Portrait of the Artist As An Old Man
Barbara
stsqu...@netzero.com wrote on 7/19/04 8:49 AM:
>>> "This is a song that arose from a photograph that I saw when I was a
child
>>> of some people in striped pajamas prison uniforms with violins playing
beside a
>>> smoke stack and the smoke was made out of gypsys and children and this
song
>>> arose out of that photograph, DANCE ME TO THE END OF LOVE
>>
>
> Have you read Fania Fenelon's wonderful true story, Playing For
> Time--? It was made into a film also, starring one of the Redgrave
> sisters, I forget which. Fenelon and several fellow prisoners at
> Auschwitz put together an orchestra and played for their Nazi captors,
> as a way to save their own lives and their sanity, as well as in hopes
> that music itself might soften the cruelty of the Nazis...so there you
> have it, the theme of imprisonment in this life, in this skin, in what
> human beings do to one another...and the strength that idealism and
> faith and music give you to be lifted above it. Leonard's description
> of his inspiration reminds me of that book and film. Maybe the
> photograph he refers to is actually of that same little orchestra.
> --Squidge
"A tattered man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress."
Goethe, as an old man, described the conditions that led to
'beautiful oaks'-"if it grows up snugly sheltered from wind and weather, it
becomes nothing. But a century's struggle with the elements makes it strong
and powerful, so that, at its full growth, its presence inspires us with
astonishment and admiration."
One of my favorites, Leon Edel, who introduced Leonard at the 92nd Street Y
in New York, many years ago writes so engagingly, now--"In gifted
individuals, there can emerge with aging certain kinds of compensation: a
cumulative synthesis of earlier riches, combinded with freedom brought by
acceptance, faith, resignation, a willingness to recognize the inevitable.
The atmosphere may be more rarefied, but it is more panoramic. Parents and
friends are gone, and if there are children they have departed their
separate ways. The future offers one thing: the reality of death, the
unknown. Artists are human. They cling to life (if they don't surrender
to apathy and indifference)> "No one believes in his own death," Freud has
told us. In our deepest consciousness we continue to live as if we were
immortal. That is the law of life-without it everything would seem
worthless."
Edel invokes Tolstoy and the depression that raged at him all his life.
From Tolstoy's personal journal:
"I am unwilling to act hastily, only because I had determined first to clear
away the confusion of my thoughts, and, that once done, I could kill myself.
I was happy, yet I hid away a cord, to avoid being tempted to hang myself by
it to one of the pegs between the cupboards of my study, where I undressed
every evening, and ceased carrying a gun because it offered too easy a way
of getting rid of life, and yet there was something I hoped for from it."
In Tolstoy's search for faith, he chose a primitive form of Christianity.
Again and again, Tolstoy told himself that as a man of beliefs, he had to
leave his cushioned ease, his servants, his home, and go forth and lead a
saintly life. Yet, the aristocrat in him could not bring himself to be one
of God's athletes, a missionary, a martyr.
We are told that Leonard is happy now. I, for one, am glad that Leonard has
been spared this fate.
I leave tommorrow morning early for the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. I enjoy the
line from Yeats' "I hear lake water lapping, with low sounds by the shore."
And the words, "from the deep heart's core," are my constant watch words.
Joe
Will Dockery
"We are all prisoners here,
prisoners of our own devices..."
-Bob Nuewirth, "Last Day On Earth".
poetman
>"We are all prisoners here, prisoners of our own devices..."
>-Bob Nuewirth, "Last Day On Earth"
'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.'
-The Eagles, "Hotel California"
Barbara
"poetman" <su...@online.no> wrote in message
news:769Oc.5495$v04....@news2.e.nsc.no...
A Conversation With Macrina Wiederkehr
"The secular writers I have been drawn to are really quite spiritual. I
probably wouldn't even call them "secular." They seem free in their
quest.
They tend not to put God in a box. An experience of the sacred flows
through their writings. They address, with sensitivity and honesty,
real
problems people face daily. What draws me to these writers is their
passion and search for meaning, their willingness to enter the
darkness,
and ask questions without giving ready answers.
Perhaps there isn't as much of a gulf between the secular and the
sacred
as we sometimes believe. I tend to be turned off by writing that comes
across as preachy or dispensing pious platitudes. I love the German
poet
Rainer Maria Rilke. In the midst of the tormenting darkness of his
life,
he writes beautifully of a God he does not fully understand. In The
Book
of Hours, he describes God as "the great homesickness we've never been
able to shake off."
