The Ozymandian Current

[mallorys_camera]

Read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom which I’ve surprised myself by liking very much – I loathed The Corrections – and Marion Meade’s antic biography of Nathaniel West and his wife, Eileen McKenney, the ultimate ‘30s shiksa and inspiration for My Sister Eileen.

West died while he was on his way to Scott Fitzgerald’s funeral. His eyes blurry with tears, his mind distracted with a thousand fleeting insights into the ironies of fame and dissolution, West ran a stop sign in the Imperial Valley, was broadsided by a migrant farm worker. I suppose the Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink was kind of a biopic of Nathaniel West, though West was much more the consumate shyster: He plagiarized the transcripts he used to get into Brown University and huge portions of A Cool Million were lifted straight from the pages of a long out-of-print novel by Horatio Alger. Nevertheless, Miss Lonely Hearts and The Day of the Locust remain two of the most original novels to come out of the 20th century --

Although, of course they leave one burning, unanswered question: Did Matt Gruenwald name his trademark character after the hotel manager who stomps an obnoxious child star to death at the end of Locust?

As for me, I am writing better than ever, better than I have in a long time which is really surprising given how fucked up everything else in my life is right now, particularly on the monetary end of things. I made a record amount of money in the last two weeks doing the literary equivalent of going blind while I embroider dainty eighth-of-an-inch stitches on Puff Daddy’s boxer shorts, but it still wasn’t enough. Thus I am left with the always disheartening decision of which bills to pay and which bills to push off.

I have been exploring a lot on my new bicycle – for example, the grounds of a very odd place called the Temple of Truth. Why Truth should take up sojourn in Freeville, New York is anyone’s guess. Apparently this is some kind of home base for a group of mediums and psychics. Also found the Ozymandian remnants of an old drive-in a little ways outside of Dryden.

I have also entered into a kind of Edwardian epistolary courtship with a very nice gentleman who lives outside of Syracuse.

We’ve been debating whether Harry Truman could get elected today.

I'm not sure that our system allows for a true forward-thinker to be effective, he writes. Colonialism, at least in the world's view, still rules the roost and it's just not working. My opinion, of course, but I think we are paying for decades of that kind of thinking. Why we aren't ALL OVER alternative fuel sources is a complete mystery to me. Our entire technological infrastructure has become vital - essential - and it's a very, very fragile thing, very open to attack or failure. There will be no potatoes at Wegmans without it - and that's pretty scary.

Of course, I imagine that if and when we finally meet, he will run not walk for the nearest exit.

Sitting next to B in the library yesterday, I noticed what I thought must be the beginning of age spots on his hands – he’s younger than me but much fairer skinned. His tattoos are blotchy too – the ink bleeding into the dermis. This is precisely why I have avoided tattoos my entire life. Debatable whether they look cool when you’re young – I don’t happen to think so but I’m aware that’s a matter of taste. Absolutely undebatable that they look hideous when you get old – and trust me, Junior, you spend a long, long time on this planet being old.

Comments

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

Ah, tattos are so bourgeoise now. Really suburban lol.

As to the Truman thing, I was thinking as I listened to NPR this morning that, if that's the "liberal" position, then we really are without hope. Because we live in an age where "conventional wisdom" now contains a great many elements which are, quite frankly, bullshit. Like this notion that draconian cuts to social programs are "necessary" because we 'have a spending problem." Well I suppose we do, what with bailing out the Lucky Pierre crowd on Wall Street and funding two expensive, pointless wars, but aside from that, spending hasn't really increased that much. Revenue, on the other hand, has really taken a nose dive. Yet somehow even mentioning that tossing away a couple of trillion on tax cuts for people who are already doing pretty good isn't part of the discussion.

That last is a pretty complicated narrative, but there's lots of really SIMPLE bullshit that still gets treated as if it's actually serious stuff by the media. Death panels. Obama's birth certificate. Sarah Palin as a presidential candidate. All patented nonsense that is nontheless spoonfed daily to the masses as if it had some kind of actual merit for anyone but the terminally stupid. The end result is you get large amounts of people who hold unshakeable beliefs in stuff that's the political equivalent of the tooth fairy.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

spending hasn't really increased that much.

Jesus, John -- where are you getting your information from? That's simply not true -- medical inflation continues to increase at a rate that's much faster than inflation in the rest of the economy and so every year, Medicare and Medicaid funding increases by 12 percent -- don't forget to compound that figure. Since Medicare and Medicaid combined accounted for something like 21 percent of the federal budget -- higher than military spending, higher than social security, that's a huge hit.

