B&B: Monuments and the Unmaker

If you fly into Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, in Africa, you will soar over a most spectacular statue.  Towering over the Ouakam suburb of town is a bronze structure, depicting three humans, a man, woman, and child, with the baby pointing towards the sea, westward, towards the distant horizon.  The woman is being held by the man (assumedly man and wife), and is clothed only in a loose tunic, with her breasts exposed, as well as her muscular legs.  The man seems to be coming to life from the stone mountain structure that was piled up around the construction.  He wears simply a cloth around his waist and is bare-chested.  The muscular build would remind any science-fiction fan of T'ealc, of StarGate SG-1.  In reality, the face resembles that of Senegalese president, and creator of the statue, Abdoulaye Wade.  Read about it at the Wikipedia site for it.

When first I saw the statue on Yahoo as it was formally opened in April of 2010, the 50th anniversary of Senegal's independence from France, I was awestruck by the beauty of the statue.  It struck me as the statue of Dominique Francone would have stood, unabashedly naked and glorious on the ground floor of Roarke's Temple to Mankind.  It demonstrates the exaltation that man, in his finest hour, should be looked upon, as a creation of God and as a creator of his own destiny.  It is a shining beacon for the rest of Africa, and the world, to look upon and dream about what future we can bring to this globe, and beyond.  The statue brings about thoughts of Tenneyson's "Ulysses," or the United States flag hanging resolutely on the moon, or Voyager's  golden disc that contains a welcome to all who would find it.  That says, "We are a race of truly excellent beings who, given the odds and the uncertainty that anyone else might be out there, would send out a message for others to find."  There are very few times in human history when we can say that we have reached our full potential.  I have talked about some, and I believe that the statue, meant to represent the rising of the African continent into an era of scientific, philosophical, and economical power, is the first step in realizing that dream. 

But as I looked for information about the statue, all I could find is how controversial it was.  How, in the vanity of constructing a monument to himself, Wade squandered the country's resources and funds to construct this "monstrosity" using a construction firm, not made up of his own countrymen, but rather a company from North Korea.  (Of course, if you look at pictures of North Korea's capital, a similar building protrudes from the skyline, that of the Hotel/Office building that, having suffered through economical troubles, stands barren and alone in the middle of the city.  Most government-approved images of the city actually photoshop it out.) I read of critics who slammed the statue as a waste as the Senegal people starved and slaved for a few pennies a day. How that money should have gone toward helping the citizens of that country, for social causes and the general welfare. Why would a president do such a thing when the money and power is more important than some idea of an "African Renaissance."   I read of religious clerics who thought it to be an abomination because the people were not clothed, or that the face didn't look Islamic, or whatever.  I read of people who were offended that a North Korean company constructed it.  But nothing on the sheer beauty of the statue, or of the idea that it represents.  It is as if the media and the other forces of the world want to blank it out of existence.   For if the statue is never seen, save by those who despise it, then there is no use for it being there.  As beauty is in the eye of those who see it, and this statue is certainly worth seeing.

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There are people who would revel in destroying this statue, and in the ideas it represents.  And mob mentality usually does prevail.  In prior blogs, I discussed the idea of the yin-yang, of good and evil being two sides of the Eastern philosophical symbol.  I equated both sides with the individual and with society.  Think of the symbol as a magnet, with poles on both sides of the figure.  Each person has a compass like yin-yang symbol that is inside them, and some have greater pull toward the positive side, and others toward the negative.  The curious aspect of a large crowd of people is that it makes it very easy to demonstrate malicious intent where restraint, self-control, and virtuosity, is much harder.  Mob mentality, as it were.  It makes a crowd suddenly become violent, for no reason at all, or stampedes to happen in soccer matches overseas.  And people who would use the Unmaker's power for themselves (Hitler, for instance) make it very easy to use mob mentality to get everyone to do the exact same thing, and to make it entirely justifiable to those involved.  This is what I want to pursue in this section.  The Unmaker's power (the power of violence, decay, maliciousness toward man and nature, Entropy) is so much more efficient when a large crowd is involved.  For no one has to think; rather, they simply follow the Unmaker's lead, and destruction reigns.  Would the storming of the Bastille have resulted in so many deaths if anyone could have controlled the powers of destruction and terror that plagued France during the late 1700's?  Or would the Salem Witch trials ever have taken place if someone had realized that hanging so many people outside of a mob (the girls) was reckless, and without solid proof?  Fortunately, there are some leaders who attract the good side of the Yin Yang, those that believe in the Maker's desire to build mankind up and achieve the glory that is possible as individuals working together on creating something.  The most obvious occasion for this is JFK's speech inspiring us to reach the moon before the 1960's was over.  The dream was fulfilled, with many creators involved, with sweat and blood and the lives of astronauts.  But it was achieved, even as the Unmaker's workers were complaining about using the funds for the NASA program for more social programs, for helping the poor and the hungry.  

