Old Man Winter
February 9, 2010
“O, snow!” cried the City’s inhabitants.
“We can’t make it to our jobs! The streets are impassable! Our children have no one to look after them! We must call off!” cried the City’s inhabitants, with much indignation.
And then…
… they piled into a car and went to a restaurant which was open for a hot meal.
“O, Snow” cried the City’s other inhabitants.
“I have to go into work because people depend on me. I have to go into work because I will get fired otherwise. I have to go to work because I am hardwired to go to work even though such a decision flies in the face of common sense!” cried the City’s other inhabitants, with despair.
And then…
… they plowed the streets and fixed the fallen power lines. They cooked and served food to those who had no power and no heat. They wondered, “how in the Hell am I getting home tonight?”
“O, Snow!” we cry. What else can we do?
Climbing Down from the Summit
September 26, 2009
And so it came to pass, the leaders and their finance ministers boarded their caulked and snapping ships for distant ports, or climbed into gilt and creaking wagons for distant capitals. The members of the press and the media hopped into their mid-sized cars and business-class airplane seats to return to newsrooms in foreign lands…
But what the residents of the City? Those who were severely inconvenienced at having such a meeting thrust upon them? They returned to a life as usual.
Now, there were no forced vacation days, or just plain days off without pay. Now, they need not worry about their children who had no school. Now, they need not worry about security checkpoints, traffic delays, fear.
And what did they fear? The unknown. When such world leaders had met in bigger cities, in capitals more used to high security measures, there had been riots, arsons, police brutality, protester destruction of property, injuries, death.
The seers, Tarot readers, Rune casters, Astrologers all came up with variations on the theme of “Tempest in a Teapot,” but nobody in the City listened. For Fear can sometimes be a kindly god, who whispers in your ear, “Stay at home, forget the world, keep close to your loved ones.”
So they did. So they did.
And today, they went on with life as usual. Or, almost usual. In the back of everyone’s mind was the question: “Why did we spend so much money to hire soldiers from all over the known world to line our streets for one man to march down the street carrying a sign that read ‘Down with Mayonnaise/Up with Hot Sauce!’”
[Edit: Check out Ali's "The Group of 20 and the Mythology of the Market"]
Missionary
September 16, 2009
A Missionary came down from the Mountain and into the Valley of the City. He brought good news. He brought salvation. He brought change.
He looked around at the farmers and their villages that fed the city. He saw them toiling in their fields. He heard them driving herds to sweeter pastures. He smelled their gardens full of healing flowers swarming with bees. Between his fingers, he felt the rough edges of wood chips from their carving.
Convinced, as he was, in his own intelligence, he surmised what the farmers were up to. “Idols!” he exclaimed and made his prayers to his God. “Not spoons, but idols do they whittle in their spare time.”
So, he systematically began to cut down every oak, every elder, every ash and every pine. Sending the lumber back to the Mission up in the Mountain where the Head Priest sold them all for a tidy profit.
“Now they will convert.”
But the inhabitants of the Valley and the City kept their own counsel and would not adopt the ways of the Missionary. So, he prayed and prayed and prayed for a miracle. And far away, a different mountain exploded in fire and ash. It choked the sky and blanketed the Valley in a gritty snow. For months, the Sun was a pale imitation of himself, ever mantled by clouds of dust.
“It is a sign! My God has heeded my prayers!” Said the Missionary, without once stopping to consider that he may have been wrong. He sat back and watched the citizens of the City wrap themselves up in blankets for a whole year because Summer never arrived.
“Now they will convert.”
But the inhabitants of the City and the Valley kept their rites and their beliefs. So he wrote to his head priest who knew rulers of foreign lands who were envious of the prosperity of the City and her surroundings.
The Missionary prayed and prayed and prayed for another miracle. First emmissaries came to rework ancient negotiations unfavorable to the Valley of the City. They demanded too much for their silks, their spices, their jade, their electronic devices. Inflation crippled the economy, already reeling under the terrible harvests. Again, the Missionary took it as a sign.
Second, armies amassed and marched on the Valley. They demanded tribute. They demanded submission. They demanded that the Valley of the City renounce its own sovreignity and become absorbed in one empire or another. They demanded that every inhabitant listen to the Missionary and accept his ways of thinking.
“Now they will convert!”
The Missionary prayed and prayed and prayed. Out of the walls came a delegation of the City. They asked to speak to the generals, the emmissaries, the representatives of all the foreign powers. They asked to speak — specifically — to the Missionary. Surely, he thought, this must be the last sign from my God that I have won the virtuous fight. I am right and they have come to acknowledge me and mine!
