Vanity
The
temptation to make WW III mythic is great: hurricanes,
earthquakes, tsunamis, the earth rising up against its despoilers,
wrathful gods blowing fierce winds, an underworld of fire forced to
erupt, if not in self-defense, at least in vengeance; and Neptune,
furious, triton in hand, raging against the defiling of his domain
–
But
why would the gods strike the poor and the helpless, no less victims
than the dolphins or deer? Is there influence peddling across the
sacred divide? Are the aged, trapped on the high floors of
assisted living also doomed as human sacrifice to appease the Grand
Designers? How are we to understand the frantic dogs, the drowned
cats? Indeed, if avian flu is one more punishing act of the gods,
why must chickens suffer as disease prepares itself for a full-fledged
attack on humankind?
Vanity
is at the center of all this calculation, all this imagining. If
we grant the god-seeking impulse and credibility at all, are we
incapable of seeing that the fish themselves may have offended some
divinity? Perhaps some awful sea serpent has annoyed Valhalla
with its slippery ways, it’s ancient interference with Viking
exploration – and the gods, who had high hopes of extending their
rule to the New World, are still pissed off. Didn’t the
pre-Columbian Mexicans worship a plumed serpent and, therefore, some
winged sinner, a bird on the run, provoked the flu – humans may
be collaterally damaged and not the primary target at all!
Tread Mill
I
have an hour to write before rushing to my weight-lifting and
strength-building class, not billed as “for mature adults”,
nevertheless filled with pot-bellied grizzled men, half on
beta-blockers, one with a titanium hip, the rest of us just soft from
too many years of not-work, single malt tastings, exquisite cheeses,
multi-grain crackers with strange seeds, and seared tuna. Free
range people. Specially prepared for discerning cannibals.
Sometimes
I imagine that I was a rich person mistakenly born to the working
class. The inner flaneur required decades to emerge.
Dawdling at cafes, speculating on the decline of the West, staying out
of jail after very brief and youthful extravagances of empathy, also
avoiding getting arms wrenched heads smacked etc. by exuberant cops,
all of this not-work exacts a price from the corpse: belly and
old man tits, ass dragging.
Ten
years ago I walked into a neighborhood fish restaurant and sitting
there was the inspiration, the muse of demonstration, freedom schools,
marches for peace and justice, still as beautiful as when she was
Juliet of the spirits, heroine of the Alexandria Quartet, the reason to
sing “Ain’t Nobody Gonna Turn Me Round”. And I
was stuffed into shirt and tie, jacket too tight to close, beard unruly
and soft bald head. Embarrassed professor.
Now
I am without shame. Or perhaps consumed by it. Once I was
furious at the French pharmacist who cried as the fascists took away
two Jewish girls, what else could he do, he says in the film, I cried
he says. Now I cry as the NY Times reports on force-feeding of
Guantanamo prisoners, I protest loudly to friends about the abandonment
of pensioners, I could make a list and you would be bored with the
common offenses against humanity in general and persons in
particular. They are reported in the daily news. You can
read them while walking on a treadmill at the club.
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