The argument against this line of thinking, the biblical stories of the Good Samaritan, is somewhat valid.  But consider this... the moon launch, and subsequent missions into space, provided the United States with immeasurable technological breakthroughs, added jobs to the industrial sector, and scientific discoveries that will help the human race for years to come.  Likewise, monuments such as the statue at Dakar do provide jobs, limited as they are (and the one negative to this is that they did employee North Korean workers instead of their own) What needs to happen is for Senegal and President Wade to invest the money they receive from tourism and such to educate the people of Dakar (and Senegal) to pursue occupations that will make Senegal stronger as a nation.  This investment will fulfill the goals of the African Renaissance Movement and propel the country into a more prominent position in the world's economy.  Perhaps Senegal should join with Gambia and the rest of the African states to find and harvest the natural resources that are assuredly present underneath the rocks of Africa.  This, along with the education needed to make doctors, scientists, and with the proper legislation to entice companies to invest in African nations, they could very well enter into a new era of African prosperity. 

The Unmaker, however, would rather not see this happen.  To them, Africa should continue to be mired in Social states, with AIDS epidemics spreading throughout the countries. The poor, the hungry, the children born to parents who cannot afford them, this is the downfall of a once rich continent.  Power hungry tribal lords and leaders of small gangs of people take power grabs and continue the corruption widespread in most all countries (see Somalia's recent events).  It would be truly a shame if the funds coming from the Dakar statue would simply be filtered into the hands of corrupt politicians and terrorist groups. It is up to Wade to make sure this does not happen, else he should destroy the beautiful statue and leave it as a reminder of failed dreams. 


The wonders of this world, the structures that stand, demonstrating the reaching of a dream, why do they attract the minions of decay and destruction?  Napoleon used the Sphinx's nose for target practice, destroying part of a once powerful empire.  The Parthenon was used to store ammunition during the recent wars. And let's not forget the World Trade Centers, a symbol of Capitalism and Democracy, that were destroyed by terrorists. 


The one thing, as I leave this subject, that I can't quite figure out, is how to separate the monument from the maker and his beliefs.  Wade, upon further research, is the head of the Senegalese Populist party, or for us Americans, he's a member of the Liberal party.  I don't know the platform of that particular party in Senegal, but the president seems to have an interest in bringing Senegal into the 21st century and involve itself in world affairs.  According to Conservapedia.com, Senegal has worked hard in the fields of human rights, and is one of the few African countries not to experience a coup d'etat, or military takeover. As it was a Socialist country prior to Wade's taking over, the freeing of capitalism in the country is slowly taking place. 

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We make bread, or write blogs, or build monuments to ourselves or mankind, in a futile attempt to become God. Let us build our monuments to ourselves, our creations that imitate God, and try to reach him, as in the Tower of Babel, but realize it is not to be Him, but be like Him.  Let us strive to go ever forward, upward, onward, to make ourselves the very best we can be.  God would want nothing less.  In the next blog, I want to turn to an article I read in The Economist (of all places) that describes the recent creation of life through empty cells in a laboratory.  Mankind's destiny is to create Frankenstein's Monster.  Will it save us, or kill us all?