Heading the delegation was the Mayor of the City. When everyone was assembled he spoke loudly, he spoke clearly.
“You have depleted our natural resources. You have charged us outrageous interests rates and exorbitant tarriffs. You have exploited a natural disaster for your own gain. And now you surround us with soldiers hungry for booty. We have read your demands and we have this to reply.”
Everyone held their breath. The only sound was that of the Missionary licking his lips.
“Now they will convert!”
The Mayor cleared his throat, held his head up high and said, “Fuck you.”
“We have nurseries to replenish the oak, the elder, the ash and the pine. We have stores of food to feed ourselves until the dust settles and the Sun returns and our harvests are full of fruit and grain again. We have friends and allies who are even now sending us medical supplies and miliraty aid. We have a populace that will defend themselves to the last woman, man and child to ensure that we will never surrender our sovreignity to you or to anyone else for we would never do such a thing to any of our neighbors.
“In short, you will waste millions of gold pieces and thousands of lives to accomplish nothing of honor, of glory, or of wealth. In the long run, you will lose.
“So, why doesn’t everyone just save themselves and us a whole lot of bother and go home. Okay?”
The Mayor turned on his heel, and strode back into the City, amid the cheers of the people of the Valley.
The Missionary could not believe what he was witnessing. The Generals talked amongst themselves. The emmissaries whipped out their cell phones to contact their ministers of defence and commerce. It was agreed that the loss of profits from regular trade with the Valley of the City was causing a recession in the distant empires.
It was agreed that the armies amassed had already gone over budget.
It was agreed that there was no strategic importance to a protracted struggled in the Valley against its inhabitants and her allies.
They all left the Valley of the City and went home. Everyone except the Missionary.
The head priest had sent him a letter. It read:
Dear Missionary:
Because of budget cuts to our Mission, we have had to elimante several dozen positions. Unfortunately, yours is one of the positions that are being outsourced.
We are unable to find a vacancy at this time for you, in light of your poor performance review: You failed in your core objectives and were unable to convert one soul to the true God.
Good luck in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
The Head Priest.
P.S. Budget cuts have also affected benefits. Your health care plan runs out in six months and your are inelligible for unemployment benefits.
He was offered several clerical positions with room for advancement, but the ex-Missionary declined these on principle. Instead, he begs for coins outside the Main Gate, yelling about divine retribution. He prays and prays and prays.
All the while, he fails to see the signs.
Party
September 8, 2009
A teenage boy was helping his father clean up after a party. Grumpy that “the menfolk” were doing a chore usually designated for “the womenfolk” he sulked, slammed dishes, slung soapsuds across the sinks.
Gently, his father asked him, “So, did you have a good time?”
“Yeah.” Sulk, slam, sling.
“Then why are you upset?”
Sling, sulk, slam. “Dunno.”
Fearing for the safety of the good china, the father put his hand on the shoulder of the lad and said, “Let’s take five minutes.”
Through the ruins of streamers and the debris of salsa platters, they sat down on the couch.
“Son, what is a party?”
“A celebration?”
“Yes, but it is also a state-of-mind.”
Fearing his father was about to pine for his college days, the son said, “That sounds like something from a movie.”
“It probably is. Okay… let’s say that there are three kinds of parties. We’ll call them first, second and third.”
With a sinking feeling, the not-yet-man-not-still-boy felt a session of father-son bonding about to happen. The idea of slinging soap suds began to grow in appeal. But, his old man was rarin’ to wax philosophic.
“The first party is ‘we’ as in you, your mother, your sisters and me. The second party is ‘you’ as in the people we invite. The third party is ‘them’ or the one’s whom we did not invite. We throw a party for you so we can celebrate not having to be with them.”
“Who’s them?”
“The kids at school who just don’t get you. The bosses you have that don’t get their jobs or yours. People who want to harass instead of enlighten, those sorts of people.”
“So we throw a party to forget about them?”
“Kind of. A party is a sacred space in time in which we come together to prove to ourselves and to others that we can experience joy, and take pleasure in the company of our friends no matter what they think or do.”
“Sacred space?”
“Yes, celebrations can honor the living, the dead, the Gods, anyone that we cherish near or far. It is our duty, Son, to show hospitality. So your mom and I spend our money to buy all of this food and wine for us for you for them. In return, our family and friends will do the same thing… at a wedding, or a shower. So, it is important that we treat this experience as life-affirming and holy.”
“Which includes cleaning up afterwards?”
“Indeed, all tools of ritual must be cleaned and put away. Even one as unlikely as a casserole dish or a champagne flute.”
