virtually empty, then watch the regulars and newcomers come and go… i like to observe and write about them in this journal… the pandemic has not been easy, but i have been well suited to what it requires of us for safety… my habits didn’t change much at all…

… DW has an old doll house he got from a friend… he lovingly restored it… he mentions it in his journals when he finds something suitable to add to its interior… at this moment he mentions a little pin cushion in the shape of a stool that is so much more the stool than the pin cushion that he buys it immediately for the doll house… it is interesting to be furnishing one’s full scale living quarters simultaneously with a doll house… a house within a house, like the nested Russian dolls… one imagines that he wears the full-scale house and decor, as most of us do, as an extension of his psyche, but also, this miniature house… do they engage different aspects of the nesting instinct?… one could build a short story around this…

First Thoughts

… happy to be back to routine… that first hot cup of coffee in the morning… cat, dogs, and then the quiet of the house… bliss…

… HCR meter, justice?… remembering Boss Tweed and his inevitable fall into disgrace… a few contemporary characters being brought to justice?… bankruptcy?… i suppose she is offering some hope… i have been gloomy about the prospects for life as we have known it continuing… the fascists are winning right now and it boggles my mind that they are… most of the news personalities couch their assessment in hope and optimism that the fascist juggernaut will get turned around… maybe that is what HCR’s post is about, signs that it might get turned around… i don’t feel the optimism because the individuals that matter in this are not being brought to justice, not suffering consequences and are buttressing their position for the midterm and and 2024 elections…

… the Democrats could do something about it, but so far have been unable to because of a couple of senators unwilling to part with the filibuster in a meaningful way… there is time, but not much… i am not optimistic…

… i have begun to figure out how we might leave the country if the worst happens… my most recent idea is to live just over the Canadian border where we could get to medical facilities in the US… research is needed…

… thanksgiving tomorrow… as usual, we have been relegated to the cheeses… it saddens me that i am never able to cook for TG… but, family is priceless… i won’t be able to drink alcohol as we will have to drive back… we are planning to bring the dogs and let them stay in the car… it will be cold though…

… the first snow predicted on Monday… winter is here…

… frustration with my photography… with not being able to make anything more out of it than a huge collection of images made day after day after day… i lack the conditions to pull them together into something… at least i tell myself that… what i really need is a way to focus them into presentations… for a while i was doing image poems… small sets of related images… should i try that again?… i think too of the model of Museum Bhavan, Dayanita Singh… as i write the preceding i look up the proper spelling of Bhavan, and then find my way to her website which hasn’t been updated in some time… she talks about her process, how, the museums came about, developing over time to what they have become… something like them is what i need to be doing… i decide i should read everything i can find about Ms. Singh and the Museum Bhavan project… it is the model for what i should be doing…

The Journals of Denton Welch

… this passage:

It is quite true that a general unwillingness to appreciate robs most people of their eyes, nose, mouth, ears, limbs. They are trunks of wood always repudiating; although they have already been deprived of all sense and movement.

… there is an odd connection between the people DW describes here and the lunatic fringe that would hang their fellow citizens in this country in this time… the rabble roused to illogical belief in conspiracies of evil being perpetrated against them…

… the character of Evie interests me… she was, essentially, a housekeeper and cook for DW… she lived with him and moved wherever he moved… he describes her as inhuman, by which i think he suggests that she is a remote or distant sort of character… what led her to be this sort of figure in a young and damaged man’s life?… what personal life did she have?… it seems we are never told…

… i read about the Essays of Elia, written by Charles Lamb… DW relished them in his youth (while convalescing from his accident?)… i find a copy on the internet, offered by the Library of Congress…

… as i am reading, i am listening to a marvelous set of cello suites performed by Marcus Wagner… Paul Torelier has composed one set… we have a set of Bach Cello suites performed by Tortelier in our music collection that i have listed to over and over and over again… its good music to be going in the background while you are reading, studying, editing photographs, writing…

First Thoughts

… and so begins the day of purging… hardest part of a colonoscopy… the dreaded prep… perhaps the silver lining being that i will head into turkey day with some room to spare, ha, ha…

… i have the Gregorian chants going this AM… and i did my morning stretches which i had gotten out of the habit of…

… sleep last night was fitful… awake at midnight, awake at 1 AM, awake at 3 AM up at 4 AM…

