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Friday January 4th, 2008
Asking a Better Question
'The purpose of art is to lay bare the
questions
which have been hidden by the answers.'
James Baldwin
Happy New Year Folks!
This is the sixth year of my newsletter and thank you to
all who have hung in there with me through Thick politics and Thin spaghetti.
All the best for 2008 - and the long overdue end of the George W Bush neo-con
religio-idjut regime!
GOALS AND DREAMS
I don't know how many of you do annual goal setting and
review of previous year's activites but I have been doing this since 1976. On
the first day of every New Year, I do an analysis and review of the goals I
have set for the previous year, marking off which ones I have hit and which
ones I have missed - and, more importantly: WHY. I then reset all the important
goals and cross off all the ones that no longer interest me.
One of the benefits of periodically reminding yourself of
the things you tell yourself that you want is
that every now and then you look at something and say, 'why the fuck have I
been writing that one down? I dont really care about that.'
For instance, for years, I was writing down one of my 'heart's
desires' - a Lambourghini 4-wheel drive, in
candy-apple red, two feet taller than a Hummer, 12 cylinders, accelerates from
0-100 pmh in 10 seconds, and comes with optional machine-gun mounts! No joke.
They only make a limited number of these for Arab sheikhs. After several years
of looking at this written down goal - complete with photographs of this beast,
I decided it wasnt such a priority in my life. So I crossed it off. I haven't
missed it since. One goal that I havent crossed off over for the past thirty
years is wanting to be instrumental in ending world hunger in my lifetime. (I
guess when it comes down to it, I can do without the car but eating is still
important!)
One of the most valuable and creative ideas of goal
setting, dreambuilding, and continually reminding yourself of what you want,
even though some things may appear totally out-of-reach, is that you start to
focus on what REALLY matters to you, and cut loose all that superficial rubbish
that is clogging your daily brain activity.
Here's an interesting ritual I do before I start every
year's goalsetting tuneup. It's unorthodox but a
great way to clear the imagination:
I write a page or two of every Fantasy or Compulsion that
is going through my mind - following these rules:
Write down everything even if it is SELFISH, ILLEGAL,
POLITICALLY INCORRECT, COMPLETELY IMMORAL OR UNTRUE.
Write down all the nasty stuff that goes through your mind,
including people you want to rape, murder, torture, rob and mutilate. People
you hate so much you want to kill, beat to death with a baseball bat, or are so
envious of their success or achievements, you wish they would die of an
impacted wisdom tooth or prostrate cancer. Every sexual fantasy you motor
through your mind, whether it's sex with your mother or your daughter, or the
boss's wife or the wife's boss - even the most immoral and illegal ones -
include animals and household machinery - things that if your boyfriend or wife
or children, the people you work with, or friends ever read, they would most
likely never speak to you again. I'm talking about the DARK side of the soul
here, folks. The stuff that Ted Bundy and Hannibal Lecter drool over. Write it all
down in glorious detail.
Read it over and think about it. Imagine it all happening.
Now write down all your fantasies about wealth, property,
fame, immortality.
If ANYTHING was possible, what would you like?
Eternal youth. A perfect body that never grew old. Perfect
teeth. Hair. A twelve inch cock. The skin of a baby. To be forever eighteen
years old. To have a wife who was forever eighteen years old! To have billions
of dollars of net worth. To be a famous movie star, more popular than Tom
Cruise or Matt Damon; to stick George Bush in a cellar and feed him wombat poo;
to be another Mahatma Gandhi for peace; to play guitar better than Jimi
Hendrix, to go back in time and fuck Jimi Hendrix, (while he was alive I am
assuming but not necessarily . . . ) to go back in
time and assassinate Hitler. To be George Clinton and have Monica Lewinsky suck
your cock. To BE Monica Lewinsky and to suck George W Bush's cock. (Ok, I
know I'm asking for a bit of a stretch there. . .)
Then, on a separate page, make some notes about all these
things and whether you really want them to
happen - whether you would be prepared to trade your life, your career, your
relationship, your family, do some prison time or even face execution to
achieve them - or if they are just fantasies flittin' around through your head.