“So, we can finish cleaning up now?”
“No you can. Mom had too many Brandy Alexanders with my sister and my mother. I should go check on her. Remember, be careful with the china. Good night, son.”
Jediism
September 3, 2009
A young man, strangely dressed, entered the café where the writers congregate to drink coffee, nibble on pastries, and get on with the serious business of not writing.
The only table left was inconveniently located between the bathrooms and an old woman. So, he sat down, whipped out his brand new laptop, fired it up and commenced creating an act of literature. He stared at the blank screen, waiting for the words to pour forth into his text editor.
Several minutes passed, and all he could think about was how often the habitués of this café had to pee. Then he realized that almost all of them took the time to nod, if not chat with the old woman. Most referred to her as “grandmother.”
He looked away from his screen and saw that the old woman was busy writing letters using parchment, quills tipped eith copper nibs, and a tiny silver pot of ink. He leaned over and studied her patience with filling the nib, then scratching tight, but expansive, letterforms in a gossipy fashion that only the elderly can pull off.
“My dear, would you like me to read this out loud to you?” She asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just noticing how all of these people seem to know you. I was just curious as to who you are and what you were writing.”
She smiled. “I’m just an old woman. And I’m writing to another old woman in Bethesda, Maryland who belonged to the same coven I did back in college.”
“But everyone seems to know you.”
“Oh, they’re just being polite.”
Subconciously realizing that an interesting conversation was less mentally taxing than creating an act of literature, he turned away from his lap top and began to spill his guts…
“I wish people would take me so seriously.”
“People don’t?”
“No. You see, I am a Jedi.”
The old woman’s bushy eyebrows raised a fraction, but she said nothing.
“And, everyone here thinks I and my friends are a joke. Even when I go out dressed like this.”
“I thought you were in the SCA.”
“See!” Warming up now, he said, “My beliefs are just as important as anyone else’s. My fellow Jedi and I were even mentioned in the Washington Post! I cam here to write all about it.”
“Yes, my friend Martha, the one to whom I am writing, sent me that clipping. Fascinating.”
“We came in tenth on Facebook! So why do I get no respect?”
“Well, I expect, most of us just think of social networking sites are supposed to be for fun. I remember that article was pretty vague… I tell you, what, why not tell me what it is that you believe. Being able to explain yourself may be all the respect you need.”
So the young man told her about the Force. He described how it binds us, flows through us, keeps us all together. He extolled the virtues of the Jedi code. All the while, the old woman nodded, asked the occassional question, and kept her china blue eyes focused on him.
When he stopped for air, the old woman asked, “now, do you feel better?”
“Yes, thank you for listening to me.” It was then that the young man realized his lack of manners. “Here I’ve been doing all of this talking. What about you, grandmother, if I may call you that. What do you believe?”
Scoffing, she said, “No one is interested in an old woman pottering in her garden, with her simple rituals to her Lady and her Lord. I have no spaceships and no lightscimitars, er, lightsword-thingies…”
“Lightsabers.”
“Exactly. I’ll tell you what… may I?” She gestured with a liver-spotted hand at his laptop. He nodded his consent. She turned it around and began double-clicking and typing in a thrice.
Pointing at his internet browser window, she said, “Why not start here on the Wild Hunt. It’s an blog post on that article from the Post. You’ll find a lot of links about the problems we Pagans face, even here in the Pagan City, about not being counted on censuses. How the courts don’t take Pagan faiths seriously. All kinds of things… I’m sure you can identify with a lot of these issues. Especially when your spirituality is treated like an internet joke. Now, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m meeting with my publisher in half an hour. O, the cover art for my latest book is hideous. Simply hideous.”
She packed up her quills, her parchments, her ink bottle and began the leaving behavior. “You can follow me on Twitter.” She handed him a slip of paper with her contact information. “Good luck with your writing!”
The young man stared at a dozen tabs she had opened up on his browser. While everyone was calling out, “Travel well, grandmother!” “Bright blessings, grandmother!” He had still written nothing.
Masquerade
August 30, 2009
A young matron went into a costumery on the High Street. Bells jingled on the door as she stepped in. An old man, deftly gluing beads onto a leopard mask, look up. “May I help you?”
“Yes, I need a costume for the Masquerade on the riverboat next week.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.” He got up from his workbench and began showing her his latest designs: emerald-crusted elephants, papier-mâché old men, gazelle goddess from another continent..
“Who do you want to be?”
She paused, fingering a fox mask cleverly contrived out our feathers.
“I want to be me. The real me.”