B&B: Basketball and Beelzebub

It's amazing what fits into a line of thought, so precipitous it was that game 7 of the NBA finals was played a couple of nights ago.  Lakers vs. Celtics, the classic, immortal battle of East Coast vs. West Coast.  And the Lakers won in a supposedly amazing comeback by Kobe Bryant.  As you can tell, I care nothing for basketball.  It's not my sport.  Give me the coliseum-like atmosphere of Jerry Jones' palace and a game of Football (that's American football to the people watching the linoleum peel in South Africa).  Football has so often been likened to the Ancient Roman sport of gladiatorial fighting, with two warriors fighting out to the death, or, when that got boring, watching Christians battle it out with the Lions. Real ones, not those in Detroit.  Cause the Lions usually won.  Or there have been the cases where Football has been compared to war, with terms of battle used in the game itself. Find George Carlin's comparison of baseball vs. football on youtube.  Carlin does an amazing job with this. 

There is a blog post, here, which deals with the "Tribalism" of football.  In short, football brings out the "violent tribal reservoir of the hindbrain", or the part of the sub-conscious mind that is wired toward domination, control, destruction.  John Stonger says that we attend sporting events such as football (hockey, wrestling, NASCAR) to see the destruction of another human being through the might and athletic ability of another.  There are teams to be sided on, and profit to be made by being on those teams.  It's the exaltation of mankind through the destruction of another.  And maybe this is taking it a little to extremes, but I think a comparison between tribal desires to raid other people's villages and the organized violence of football can be made.  I don't fully agree with Stonger's essay, or for those who commented below, all of which is worth reading, but I do see where winning and losing in sports can be compared with the forces that "Make" and "Unmake" our world.

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As humans, we desire a sense of organization, of order, in our lives. Even as the world around us falls apart.  For example, take my room.  If I do nothing about my room, it will eventually become a pig sty.  This is because the natural order is for things to break down, for chaos to set in.  "The center cannot hold," as Yeats said.  Diane Duane, in her Wizard series, calls this Entropy, after the physics term in which a system breaks down given time and effects on a that system by friction, gravity, etc... It can also be termed "decay".  It makes sense, as only through decay and Entropy can new systems emerge, renewed.  If Las Vegas kept every resort and casino place ever made, those buildings would eventually crumble of their own making, because it is increasingly difficult to maintain a structure when the elements are continuously trying to break it down.  So the structures are torn down, and new buildings are made in their places.  Again, I digress...
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Lets go back to the Laker/Celtics game.  The Lakers won, at home, and the spectators spilled out into the streets.  Revelatory (well, for those who were Laker fans), welling with pride for their city and for the athletes who had just been crowned the champions of their sport, most people went home.  Some however, decided that, in a drunken state, that the proper way to celebrate would be to destroy their own city.  Cars were burned, glass windows smashed, goods from store fronts looted.  Where is the pride from seeing those that represent your "tribe" conquer those from another?  You've just seen the best of mankind, athletically, and so now you are going to show us the worst possible behaviors as recompense? It makes no sense, that, after seeing the Creation of a champion team, people would want to spill out into the streets (most not coming from the arena, but rather from houses, bars, and back alleys) and Uncreate their city.  What force lies behind these actions? 

This happens far more often than one might think.  After important football games at the University of West Virginia, the sofas from the residential halls are routinely brought out into the campus and burned.  Most goal posts in football stadiums are now either retractable or easily removed, so that they cannot be broken down and destroyed by fans as they stampede onto the field after a game.  Granted, most of this happens with a generous amount of alcohol, but surely there has to be some underlying reason why, when a game is won, something has to be destroyed.  In a much more benign example, New York City has long had Ticker Tape parades whenever something major happens (from the Yankees winning the World Series, or the Astronauts coming back from the moon).  The symbolic throwing of paper from the windows is one of destroying records and useless files, and throwing them down upon the heads of heroes.  The same metaphoric idea takes place at Texas A&M with the lighting of the giant Bonfire prior to the Texas game. 