"The church includes not just the hierarchy, but all
the people of God whose hearts are "made of longing" (Rilke again).
The
church is all of us-the Body of Christ.
I think we are learning how to address these issues as we meet the
dying
and rising of Jesus in our own lives each day. On our daily journeys
we
need the poets among us to help us be less afraid of ambiguity.
Certitude
is a trap. Those things in our lives of which we are certain are very
difficult to speak about. When we attempt to do so, our words come out
sounding either authoritarian or poetic.
As for the hierarchical church-it does, at times, seem to offer us
rules
and regulations, doctrine and dogmas, when what we long for is bread
and
encouragement, consolation and forgiveness. Why? My sense is that
there is
too much fear and control in the governing bodies of the organized
churches."
"One of my favorite metaphors for God is mystery. I use the word not to
suggest that God cannot be understood, but to say God is a presence we
can
never fully fathom-thus we are always in process, searching out new
meanings. God is both the answer and the unanswer, a divine riddle
like a
Zen Koan.
The tension between the transcendent and immanent is a healthy
tension.
God is that mystery toward which we lean. We are always reaching for
the
divine, yet we are never fully satisfied. If we experience God only as
transcendent, we become discouraged. God is too far away. On the other
hand, the immanent God is as close as my own heartbeat, or as the
person
beside me whom I can touch. This God is tangible and intimate. If I
know
only an immanent God, however, there is the risk that my relationship
with
God becomes trite or sentimental. The tension between the two creates,
for
me, a healthy relationship with God."
"I have always been a bit wary of labels. Because many people, not
understanding feminism, think of feminists as just angry, irrational
women, I used to be hesitant in calling myself a feminist. Yet a
growing
awareness of how important feminism is for the church is making me
more
bold. Anger can be a trap for us. It is like a door we must pass
through
as we see the injustice women have suffered. However, if we keep going
through the anger-door, something is wrong.
A patriarchal system hurts everyone, not just women. Some of the most
creative thinkers today are feminists, both women and men. Feminism is
offering us a whole new model of a way to be. It offers a circular
rather
than a linear way to think, and a way of empowering rather than
maintaining power and control. Of course feminists, too, can get into
control. But true feminism is open to dialogue. In the patriarchal
church
I think the real issues are fear and control. We fear what we don't
know
or that which might ask us to let go of the power that we don't want
to
relinquish."
What are your hopes in terms of female inclusion in the hierarchy?
Why is that important, in other words-what is missing without them?
"What is missing without them is the truth of the gospel. The message
of Jesus is missing. Jesus was inclusive from within a patriarchal
system.
I am not questioning how we got so patriarchal but why it is we are
willing to stay here so long. I have always thought when the apostles
were
trying to find a replacement for Judas, if they had really gotten the
message of Jesus, they would have chosen Mary Magdalene rather than
Matthias. Jesus was so open to women.
I have difficulty understanding how we profess equality of everyone at
baptism and then exclude women from the priesthood. Of course the real
issue goes far beyond women priests. The call is to challenge the
system.
Without women in leadership, what is missing is soul. There seems to
be a
fear of the feminine, and this can be seen in both women and men. We
need
to learn how to be receptive to one another, to explore and dream
together, to listen in circles of shared leadership.
Recently, I co-led a workshop for a group of Protestant women. Many of
them said to us, "We're sorry your church excludes you from the
altar." As
I observed the women priests at the altar, however, it seemed like
"more
of the same" to me. Our whole structure for worship feels too linear.
Do
women want a piece of the present pie, or do we need to find a way to
bake
a new pie? How can we work together to create new rituals for a new
age?
My dream for the church is that men and women will experience
liberation
by reverently listening to one another's fears. In Christina Baldwin's
book, Calling the Circle, she offers the model of a circle for making
decisions and solving problems. The aboriginal peoples of past
cultures
used this model. Perhaps it will become our way for the future."
"In my retreat ministry I'm sometimes asked if I am not becoming a
little
"new age" in my thinking. This is a title assigned to many things that
are
actually quite "old age." In my approach to spirituality, I'm very
creation-centered and process-oriented. Creation spirituality tends to
focus on the truth that all of creation, including humanity, has been
created as good. A loving relationship is emphasized and a God who is
accessible to us is portrayed. Human beings are seen as caretakers and
co-creators of the earth. This positive approach of dwelling on our
potential rather than our sinfulness, and on focusing on creation
rather
than the fall, for some reason, frightens some people. Yet it is as
old
and older than the book of Genesis. Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas
Berry
are two of my favorite creation theologians."
