Dante's Inferno, Corporate Edition

I'm reading THE INFERNO (Dante Alighieri), which is Dante's (the Pilgrim Dante, not the Poet) tour of the nine circles of hell, lead by the poet Virgil. Reading it now, with all the B.S. going on in our country, I can imagine some of the well-healed criminals from today spending eternity in some of these places. The book describes sins and the punishment for those sins:

• gluttony (the obesity epidemic)
• usury (Wall Street/Banks)
• avarice/greed (Wall Street, Corporate Tax Evaders, Congress)
• thieves (Wall Street, Congress, War Profiteers)
• hypocrites (Democrats, Republicans, Politicians, the Media and probably most people, myself included)
• fraudulent counselors (Wall Street, the ratings agencies, Fox News/MSNBC/Network News/Pharma Commercials)
• sowers of scandal and schism (Fox News, MSNBC, network news in general, the compromised media)
• Falsifiers (Congress, Wall Street, Politicians) etc.

I'm kind of cynical these days, and alas, all of the characters ruining our country will be able to avoid these exquisite tortures because there is no hell, but if there was, I'd love to see some of these suits buried upside-down in filth, with their feet set on fire, but that's probably not going to happen.

The Plan: An Idea for a Science Fiction Story?

I have an idea for a Science Fiction story. It's pretty far-fetched and out-there, and it goes something like this:

First, a shadowy group of Oligarchs takes over the government by installing their own employees in all the halls of power. Congress, the Fed, the White House, the Pentagon, everywhere. The regulatory agencies are all managed by Corporate shills, who gut and de-claw those angencies. Public Schools and Social Programs are almost completely de-funded. This is all part of:

THE PLAN!

Unemployment is purposely driving up. Wages stagnate. All the jobs are moved to other countries until the Fat American realizes that he better be ready to work for peanuts. The Oligarchs want to make people so desperate for jobs, they'll work as cheaply as they do in India and China and all the other shit-holes in the world. But first, they have to make the United States as shitty as those other countries.

But how do they keep the people pacified in the meantime? Easy. They bribe them with shiny gadgets, because humans have already devolved into mouth-breathing primates who are distracted by anything shiny, boobies, and cheap beer. Bread and Circuses are delivered via huge screens. Men fight in cages. Cameras are put into dysfunctional families for entertainment. The people are given, I don't know, fancy communication devices of some sort. The Oligarchs jack everyone into a huge network of computers, where they observe everything the people are thinking. And, I know this sounds crazy, the people actually supply all the information themselves! They tell the security services, who monitor everything, who they associate with, where they go, what they do, their primitive political ideas (mostly regurgitated talking points from the propaganda screens) Meanwhile, some sort of large screen is installed in every household, and the Oligarchs brainwash everyone into buying more and more things they can't afford, so they go into debt, making them basically indentured servants. But the people don't KNOW they're practically slaves, because they have some song, and at the very end, it goes "LAND OF THE FREE! AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE!" So the slaves think they are free (because it's in the song)! It's far-fetched I know, but stick with me here.

So in order to keep everybody in line, they have these perpetual wars. And the defense contractors promise the high-ranking generals all sorts of lucrative jobs when they get out, so the generals know they got a good thing waiting for them, as long as they tell the President (Who is also a lobbyists, no matter who wins—see below) that they have to keep these wars going on forever! I know that was done in the book 1984, but it works so well, I might as well re-hash it huh? And in the name of Security, the Secret Police X-Ray everybody and sometimes they stick their fingers up Grandma's butt before they let her travel. The Secret Police, who only exist to protect the merchant class, go around strung out on Steroids and electrocute people for any infraction, because it's fun.

And the people will be dumbed-down in shitty schools that don't teach anything except standardized tests, which the Oligarchs put in place to occupy the time in the schools so no one learns oh, I don't know, civics, political theory, how their government is supposed to work, how compound interest works or any other useful thing. And the colleges just turn everybody into sweaty alcoholics with STDs who are tens of thousands of dollars in debt, making them slightly skilled indentured servants right out of college! Brilliant!

