Good Times for Bad Poetry

ODE TO AMAZON

Amazon Shopper and Shippers, 

Fill me with essential Bliss. 

Everything from aprons to zippers! 

Nevermore Bargains shall I miss. 

Should my debit card run dry, 

Me canst still buy, buy, buy. 

Lo! In this time deemed Pestilential, 

I was deemed Nonessential. 

Yet from high Heaven 

Doth a Bailout come. 

Judge me not brethren 

Nor dare call me, Bum.

Jay Gatsby in the Big City

I found that "Life in the Big City" by Cracker complements nicely Chapter IV of The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald shows the reader two contradictory sides of Jay Gatsby: the hero and the hoodlum; the (faux) blue-blood and the (menacing) thug. This song by Cracker brings out wincingly the temptations and dangers of wealth and power.

I. Song: Cracker, “Life in the Big City” (Berkeley to Bakersfield, 2014).

Life in the big city. Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city…

I've got billions, I've got minions,Dance for me, politicians!I've got jet planes, my own doctors,Secret bank accounts in Switzerland.I've got Russians in the corner Taking care of my worst problems.I've got women, yeah. Dominatrix, But see you in the churchyard Sunday.

Life in the big city, let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty.

I've got mansions in the Hamptons,I've got a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan,I've got tax breaks in San Francisco,For the link back into the Mayor's pack.I've got think tanks and academics Telling you what's good for me is good for you

I feel better when we get dirty.

See you in the church on Sunday.

That's life in the big city, girl; what did you expect?That's life in the big city, girl; ain't no Boy Scouts here.That's life in the (that's life in the) big city girl (big city girl),It ain't prettyThat's life in the (that's life in the) big city girl (big city girl),Ah come on come on come on come onCome on come on come on come on

Life in the big city, let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.Life in the big city, wooh! Let's get dirty now.

Songwriters: Michael Urbano / David Lowery / Johnny Hickman / Davey Faragher. Life in the Big City lyrics © Sony Music Publishing.

II. Some Questions to Consider.

1. What similarities do you see between Jay Gatsby and the character described in the song?

2. How are the lifestyles between the singer and Gatsby different?

3. How does the song illustrate the singer’s internal contradictions?

4. How do these contradictions compare with Jay Gatsby in Chapter 4?

The USA in "Us"?

Envy, Resentment - Oh, My!

Intended or not, Jordan Peele's Us (2019) subtly rejects the politics of envy by highlighting the fact that the socially and economically aggrieved may know what's owed them but may very well lack the capacity to build anything. 

The film begins with an affluent African American family heading on vacation to some locale near Santa Cruz, CA. Despite the mother's early childhood trauma, the family appears to be the very picture of the American Dream: wealth, status and a couple of relatively normal kids. Alas, all is not well in Paradise. It turns out that each member of the family has his very own doppelganger dressed in red coveralls and armed with shiny, soon to be glistening, scissors. 

The paired families consist of Adelaide-Red (mom), Gabe-Abraham (dad), Zora-Umbrae (sister), and Jason-Pluto (brother). After letting themselves in (against the will of the Wilsons), Red laboriously and laconically lectures everyone about how (1) each is tethered or connected to the other, (2) life is really bad downstairs in the underworld, and (3) some human though certainly not humane power has made each sunshine suburbanite paired  to a downcast, demented demoniac. 

The good news is that the Fabian Four are "Americans"; the bad news is that momma bear has been hearing God's voice (this usually does not end well in a horror movie) and the voice tells her that happiness and freedom can be obtained only by slicing and dicing their betters (Red calls this "untethering" but the less morally obtuse might just term it "murder"). To go from bad to worse, it turns out these folks who self-identify as Americans have no desire to pull themselves up by their sandal straps but to prosper by displacing-by-death the very decent and upright people who made America great.

I'm reminded here of some of the words found in the title track of Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell (1980; twenty years young this year): 

Do me a wrong, you're a bringer of evil.

The Devil is never a maker.

The less that you give, you're a taker. 

Like the Devil, these dread doppelgangen build nothing, life lifelessly and are propelled by rage's resentment. Not an attractive group.

Cheers, I owe you!

Are the gated communities of America's rich, prosperous and famous made possible because of the suffering and degradation of a permanent underclass? Did Gabe attend Howard University on the back of Amblin' Abe? Did Zora's neglect of cross country running and love of electronics make Umbrae the fleet-footed loonie she became? 

Peele does not provide answers but his film illustrates nicely is that without a positive proposal for living life, one can easily fall into comparing one's life with that of others and grasping for the Good at the expense of another. In biblical language this is called covetousness, and it leads only to resentment, envy and pain. And perhaps a raw rabbit or two. 

