To support Trump is tantamount to supporting last blows of the Empire against humanity. His record as a businessperson is debatable, his popularity in Scotland dwindling.
Bernie Sanders seems okay, within the salary ballpark of an ordinary human being and with an appreciation of people as one component of a healthy planet. I would listen to him at the dinner table, maybe trust him to make reasonable decisions––his concerns: sustainability, higher education, tuition, health care, employment, finance and election reform, resonate with me.
Hillary is––I respect the depth of her understanding of the government system. But... well her schtick can be really annoying. She is a political pioneer on many fronts, and that has not always resonated with everyday people. She is on the campaign trail. But to prove that she is salt-of-the-earth by taking selfies with legions of admirers was and always has been highly annoying. Can Hillary complete a Bernie makeover in time to persuade those who would go another way to stay within a broad Democrat Party umbrella?*
Such a young and urgent issue, fabric is.
Can I stop fascinating myself and start fascinating others? Or am I so far progressed on a path. Not necessarily a bad thing... the wisely lived life is on the fringes because identity is fluid. Taking the trickster role, you reverse, pivot, and roll the bones.
I am reading McManus' Positively Fifth Street––read it during an all-nite session at the Honeycomb, for ambiance. The first chapter was riveting (old-school casino mogul Ted Binion's murder at hands of trophy wife and her lover, who had sex on his body while he was dying of xanax and tar heroin ingestion––(mn was mistaken for mg on the Xanax prescription, so it was ultimately suffocation that did it. Which led to immense excretion, which in turn alerted the CSI squad that something was off in the story). Then the thriller ends and the book becomes a narrative of middle class angst and poker life. Yet I will keep reading. McManus has chops, for sure.
Apropos of Arisugawa Park, which I also now think of as Nod to the Departed, McManus' is not at all the literary approach I take. Dark hints of indelible residue, inherent vice, suffice. I am looking for the textured tonalities that put me in a non-politic mood. Psychological shadings that tune into emotions, as well as instincts such as fear, anger, creativity, and submission.
Overlain by the classic pulp tropes, the well-worn vision I glimpse at intentionally askew ages (occasionally watching old movies, listening to Garrison Keiler's Guy Noir, Private Eye, grooving on jazz) and thus maintain an enthusiasm for. The closest I came to studying anything in the genre is when Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon fell into my hands at a Chinatown SF hostel Tradewinds last year.
A friend of mine and his wife are facing a very difficult decision. My non-flippant fb response? "Take some time and translate AP if you get agitated. it might keep your mind occupied. translation is a real art. and you know, literature is designed as a form of enacting catharsis."
Regarding all this Dead shit that still seems to be happening. I went to UC Santa Cruz, I was exposed to a lot of music beyond the norm. I remember seeing the Dead in San Diego in late 1991... they did an epic 32 minute Dark Star. Hitchhiked up with some sketched-out, very nice Heads from bluegrass country Colorado, via Riverside, to Santa Cruz in a 1978 Coupe de Ville. Seeing Garcia at the Warfield the next year was a treat of a very different sort. You know, where you are in intimate contact with genius.
Of course I have fond memories of people who knew them back in the day and it is amazing to see that continue. Though I am on a semi-solitary path, chasing the sun.
#endwriter
**Now that I think of it, voters would swing to anyone around age 40-50, who dared run. Jill Stein? I look to the Green Party for guidance, someone to vote for. First impression of the candidate is that she is really... old.
Such a young and urgent issue, fabric is.
All Rights Reserved, Damon Shulenberger.