Etiquette
The Ark you're building
in your yard
Will you let me on
Will you let me off
Don't you think
we all should study Etiquette
before we study Magic.
Leonard Cohen NY 1967
Love
Babz
Will Dockery
> Will Dockery wrote:
> >"We are all prisoners here, prisoners of our own devices..."
> >-Bob Nuewirth, "Last Day On Earth"
>
>
> -The Eagles, "Hotel California"
This really slipped by me, since I haven't listened to much Eagles in
the last 20 or so years, and not even before that, very much.
It'll take me a bit of time to check the Nuewirth quote, since I left
my copy with a lady named Hazel, and it's out of print--- and I'm not
sure what Google has to offer.
Maybe I mixed the two up from memory, and Nuewirth's not as guilty as
he seems at the moment! Thanks for reminding me..!
Will
Art, music, poetry of Will Dockery:
http://www.lulu.com/dockery
~greg
"Will Dockery" <fearde...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:47fc49bd.04072...@posting.google.com...
I checked it out.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~werksman/cale/lyrics/last_day_on_earth.html
John Cale/ Bob Nuewirth
"Last Day On Earth"
The line is:
"Sure, I spent time in prison.
A prison of my own devices.
Haven't we all?
Pretty obviously references
(-not plagiarizes) the Don Henly line.
(just as "Can you show me the way out of here?"
echos (-not plagerizes) Nuewirth's old buddy's line.)
[In full: ]
"Overture"
[apparently just the first track on the album]
- a) A Tourist - b) A Contact - c) A Prisoner
Excuse me, excuse me!
Can you show me the way out of here?
Of course. This way. Just pass The Headless Horsemen,
the Cafe Shabu.
And how far is that?
Not far. You're the tourist here, you should take
it easy. If you can trust a stranger, follow me.
I don't mind if I do. I'm a stranger here with a
sense of regret that I'd like to forget that I drank
from a paranoid glass. I come from a paranoid base.
Sure, I spent time in prison. A prison of my own
devices, haven't we all? I'm a foreigner here and I'm
feeling just a little worn. I'm looking for points
of importance and historical interest, trapped by the
same rate of exchange of that I'm running away from.
And as we all know, we hate to change. But Change is
a virtue, my friend. If you want to escape, all you
have to do is make up your mind.
But you're not a prisoner here, and I'm made to work
with my hands, part of my sentence for taking the
licence to think of impossible plans. Working my
fingers to the bone, keeping my hands on the rungs
of that ladder, that leads us out of the gutter to
the light.
It's all been a big mistake. I've done nothing wrong.
I'm just an innocent here. I'm just an innocent here.
I'm just an innocent here. I'm just an innocent here.
I'm just an innocent here. I'm just an innocent ...
~greg
"Will Dockery" >
Fuck.
I just noticed both your posts were crossposted.
Why?
Will Dockery
> > > >"We are all prisoners here, prisoners of our own devices..."
> > > >-Bob Nuewirth, "Last Day On Earth"
> > >
> > >
> > > 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.'
> > > -The Eagles, "Hotel California"
> >
> > This really slipped by me, since I haven't listened to much Eagles in
> > the last 20 or so years, and not even before that, very much.
> >
> > It'll take me a bit of time to check the Nuewirth quote, since I left
> > my copy with a lady named Hazel, and it's out of print--- and I'm not
> > sure what Google has to offer.
> >
> > Maybe I mixed the two up from memory, and Nuewirth's not as guilty as
> > he seems at the moment! Thanks for reminding me..!
> > Will
>
>
>
> I checked it out.
>
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~werksman/cale/lyrics/last_day_on_earth.html
> John Cale/ Bob Nuewirth
> "Last Day On Earth"
>
>
> The line is:
>
> "Sure, I spent time in prison.
> A prison of my own devices.
> Haven't we all?
>
>
> Pretty obviously references
> (-not plagiarizes) the Don Henly line.
>
> (just as "Can you show me the way out of here?"
> echos (-not plagerizes) Nuewirth's old buddy's line.)
That's the "old buddy" that Nuewirth says took his line [among others]
"When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's eastertime too..",
right? "Last Day On Earth" is a superb record, all through, and worth
looking up. Hazel liked it so much that when we finally split for
good, I left it with her, along with *old buddy's "Love and Theft".