Rant on Rant: "If You Send Your Kid to a Private School, You Are a Bad Person" by Allison Benedikt (29 August 2013)

"Trust Me"

Years ago the late Pope John Paul II cautioned about a "culture of death" and here’s its latest iteration: child sacrifice. In her manifesto "If You Send Your Kid to a Private School, You are a Bad Person," Allison Benedikt doesn't call for the physical death of children but for their intellectual and moral degradation. Her thesis? Regretabbly, some public schools fail to educate the young, but we simply must send "our" kids there, so that [through some magical process] these schools will eventually improve.


Oh, my. Here’s a species of logic that only a hard-core national socialist or Stalinist could truly love. 

Do wickedness now in the certainty that a bright shining utopia will arrive tomorrow. 

The absurdity of Ms. Benedikt's thesis becomes clear if one applies her logic to the physical needs of children: Go to an incompetent doctor as this will eventually improve healthcare for all. When public education fails to educate, parents are acting responsibly in sending their kids elsewhere -- to a place where they will be properly educated. 

This ought to be a viable option for all parents but sadly it is largely available for people of Benedikt's stature. One loves to see a form of solidarity in action but not at the expense of kids. White, brown, or black - a mind is still a terrible thing to waste. 

Teaching and the Loss of Self

Who are you?

Kierkegaard writes somewhere of the modern mode of despair in which the individual does not realize his despair. Summer time sometimes seems like that to me. 

For years now during the summer break I've had the same experience. I don't know what to do with myself and fall into a state of funk.  I attempt to see seek to create certain structures, habits and routines which will give me a sense of purpose.

When I am in the midst of teaching during the academic year the idea of "too much time available" sounds like wonderful impossibility. Yet there is a kind of bottoming out that happens as the "hyperdrive" shuts down and suddenly one is free-floating in a void of sorts. Vertigo. 

The little I've read about Peter Sellers life suggest that. He had the same experience as an actor as a person. Or should I say persona versus person?  When he was in character, when he was in a role, he was "a self" but not himself. When he was not pretending to be someone else (as all actors do), he was disgusted with himself.

Acting Versus Self-Knowledge

In the film Patton we encounter a bit of dialogue where the general is approached by his aide after haranguing his staff. He tells the general that sometimes, they don't know when he's joking or serious. Patton replies that it's not important that they know, but that he know the difference.

AIDE: General, I don't think they know when you're acting and when you're serious.

PATTON: it's not important but they know it's only important that I know.

There is a bit of the actor in every teacher. The classroom is a kind of stage.

Some actors and some teachers are surely saints. Why not us?

Of Star Trek and Secular Scots: STNG, S7E14

No, Not That Secular Scot!

When it first aired in the 1990s, I watched the Next Generation infrequently. Robert Bork had recently been denied a chair on the U.S. Supreme Court and I recall being amused by a large Rubik's Cube flying through space decimating human diversity: Borg = Bork? It is a puzzle I never attempted to solve. I was content to admire the fact that the franchise had at last found a Captain who could act; it was never necessary that I attach myself to this new, heretical generation.

The root of the word heresy means to choose and the nefarious forces (not, note bene, Force) behind STNG chose to further stretch Gene Roddenberry's gauzy Unitarianism into utter materialism. In the Next Generation one finds all problems solvable by human techne and the power of positive thinking. The universe is filled with interesting and complex puzzles but devoid of substantive meaning.

"Sub Rosa" (S7E14) ambitiously seeks to destroy two mysteries in one squeamish episode: God and ghosts. I can imagine no drearier world than Scotland writ large (unless it were New York Planet), but STNG has a writer for that. Thus we move from the cold of the Scottish Highlands to a place with just a wee more warmth: a burial plot. 

The Best Plot in the Episode

We are on this grim planet because Dr. Crusher's grandmother has died and since the Borg threat is in abeyance. the Enterprise can make a visit. At graveside these words are intoned: 

And so now we commit her body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In sure and certain hope that her memory will be kept alive within us all. 

Whether or not there was a hue and cry by Anglicans worldwide for this act of liturgical theft and redaction, I know not. Given the general trend toward theological drivel in the West, it may well have been viewed as "prophetic"! In any case, what is clear is that the "faith" expressed in those words are light years away from these from the Book of Common Prayer: 

In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend our sister N. and commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord lift up his countenance upon her and give her peace. Amen. 

One is reminded here of Nietzsche: God is dead, and we have killed Him. Or perhaps in the futuristic vision, God died through our smugness. 

Seriously?

It gets worse. It was not enough to snuff out God but ghosts too must be annihilated. It turns out that Granny had a thousands of year young lover named Ronin. After she passes on into our memories, up pops an apparently supers-sexy spirit who plays doctor with the doctor. Well, rubes like us would conjecture, "Ghost!" but it turns out Ronin is a run of the mill rare life form. I think Beverly whacks him with a phaser but somehow he's disposed of.

This episode is terrible on many levels but it accurately portrays the series' metaphysical anemia: strange new worlds that dazzle the eyes but chill the soul; a universe that is a kind of Mega-Las Vegas - bright shiny objects, emptied of significance.