Le Guin
Fri, 21 Nov 2014, 07:12 PM (-06:00)
Ursula Le Guin stands at the podium to accept her award.
“We live in Capitalism,” she says.
She looks out at the audience and raises her eyebrows and shrugs just a little.
“Its powers seem inescapable.”
Here she pauses a moment and looks up again folding her arms on the podium. She leans forward.
“So did the Divine Right of Kings.”
And here she stops for just a moment to let her words sink in.
Seeing the Forest in the Trees
Mon, 17 Nov 2014, 08:05 PM (-06:00)
Look hard. Do you see it? Over there behind the fungus peeking up from the mould at the base of that tree. Do you see it? Look harder. Squint your eyes. Do you see it? There’s a forest in those trees.
photo: david hasan | central michigan | summer 2014
Song of Coleridge’s Sailor (4 of 7)
Sun, 16 Nov 2014, 09:55 AM (-06:00)
4.
As the old man spoke of the dying of the crew, the young man’s face turned white. He jumped up and tried to step away. But the old man stayed him with a hand on his shoulder. Bony and gnarled and cold it seemed, the hand of a ghost returned from the sea.
The young man shouted. Get away! Go back!
Relax, the old man said. I am just a sailor with a story to tell.
The young man sat down. And the old man continued…
Death left me alive with them. My dead crewmates and I floated in that forsaken sea. And as I looked at those dead men, the living things of the sea swirled and jumped in the waters around the ship.
I looked out on those living things and back at the dead around me. And I looked up to heaven and tried to pray, but the sky and the sea…
Oh the sea and the sky and those poor dead men cursed me where I stood. And no prayer came to my lips while the eyes of the fallen stared up at me.
Up came the sun and down it went for seven days and seven nights. Yet there I was alone alive out in that forsaken place.
Up came the moon and down it went for seven nights and seven days. Out in the water the sea things swirled and jumped. They were blue and black and glossy green and they swam in circles of foaming white and silver-gold. And I watched them dancing on the waves.
Oh, happy living things. Oh, beautiful things. As I stood there marvelling, the world exploded in love all around me. And in that very moment heaven took pity on me, and the Albatross fell from my neck and sunk down into the sea.
Song of Coleridge’s Sailor (3 of 7)
Sun, 16 Nov 2014, 01:26 AM (-06:00)
3.
The old man spoke on.
It was a weary time when our throats were parched and we watched with glazed eyes at the silent sea about us.
Then, in the west I saw a shape: a speck, a distant ship that tacked and veered. Standing there on the sun-baked deck, I watched. I stared. And at last cried, “A sail! A sail!”
My crewmates raised a cry of joy. But as we watched, the ship stopped tacking. And though no tide was turning, the distant ship kept approaching. How could this be so?
And now that ship stood between us and the setting sun. Silhouetted against the blazing light, it was a ghost of a ship: masts and mizzens, spars and booms, sails lying limp. And yet it drew closer.
Was that a woman on the deck? Or no, now were they two — a woman and an other? And now, they drew beside us.
There stood the woman, but what was that other? Oh, it was Death itself! It was Death that walked beside her.
The woman with bright red lips and lifeless skin cast dice on the deck of that ship and then stood. “I’ve won!” she cried.
And in that instant, the sun was gone without so much as a fading of the day. In that instant, we were cast in the darkest night. And then, that ship was gone.
We sailed until the moon came up, under the stars on a silent sea.
And in the dim light, one by one I now watched my crewmates drop. One by one, with a thump they fell lifeless to the deck. And now with the Albatross hanging around my neck, I was the only one standing.
Song of Coleridge’s Sailor (2 of 7)
Mon, 10 Nov 2014, 10:20 PM (-06:00)
2.
“The sun came up, and we sailed in a northerly direction. The day was all mist and fog, but there was wind in our sails. And in the evening the sun set in the west to our left. We were saved from the grinding ice.”
“But alas, I had done that terrible thing. For now there was no more Albatross circling, no bird perching on the deck. And the crew frowned and cursed that I had shot the bird that saved us.”