What is the motivation behind the riots in Los Angeles? I've been trying to figure this out. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the idea of Entropy, or "Unmaking," as an opposite force to Creation.  Do an image search for Los Angeles Laker riots, and you'll see many images of people happily acknowledging the act of destruction and mayhem throughout the city.  With their beer bottles and their cigarette lighters in one hand, and a cell phone in the other, they proudly take pictures of themselves in front of a burning car, and then post it on the Internet for the world to see (or at least, they are posing for reporters instead of hiding their faces since they did something illegal).  Is this simply a case of jealousy, a sarcastic message that says, "Wow, you made millions of dollars putting a ball into a hoop while I sit inside a miserable apartment with two kids and no money and a terrible job, and so I'll go out and make myself known to the world?"  Is it a barbaric need to pillage and burn, even your own city, after your "tribe" had conquered the neighboring one?  A misguided instinct brought on by materialism and the violence that wells up from the subconscious.  Honestly, I have no idea. 

I do know that if you look at news reports from June 2009, you'll see the exact same riots going on, since the Lakers won the NBA Championship last year, too.  You would think (and this is sidebar) that the LAPD would have expected such a thing to happen again, and brought out all of their forces to keep such a thing from happening.  If a riot is expected, at least try to stop it.  Unless it's more beneficial to have a riot take place in order to unwind pent up emotions from daily life.  Again, I don't know the answer. 

I do know that there are forces in this world that Create and Uncreate.  Orson Scott Card, in his Alvin the Maker series, has many discussions about the nature of the Unmaker.  He personifies the Unmaker as that of Satan, or as Diane Duane calls it, Death.  That most of us live our whole lives trying to promote building, creation, growth, there are some that would rather propagate destruction, decay, death.  (I looked at this before, October 22, 2007, in this post.) They not only want to destroy all that we have built, the glory of the moment, but they want us to watch them do it.  They want the attention that those who have Created something magnificent have.  They want the power that destroying something brings with it.  The terrorists of 9/11 thrive on it.  And if we forget, they will not hesitate but to send out another taped message, or send a suicide bomber to a busy marketplace in Baghdad.  And always there will be cameras to capture the carnage, and always the Unmakers will proudly claim responsibility.  "Look at us! We have Unmade what you have created!"

Next time, I want to take a look at the Unmakers more closely, at the ways that they "Unmake" a creation, from fame and fortune, to the physical manifestations of mankind.  Lets look more closely at the wind howling around the monument of Ozymandias, and see whether it was Entropy, or mankind's own desire for destruction, that made the desert swallow it whole.

B&B: The Magicians and The Mold

So to recap, God created us in His own image, so we, in turn, have this insatiable desire to Create things in our own image. The Gods themselves, those that were made by the Greek citizens in the polytheistic societies, were ones that had affairs, were greedy, lustful, and did all that mankind would do, but on a supernatural level. They were made in our own image, partially to justify our own behaviors, and also to entertain us of people much more powerful than us that control our universe. That they ultimately fall, and are consumed by those emotions, turning demigods into trees and fair maidens into spiders, those are stories made up to bring the perfect down off their pedestals and make them like us. Just as Joan Osborne did in her song.

This also applies to the rich and famous in today's world. The fall of the mighty off of the pedestals that we made for them (and consequently, tore down), is similar to the stories the ancient Greeks would have made about the Gods on Mt. Olympus. That our "Gods" live in "The White House," or play on "Pebble Beach Golf Course" is immaterial. They do the same thing, from supernatural and society-moving activities to the very human and very base actions of following their own hormones and emotions.

But I digress. Let's switch subjects.

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Take a gander over at Google Earth, and walk down the streets on maps that are intricately carved out by satellites speeding across the sky taking pictures of every square millimeter of our planet. Everything is so precise, so final. It lacks the emotional response of the maps made back in the middle ages, where you see the edges of the maps fall off into whiteness, filled with strange creatures, sea dragons, people with one foot and one large eyeball. Those are the frontiers that we still yearn to explore. They could not know what lay beyond the cities and roads they traveled, so they made it up. Created the edges of our worlds with their imaginations, or with stories and rumors from across Europe. What excitement to extend the boundaries that are known, and drawn the coast lines farther, as if some 6 year old with a crayon were creating it from some mystical place. (Actually, there is a book like that. Pick up Harold and the Purple Crayon sometime. It'll only take a second, but it's a magnificent book that shows the idea of "Creating" so simply and elegantly.)