Frowning, the shopkeep asked her, “Are you sure you don’t want to be a tree nymph? I have these masks of elder, ash and oak.”
“No, I want a mask that shows the real me.”
“But what would that mask show? A young mother who is slightly embarrassed to be on a boat with other minor courtiers and mid-level bankers instead of at home with her children? A young lady who is bored with her life and half-heartedly imagines illicit love affairs under the stars but is too scared to do anything more than a mild flirt? A little girl who still hates mathematics and her teachers for making her do algebra? A teenager who envied her best friend in school for having larger breasts and thus more attention from the boys? A woman who undertips waiters in cafés, telling herself she needs the money for her two toddlers, who really uses the rest of her allowance from her husband to buy posh frocks? The old woman with wrinkles and age spots who looks like your mother, the old woman you see in the mirror every evening you apply your face creams? My, dear, how many masks do you wish to buy?”
Her hand, unconciously touching the string of freshwater pearls draped under her chin, slowly moved back to the feathery fox mask. “How much is this one?”
“Twenty.”
“I’ll take it.”
Identity
August 23, 2009
The Other and the Self meet each other in the Collective Conciousness Bar & Grill. The Other looks at the Self and asks, “Who are you?”
The Self thinks, “Ahh, I must identify myself. Who am I?” It reaches into its satchel and pulls out a Dymo label maker and begins to print out the following categories: American, 39-year old, gay, white…
“Stop!” says the Other. “Visually I can see you are a white male who looks to be under forty. Contextually I can tell you are American from your accent, your Steelers t-shirt, your cargo shorts. I am cosmopolitan enough to have homosexual acquaintances so your more subtle cues I also pick up on. Who are you?”
“I’m a blogger.”
“I have a blog.”
The server comes by and takes an order for coffee. The Other and the Self both order coffee, black.
“We both like unadulterated coffee. Now we are getting somewhere.” Smiles the Other. “Who are you?”
At a loss, the Self considers the possibility of pouring out his heart to the Other but that would leave him vulnerable and leave the Other quite bored. So, the Self says, “Who are you?”
Piqued, the Other answers, “I know who I am. I wish to know who you are. Do we have any affinities in common? Do we share world views? Will we get along? Are you part of my tribe? Are you friend or foe? …Who are you?”
The Self scarmbles to come up with a better answer. “I paint.”
“I love Art. Who are you?”
“I just finished reading Paul Scott’s The Towers of Silence, a fascinating book about the last days of the British Raj.
“I prefered A Passage to India, it was less gossipy and Forrester had the idea first. Who are you?”
“I’m a Pagan.”
The Other wrinkles his brow. Thinking.
Got you, thinks the Self. Now we move from “Who are you” to “What are you?” Any move from the abstract to the concrete has to make this conversation easier.
“Ah,” says the Other, satisfied. “Wicca.”
“Uh, no, actually…”
“Those two labels are mutually interchangeable, at least to me. If they mean something different to you, I’m not sure I care enough to learn the difference.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The Other, clearing his throat, begins, “You misunderstand the meaning of this dialogue. You think I ask you “who are you” so you can proudly claim to belong to this group or that group and yet still be an individual. Right?”
The Self nods, slowly.
“That is self identity, and is all well and good for you. But it is not that important to me. You cannot tell me who you are, so instead you use categories of association hoping that I can use some sort of interpersonal taxonomy to decide you are an okay person. I am the Other, and I am just as obsessed with myself as you are. So, I seek to classify you according to social identity. I lump all New Agers, Wiccans, et cetera into one group in my mind and think they’re all daft.”
The server brings the coffee. The Self and the Other glare at each other.
Finally, the Self asks, “You were okay with me until the subject of religion came up?”
“Correct. Until them we were the same.”
“So, when you ask me, ‘Who are you?’ you really want to know ‘Are we the same?’”
“Precisely. Identity comes from the Latin identitas, meaning sameness. Think of the expression ‘identical twins’ and you’ll see where I’m going with this.”
“And you have no interest in my explaining to you the difference between a Druid, a Celtic Reconstructionist, and a Dianic Wiccan?”
Sipping noisily, “Oh, I might. It depends on which Other I am on which day. Today: not so much.”
“But they are important to me.”
“Yes, I’m sure they are. And if I were a different Other I might care. But you fail to realize that how I see you is more important in a social context than how you see yourself. It isn’t fair, I know. Remember, when you are someone else’s Other, how much time do you give them to label themselves before you have already gone and done it?”
With the barest of farewells for politeness’ sake the Other slides away leaving the Self with self-esteem issues and the bill.
