Taking a break from the book Technician's of the Sacred's
Fragments of the Pyramid Texts
("Thy face is like............................................")
I took at peek at The New York Times online to see
what new thing they had to entice me.
Low and behold, there is an article dedicated SOLELY
to bloggers. Imagine my joy at the discovery of others like me.
Especially this (cute/intellectual) one:

http://dailykos.com/

He makes me wonder what I have been doing with myself, so extensive is his blog. He reminds me of Joe in St. Lucia, teaching computers to kids and rewarding them with glowsticks.
(Hi Joe!)

Another one I discovered is wonkette. I've seen her before on television. She's very funny and makes me Jaloux with a Capitol J:

www.wonkette.com

***

I'm trying to figure out how blogging, linguistic philosophy and the Election are connected so I consult the I CHING (opened at random to page 420):

Shih/ the army

The Sequence

When there is conflict, the masses are sure to rise up.
Hence there follows the hexagram of the army.
Army means mass.
Army means mourning.

THE JUDGEMENT

The army needs a strong man. Good fortune without blame.

THE IMAGE

In the middle of the earth is water:
The image of the army.
Thus the superior man increases his masses
By generosity toward the people.

***

hmm. I kind of like that reading. What say you, Jason?

SAN SEBASTIÁN, Spain, Sept. 24 - For over half a century, Spain's film community has gathered here each fall to honor the subversive power of cinema.
But judging by the opening gala for the 52nd San Sebastián International Film Festival on Sept. 17, that claim might seem dubious. Roaring crowds welcomed Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar and a parade of stars along a red carpet into the gleaming, custom-designed Kursaal Center.
The glitter generated by figures like Mr. Allen, Annette Bening and Jeff Bridges (this year's Donostia career achievement award recipients) easily concealed the festival's innovative spirit, just as this Basque city's physical beauty often belies its audacious political character.

www.nytimes.com

*

Dear Megan, How lovely would it be to visit San Sebastian right now? I think we should go there instead. Write soon! xoxo, Renee

from Eleni Sikelianos's "The California Poem:"

In my seekness I
salute California as Empire
which rendered us capsized
to sizes of hipses & thighses

but like a burger I will rise
in bits of bodily heat such as
god's abstinence to show
the Sun's always a virgin in this assembled

paradise and every gray whale is gorging
on amphipods amidst the quantum foam

***

See also Sikelianos's: The Monster Lives of Boys & Girls

cos·mol·o·gy Pronunciation: käz-'mä-l&-jE
Etymology: New Latin cosmologia, from Greek kosmos + New Latin -logia -logy1
a : a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe
b : a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe
2 : a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe; also : a theory dealing with these matters

*

On Mother Courage and Her Children
by Bertolt Brecht

Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children
takes placein Europe in the 1600s during the 30 Years War.
Mother Courage tries to be a businesswoman during a war that takes
all of her children. One child becomes a soldier,
another a money-counter, and the third, Kattrin, is marred & shot.
Unable to marry or have children, Kattrin's only recourse
before she dies is to save other people's children.
The degeneration of her
looks can be tied to the growth of her compassion for others.
Courage is the only one who survives in the end.

Brecht wrote the play in 1939 after he and his family
were forced to move to Stockholm, Sweden, due to the growing Nazi
pressure on neighboring Denmark.

"In wartime the big profits are NOT made
by little people... The economy of war
makes enterprise futile for all
but the powerful and well-connected."

"No sacrifice is too great
for the struggle against war."

[Mother Courage is one of the great anti-war plays
of the modern theater]

"They call me Courage because when I saw
the ruin staring me in the face, I drove out of Riga
through cannon fire with fifty loaves of bread in my wagon."

[Overheard last night: "They are going to find a cure for cancer
in our lifetimes, but not AIDS, because there's no money it."

"Put some money in it then!"]

"Peddling shoes is woman's work."--an obnoxious soldier to Courage

"We're all mixed up together from the cradle
to the grave."

"You'll die too, unless you're very honest the whole time.
That's the only way you can save yourself."

Mother Courage to Kattrina:
"You're [doomed] because you've got a good heart.
Don't be too good-natured, Kattrina, there's a cross on your path too.
Always keep very quiet. Be careful."

"If the general's a slob and lets everything go to pot,
the soldiers have got to be sly as serpents or they're done for."

"Ah, deep will they lie who wise counsel defy
Learn wisdom from those that are elder."

"With a little dirt you'll be safe. When a soldier, especially a Catholic,
sees a clean face, she's a whore before she knows it.
The girls that attract them get the worst of it. They drag them around
till there's nothing left of them. If you don't appeal to them, they won't harm you.
It's like trees. The straight tall ones get chopped down for ridgepoles,
the crooked ones enjoy life."

"I blame the people who start wars, they're the ones
that dredge up man's lowest instincts."

"It's daring that led him to that pass--
Unselfishness brought him to that pass--
Honesty brought him to that pass--
Wisdom brought him to that pass--
The fear of God brought him to that pass--
How happy is the man with none!"

"Virtues are dangerous things,
enjoy life, eat a good breakfast, a
bowl of hot soup for instance."

"A garden is a blessed thing
It bore such lovely flowers.
A sheltering roof's a blessed thing
When winter comes a-stalking."

Kattrin is shot by soldiers
while drumming to alert the next town
& her cousins that the soldiers are coming.

Mother Courage sings:
"With all the killing and recruiting
The war will worry on a while
In ninety years they'll still be shooting
It's hardest on the rank and file
Our food is swill, our pants all patches
The higher-ups steal half our pay
And still we dream of God-sent riches
Tomorrow is another day!
The spring is come!
Christian revive!
The snowdrifts melt, the dead lie dead!
And if by chance you're still alive
It's time to rise and shake a leg."

Today my bed arrived (a mammoth!) and Bjork's new album Medulla (!)
now I'm waiting for my friend Kerry the masseuse to call me.

from Sanskrit Love Poetry edited by W.S. Merwin:

The goddess Laksmi
loves to make love
to Vishnu
from on top
looking down she sees
in his navel a lotus
and on it Brahma, the god
but she can't bear
to stop
so she puts her hand
over Vishu's right eye
which is the sun
and night comes on
and the lotus closes
with Brahma inside.