So the people, who have no Social Security, Medicare, none of that stuff, are basically starving to death, but the Oligarchs fatten them up on some kind of corn mash, some sort of syrup that the liver can't actually process, and it makes everybody all fat and stupid, so people sit at their screens all day giving information to the Security Services, who can do almost anything in the name of SECURITY because of the constant war with invisible enemies.

Pretty crazy idea for a SF story huh?

So although there are two parties (all of them employed directly by the Oligarchs), both parties put on this show like they hate each other, but really they are all employees of the same groups of Oligarchs, so the people choose one side or the other to cheer for, and they HATE the people who identify with the other side. They use wedge issues and scapegoats and religious bullshit to keep both sides hating each other. Both sides use all kind of slick programming to make the people think that every problem facing the country is some kind of false dichotomy, where there can only be one right answer, out of a total number of two possible answers, both supplied by the two parties, who are really just working together to keep the people divided into two groups, to keep them hating each other instead of paying attention to the politicians who are fattening them up and driving them to more desperation, in order to finally be able to:

Open work houses! Once the people are so desperate for jobs, with no security net whatsoever, every morning every "able bodied" man and woman will crowd outside the gates of any factory that is built. With no unions and no workers rights, products will be manufactured for next to nothing. Work conditions be damned, people haven't worked for so long, they'll bust ass all day for a dollar and hour. Perfect! They can use the slightly skilled college grads to manage the mouth-breathing Eloi, who will manufacture things (finally) in order to purchase cheap beer and watch horrible movies on their One Day Off, which they will spend in Government Churches, where they will be taught Obedience and The Power of The Invisible Hand.

Meh, this is too far-fetched for a story.

What I'm reading, etc.

I'm reading I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. It is about the "I" we all live(?) with in our heads (or the mirage of an "I" that exists inside our skulls). It is about more than that, but I'm only halfway through, so I don't know exactly where it is heading just yet. But it is clearly and simply written, with analogies and metaphors to help things along, and it is a very enjoyable read.

I'm still plotting out my Arabian Nights inspired book; things are coming together nicely, plot-wise. I'm about to create a golem of sorts: although golems are from Jewish folklore, my book takes place on another planet, so rules don't count.

Today was also about fixing the van. I have lived 44 years without knowing what a MAF (Mass Air Flow) sensor is, but now I know. Replaced that, replaced a vacuum hose, and replaced fog light bulbs.

I also fixed a couple of 'puters for customers. Some printing stuff and some database file location stuff.

Thus: reading and turning wrenches. Fun fun.

Words I've noted to look up while reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. I'm on page 79:

polyphony, diabolus in musica, tesseract, krupskaya, philology, egalitarian -pg 46:,the Trial of the Templars, Ophiulco, navigli, Etruscan(48), demiurge(49), Finis Austriae(51), cabalistic(ally)(53), paralogism (56), ontological (56), and "Godel's Theorem.

Quote: "There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics."(54)

# MIRACLES HAPPEN EVERY DAY

I have one of those refrigerators with a water dispenser on the door. When I am thirsty, I can take a clean glass out of the cupboard and put it under the little spout in the water dispenser and cold filtered water comes out. I can have ice and water and I can drink the whole thing or have another one or only half until the fillings in my teeth hurt from the cold. This miracle happens millions of times a day in developed countries and we are so used to this miracle, we don't even realize how lucky we are to live in this age.

To live in this age. To have conditioned air. Through the miracle of Wikipedia, I can tell you that air-conditioning as we know it wasn't invented until around 1902, and it became commonplace over the following two decades. U.S. Pat# 808897 was granted to the father of air conditioning, St. Willis Haviland Carrier in 1906 for an "Apparatus for Treating Air". It wasn't until 1928 that Carrier came out with a residential unit, and sales only took off after the depression and WWII. So no widespread air conditioning until around 1945. What hellish world did mankind live in before that? That means for tens of thousands of years, mankind suffered through intolerable heat. Can you imagine?

