Bathsheba Monk's Blog, page 9

Here's looking at you...

When I say I don't have a television, it's not a SNOB thing...YAHOO is delivered to my virtual door for pete's sake!..but when we moved into our house ten years ago and went to Best Buy like good gerbils (humongous television, CHECK!) we got overwhelmed with the logistics of MOUNTING the damned thing--we have plaster walls, THAT will pose a problem, right?--and figuring out which CABLE GUY we wanted to wait for--true, we had the option of having one of our young thieving (i.e. everything should be FREE--art, writing, music, internet, beer) friends hook us up to the cable wire that hangs tantalizing from a box on the back porch tho we decided to wait until more urgent things--the roof--were taken care of and then we discovered HULU, or HULU was invented in the years that passed and so we didn't deal.  Now when we stay at a hotel, we trip over each other getting to the remote and spend at least two hours twirling the dial.  So for my fellow lazybones Luddites, here's the report:   the most entertaining thing on television is the Food Channel--which features mean chefs trying to deflate one another's fritata--an aside here: does anybody LIKE fritatas? It's baked EGGS, right?--and they're sabatoging each other for the prize of WHAT?...but it did it for me in the way that shoot-em-ups do it for young men--vicarious violence--I felt I was watching a bunch of gladiators slaying each other to divert me from....the reality that we're ALL in the arena pitted against each other on trumped up charges? Nonetheless, I sincerely believe it upped my cooking game in that it firmed my resolve to NEVER cook a fritata. 

Tender is the NIght

I dreamt about F.Scott Fitzgerald last night.  He invited a bunch of us into his NYC apartment where we hung out. I found out during this visit that he was a working alcoholic, a fact which my co-visitors used to dis him.  But I don't judge things like that.  I mean, God knows, right?  He seemed anxious to meet me, "Bathsheba," he said, "I KNEW you were a writer!"  We liked everything about each other mostly that we WERE writers and IF YOU ARE A WRITER, YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.  I admired his apple green hallway, which was EXACTLY like mine in real time.  He asked me to go for a five mile jog with him the next morning at 8 and it says how much I enjoyed his company that I agreed to an act that would probably leave me by the side of the road retching. I don't know why I dreamt of F. Scott Fitzgerald last night except that yesterday I finished reading a manuscript that was the work of a real writer.  Have you ever had that tingling feeling of reading something and thinking, OMG, this is really really GOOD.  This person not only can write, but he has something to SAY?  Stay tuned.  

What You Ought to be Doing is Probably What You ARE Doing....

I read a blog every day by Seth Godin who is a funny looking bald guy with yellow glasses and a giant brain and a big heart who talks about marketing.  Funny, right?  A fiction writer reading a marketing blog?  I'm thinking about him now because I just looked at a video of me giving a talk last year which I was going to cannibalize for my new website and besides relief that the evil video camera didn't make me look THAT bad and I didn't sound like I was on Quaaludes as I tend to when I've been talking for longer than 15 minutes, I winced at the part where someone asked me "what are you reading now" because it's the part I'm never prepared for although I should be by now--for god's sake, it's the one question SOMEONE always asks and afterwards I always think, "damn!  I should've plugged so and so's book" but I still have this--well, I call it an honest streak, but my husband says I haven't accepted the fact that public speaking, public reading, PUBLIC ANYTHING is just theater.  It's not about an honest exchange of ideas.  Anyway, I blurted out, "Seth Godin. All Marketer's Are Liars, and another one about finding your tribe, and another one about permission marketing."  And I saw the light go out of the questioner's face because I wasn't reading some indie press's next big thing.  I was reading about how to sell myself.  How to get the unromantic stuff (marketing) done because that separates the people who can make their dreams come true from people who just dream. But there it is.  I seldom read fiction anymore--Okay? I said it--because I'm too busy writing it and the little time I have left I'm trying to figure out how to sell my books so I can write even more. I don't think this is wrong.  Whatever it is you do when you're stressed, when you have no time is probably what you should be doing right now.  I think Seth Godin even wrote a blog about it.      