See, a writer is allowed to visualize the illegal and the
immoral in great detail without actually having to go out and act on these
things in the real world. It's called FICTION and without this facility, which
the layman or family members might find offensive or repulsive, there wouldnt
be half of the great works of art we have today.
Ok - now that you have written down the wild and dark
stuff, and made copious notes, - on a separate page, answer this:
If everything I have just written down came to pass, and I
could have it all, what other FIVE WISHES would I like to come true?
In this stage, when you really push yourself, you will find
that the things that you REALLY care about start to manifest. Seemingly
unrealistic things like: the end of war, or the end of world hunger, etc. To be
financially independent. Good health and success for my children. The end of
the Australian drought. To own your own house. Sane things. Things that might
benefit others.
Paradoxically, after one has satiated oneself with
compulsions and fantasies, one tends toward altruism. Probably the same reason
that the super-wealthy eventually become philanthropists, after a lifetime
spent chasing power. But I digress . . .
Ok. Here's the most important part of this goal setting
exercise. After you have written all this poisonous and acidic stuff down, read
it over, made notes, and come up with the five additional wishes, DESTROY THE
DOCUMENT. No trace. No backup copy. No way for any living soul - including
yourself - to ever read it. I'm talking permanently shredded, burnt and
scattered.
Then go somewhere quiet, by a river or lake, and dream some
serious dreams for yourself and set some serious goals for your life and your
New Year.
This is an incredibly freeing and cathartic thing to do -
it feels scary, dangerous and exciting - and it always works! The cobwebs get
swept away. Everything you care about becomes crystal clear.
I always hit the goals I really care about, although not
always in the year I set them. But the idea is to keep writing down the CRUCIAL
ones year after year so they are always in front of you - even if it appears
there is no way to achieve them. Miracles happen. Plans manifest. Focus allows you to see things and notice subtle opportunities - those
little overlooked glittering keys covered in mud in the gutter - that the
distracted miss.
Someone once gave me this bit of valuable advice:
'I never reach my important goals on the
date that I set them,
But I always reach them on the date that I set
them.'
LETTERS FROM READERS
Hey Joe,
Did you know there was a passing reference to Shaddup-a-Your-Face on The Simpsons last week Now you've
made it Baby! Bernie
(Note: I've always admired Homer's writing and it is
gratifying to know he is familiar with some of my oeuvre.)
Dear Joe,
RE: SHADDAP YOU FACE
. . . As for why it makes me cry, I don't know. This reaction has puzzled me
for years. I believe it made me happy and elated at the same time. I will try
to figure this out before the day is over. Maybe by Friday, I'll have an answer
{smile].I will be looking for your latest release in the record stores. Adrienne
(Note: In a previous letter, Adrienne mentioned that
sometimes listening to Shaddap You Face made her
cry, so I was curious why. I know it makes a lot of people cry - but mostly out
of pain. boom boom!)
Joe,
Thanks for the (English) lyrics for 'Lynetta' -
. . . also for the newsletters - Alan said to tell you that he believes that
"the dark lord uses black toilet paper". Love, Suzanne
(Note: Does that mean the Evil one's poo is white?
In any case, I want a roll of this black toilet paper! I sounds like fun. But
do I have to sign away my soul forever to get it? I mean: this is the 21st
century, not the middle ages. How about 30 days with an option? Here are the
English lyrics to my french song, 'Lynetta': here
Flavius Josephus,
Re: Two Excerpts from GT somewhere in France:
" . . . My French - which I had stopped learning 25 years ago - is OK, but
I hate the fact that European languages persist with giving genders to things
with no genitals. It peeves me that in French my leg is feminine, as is my
hand... but my arm and knee are masculine. It's just dopey, and it MUST change
or I will protest. . . "
". . .Truffle pigs are highly sought after, but in the south west they use
dogs. The pigs are too smart - once they figure out that you steal the truffles
they find, they will pretend not to find them, hoping to return at a later date
and ramass (sic) the truffles for themselves. Dogs are eager to please, and are
satisfied with a little teensy bit of truffle as reward for handing over their
entire findings (a bit like Liberal voters). " GT
Joe,
Merry xmukah to you too, from a jew. here in canada where i live, i'm
well-known for having irritated the entire country with my limericks from time
to time. here's one i wrote at a christmas past. . . joy, Joan
Santa's deer herd is now somewhat
thinner
Since the year was no financial winner--
He laid off forty gnomes,
Several elves lost their homes,
And they had to eat Donner for dinner.