There are people living today (many of them in the hot parts of the world) who have never been in air conditioning. They have no running water. No Internet. They must poop in the streets.

A glass of cold water. Clear and cold in a clean glass. Transparent. Ice floating, cracking. It is a miracle. The odds of being born human in this century, in this age of creature comforts, to be lucky enough to be one of the haves, are very thin. It is much more likely that one is born unlucky, baking in the sun, wasting away, idle and angry. What is man's fate? Why do some get to drink ice-cold water any time they want while someone else is dying of thirst? How many millions go days without a decent meal while I can walk into a cool, clean grocery store and buy a cartful of food and load it into my air-conditioned car, serenaded by music while I navigate smooth streets with orderly traffic and take my load of food to my air-conditioned house and put that food in a refrigerated box that also dispenses cold water whenever I want it? Why do I get to do that while another family somewhere in the world lives in a landfill, sifting through garbage in order to survive?

Twenty Random Things I Saw On My Walk Today:

1. a six foot tall totem pole made of propane tanks and saw parts

2. a yappy black dog in someone's backyard

3. a guy in a track suit (long sleeves and long pant legs) doing those arms-extended-little-circles exercises in his front yard It is sunny and 83 degrees today, so I have no idea what this guy was thinking.

4. a 3 foot tall pile of laundry on a sheet in someone's front lawn No one was around.

5. a guy putting stain on wooden shingles on the front of his house

6. a cop car pulling a jet-ski on a little trailer

7. a hammock

8. a yellow convertible in a front yard

9. two women gossiping in a driveway

10. a brown dog napping on a little sidwalk

11. a purple paddle-boat on its side

12. a lawn jockey (Caucasian)

13. three folding ladders on the wall inside a garage

14. an inflatable kiddy pool by the trailer park

15. a shirtless guy working on a jet-ski (which was on a trailer) by the trailer park

16. a five(?) year-old kid being handed off for weekend visitation (at the trailer park)

17. a dog (which was barking at me from inside a trailer at the trailer park) bust out a window while it was barking at me.

18. two mattresses that were probably surreptitiously thrown into a dumpster at a construction site

19. an ambulance in an auto junkyard

20. nine fake sunflowers

Writing Anything?

Yes! I'm writing, but I'm mostly writing notes into a yellow pad, trying to collect some story arcs and ideas for my Sindbad-esque book. I have a few first-drafts of chapters, and lots of scribbles in my yellow pad.

And that's about it. Reading a lot of books.

The Kent District Library is purchasing The Cubicles of Madness for circulation. Hooray for that.

Robert Gupta and Joshua Roman

Notes from bookmark used in Bible, 1001 Arabian Nights, and Conan

-20 Shekels for a slave
-Exodus 22:25 – No Interest
-Leviticus 13:45 "Unclean!"
-nidodded
-withersoever
-Don Quixote, dinars
-Dickens, Master of serial narration and endless beginnings
-a talisman against ennui and despondency preface to 1001...
-14: what so woman willest...
-17: oh scanty of wit
-Clark Ashton Smith
-"evening is the time of thieves"
-"Oh commander of the faithful"

finished Pheonix

Phoenix by Richard Cowper








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Notes from Crime and Punishment:

Rabelais, encyclicals, leitmotif, fustian, chintz, titular "councilor", pg. 11-12: "compassion ... forbidden", pg. 182: "Now for the Kingdom of light...", pg. 254: "Lycurgus"pg. 286: "the servants say he 'read himself silly'", pg 314: "Freedom and power, but the main thing is power.", pg 338: Gogol?

reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude

I've been reading A Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I can't do it justice in the way of praise.

Here are some of the notes I've jotted down about it. I keep a blank paper for a bookmark, and I jot stuff down as I read. This tiny list of quotes do not even begin to tell the magnificence of this novel, but these are simply a few random quotes.

Page 104: the explanation of Liberals and Conservatives:

"Since Aureliano at that time had very confused notions about the difference between Conservatives and Liberals, his father-in-law gave him some schematic lessons.