Is that a log in your eye?

The war in Gaza is horrible, grotesque, obscene...you fill in the blank.  It's all that.  And the hue and cry over the civilian casualties is laudable and I do laud it.  And yet. Where is the outrage over the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq?  The civilian casualties in those wars is conservatively 200,000.  Look it up. Where is the protest and the anguish for that?  We're taking the unearned moral high ground and I challenge anyone who is beating their breast over the Gaza war to present their credentials on outrage over casualties they directly bought and paid for.    

Peeping Tom Buddha

I am attracted to what I hear about Buddhism. Those cute/profound/ sayings that folks post on FB.  They're all TRUE!  The Truth Lies Within.  Yes!  Be Where You Are or You'll Miss Your Life.  OMG, I love it! But when I went trolling the net to find out more about the nitty gritty of it all, I found as much sub-strata and angel-dancing-pin-parsing in Buddhism as I found in the Big 3, so I won't be taking the pledge.  My feeling about rules is that they are there to be gotten around--like the tax code if you're a corporation.  If you follow the rules, you can be a good Whatever and still be the meanest unhappiest person alive. I see it everyday in judgmental buttholes who glom on to some probably-mistranslated paragraph in their holy book and use it to justify their less-than-loving dealings with both creatures and the earth.  Argh.  And I had such high hopes for Buddhism.  One of those Power Point slides that someone posted on FB had to do with how Buddhism says you don't need rules, you already know what's right and wrong.  I mean, right?  If you're about to bludgeon someone or steal their iPhone or their husband you don't have to go to the rule book to find out what the elders have to say about it. Your gut is already producing more-than-usual bile and your voice is squeaking out things like "they deserve it!" "they don't need it".  So I thought that Buddhism was different.  But it turns out that it's not.  Some clever marketing person is taking the bullet points and throwing them out there without commentary, which is probably what all religions should do to make themselves more attractive.  The commentary kills the deal.  I could go for a religion, for example, that says "love your neighbor as yourself" and then shuts the heck up.

picture from www.funkyjunk.com

What's love got to do with it?

Trying to find lessons or meaning in suffering and death is a fool's mission.  Suffering and death suck.  They are the price we pay to the blind relentless force of nature for the gift of life.  It's not personal, mind you.  But the toll must be paid.  And even calling life a gift gives it more personality than it deserves.  It's random and arbitrary and I distrust folks who think their life is somehow special.  Unique, yes.  There's only one person with your combination of genes, situation and experience. But not special, which implies a reason, a purpose.  Your purpose is to live and enjoy the life force.  If everyone's life had purpose what exactly is the purpose of those freaks of nature who take machine guns into schools and movie theaters?  Or those greedy pigs who can't ever have enough:  money, safety, power.  What's their purpose exactly?  If you follow those folk's purpose down to its logical conclusion you enter some dark twisted cavern with no exit signs.  There was a point to this.  Oh, yeah.  Right.  It's hard to lose a loved one.  Like most people, I've lost plenty.  And then my beloved cat died. It was different.  He was the first non-human person I ever loved.  And by love I mean, I love how he made me feel.  He had own attributes which were considerable--grace, beauty, manners--no kidding he had great manners: would greet everyone when he entered a room, wouldn't interrupt if the conversation got boring--sense of humor and on and on all of which I will indeed miss.  But mostly, honestly, I will miss how he made me feel as a fellow creature, as part of that blind relentless force of nature.  80% of all communication is non-verbal--mighty humbling to a writer, sure, but freeing too in that since knowing Einstein I now know I don't have to talk all the time to let people know what I feel or talk to make them feel good.  Most of the time all we need is each other's physical presence.  And I love that I didn't have to entertain him all the time (sorry dog people)--he had his own life out there bedeviling other creatures, visiting neighbors, sitting in holes or under bushes or on the roof.  Yikes. And when he needed food--he didn't like to dine alone--or companionship he would come in and be with us. Or sometimes we would go outside to be with him.  And we would enjoy his life force and he ours.  Could I enjoy this same relationship with any other cat?  I don't know.  And I don't know if you can call it love, but I sure do miss it.  And I know that it sucks.