Sometimes I regret that, but at least hopefully she still likes it.
Dennis M. Hammes
Dante.
--
-------(m+
~/:o)_|
The most essential gift for a good writer is
a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. -- Hemingway
http://scrawlmark.org
~greg
"Dennis M. Hammes" <scraw...@arvig.net> wrote in message news:410A0DDD...@arvig.net...
> poetman wrote:
> >
> > Will Dockery wrote:
> > >"We are all prisoners here, prisoners of our own devices..."
> > >-Bob Nuewirth, "Last Day On Earth"
> >
> > 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.'
> > -The Eagles, "Hotel California"
>
> Dante.
Virgil
poetman
>Virgil
What's Elvis' dad got to do with anything?
~greg
"poetman" <su...@online.no> wrote in message news:OnoOc.5600$v04....@news2.e.nsc.no...
> Greg mentioned:
> >Virgil
>
> What's Elvis' dad got to do with anything?
Only in that by asking that, you have now
made me feel like a prison of my own idiotic device.
Which only goes to show how vitally important
it may be to try to draw as sharp a distinction
as possible between one's accidentally
falling prisoner to one's own device, like
that - (or like the cop who's gun is accidentally
grabbed from him by the suspect, -and then
accidentally grabbed back by the cop, -who then
accidentally shoots himself in the foot with it)
-on the one hand, --and those who
intentionally become prisoners of their own
devices on the other hand -because that's
exactly what they made them for in the first place.
Like the gimp's all-leather all-weather body suit
in Pulp Fiction. Or like Elvis's dad. I mean,
if it's true of most people that they are in one
sense or another prisoners of their own devices
(--i.e,- if "we are all just..." is true) --then it was
undoubtedly true of him too. Why not? Somebody
had to be Elvis' dad. Why not him? And, -if so, -then
what makes him so different from anyone else?
I mean apart from that of course. That's just plain
stupid. So, other than that, (which we agree on)
he had to have been just like every one else,
and therefore undoubtedly a prisoner of some
device or other of his own devising. And therefore
just about as fine an example of this thing as
I'd care to examine any further.
Excellent point Geof!
But who devised Patrick McGoohan's (No. 6's)
prison in "The Prisoner" tv series???
Was it really all just his own devise?
(--it could have been, as far as I could tell.
But I was off to boot camp at the end of '67
(- which turned out to be a lot like the series)
- and I didn't get to see how it ended. )
Will Dockery
Boot camp... just curious, did you spend any time at Fort Benning..?
The prison of my own device, chasing the almighty dollar, leads me out
to Benning multiple times a night [pizza delivery], and I wonder what
it was like back in 1967, there--- I imagine the mood was much
different than the happy-go-lucky Spring Break style it carries now.
From what I understand, there wasn't even any such thing as pizza
delivery there back then...
Will
~greg
[from: http://www.objector.org/advice/conscientious_objector-15.html ]
Religious Training and Belief
----------------------------------------
The language of DoD [--Department of Defense directive]
1300.6 can be a little confusing when you first read it.
According to §III (a) of DoD 1300.6, your objection
has to be based on "religious training and belief."
But later on, in §III (B), the Directive states
that this means:
Belief in an external power or being
or deeply held moral or ethical belief,
to which all else is subordinate or upon
which all else is ultimately dependent,
and which has the power or force to
affect moral well-being.
In other words, to qualify as a conscientious objector,
you must have "religious training and belief," but this
does not mean religion as we usually use the word. You
don't have to be part of a church, or believe in a God,
or follow any particular religion's teachings. If your
belief is deeply held and central to your life, it qualifies
under the law.
Many people, with many different beliefs, have qualified
for conscientious objector status. The two most important
for understanding the legal definition of conscientious
objection were men who applied for CO status under the
draft law--Daniel Seeger and Elliot Welsh.
Seeger didn't know whether he believed in a god or not.
But he did believe in moral forces like good and beauty.
In 1965, the Supreme Court held that his belief was
"religious" for purposes of the law. It held the same place
in Seeger's life as a more traditional religious belief might
in someone else's life.
Welsh went even farther than Seeger. He told his draft
board, again and again, that his belief wasn't religious.
But in 1970, the Supreme Court said that Welsh qualified
for CO status because, even though he thought his belief
wasn't religious, the law thought it was. In Welsh v. U.S.,
the Court said that a moral objector could qualify for CO
status as long as his or her belief was central to his or
her life.