The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people, wanting to hang priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a federal system that would take power away from the supreme authority. The Conservatives, on the other hand, who had received their power directly form God, proposed the establishment of public order and family morality. They were the defenders of the faith of Christ, of the principle of authority, and were not prepared to permit the country to be broken down into autonomous entities."

Page 179:

"And then he would sleep like a stone that was not concerned by the slightest indication of worry."

Page 185:

"The certainty that his day was assigned gave him a mysterious immunity, an immortality for a fixed period . . ."

Page 202:

“The parish priest began to show the signs of senility that would lead him to say years later that the devil had probably won his rebellion against God, and that he was the one who sat on the heavenly throne, without revealing his true identity in order to trap the unwary”

page 208:

"Cease, cows, life is short."

page 212:

Taken out of context, it won't mean much, but the pages leading up to this passage makes the passage itself reveal the most beautiful woman in the world (in the mind's eye). It is difficult to explain:

"... and then she uncovered her face and gave her thanks with a smile. That was all she did. Not only for the gentleman, but for all the men who had the unfortunate privilege of seeing her, that was an eternal instant."

page 214:

"It seemed as if some penetrating lucidity permitted her to see the reality of things beyond any formalism."

page 216:

" . . . the secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude."

page 220:

"The only candle that will make him come is always lighted."

words I wrote down while reading THE SECRET HISTORY

Here are some words (and a sentence) I wrote down while reading The Secret History, by Dona Tartt:

Lycidas
The Phaedo
ebullient
celadon
Persephone
"Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothing" (nahil sub sol novum)

words

loafers, fortify, rimbaud, malthus,Knossos, Gregory of Tours, steelwort, P G Wodehouse

REBECCA BLACK'S "FRIDAY" AS AN EXAMINATION OF THE EXISTENTIAL YOKE OF TIME ON MODERN MAN.

by

Dan Manning

In this essay, I will demonstrate the deeper meaning of the lyrics of Rebecca Black's widely panned "Friday." Much has been said about this young woman's debut single, much of it negative. I propose that this is not a shallow, poorly produced bubble-gum pop tune, but a deep analysis of man's existential conundrum, addressing the relentless passing of time, cultural pressures on modern man, and the nihilistic existence that is modern life.

Let us examine the first line of the song:

7am, waking up in the morning

Here Miss Black points out the inexorable grind of modern life. Why does she have to wake up so early? What demands force us to be awake so early in the morning, when you should sleep late? Throughout the world, mankind is on an endless, relentless treadmill of activity and toil. Everyone must get up in the morning and be a "useful" part of society. Rest and idleness is frowned upon. School for children, work for adults. Everyone is expected to be up in the morning. Only the idle rich and the unemployed get to sleep in; both groups have nothing to offer society, so they are cast off. So Miss Black must get up in the morning, although, as everyone knows, it is better to sleep late, as the Beastie Boys explained in "Mark On The Bus" on their 1992 album Check Your Head:

"...you should sleep late man, it's much easier on your constitution..."

But Miss Black cannot sleep late, man, and the stress of social pressures is already pressing in, as she states in the very next line:

Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs

Why does she "gotta" go downstairs? Through her offhand, almost throw-away line, she reveals much. She does not want to go downstairs and face another day, but she must, and not only must she "go downstairs," she has to "be fresh" while she does it. What demand is there that she be fresh? For whom must she be fresh? She must be fresh for a society that demands not only freshness, but also a "positive attitude". Despite all the decay around us, declining standards of living, greed and corruption in our social institutions, high unemployment, and a bleak future for young people, she is still expected to be "fresh". No one is allowed to look sad or be grumpy. Everyone must be "upbeat." Read Brave New World for a deeper examination of this social norm.

