Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 29
November 30, 2016
Will Self: Are humans evolving beyond the need to tell stories?
An interesting article, printed recently in The Guardian, on literary evolution by poet and writer, Will Self.
A few years ago I gave a lecture in Oxford that was reprinted in the Guardian under the heading: “The novel is dead (this time it’s for real)”. In it I argued that the novel was losing its cultural centrality due to the digitisation of print: we are entering a new era, one with a radically different form of knowledge technology, and while those of us who have what Marshal McLuhan termed “Gutenberg minds” may find it hard to comprehend – such was our sense of the solidity of the literary world – without the necessity for the physical book itself, there’s no clear requirement for the art forms it gave rise to.
a tanka takes root
Tanya’s words in ‘a tanka takes root‘ have deep roots, too and inspired me to add this paltry poem of my own in response .
If I could write it in a phrase,
people fighting for the land
that nurtured them from birth
and those before and after.
Some call it foolish
But the true word is brave
to fight for nature’s freedom
is a true act of courage,
a natural response
to protect a mother.
There are hard times ahead
with wilful destruction
and denial
of earth, peace and truth,
until all that is left
will crumble and fall.
Pride is a currency
that thrives in inflation,
except by natural law
all pride deflates
until it falls
and all it’s built
comes tumbling down.
Where are the heroes,
the writers, the leaders
who coined the phrase
to make us think
that what we do
will be measured
by what we do to others
and by what we wish
they do to us?
roots twist over rock
searching, a slow motion dance
ever persisting
then, soft ground’s surface piercing
wisdom tapped from deep within
Tanya
—
…if the root is holy, so are the branches. (Rom 11:16b, NIV)
For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. (1 Tim 6:10a, NIV)
—
November 28, 2016
No Rigour, No Vigour, the Centre cannot hold
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/vigor/
There are certain words with unusual spelling in English that have always made sense to me. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it but it makes sense to me why we sometimes consider there are two types of English and one of them is American. ‘Vigor’ should’ve a ‘u’.
November 27, 2016
Fake News Is Not the Only Problem
With increased political polarization, amplified by homophily — our preference to connect to people like us — and algorithmic recommender systems, we’re effectively constructing our own realities. While admitting I’ve never heard of this word ‘homophily’ and don’t know what it means, I think this article by Gilad Lotan makes cogent points about how technology has changed not just our reality but our perception of reality, too. read more
November 25, 2016
Sated
It was such a splendid performance. She hasn’t felt so alive for years, for thousands, of shows. This had everything, an unexpected encounter, an invitation, a secluded but deceptively spacious setting. The costume, snug enough to wear, hidden, under a coat, but sensational, revealed. When she screamed, I felt sated.
November 23, 2016
Sweet Anticipation
She liked to make careful preparations, precise and aimed solely at the comfort of the customer. For example, she had special napkins made so she didn’t soil the clothes when she was cutting the throats of her victims. T’was the least she could do for them. She got the anticipation.
November 21, 2016
Age of Dilemma – 50 word story
Do you feel ‘hip’ if you go to a hipster pub, where the service is shit and unapologetic, or, do you go to the pub where the service is, well, lax and low key, as in, shite (and pretend you’re not a hipster)? It’s a damned, full blown, Edwardian whiskered, dilemma.
News: who’s embedded who?
News. I mean, really good news, well, not so much good news as news, real news, like just happened, hot off the presses, this just in and just after you won’t believe this, we’ll throw in, You didn’t believe that? Believe This, until news is no longer hot, it’s scorched.
Triumph of Evil?
Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle
From left: Dayana, age 22; her father Miguel; her brother Joshua, age 14; mother Veronica; and sister Luana, age 6; listen in to church service at Grace Cathedral on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016 in San Francisco, Calif.
People may have noticed the lack of new posts from my blog and now I must admit, I’ve been stunned by Donald Trump’s election as US President but not half as much as other people.
Not being an American citizen, it hasn’t had the same impact. From a distance, trans-Atlantic – the signs were there. The Democrats supported a mainstream/status quo candidate and rejected the populist alternative. The Republicans tried to reject the populist candidate on their side but he succeeded, despite them.
Protests about Trump’s election continue and like Britain’s surprise Brexit vote knocked the liberal world for six, my instinct is to say, ‘suck it up and get on with it.’
Trump will try to do what Trump says he wants done. President Obama tried to do what he said he’d do but was opposed, move by move, step by step, by the Republican Senate and Congressional majorities and the established order, the status quo, the secret Government.
Will that happen to Trump? Now there’s a good question. He’s put his team in place and if he imagines lining Republican rivals against each other in his Cabinet might effectively be its own ‘checks and balances’, that remains to be seen but I don’t think so. There’ll be more back stabbing and power brokering going on than in a bathhouse in Imperial Rome.
Immigrants, legal or not, should be afraid in this chilly new world. Minorities must watch their six. As for the U.S’s international relations – and this is what should concern me most – Trump’s waving a Big Stick will bring its own contradictions.
Europe wants to make Brexit a tough and exemplary experience for Britain because the prospect of Europe dismantling itself looms in France and Italy, through the possible election of more right wing, conservative, anti-immigration, anti-EU Governments. In this day and age, anything’s possible but what will come from it is inevitable and frightening.
Edmund Burke, the politician and philosopher, was an Irishman, I’m proud to say. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with many of his writings but he remains a champion of liberty who grew and worked through challenging historic times and supported the American revolution.
He held strong opinions about the role of a public representative in a democracy and it’s worth quoting,
… it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion. (Edmund Burke, 1774, to the electors at Bristol)
He also believed people have not just the right but the duty to speak out against tyranny. Unfortunately, the quote most commonly attributed to him is ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing‘. He did write, …when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle, which means the same thing. However, John Stuart Mill said, almost a century later, Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
This reminds of the reporter’s remark to James Stewart in the classic western, The Man Who shot Liberty Valance, ‘when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
The message remains the same and I could even venture to paraphrase Bob Marley to echo the same sentiment, get up, standup, stand up for your rights.
Postcard from a Pigeon
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