Christmas? Show Me the Sedatives
and a Dark Room
Catherine Deveny
The Age
A time for kids? Rubbish. They're all just spoilt brats who
want more crap.
CHRISTMAS? Kill me now. Season to be jolly? Not this little
black duck. Wish I was Jewish. Or in jail. Or dead. I s'pose it could be worse.
Come to think of it, no it couldn't.
But seriously, you know what I want for Christmas? To be a
kid or a bloke. Having children and a vagina basically means being a slave and
an emotional potty for the last two weeks of December. If the silly season had
a motto, it should be: Christmas: It's the Reason Alcohol was Invented. Or
Christmas: Turning Back Feminism 150 Years. . . (article)
(thanks to Cinzia Ambrosio)
Something You
Might Need to Know Someday
Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both
parties are registered blood donors.
Hydrogen Beer Disaster
(Tokyo) The recent craze for hydrogen beer is at the heart
of a three-way lawsuit between unemployed stockbroker Toshira Otoma, the
Tike-Take karaoke bar, and the Asaka Beer Corporation. Mr. Otoma is suing the
bar and the brewery for selling toxic substances, and is claiming damages for
grievous bodily harm leading to the loss of his job. The bar is counter-suing
for defamation and loss of customers.
The Asaka Beer corporation brews "Suiso" brand beer, in which the
carbon dioxide normally used to add fizz has been replaced by the more
environmentally friendly hydrogen gas. Two side effects of the hydrogen gas
have made the beer extremely popular at karaoke sing-along bars and
discotheques.
First, because hydrogen molecules are lighter than air, sound waves are
transmitted more rapidly, so individuals whose lungs are filled with the
nontoxic gas can speak with an uncharacteristically high voice. Exploiting this
quirk of physics, chic urbanites can now sing soprano parts on karaoke
sing-along machines after consuming a big gulp of Suiso beer.
Second, the flammable nature of hydrogen has also become a selling point,
though it should be noted that Asaka has not acknowledged that this was a
deliberate marketing ploy.
The beer has inspired a new fashion of blowing flames from one's mouth using a
cigarette as an ignition source. Many new karaoke videos feature singers
shooting blue flames in slow motion, while flame contests take place in pubs
everywhere. "Mr. Otoma has no one to blame but himself. If he had not
become drunk and disorderly, none of this would have happened. Our security
guards undergo the most careful screening and training before they are allowed
to deal with customers," said Mr. Takashi Nomura, Manager of the Tike-Take
bar.
"Mr. Otoma drank fifteen bottles of hydrogen beer in order to maximize the
size of the flames he could belch during the contest. He catapulted balls of
fire across the room that Godzilla would be proud of, but this was not enough to
win him first prize since the judgment is made on the quality of the flames and
the singing, and after fifteen bottles of lager he was badly out of tune."
"He took exception to the result and hurled blue fireballs at the judge,
singeing the front of a female judge's hair and entirely removing her eyebrows
and lashes, and ruining the clothes of two nearby customers. None of these
people have returned to my bar. When our security staff approached Mr. Otoma,
he turned his attentions to them, making it almost impossible to approach him.
Our head bouncer had no choice but to hurl himself at Mr. Otoma's knees,
knocking his legs from under him."
"The laws of physics are not to be disobeyed, and the force that propelled
Mr. Otoma's legs backwards also pivoted around his center of gravity and moved
his upper body forward with equal velocity. It was his own fault that he had
his mouth open for the next belch, his own fault that he held a lighted
cigarette in front of it, and his own fault that he swallowed that cigarette."
"The Tike-Take bar takes no responsibility for the subsequent internal
combustion, rupture of his stomach lining, nor the third degree burns to his
esophagus, larynx and sinuses as the exploding gases forced their way out of
his body. Mr. Otoma's consequential muteness and loss of employment are his own
fault."
