HPL

From the NYRB: Happy Halloween, Lovecraftians!

#76

I think I ran across this book over at Seth's--but can't recall. I expected the standard fare: metaphysically curious seeker uses plant friends to anaesthetize himself against the manic neuroses of modern life, describes his drug experiences, says something is obviously missing from the world but still isn't sure what, blah-blah. These expectations weren't disappointed by this addition to the psychedelia genre, and I found Pinchbeck's book in fact near the summit of such literature. He's got the erudition of Huxley without the stodginess, and seems much less naive and New-Agey than many other modern expounders of a return to shamanism. His prose is also exquisite and witty.

There is nevertheless a great deal of New-Aginess in Breaking Open the Head, but Pinchbeck is refreshingly skeptical of his own experiences and beliefs, and is willing to deflate movement icons like Terrence McKenna when necessary (he trashes Timothy Leary, who deserved it). Pinchbeck's also fantastically well-read and marshalls heavyweight intellectuals like Walter Benjamin in this elegant book. I've not read a more accurate description of where I find myself intellectually and spiritually these last few years.

I started Breaking Open the Head randomly while working through Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous, which is a document of his 'work' with G.I. Gurdjieff. Strangely in a chapter about synchronicities in Pinchbeck I found myself reading quotes from Ouspensky's book that I'd read not an hour before. Then, in the mail that day, I received an unsolicited invitation from some Dr. and Mrs. so-and-so to come hear Gurdjieff's music at their Silver Spring home in a couple of weeks. How they got my name and address is beyond me.

Multiculturalism

Today I read a book by Beverly Cleary called Socks. The family cat is displaced from the affections of his owners by the arrival of their infant son. Socks is indignant at being treated shabbily, and rightly so. Were I him, I'd have clawed the eyes out of that brat. Then I read a book narrated by Meriwether Lewis' newfoundland Seaman. He liked catching squirrels in the Ohio River. Then I read some claptrap about a spined horny toad who climbs down a well to fetch a spoiled cowgirl's hat. Of course he's a prince. There was also a story about a dog in a library, another about the natural wonders of Yosemite, and finally a memoir of a Japanese American grandfather who loved California more than his native Nippon. Next week I get to formulate all of this stuff (and more) into a Social Studies unit called "This Land is Your Land." The subtitle: "How do the diverse regions and peoples of the United States reflect its greatness?"

There are few diverse peoples in these stories--mostly we get talking dogs, toads, ants, bears, and cats. I guess that's diversity, though. The toad does speak Spanish.

Mission Accomplished

Remember when Tom Delay and Dennis Hastert seemed invincible? How quickly things fall apart. The centre cannot hold! Neither can the extreme right-wing.

Finished my first five-day lesson plan today, excepting its final test. I'll write that sucker tomorrow morning before moving on to Big Project #2. The first question will be about Lacan's 'gaze' in Mildred B. Taylor's novel Song of the Trees. Or perhaps I'll give them a passage from Gilles Deleuze or Walter Benjamin to mull over in the context of Taylor's sad tale of white capitalist exploitation of the Southern racial underclass. Something like:

Hey kids! Walter Benjamin said capitalism was "a religion of destruction." He wrote that as a system "it was entirely without precedent, in that it is a religion which offers not the reform of existence but its complete destruction. It is the expansion of despair, until despair becomes a religious state of the world in the hope that this will lead to salvation." How do you think Benjamin would have read the final scene, where Papa threatens to blow up his own forest with dynamite rather than let a white man exploit it for pennies on the dollar?

Or not.

Apologies

Not sure how often or how well I'll be blogging the next couple of weeks. New job, new sleep schedule, more time spent with the spouse--less time potentially for reading and blogging about books, etc. Also, I will no longer spend hours a day at work reading blogs and blogging at will as I could before. I've already got rather large projects spread before me; even if they allow one to blog at work, I'll have little time to do so. Will I blog from home? Eh.

What I can tell you so far: The men's room here smells like KFC. There is exactly one male in my department (but I'm not the only one who uses the men's room, which is for the entire floor, including HR and IT and several other departments). We had a developer's meeting today (9 women plus me) which was full of jargon and mysterious acronyms. Everyone is really nice and many people are extremely hyper, excepting those who work in math and science, who are gloomy. I have an office with a window with a lovely view of West Towson, including the police station.

I'm writing curricula for



which is a fourth-grade text. The trees don't actually sing, so I get to explain Figurative Language to little kids. Or at least prepare the teacher to do so.

Soon I should be finished books 76-78 in the annual countdown to 100. We'll see. I'd also like to comment on Republican family-values types in Congress whose personal lives are sordid and repressed, but that will have to wait.

Netflix

Richard Gere, his sister, and his lover are itinerant laborers roaming the Midwest looking for work. They end up at a rich farmstead in the Texas panhandle owned by a doomed young man of means. He falls for Gere's ladylove and Gere talks her into trying the Milly Theale scenario. Lots of fantastic camera work and quirky observations by the young girl make this dark Faulknerian vision particularly interesting. When it tends to be overwhelmingly melodramatic, it tends to be so beautifully and without apology.

I've enjoyed all the Malicks I've seen, and have watched Badlands five or six times. But am I ready for:

?

The preview sucked...

Eyes on the Prize

If you haven't seen it, you should check out The American Experience on PBS--they're broadcasting Eyes on the Prize, which is a stunning documentary every citizen should see. I only wish it were available for purchase when I was still teaching, because I know for a fact my students needed to see it badly.

Hopefully PBS manages to get all the rights to all the footage and photos so they can issue a DVD. For years the film has been held up by legal fights over such rights. Tape it if you can!

Update: It is now available on DVD. Pricey, but worth every penny.

Rehoboth Beach

Open bar (and top shelf!) wedding receptions always lead to mischief. At one point we ended up in a gay and lesbian karaoke bar. Someone tried to pick up my mother-in-law.