The authors of the present, since the real world is now shown in satellite preciseness and clarity, must create worlds of their own. The maps that you find in the beginning of books are worlds that you will be visiting in those pages. What is the town of "Bree" like on the map of Tolkien's LOTR? How would the world of Narnia look standing at the thrones of the 4 kings and queens? These worlds are as real to us as the maps of the middle ages showed those magnificent creatures swimming at the edges of the unknown. Except the authors of modern day fantasy stories have an advantage. The world is theirs to create entirely. They are the God of that universe, and they can control everything. Such is the mold of every fantasy novel. Much like the potter, spinning his clay on a wheel to make a vase (cue "Unchained Melody"), or a baker kneading the dough out to make bread (with cheese and Rosemary). They all are creating something from a mold, much as God did Adam out of the mud of the riverbank in Eden.

These molds, drawn in intricate detail by each author, are now just as real to us as an atlas of our own Earth. We know what Middle Earth looks like, or Narnia. We know where Hagrid's house is, off to the side of Hogwarts School of Wizardry. And when we read a new book, with a familiar map on the inside of it's cover, we know that we are in for adventures with dragons and elves and dwarfs and whatever else that the creator, the author, has thrown in.

The key to this is our Suspension of Disbelief. We cannot descend into this other world until we have put on pause the belief that this reality is the only one that exists. We have to replace God with "Author" and our universe with another. One good example of this, in story form, is C.S. Lewis' book The Silver Chair, part of the Narnia series. The underground world is one that the witch created, but there are other worlds that we only get a glimpse at, which are farther down and even more strange.
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Book Review: The Magicians by Lev Grossman.

Lev Grossman took the mold that Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling had kneaded into their universes, and threw them at the real world. He is very aware that, seeing the map on the inside cover of the book, that we are expecting something along the lines of the Narnia series. He knows that, by suggesting a school of wizardry, we are expecting a Harry Potter knock off that will ultimately end in the main character, Quentin Coldwater, saving the universe and blah blah blah... But this is not what happens at all. Because along with the molds of those lands, he throws in the gritty reality of our world. There is no disbelief to suspend at the beginning since Quentin is more interested in sleeping with Julia than studying Potions with Professor Snape. He reads the same pseudo-Narnian stories that we have, and his continued wish for that world to be true is somewhat pitiful. We pity this brilliant outcast, this boy full of teenage angst and self-loathing. We see too much of ourselves in this child.

There is no "Happily Ever After" in this book. Mainly because there is no happily ever after in real life. Things happen. People die. Hearts are broken. And very rarely is everything tied up into neat little packets like the endings of Full House episodes. It's much like the end of Law & Order, where very little is resolved and you're left feeling like you've run into a brick wall. But unlike L&O, this book does have a sequel, coming out Summer of 2011.

The section of the book where Quentin is in Brakebills School is my favorite part, if nothing else than because it is filled with such potential. The mold at this point is raw, unfashioned. The characters could be much more filled out by this time; they are mere shadows of what they could be. And while some people will not like this, it's the potential for what they could become that fascinates me. It leaves the imagination open to what this school would really be like, if I lived in it and became a part of it. It's the calm before the chaos that I see so much in books recently. The place where you most want to live, the place where you reluctantly leave because, if you didn't, there wouldn't be a story. It's this section of a book that gives the author a chance to shine. Grossman doesn't fulfill this need as well as someone like Orson Scott Card would, with brilliant dialogue and conversation. He is learning, however. Even at the end of the story there is much more depth in each soul.