THREE THOUGHTS FOR 2008
1. 'Ask not what your country can do for
you, but rather ask what you can do for your country.' JFK
2. 'Stop looking for a simple answer and learn
to ask a better question.' Anon
3. 'It's not so much discovering the meaning
of life as it is living your life so it has
meaning.' Anon
WATCH HOW AN AVERAGE CHESS PLAYER WINS A SIMULTANEOUS
MATCH AGAINST SIX MASTERS youTube
More Funny Simultaneous Chess youTube
(thanks to Frank Dolce)
FAVOURITE SPAM SUBJECT HEADING OF THE
WEEK
Subject: COLONCLEANSE! Mr. Dolce - do you
remember eating this?
THE TURTLES TALK ABOUT THE
MUSIC BUSINESS youTube
(Thanks to Joe Creighton)
Pen, Pencil or Keyboard
Lately, several people have asked me why I compose music in
longhand rather than using computer music software such as Sibelius or
something like that. I think its because I don't do that much of that kind of
composing and when I do, I like to force myself
to focus on what I have written which helps me to finetune it and find
mistakes. I don't know about the rest of you, but I need occasional reality
checks when I write in different clefs and do transposing. Sometimes I space
out and start writing the viola part in the violin clef especially after a
few drinks. When I have to write the whole thing out by hand note-for-note -
including parts I SEE and HEAR the music again as though for the first time
and spot weaknesses I might have overlooked and just plain lazy writing.
If I just had to hit a key and the whole thing reproduced itself automatically,
it would be too easy to miss these kind of problems.
However, if I was writing out scores for a living daily I might consider using music
software to save time. But at this stage, I actually get more self-education
out of doing it the longhand way.
I was reading the letters of Ted Hughes over the weekend. I have always considered Hughes a B-grade poet at
best. (Yes, yes . . . I know he was Poet Laureate of England and the Queen
bestowed the Order of Merit on him. Tie a tinkling bell around the neck of a
ferret. It's still a ferret. The benefit is at least now you can hear it
coming. It is also completely logical that Hughes should be made Poet Laureate
by the same Queen who made Knights of Mick Jagger, Elton John and Bob Geldof.
The Monarchy ain't what is used to be, folks. Maybe when Prince Dumbo is King,
things will start to look up. Don't hold your breath. . . . History Lesson
for Those Attracted to Tinkling Bells: ROBERT SOUTHEY, friend and associate
of Coleridge, Wordsworth and Lord Byron, was chosen over all of them, as Poet
Laureate in 1813. His work has been almost totally forgotten.)
I have always felt that Hughes letter writing was much more
interesting than his poetry. The main reason being is that he allows himself to
be somewhat confessional in his letters. More of
the real frustrated man leaks through. But he
wrote an enormous amount of letters. You think he might have stopped once and
asked himself, 'What if I am wrong? What if, in fact, I, Ted Hughes, was
instrumental, unrepentant and unchanging, regarding the deaths of both of my
ex-wives, through the way, amongst other things, that I isolated them, made
them dependent on my high opinion, kept their artistic vision always within the
realms of my own limited understanding, and discouraged anything that might
truly threaten me or even demonstrate superiority to my own writing. That I
have mistakenly and continually justified my behaviour as being for the benefit
and protection of my children, when if fact is has always been for my own
benefit. And, if this is the case - if I have been mistaken and I have been a
selfish and delusional fool all these years, wouldn't this vast body of letters
I am leaving behind, ultimately lay bare the person I really am? Maybe I should
take the advice of that well-known Australian philosopher, Josephus, Poet Exhumis of Austrawlia, and just
shaddap-a my face and hope nobody connects the
rather large dots.'
My own verdict, and the verdict of many other thinking
people, is: that in order for Hughes to have proceeded the way he did, leaving
so much 'evidence' as it were, he clearly WAS
delusional.
And whatever psychological problems existed in the women he
married - leading to the suicide of TWO wives in a row - an all time record -
the shadow side of these selfsame problems was also equally present in Hughes -
only he was able to use it to his advantage. You might have a couple of equally
damaged people living together in a relationship, but, in the patriarchal
paradigm, the deck of opportunities, and even survival, is always stacked in
the man's favour.