The next line is very revealing:

Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal

Like an animal to the trough, she must scoop her bowl of chemicals into her face. There is no time for a real breakfast. There is no time to interact with her family, which is not mentioned in the song at all. Where are her parents? They too are on the treadmill of getting and spending, too busy to sit with their daughter even for a few minutes to talk. Perhaps they will text each other during the day. Miss Black must be educated so that someday she too can ignore her offspring. "Gotta have my bowl" could also be a subliminal reference to drug use. Does she need to have a "bowl" of marijuana to help her cope with the stresses of modern life? We may never know. Either way, her breakfast is brief, and here we come to the crux of the song, the most damning lyrics of all:

Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’

The crushing drumbeat of time is relentless. Here Rebecca Black says a great deal about society in just a few concise words. Everybody is rushing. Everyone today is in a hurry to be somewhere, to do something, to communicate some idea. We expect instant gratification, we expect instant communications, and we have no patience for anything that might slow us down. Her family is yoked with the burden of the clock, constantly rushing them to the next thing, to the next meeting, to the next class, to the next job interview, to the next stoplight. Look how we drive: on the freeway we race to be in the front of a pack, and if we get in front of that pack, we accelerate to run down the next pack of cars, as though there is some "front" of everything. Miss Black's family, in this song anyway, is simply described as "everybody." Our families seem like "everybody" sometimes, but as soon as Miss Black leaves the house, she joins the throng, the family of mankind, to rush to her next appointment:

Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

I had to consult the video to understand what happens in these two lines. Miss Black reluctantly goes to the bus stop, where the institutional system will swallow her up. Had she taken her place on the bus, her individualism would have immediately been diminished as she is forced to conform to rules and regulations, schedules and seating charts. It is only the arrival of her friends in a convertible that saves her from having to enter the dark maw of the bus's interior, where in the dim light she would be seated next to the random bits of humanity that makes up a student body. School is an artificial social situation, where individuals are thrown together in ways that they would normally never accept.

But the arrival of her smaller circle of friends, with a means of transportation to the school, relieves her of this burden, and she joins them, but not before making a serious decision: Which seat should she take?

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?

This is a puzzling stanza, because really, what difference does it make? Just get in the car. At least you're not on the bus next to the runny-nosed kid with the Pokemon cards, right? But after further consideration, her conundrum seems important. Even within her small circle of friends, there is a pecking order of some sort. We all favor some friends over others. Should she sit next to the boy in the back, possibly leading to some sort of romantic encounter? Her question, in context of the video, seems more baffling because there are only two bucket seats in the front, and the front passenger seat is already occupied. Does the girl in the front seat have such low self-esteem that she would let someone kick her out and make her sit in the back? I will defer such arguments, and take the lyrics without the context of the video. Her choice, or her need to think about the choice of what seat to take also speaks to the love affair American culture has with cars. To ride in the front is "cooler" by far than riding in the back, and riding "bitch" (in the middle seat) is no fun at all. So her choice is relevant in today's society. But whatever choice she makes, she'd better make it quick, or she will be late for school.

It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

This stanza is the heart of the song, and it speaks to the grind that is the other four days of the workweek. It speaks to the eternal alternation of labor and rest that is our American system. But how does one even know it is "Friday"? The arbitrary naming of the days of the week, the division of years into months, and months into weeks, and weeks into days is completely artificial. How does one "know" the name of the day? All of society must agree to these arbitrary conventions. We are trapped by an artificial division of time, a schedule that everyone must follow. And how does the "weekend" come about? It was only through the labor movement in the 1920s that we enjoy our weekends, and it wasn't recognized nationwide until 1940. But why is everybody "lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend?" Was this not already covered by Loverboy in their 1981 treatise, "Working for The Weekend" off of their smash hit album Get Lucky?

The lyrics that follow are more puzzling:

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend

The ancient craving for the bacchanal is no less prevalent today than when it was prohibited by the Roman Senate in 186 BC. Miss Black expresses man's craving for release from the stresses and banality of modern life, a need to be exalted, to be carefree and surrounded by trusted companions and accepted by one's peers in a spirit of friendship and celebration. Here she expresses the same sentiment found in countless country and western songs. The repetition of the word "fun" has been mocked by countless Internet kibitzers, but is it not an expression of man's universal search for happiness, even a moment's respite from the stresses of survival and acceptance in a world increasingly uncertain, where all of our pillars of civilization look less stalwart than they were in the past, and where strife and war seems on the verge of tearing civilization itself apart? Can Miss Black be blamed for her cries of adulation for the bacchanal?