Like many of the books Borders has promoted recently, this book is not perfect. It has its flaws and its moments of shining glory. Lev Grossman has done what many authors have done previously, what God did so many eons ago. He created a world with so much potential, but also with the imperfections that make it unique, make it interesting, almost human. If the twists of the normal fantasy world is of interest, try Stephen R. Donaldson's Mirror of Her Dreams and John Connolly's Book of Lost Things.
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The next in this series will talk about the need to Make (create) versus the desire to Unmake (destroy). As for now, I'm gonna enjoy my new AC unit I have in my room.

Bread and Blogs: Creation and the Creator

"Habalo..." It's Sim-language for "Hello." A person creates a person to live in an artificial world, with an artificial job, doing artificial things (with built in masks to cover nekkidity.) Anyone old enough to remember Bonanza will shake their head and groan, not understanding the metaphysical needs behind being endlessly addicted to a game like The Sims. Honestly, it never really did anything for me, as I found it to be too restrictive. Why only simulate part of your life, when you can live your life to the fullest in the real world? Course, that is rhetorical. I fell much more in love with Spore, where I could build creatures from the cellular level. See my blogs: Spore Blog 1 and Spore Blog 2 for the reviews on that game. Actually, I'll wait while you read those, because they are central to my line of thought. Go ahead...

Anyway, if we go back to Genesis, to the sixth day, God created us in his own image. I wonder how far that goes, how exactly like God we actually are? And to a further extent, how much is God like us? (cue Joan Osborne). He must have known (actually He did know) that Adam would have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge (and Eve, too), and thus become cast out. He must have known that our curiosity about everything would propel us to evolving into what we are today, and even farther. It seems ironic, but if you think it, God created us in His own image, but made us flawed. Of course, the reason being, since He made us with self-awareness and free will (in His image), we have the ability to freely err from perfection. If we didn't have this, and we stayed perfectly in Paradise this whole time, there wouldn't be anything for God to be proud of. He would have a whole army of Robots, without any thoughts of greatness or progression. It's simply not the way things go.

So, as we are created in God's image, we become ourselves, Creators. The basic drive for raising families, raising cats, building houses and writing books. The need to create is a powerful emotion, one that overshadows the Devil's need to destroy (but more on that later). We have the same basic desire to be proud of what we create, living or non living. Just as God would be proud of us.

It's this emotion that drives us, in our daily rituals at the computer, to devote so much time to the characters we have online. We build up an elf on World of Warcraft, level after level, adorning him or her with ornate armor, magnificent weapons, and adept skills, only to have it sit on some server for all eternity while we try out the latest edition of Everquest. It seems useless, that we would spend so much of our lives on creating a character that is not real, but as we slay the dragon in the deepest dungeon of WOW, we experience the pride that God would feel about His followers. It matters little how transitory the pride or the character is. It is, of course, a shadow of God's emotions, but, as Plato would point out, we are but shadows of the real thing.

Bread and Blogs: Introduction

I ate a loaf of bread recently. Not one that you would buy at a grocery store, rows upon rows of white, wheat, or other tastes confections of some giant factory in another state somewhere. This was a loaf made by one of my associates, Andrew (who has the house I mentioned some blogs ago), hand made and baked in his own kitchen. The loaf had a row of cheese baked into the middle, and was infused with Rosemary, a spice I cannot get enough of. The aroma is enough to make me warm and comfortable, content with the world. Makes me wonder if it is not Prozac the world needs, but a good diet of Rosemary each morning. The thought occurred to me, "Why would someone make bread like this?" Certainly, because of its exquisite taste and superior quality to anything made in today's supermarkets. But there has to be something more than that. It surely would cost more to make it yourself, unless you grew the herbs and the wheat...etc... , than to simply go buy a loaf of bread, stick some spices and cheese onto a sandwich, and bingo.