The greatest tragedy, to me, is that Ted Hughes wasn't the
one who stuck his head in the oven leaving Sylvia Plath and second-wife, Assia
Weaver (also a remarkably gifted translator and diarist) ALIVE to realize their
full potential as women and artists. (Here's an excerpt from one of Assia's translations,
from the Hebrew, of the Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai:)
' A pity. We were such a good
And loving invention.
An airplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.
We even flew a little. '
Probably Ted Hughes most honest piece of writing is his
letter to A. Alvarez of November 1971. Alvarez was the author of The Savage
God, a study of suicide, which included a chapter
on Sylvia Plath. Alvarez had also been close friends with the couple. Hughes
was outraged at how Alvarez portrayed their relationship. That Alvarez had coloured
outside the lines'of Hughes' anally retentive image
of himself. Here's an excerpt from Hughes' letter to him:
' You saw little enough of us. Both of us regarded you as a
friend, not a Daily Mirror T.V. key-hole rate-hole journalist snoop guaranteed
to distort every observation and plaster us with his
know-all-pseudo-psychological theories, as if we were relics dug up from 10,000
BC. Of our marriage, you know nothing but you can't even give us the benefit of
your ignorance."
Hughes is an aggressive debater and puts a convincing
argument for any topic he chooses to defend. But with a little thought and
preparation, his positions are easy to refute. Take his following persuasive
theory on why handwriting is more creative than typing, in a letter to Nick
Gammage, of May 1998, just before he died:
" Have you noticed that you write quite different
prose on your word processor than when you're writing by hand? You do. The
reason: because handwriting is basically drawing of images (that's how
graphologists read it they decode the images in the various letters read
them as 'pictures') it engages not only the whole record of your psychological
history (as your unique handwriting does) but it engages from word to word all
the preverbal activities of your brain (as drawing images does), which then
bring the (non-verbal) associative contribution to bear on what is being
written about, and therefore help to determine the sequence of ideas and
expression, tones & rhythms etc. That is why hand-written letters give you
the impression of dealing with the real i.e. the whole person. And why you feel
a formality about a typed letter. And why a word processed letter from a friend
(word processors are a whole range further removed from that preverbal
engagement than typewriters, as typewriters are removed further than
handwriting) can seem to be from an unknown person, or even from a robot, and
why the writer feels the need to apologise for it (as you did.)"
I was mesmerised by this until I realized that this is
shallow thinking and incorrect. He is speaking in absolute terms, One size fits all, when it's
clearly different strokes for different folks.
Hughes writes: " . . . word processors are a whole
range further removed from that preverbal engagement than typewriters, as
typewriters are removed further than handwriting . . .'
To which Josephus parries: " . . . as handwriting is
further removed from speaking, as speaking is further removed from grunting,
yada yada etc etc."
I can't even read my own handwriting most of the time. The
only thing my handwriting engages'is my desire
to break my pencil. And has anyone seen Ted Hughes typing skills? I have a
letter he wrote me. He's using some kind of old fashioned Royal portable with a
missing letter. No wonder he doesn't get pictorially inspired. Here's a scan of
a couple of lines:
The main point Hughes
overlooks in his argument is that most of the deepest inspired creation,
whether writing music, poetry or prose, happens in your imagination before you even get near pen or paper, or the keyboard. Much of the
time, it resembles taking dictation: you compose it in your head, turn it over,
rework it mentally, over and over - and then simply write it down with whatever
is handy: pen, pencil or keyboard.
During the writing of my recent Leadbelly Ballad-Novel, I would get up in the
middle of the night and write the lyrics out to five songs that I had been
turning over in my mind for an hour or so while I was lying there in the dark.
I'd sit up, switch on the light and I'd write them out by hand, then go back to
sleep, get up in the morning and then type them out. (So I could read my
somnambulant scribbling later!) I wrote the ten
verses to one of my best and more poetic and emotionally complex songs, Father, completely in my head, while I was
taking a walk through the bush.
When I really get excited, my handwriting resembles something between an EEG
machine and Lie Detector graph. Now some people's handwriting is more
expressive (and legible!) than others and I can see how that might further
inspire them, as Hughes suggests.
But what about Calligraphers in that case? Doesn't it stand to reason that they
would get more inspiration that people who simply write in normal script?
