The Idiot Speaks

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

The Flash

It happened one day, at a crossroads, in the middle of a crowd, people
coming and going.
I stopped, blinked: I understood nothing. Nothing, nothing about
anything: I did not understand the reasons for things or for people, it
was all senseless, absurd. And I started to laugh.
What I found strange at the time was that I never realized
before. That up until then I had accepted everything: traffic lights,
cars, posters, uniforms, monuments, things completely detached from any
sense of the world, accepted them as if there were some necessity, some
chain of cause and effect that bound them together.
Then the laugh died in my throat. I blushed, ashamed. I waved to
get people's attention. "Stop a moment!" I shouted, "there is something
wrong! Everything is wrong! We are doing the absurdest things! This
cannot be the right way! Where can it end?"
People stopped around me, sized me up, curious. I stood there in
the middle of them, waving my arms, desparate to explain myself, to
have
them share the flash of insight that had suddenly enlightened me: and I
said nothing. I said nothing because the moment I had raised my arms
and
opened my mouth, my great revelation had been as it were swallowed up
again and the words had come out any old how, on impulse.
"So?" people asked, "what do you mean? Everything is in its
place. All is as it should be. Everything is a result of something
else.
Everything fits in with everything else. We cannot see anything wrong
or
absurd."
I stood there, lost, because as I saw it now everything had
fallen into place again and everything seemed natural, traffic lights,
monuments, uniforms, towerblocks, tramlines, begggars, processions; yet
this did not calm me, it tormented me.
"I am sorry," I said. "Perhaps it was I who was wrong. It seemed
that way. But everything is fine now. I'm sorry." And I made off amid
their angry glares.
Yet, even now, every time (and it is often) that I find I do not
understand something, then, instincitively, I am filled with the hope
that perhaps this will be my moment again, perhaps once again I shall
understand nothing, I shall grasp the other knowledge, found and lost
in
an instant.


Italo Calvino
from /Numbers in the Dark///

via Seth

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Losing.

A lot of people I've talked to since the election are acting as if they've never lost before. Pffft. Come on. It's time to fight. Narrow your focus. Dedicate yourself...



sister, I won't let you go
I won't let them take you
into the silence of a past divided
brother, keep teaching the power
we only move together
away from the past that made us fall apart

I refuse to run and I will die
before I kneel in this life

systems of profits we punish
with love as our weapon
and unity
unity rebirth in fire

I refuse to run and I will die
before I kneel in this life

are we crucified
we defend our birthright
equality betrayed
and every hour a voice is lost
but every rage defies the cost
embrace the whole world as your kin
truth to truth and skin to skin
begin

searching for an end to the bullshit reactions
another way to separate us
and end to the bullshit of separation
another way to keep us from truth


-Strike Anywhere