The answer, I think, lies in the making of the bread. But of course, it is much more than just the bread itself, but of the creation of it. A good baker creates the bread, from ingredients that are totally "unbreadlike". Similarly, an architect builds a house out of wood, or stone, glass, any other natural ingredients, creating a structure out of Nature's resources to stand tall and firm in the sunshine. Imagine the feeling that a person would have, when, having pulled the bread out of the oven, or after driving the last nail, he stands back and marvels at what he created. What pride in his work! Or, take holding a book in the hands of one who wrote it for the first time, with the slick, illustrated cover, the words of pages flowing one to another from beginning to end. These are our creations, and it's this feeling I want to take a look at. This will take more than one blog, so I'll split it up as I have done before. Briefly, here are the questions I want to look at:

• What are the origins of "creation?" Or more specifically, what feelings make up the whole idea, and where do they come from?

• How do our religious beliefs encourage our need to create?

• Why do some people feel the need to "unmake," or destroy, while others are driven to create and to "make?"

• How does Creating drive our daily activities, the aspects of our lives, from birth to death?

• How can we create things in today's society? Or does society today encourage or dissuade Creating things?

I'll want to look at creating everyday items, such as the bread, as well as Literary works (especially Fantasy worlds such as Tolkien's or C.S. Lewis' worlds), and then the colossal creations of mankind, from Jerry Jones' stadium in Dallas, Texas to the Statue created recently in Senegal, Africa. So follow me, if you want to, and we'll see where this leads.

The Songs of Present Earth

If there's any one sci-fi novel that'll make you think long after you've finished it, it is Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's novel The Light of Other Days. I've talked about wormholes and privacy and whatnot in previous posts. This time, I want to bring up Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth. The story takes place on an island archipelago on a planet far from Earth. The colony that has been sent there was chosen, as most colonists are, as the best genetic specimens of our species. With them was a computer database filled with the art and music and literature of mankind. What was left out of the collection was anything that had to do with religion, or mankind's prejudices. Which meant that many works of art had to be left out. Handel's Messiah, for instance. That little caveat, however, is not what I want to focus on. It really is a good book, which I would suggest reading.

We fly around on this ship we call Earth, and the amount of literature and music and art pile up, with fluff and useless pieces of garbage (see Transformers 2) being hailed as important (through people's wallets, anyway) while masterpieces of human creativity are quietly forgotten, to be lost to mankind. Maybe this is my hoarding genetics shining through, but I've always wanted the masterpieces to be kept in the public eye. There are books which I have read which are now out of print and will eventually be forgotten in the landfills of human materialism. Take Christopher by Richard M. Koff. Only kids book he wrote, only one of two period. But it was magnificent. And yet, I wonder how many copies are in Georgia, where I live. Forgotten on bookshelves and discarded from libraries because they haven't seen the light of day. How wonderful it would be to see these books brought to the top of the ocean's current, like an upwelling of water to see the sunlight. Or take Frank Bonham's The Missing Person's League. Yes, it's a little dated, but this 1970's sci-fi novel of environmental disaster and families disappearing was amazing when my 5th grade teacher read it to us some 20 years later. But now it's out of print, and who knows if it'll be reprinted.

In music, we do have some artists who see the brilliance of songwriters from past times and are trying to keep them afloat. In my last blog, I talked about Natalie Merchant's Leave your Sleep. And a few blogs ago, I reviewed David Gray's Thousand Miles Behind. Both of these albums are tributes to the poets and songwriters which came before these two singers. Gray covered tunes from Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Tim Buckley, and others. So many wonderful songs that will simply sink to the bottom of the ocean of material that mankind has made these days. We have to keep those masterpieces alive. To give something to the future colonists so that they know more of the human race than songs by Lady Gaga.

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On Fox News last week, Bill O'Riley ran a story about the anniversary of Youtube, and it got me to thinking. Youtube is our database on this ship. It's where we can all look and find supposedly forgotten pieces of our lives brought back to life. Television shows, songs, works of art, pieces of music. It's all there, for whatever purpose we should give it. And sure, some of it is junk. Some of it drives home the most vile of human qualities. The videoed school fights and the pieces showing how utterly despicable we can be, sure, those are on there. Our dirty laundry for the world to see, and we show it proudly, for some reason. It makes no sense. But the truth, as it is presented in such a twisted way, shows also how marvelous mankind can be when it wants to. The exalted are sat side by side with the depraved.