And what about the pub scrawlers, like me (and Beethoven?) I'd waste too much time trying to decipher what I actually wrote down by hand to have any energy left for
writing more of it.
I also propose that the type font you use when you compose on a typewriter or computer makes a
difference. After all, fonts are pictures too:
Set your font size to 48 and watch
the difference in how you think!
RECIPE
Caribbean
Okra Salad
This recipe comes from The Abyssinian Baptist Church, in New York.
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 lb. fresh, small, tender okra
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 c. water
1 tbsp. strained fresh lime juice
1 garlic clove, finely minced
pinch ground allspice
1/4 tsp. Caribbean or other hot pepper sauce to taste
1 tbsp. chopped cilantro (coriander)
Semi-dried tomatoes, for garnish
1. Rinse okra; pat dry and trim the caps.
2. In a medium saute pan, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Add okra and saute 2 minutes.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Add water, cover, and cook over low heat for about 7 minutes or until just
tender. (Add more water, if needed.)
4. Transfer to a serving plate. Combine remaining tablespoon oil, lime juice,
garlic, allspice, hot pepper sauce, salt, and pepper. Pour over okra.
5. Sprinkle with cilantro and semi-dried tomato.
Makes 2 servings
TO WEI PA, A RETIRED SCHOLAR
The lives of many men are
Shorter than the years since we have
Seen each other. Aldebaran
And Antares move as we have.
And now, what night is this? We sit
Here together in the candle
Light. How much longer will our prime
Last? Our temples are already
Grey. I visit my old friends.
Half of them have become ghosts.
Fear and sorrow choke me and burn
My bowels. I never dreamed I would
Come this way, after twenty years,
A wayfarer to your parlor.
When we parted years ago,
You were unmarried. Now you have
A row of boys and girls, who smile
And ask me about my travels.
How have I reached this time and place?
Before I can come to the end
Of an endless tale, the children
Have brought out the wine. We go
Out in the night and cut young
Onions in the rainy darkness.
We eat them with hot, steaming,
Yellow millet. You say, "It is
Sad, meeting each other again."
We drink ten toasts rapidly from
The rhinoceros horn cups.
Ten cups, and still we are not drunk.
We still love each other as
We did when we were schoolboys.
Tomorrow morning mountain peaks
Will come between us, and with them
The endless, oblivious
Business of the world.
~ Du Fu ~
(One Hundred Poems From The Chinese,
translated by Kenneth Rexroth, New Directions Books, 1971)
THE LAST HURRAH
Chinese Torture
A young man was wandering, lost, in a forest when he came
upon a small house. Knocking on the door he was greeted by an ancient
Chinese man with a long, grey beard. 'I'm lost,' said the man. 'Can you
put me up for the night?' 'Certainly,' the Chinese man said, 'but on one
condition. If you so much as lay a finger on my daughter I will inflict
upon you the three worst Chinese tortures known to man.' 'OK,' said the
man, thinking that the daughter must be pretty old as well, and entered
the house. Before dinner the daughter came down the
stairs. She was young, beautiful and had a fantastic figure.
She was obviously attracted to the young man as she couldn't keep her eyes
off him during the meal. Remembering the old man's warning he ignored her and
went up to bed alone. But during the night he could bear it no longer and
snuck into her room for a night of passion. He was careful to keep
everything quiet so the old man wouldn't hear and, near dawn, he crept
back to his room, exhausted but happy.
He woke to feel a pressure on his chest. Opening his eyes
he saw a large rock on his chest with a note on it that read:
'Chinese Torture 1:
Large rock on chest.'
'Well, that's pretty crappy,' he thought. 'If that's
the best the old man can do then I don't have much to worry about.' He
picked the boulder up, walked over to the window and threw the boulder out. As
he did so he noticed another note on it that read:
'Chinese Torture 2:
Rock tied to left testicle.'
In a panic he glanced down and saw the line that was
already getting close to taut. Figuring that a few broken bones was better than
castration, he jumped out of the window after the boulder. As he plummeted
downward he saw a large sign on the ground that read:
'Chinese Torture 3: Right
testicle tied to bedpost.'
(thanks to Jim Testa)