“Yet on the morning of the next day, the sun came up. And the mists cleared. And the sky was blue. And now the crew gathered around me, praising that I had slain the bird that had plagued us with fog and mist. For now a fair breeze blew, and our ship furrowed smoothly thru silent seas.”
“But even then the wind died. And the sun shined down upon the deck. We were becalmed. And there was water, water everywhere yet not a drop to drink.”
“At night slimy shapes churned the waters. Spun in circles. Scraped at the hull. Threw up spouts of blue and green. And some among the crew were sure that a kraken of the deep had followed us from the grinding ice. They could not speak for their unslaked thirst and parched mouths, but they glowered at me and hung the Albatross, that terrible Albatross, around my neck.”
Song of Coleridge’s Sailor (1 of 7)
Sun, 9 Nov 2014, 09:16 PM (-06:00)
1.
There are three young men walking quickly along a road. They’re in a hurry. They’re going to a wedding. The music has already started.
They pass an old man who reaches and out touches one of them on the shoulder. The young man stops but his friends don’t notice and continue on.
“We are late, old man,” the young man says. “I have to go.”
The old man gazes at him with glittering eyes.
“There was a ship…” he says, at which the young man steps back with a startled look on his face and pushes away the man’s boney hand.
“Leave me alone, you loon!”
But the look in the old man’s eyes disorients the young man, and as he steps back, he trips, slumping backward onto a bench.
“We sailed into the ocean,” the old man continues. “Southward, with the sun coming up to our left in the morning and setting to our right at the end of day. We sailed, and we sailed until the midday sun was high above us.”
The wedding music drifts on the air. The young man looks up the hill and can see a light in a door and can see the guests at the wedding. He shifts nervously and tries to get up to leave. But he can not.
“And now a great storm came upon us. Black teeth of cloud dipped from of the sky. The tempest whipped the sea and tore at our sails. Crashing swells battered us. The prow bit into towering waves. And the wind sped us far, far to the south, where the air was cold and snow fell from the sky.”
“Ice mists bit at our skin. Mast-high icebergs, emerald green, towered beside us and over us, before us and behind us. The ice creaked and groaned and froze our ship for many days. We were doomed.”
“But then…,” the old man says.
“And then?” the young man asked.
“…then out of the bitter winter of that place, an Albatross came flying. And as it circled our ship, the ice around us split. And a wind came up, and the helmsman steered us thru that ice and out into clearer seas.”
“For days we sailed, leaving the ice behind. And as we went, the Albatross would circle our ship and sometimes land on the deck and eat from our hands.”
And now, the old man’s gaze leaves that of the young man. He looks down at his feet. He brings his hands to his face.
“But I did a terrible thing,” he said. “Oh, what was I thinking? I did a terrible thing.”
“What?” says the young man. “What did you do, old man?”
“There on the deck of our ship, saved from the storm and ice, I took out my crossbow, and I… I shot the Albatross!”
Lawrence Lessig / Berlin Family Lectures
Sat, 8 Nov 2014, 03:25 PM (-06:00)
A remarkable series of lectures at the University of Chicago by Lawrence Lessig on the notion of legal, institutional corruption and how it relates to the problems and pathologies of today’s American political system. Long-form video to be sure but well worth the investment, IMHO.
From the closing remarks to lecture one (in which he defines his notion of corruption and how it relates to Congress and the Constitution):
… we are externalizing our problem on them, on our children.
I don’t think we’re evil for doing that. I think we’re just pathetic.
We’re not actively taking something from our kids. We’re just sitting by doing nothing as this corruption corrupts their future.
We’re not the Nazis in this story. We’re the good Germans.
And somehow, we have to find a way to recognize responsibility, here. We have to find a way to act on it. And the first step is understanding, understanding that there is an evil that even good people cause by allowing the essential institutions of a free society to become corrupted.
Because that’s what we have done. And that’s what we must change.
There are five lectures on five different corruption-related topics (this first one on Congress). Videos are online. One down for me, four to go.
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