His poll, at the end of the story, was whether or not the viewer thought that Youtube was a good or bad influence on society. Now, of course you can't answer that with a simple yes or no, because it's both. But the positive aspects of the web site far outshine that of the negative. Youtube is, ultimately, a capitalist adventure. They show commercials and run adds just like any other website does. But they also are used heavily by promoters of movies, music, political races, etc... The flip side of Youtube is that, ultimately (and hopefully this won't change, but that's another subject), it's free. People can upload movies, for good or for ill, anytime they want into a public storagehouse for everything that goes on in the human world. It is a true melting pot for mankind. And while the ocean of information keeps growing (Youtube now hosts more space than all of the Internet in 2000, a mere 10 years ago.), the ability to easily find videos, which are linked by keyword to other videos, is amazing. Years from now, when archeologists dig up the remnants of this world, if they still have the Internet (or some equivalent), Youtube would be the greatest time capsule they could ever hope for. It would tell of the human condition, both good and bad, for the whole universe to see.

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As an addendum to this blog, I wanted to include links to a couple of the Youtube videos I found. One is David Gray singing Tim Buckley's work "Song to the Siren," from the above mentioned album. The video is a picture with an mp3 file embedded, so it's not necessary to watch it. The second is a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" by Jonathan Coulton. Again, just the lyrics with the mp3 backing. Which is good, because live concert clips don't have the best audio. Maybe not the best representatives of Youtube's millions of posts, but they are masterpiece songs that shouldn't disappear from mankind's database.

Reviews, Reviews! : Apologize; Natalie Merchant

Book Review: Apologize, Apologize! by Elizabeth Kelly

Call it a Tragi-comedy, a mixture of Shakespeare and Ferrol Sams, with elegant writing and bawdy actions to thrill lovers of Southern Literature and literature fanatics. It's like Pat Conroy, but on the shores of Boston's rich and secluded coast. It would be similar if one of the Kennedy's suddenly decided they didn't want to be a Kennedy anymore, but were powerless to do anything but be that.

Ultimately, it's the story of a family who lives under a rich and Paternal figure called "The Falcon," who dolls out money and keeps his daughter (the mother of the main characters) without need or wants...which of course she rebels against at every opportunity. She names her children after dogs... Collie and Bingo are her two sons, and the house bounds with dogs. Her husband is an Irish drunk, married because his hair was red. Imagine Conan O'Brian as an alcoholic. For the first half of the book, it's hard to eat and laugh at the same time (and since I read while I eat, it got difficult.)

In the end, however, it's about the two brothers trying to flee their overbearing and eccentric mother, their dysfunctional family, and the mountains of money that seems to follow them wherever they go. The amazing thing about the book is that, for sometime after it was over, I didn't understand some of the symbols of the book. Yes, there are symbols. The dogs, the racing pigeons... the animals in the book are constant reminders that, however hard you try to change yourself, to become something new and different, without fail, you will always come home. And as my grandmother says, "Home is where, when you come there, they have to take you in."


Music Review: Leave Your Sleep by Natalie Merchant.

How wonderful, in the day of Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga, that there are musicians who take the world of music seriously, who apply the gift of music to something other than just making money, and turn music into a work of art.

What Natalie Merchant has done with this work, a culmination of several years of research, lovingly laborious, is take her experiences of raising a child and a family, taking the poetry and the music that appeals to children and make it appeal to everyone. Because there's a universal quality to the songs that she performs on this album. And no wonder that there is a mixture of jazz, bluegrass, folk, Chinese, and pop music, all present on this work. The words are taken from poems written by obscure, masterful poets from the 18th and 19th centuries. They are reprinted in an 80 page booklet along with short biographies of each of the writers. It is amazing that she has taken these poems, brought them out of the "yellowed pages" of forgotten books and into the American consciousness. It is my hope that Merchant will be known for this album, that it will become a landmark piece of American music. But you don't have to take my word for it. Below is an interview she gave, along with the music video of "Equestrienne," which is my favorite song on the album. Something about 3/4 (or 6/8) songs gets me hooked.