Less than thirteen hours later, Miss Black's dream is made reality. The school day is completely skipped in her narrative, and she is with her friends:

7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway
Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly
Fun, fun, think about fun
You know what it is
I got this, you got this
My friend is by my right
I got this, you got this
Now you know it

Again the nod to America's car culture. We identify with cars. The linear movement through space over time gives us a sense of power and clear purpose. She reaffirms her confidence in herself ("I got this") and her confidence in her companions ("you got this"), but what is the "this" that they have control of? Is she expressing her confidence that she and her friend can make manifest the "fun" they are so intent on having? Does it not throw a question about the certainty of the fun they are going to have? Is there a risk that they won't have fun?

There is an apparent contradiction in the above stanza that must be addressed: Why would she want time to fly? If she is having fun, if her abandon is complete, if she is enjoying mindless frivolities with her close circle of friends, one of which is seated at her right hand, as the Son of God is seated at the right hand of the biblical God, then why would she want time to pass even more quickly? The answer is clear. She speaks to the fact that even in our celebrations, we are thinking about the next thing, the next appointment. We are always mindful of time. There was a time before mankind divided the day into hours. There was a time before clocks, when men lived in harmony with nature. Miss Black points out that we are all slaves to time, even in our moments of abandon and joy.

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today

Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards
I don’t want this weekend to end

Again Miss Black examines even more deeply the trap that is arbitrarily divided time. She cannot escape the measured movement of time. The stresses of Thursday are still in the back of our minds; the failures and triumphs follow us into the weekend. The loose ends of the workweek bedevil us, even as we seek joy in our abandon. Why are the revelers so excited? Because their time of celebration is fleeting. The weekdays have encroached so close upon Friday, and there are only two days left before the workweek starts again. Monday lurks like a specter on all of their frivolity and joy. Her determination to "have a ball" today underscores just how little time she has. Everyone must schedule their fun around the immovable Monday that follows all weekend activities. The weekend can be unpredictable; the weekend is an open canvas of unknown possibility. The work week is so predictable, so soul-crushing in its predictability, one has to rush, one has to hurry to get as much fun as possible packed into three days (or two, if you have to go to church!) that we run about, we scurry about hurly-burley, trying as we might to capture as much unpredictable fun as we can, but there is never enough time! How succinctly Miss Black has put it! From the mouth of children, there is Wisdom! The above stanza has been universally mocked. Why does she rattle off the days of the week? It is so obvious! But is it? How often do we consider how we are all cruelly bound to the Wheel of Time? When do we examine the short span of time we have here on this earth? She expresses her wish that the weekend would never end. Have we not all thought that at one time or another? Have we not all looked on Monday as a kind of dread?

Despite the deep, meaningful lyrics, this is a horrible, horrible song. I watched as much of the video as I could stand to get an idea of what everyone was complaining about, and indeed, there is much to complain about. But even in this atrocity that is the video "Friday," there is much that can be learned.

The world's #3 event

On Feb. 13, this was the very first thought that popped into my head when I woke up: "The world's #3 event was #19 by the time it was over." That was a weird dream ending also.

"I feel like an enraged fireman approaching a city near a garage."

"I feel like an enraged fireman approaching a city near a garage."

This was the last sentence of the last dream I had this morning, and the first thing that was in my head when I woke up. Not sure what was going on, but it must have been a weird dream.

reading reading

reading Upton Sincair's The Jungle. Finished reading Cannary Row last night. Trying to read 50 novels this year.

Books to McPherson

Sent a copy each of my books to the bookstore in McPherson. Hope somebody buys them. www.danmanning.com

started A Farewell To Arms

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway








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