Stop me if you heard this one...

A wounded robin is flailing..failing... downed by a hawk in our yard...its mate scolding our cat, Einstein, who is dying under a nearby bush, innocent this time, I swear, officer...he moves now only to protest my violent insistence on food and drink...which is intended to revive him...but for what?..."circling the drain" our vet says...I asked for it straight...so revived for a final lap...the robin insists that he recognizes Einstein as the killer...he has to blame someone for this murder and Einstein was right there...something has to be responsible for this outrage...death....chicadees, cardinals and nuthatches...mourning doves ...sit on the clothesline, a choir of accusers...they got him now, they have his ear cause he's down and he must listen to their chorus of grievance...not a pretty song and it seems I know the words.

Let's Make a Deal

Okay, here's an idea:  why don't we let corporations or businesses or non-profits anybody at all hire whomever they want and give them whatever benefits they want.   BUT THEN , if they don't conform to the laws of the land they lose all special privileges such as no tax breaks even if they're in a tax free zone or business like a CHURCH or a school or a medical facility and they are barred from donating any money to political causes, candidates or PACS forever and ever amen.

May I please go look at some fireworks now?

Shallow but Wide-Ranging

Rattlesnake on the path....halfway up an extremely difficult climb...cut our losses and go down and up the OTHER difficult climb or walk around it and risk a potentially fatal bite...fatal because you're not supposed to move once you're bitten and we were a mile down....discovered new artists...illustrator W.H.D. Koerner and Abraham Anghick Ruben--an Inuit sculptor, I put some pics of his sculptures here... Just don't want to forget either of them.....Lalique glass--the modern stuff, sculpted by digital instruments just doesn't have the old intensity...Cherry Springs state park where you can see meteor showers like you're in the Stone Age--while we were gone SCOTUS decided that Hobby Lobby doesn't have to pay for birth control for their workers...I am begging the entire premise of why corporations have to pay for any heath insurance...why don't they just give their workers money to buy their OWN...soccer madness and why Ann Coulter is the evil court jester of the right....I'm sorry she makes me laugh...in fact, Fox news makes me laugh...one of the benefits of not having a TV is that I don't have to watch Fox News....so when we go away and DO it just seems....funny!....can anyone really take these guys seriously?  Apparently so....forget common core, let's just teach kids critical thinking and we'll be half-way to at least a smarter society...more on Hobby Lobby....I wondered for a long time while:  why do political conservatives rage against birth control and abortions and then.....they want more cheap labor...interchangeable horses...this while trying to decide about the rattlesnake.

My Country right or wrong, left or right, pink or blue.

It's that time of year...the Fourth of July is coming up....Memorial Day, Flag Day, Veterans Day any  holiday where people in uniforms march...I get the calls, emails etc. that perplex me...."Thank you for your service!'  Always said by people who have never pulled KP much less cleaned an M-16 blindfolded and I know their intentions are stellar and I always wonder what they're thanking me for.  That I CAN clean an M-16 blindfolded?  That I will boldly go where others tremble to protect my country's interests--whatever the heck that is.  When I joined the Army I needed a job.  I had no education, no experience and no prospects and it seemed like a safe way to get all three. Safe?  I was young is the only explanation I can offer.  But it did give me all three and I would do it all over again if I found myself in the same situation.  In fact, it gave me a whole lot more, out-sized confidence, of course --most notably the high tolerance for fellow human beings that you can only get being shoved in close quarters with people you would otherwise never know and in countries you didn't know existed.  And I know in my gut that--except for the highly evolved few--all of us are just the product of the stuff being poured into our ears and eyes every day--right or wrong, true or false.   Because I've seen it in myself--I can change opinions like a chameleon depending on where the dial is set. Who my friends are.  What environment I'm in.  I'm not different from you.  But vice versa, too, babe.  I think that's what people should thank me for--that I know this.  All vets know this.  You're welcome.