I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would vote for Sarah Palin, but I gotta say if Ron Paul weren't such a religious nut and so down on a woman's right to choose, I'd be awfully tempted to voter for him -- I think the country's doomed unless specie once again becomes backed by some kind of standard.

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

There a really easy way to fix medicare (politically impossible, apparently, but easy in a practical sense), just open up enrollment to everyone. Everybody in the world deals with increasing health care costs, since technology gets more expensive and people live longer, but we're the only ones to confine our "single payer/universal" health care systems to the two groups private insurance avoids like the plague; old, sick people and the poor. Of course medicare is expensive,the risk pool is confined to the worst possible demographic.

This would be an excellent example of what I'm talking about, because not only is the solution obvious "in theory," there are also numerous models that currently work, RIGHT NOW, in other countries, most of whom spend half or less what we do per patient, and get better outcomes (read "live longer and die less frequently from preventable causes). And yet this never even enters the discourse, instead, the conventional wisdom says that 'cuts must be made,' and that, for the most part, these cuts must be made on programs benifitting people of modest means.

BTW "social security" is not part of the deficit. I know you don't like me saying that, but it's true. Unless of course the explanation of the workings of the system on socialsecurity.gov are nothing but lies, and all those treasury bonds really are just paper, like W. says. Of course if that's true, the entire world economy will collapse the moment it becomes general knowlege, and not getting a ss check will be the least of our worries.

BTW

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

I have a sneaking admiration for Ron Paul, whom I think of as a classic trope in American politics, the "principled crank." But his 1901 solutions are often useless in the modern world. His suggestion that we organize our communities down here to 'build our own levees' for instance, shows a woeful misunderstanding of how large, country-wide flood control systems work.

p.s.

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

Medicare and Medicaid funding increases by 12 percent -- don't forget to compound that figure. Since Medicare and Medicaid combined accounted for something like 21 percent of the federal budget --

BTW, I'm aware of this. When I said spending "hasn't increased by that much," I meant the rate of increase hasn't. When you take out the war and stimulus stuff, we're not in a significantly worse place than we were in the second W. administration, when those guys REALLY got rolling on the tax cuts. Yet none of these deficit problems were even discussed then. Deficits only matter when "tax and spend" democrats run them, and surpluses under their stewardship (see Clinton era) don't count or are, at least according to Allan Greenspan, actually bad for the economy.

[robby.livejournal.com]

Years ago, I worked with an older guy, a Navy veteran of WW2. He had been deck gunner during the Battle of Coral Sea, and had authentic navy tattoos that were faded and indistinct. I've never liked the more recent hipster tattoos, but I did appreciate seeing the real thing.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate the look of those old Navy tattoos! My father had them. They're hideous.

Of course, I hated my father so maybe it's guilt by association... :-)

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

In my brain, if you tell me you got a tattoo, my first thought is, "when did YOU join the navy?"
I do not like tattoos, but will accept them as a rite-of-passage on Navy guys.
I recently saw a pregnant woman with a tattooed tummy and breasts and thighs. It was not a pretty sight. She was probably 18 and 100 pounds when the tattoos were applied, but she was now pushing 30 and heavily pregnant...easily 200 pounds, and those tattoos did not adapt well to the change.

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

I know a chef who has tattooed eyebrows and a Fu Manchu mustache that are flames. He feels a deep sense of injustice that no establishments better than a tamale stand or noodle truck will hire him. And he can't get backing for his restaurant idea. Go figure.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Is he a good chef?

Quite a few moderately successful chefs I know have extensive tattoos -- arm and torso work though. In my universe, facial tattoos are for MS-13 members and prison inmates. Scary dudes!

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

Yeah - he's pretty talented with a wide repertoire, but he's young. Just starting out. He was advised by everyone not to do it, but he went ahead. Chefs and tattoos now seem to go together like salt and pepper. Although the more old school, Continental classic chefs really hate it. That and piercings drive some of the French guys batshit crazy. I'm used to it - the guys on my krew all tease me because I don't have any. Not gonna happen. However - once in a while - I do ponder getting a tat of Big Daddy Roth's Rat Fink character driving a hot rod while holding a flaming skillet. But then the feeling passes.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when I had my chili biz, I fantasized about getting a small, tasteful red habanero tattoo. But boy! I look pretty good for almost 60 but my days of epithelial integrity are definitely numbered. Why risk it?