… i am a little anxious, about the prep, about getting to the procedure, about what the procedure might reveal… each one of these things the necessary journey through the portal of having it done, hopefully for 5 years, at least for 3 years…

… HCR meter, broken but very necessary to be played again and again, record… Democracy is under threat… the struggle between the mostly white patriarchy and the rising multiarchy is real… and it is far from determined which will win… by 2024 we could be heading into autocracy or, worse, fascism… this is not the system i wanted to spend my old age in… and i shouldn’t forget the threat of war on the eastern front, Ukraine… will Putin attack?… will NATO assist Ukraine?… interesting times will continue… are we heading towards a blood letting?…

… i have decided the extra money i have accumulated will be spent to whatever degree it needs to be on making a nice Christmas… i am gathering ideas for gifts, planning ahead… i will work on a new computer in the new year…

… back to the political situation… i saw what all this was years ago… i saw the desperation of the patriarchy to secure control before their numbers were insufficient to do so… i knew the struggle would be very difficult but i had optimism that in the end they would not succeed… we should know that in the pretty near future… at this point, it all hinges on voting rights legislation… the infrastructure bills will be helpful in making people feel better about their economic lives… this is important, but not determinative by itself… it needs the assistance of voting rights legislation which requires that Manchin, Sinema and any other moderate democrat attached to the filibuster be willing to do a carve out, at minimum, on voting rights… my perception being that if this does not happen the game is lost…

Japanese Style Salted Salmon in the works…

Shifting the Silence, Etel Adnan

… Kevin Killian and elements is metioned… KK is a poet, playwright and more… he died in 2019… elements refers to The Elements, a book of poems only published in French right now…

Life is daily, death is eternal; it means that eternity is useless. We live as if we knew that: we hang on details, keep searching, to keep the illusion alive, the illusion that things matter. But is that mere illusion? I don’t always think so.¹

… we all hope there is more to things than this daily life, many of us even accept there is not… but not quite…

Too much of a past, too little ahead, but wait a minute, we always lived day to day, so where’s the difference?²

The Journals of Denton Welch

… this interesting passage:

We saw in front of us the little untutored Gothic revival church — how much better, sometimes, only a little knowledge is! The person who built this church was unclogged with “book-learning" and so his church is unrepulsive and almost pretty and good. But I am well aware how dangerous this gospel of ignorance can be. It is, I suppose, excuse for every inanity. Things only are good because they are good. But ignorance or book learning can help or hinder according to other circumstances that shall combine with them.¹

… there is a potentially profound truth here… we make a big deal about book learning… high school, college, post-graduate learning… in general, these things are positive for individuals and society, but they are never a guarantee of wisdom and good judgement… wisdom and judiciousness are qualities that one has or doesn’t… they seem more fundamental to bringing forward good things than book learning… i don’t know if they can be cultivated or not… generally speaking, some level of restraint is needed in one’s personality to make room for these qualities…

… we are past the war in the journals, which, until the doodle-bugs arrived, featured pretty peripherally in them… but still, little things that are memories of the war pop up… windows in an historic church blown out and yet to be repaired… a friend stopping by with camping equipment issued during the war… a tartan rug with two round holes in it, bullet or moth?… he’s not sure…

First Thoughts

… some time spent exploring the possibilities of Drafts… my initial reaction is that it might be too complex for this daily journaling… i don’t know if i need all the bells and whistles but i will continue to play with it… Ulysses, i suppose, would become the polishing app if i went that way…

… Fiona seems to be ok… she scared me yesterday, H coming into the kitchen with concern on her face, i insisted she call the vet and describe what she saw… then she needed a picture… i helped her saw what her concern was about… i freaked out… i am usually a level headed person in emergent situations, but i kind of lost it and the day was tainted from there forward… i still managed to get most of what i had planned done…

… Thanksgiving week… also… colonoscopy week… Tuesday… clearing out the pipes for the TG meal… ha, ha… minor apprehension about it but i expect it will be ok… just the doctoring that needs doing if one is not to develop a serious problem…

… after this it will be on to the heart doctor…

… these last number of days have all started out very pleasantly… up until i get home from my walk, generally speaking, and sometimes well beyond depending on what happens during the rest of the day… i have had a general sense of happiness pervade everything lately…