What all this means is that you don't have to worry
about whether or not your belief is religious. If you're
a member of a church, or if you follow a particular
religious teaching, you can qualify for CO status.
If you just think it's morally or ethically wrong for you
to be part of war, you can still qualify. It doesn't matter
what you call your belief. What matters is that you deeply
believe it would be wrong for you to be part of war.
-----------------------------
note:
A year after the Seeger case,
Elliot Welsh was imprisoned for 3 years
for refusing to serve when his application
for CO status was denied on the basis
of his beliefs being insufficitenly "religious".
The 1970 Court decision mentioned above
overturned that determination.
Times change.
23 years later Welsh lost his case
against the Boy Scouts of America: ...
(not to be confused with Spielberg etc vs BSA:...
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/769258/posts )
[from: http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/op/92/92-1853 ]
ARGUED NOVEMBER 13, 1992--DECIDED MAY 17, 1993
Before CUMMINGS and COFFEY, Circuit Judges, and
WOOD, JR., Senior Circuit Judge.
COFFEY, Circuit Judge. Elliott Welsh and his seven
year-old son Mark have brought suit asking the United
States Courts to force the Boy Scouts of America to ac-
cept Mark as a member despite the fact that he refuses
to comply with its Constitution and By-laws and affirm
his belief in God. The Scouts refused Mark admission to
membership in the scout troop and denied his father the
opportunity to act as an adult partner. In their complaint,
the plaintiffs allege that the defendant organization is a
place of public accommodation practicing unlawful religious
discrimination under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of
1964. 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000a (1988) (barring discrimination in
places of public accommodation). This case presents a mat-
ter of first impression for the federal courts concerning
the scope of Title II. See Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America,
787 F. Supp. 1511 (N.D.Ill. 1992) ("Welsh II")./1 We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
The facts are undisputed: the district court opinion de-
tails fifty-two separate stipulated facts as well as twelve
factual findings. Because the appellant does not challenge
any of the trial court's factual findings, we accept those
facts as true and decide only the issues of law.
The question before the court is whether Title II of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars the Boy Scouts of America
from denying membership to any person who refuses to
profess a belief in and duty to a Supreme Being. The plaintiffs
sued the Boy Scouts alleging that a local Scout orga-
nization in the Chicago, Illinois area denied them mem-
bership because of the Welshes' refusal to recite the Boy
Scout Membership Oath which requires scouts to express
among other things a belief in God. The Oath states:
"On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to
God and my country and to obey the Scout law, to
help other people at all times, to keep myself physi-
cally strong, mentally awake and morally straight."
...
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Barbara" <ba...@worldpath.net> wrote in message news:10gib4a...@corp.supernews.com...
Joe Way
My wonderful friend. I just returned home from my fishing trip and have
peeked in here as Anne is off helping Katie move into her new life as a
music teacher to help potentially brilliant boys and girls in Indiana,
discover the world of melody and harmony which is realy what it is all
about anyway.
Who can forget those days in the combined choir when a third and a fifth is
added to the melody line and every one naturally moves closer together
because it sounds so good.
I've worked on a poem called, "My Father's Tackle Box" for a while but I
doubt you'll see it soon.
I have to share a couple of moments from the trip with you and everyone
else. On Wednesday morning, my friend, the true fisherman, got up earlier
than I did and was standing by the lake in a grove of trees. An immature
eagle came barreling down at him and, quite frankly, scrared the shit out of
him as it descended to a tree branch about ten feet away. He said that it
looked rather un-majestic as it tried to balance on the limb. He will not
soon forget this moment. I was lounging in the tent at the time. So the
early camper gets the bird.
My friend goes in for a biopsy for prostate cance tomorrow so please hold
some good thoughts for him.
I have much else to say about many things-but I haven't taken my shower yet
and I'm sure I still smell like fish, camp fires and cigars. I thought
about our friend, Elizabeth, and hopes she forgives me for eating fish every
day. There are many years that I practically starved up there when we were
young, foolish and thought that we only needed to bring flour and oil to
survive.
Warm regards,
Joe
P.S. I caught a 29 inch Northern Pike which was the largest fish I've
caught in several years. A nice fish!
in article 10gcu1l...@corp.supernews.com, Barbara at ba...@worldpath.net
wrote on 7/27/04 10:43 AM: