Dead Air

Rough Type: The tweet-filled void »
"Twitter, in other words, is the real 'evidence of the verbosity of our culture.' But it's more than that. It speaks to what seems to be a growing fear of silence, of being alone with one's thoughts. It's as if there's some great emptiness that we have to keep throwing words into. To hold one's tongue is to risk—what, exactly?"

Half The Time

(fiction notes)

... half the time i don’t know whether to cry because it is so beautiful, so bittersweet that life is short, that it is so often wasted if not by your own profligate self then by someone who feels the necessity to take something from you. a piece of your birthright, something he clearly regards as precious and valuable else he would not bother to steal, now, would he.

... or because it is so painful. painful to be old, aware there are no second lives ahead of me, no second youths where i might enjoy a normal marriage with a normal person, any normal happiness of home life. no. that opportunity was stolen by someone who—why is it always this way—did not, could not profit from this theft, except insofar as his delusional thinking allowed ...

... half the time, the crying doesn’t know either, the two aspects of this feeling so close, so very close, so barely divided, i wonder that any of us knows. i wonder that anyone dares really love. for to do so is to spit in the eye of mortality, yes? yes. a kind of thievery of its own, but of a redeemed sort .... redeemable in the currency of the genuine happiness that lights the human heart ...

I Rest My Case

Call it a diary, call it consistently updated verbiage—heck, call it a weblog—just don't call it a blog. It's that, too: I just can't stand the sound of that word. It sounds like the sound cats make when they throw up hairballs.

(I don't know why that was so hard to get at.)

Beatnik Pad. Outstanding blog weblog. Home of not only that major fave, BonEcho G4 builds, which rid one of sooo much of the effluvium (1) that swarms around Firefox (yes I have a migraine today.) (Does it show?)

Also smart ...

When OS X 10.5 is released, .Mac will be radically changed (how, I don’t know) and in its place many of the iApps will have Google integration. So iCal will have true syncing with Google Calendar, iPhoto will allow you to push photos to Google’s online photo service, and Address Book will sync directly with Gmail’s online contacts.

(True.) Rather witty, for a sprout ...

With all of the mac fanboys biting their pillows tonight in delirious agony ...

Above all, that cooool (blue) design ... a look to which, at some brief point BDOH (2) yours truly, truly aspired.

(So come do my blog, guy.)


1. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Latin, from effluere ‘flow out.’
2. Before Dawn of Hippie

There Be Dragons

My Dear Ms. Sessum,

Will you quit blogging such nice things about me ...

How much easier to give than to forkin' receive ...

Most people never get out from under the rainshadow of their parents' gaze ...

It's hard turf, hard to chart, hard to navigate. No maps. Lots of dark matter. A black hole or two, to marry.

Fate would bring a sweet soul into my life ...

That awful noise you hear is some rusted hinge inside. Damned Fate, prying it open again.

Yours Truly,
Zo

The Churn

(Fiction) ... It wasn't for many years that I got even a hint of a grip on Alec's issue with work. First, we start with the assumption that I am a sponge, a freeloader, then we move on from there. That was the current that ran below everything, a resentment, a form of hatred that I certainly sensed, and from the start ... yet what desperate young woman can afford the truth. I wanted to get married because that is what I knew to do, I needed help with my dear little children, I had no money ... and I suppose the truth is that in Alec, in his hatred, I was given yet another crummy gift. Why me, oh Lord, which is exactly the sort of plea that goes unanswered.

Because the real question is, why Alec.

Why men.

Why the hatred and no end of punishment to women in need.

Now that we know of some of the nastier attitudes of the really entrenched, okay, there's a tiny hue and cry. Perhaps it is not quite the thing, this stoning to death of the woman fucked out of wedlock. Bury her upright in a pit and batter her about the head. On the other hand, as Alec used to so cheerfully say, Better you than me.

Had I but known it, every hateful thing Alec said was a direct pipeline from ancient tribal feuds. The kind of hatred baked, after eons under the sun, into a shrivelled, bitter lump that once eaten, sits there in the gut, neither regurgitated nor shat. Churning. Churning like his old man, churning like Alec. Churning but stuck. Churning without hope of removal of the indigestible truth of their lives ...

So they strike out. Which relieves exactly nothing. Perhaps only aggravates the churn.

And women are so used to it, I am so used to it, tell me, does it not seem normal? This ... cycle of buildup and release? Don't we pity the poor souls, having no better way? Yes, we do. Pity which has no bearing on the fact, we are maimed. Pity, genuine pity, will get you killed. Hold up a sign, go around, “I feel for you.” See how long—with someone like Alec—see how long you last.

What Sorry State

Mme. Levy reports, “Someone's just made a fascinating post on beach bags at BlogHer. I think they're on sale!”

How to shift the thinking. Okay: women online who are connected to business in any way are as co-opted as the next person, it's silly not to think so. And stupid not to remember.

Don't be looking to BlogHer, or anywhere else that buys and sells, for any kind of political truth. Or support.

If there's a Women's Movement, it exists in your own life—in the next moment, in how you interact with your son, lover, husband, father.

Never forgetting that any shred of dirt you eat, you eat for all of us. Think of it as educating them.

My cleaning lady had a boarder, a man in his early thirties, whose girlfriend came over to prepare all his meals. Why? Because mommy had prepared his every morsel, to the day he left home. Bad mommy. Empty mommy, to raise a spoiled cripple. Tell me, young 'uns, you don't have time for that crap. (Geez, Zo, his girlfriend does.)

I don't know what to think. I know it's hard, building a personhood, in this fucked mess of a society, buried neath imagery that sells things to the male eye. And perhaps that's the worst of it: you've learned to see yourself—because of all this wretched objectifying and fetishizing—you've learned to see your own body through the eyes of men.

I also think this is useful work, this is where you can Make a Difference. Root out the martyr in your own soul, root out the needy sex. Owning your phenomenal strength is scary shit ... gor, you might end up alone.

Now there's a fate worse than death.

The Madness of King George

“...it's about the time to say it, USA have became the unjust nation that needs to be removed ... removed from it's position as the leader of the world. USA doesn't have the moral superiority propaganda on it's side anymore. It's a mere mission of greed and aggression that its leading in the world now: If we don't like you, we shoot you. If you don't give us your wealth, we shoot you, and if you don't like us for doing this to others, we gladly shoot you too.This has to come to an end.” —Kahlid Jarrar

Twenty-four years old. Read Kahlid. Read his family and his friends.

How simple—a picture of Iraq you can trust. If you can stand the sadness.

I figure, since we doing this to them, to their Iraq, destroying their lives ... the least we can do is read, subscribe, support.

After all, how will they know how much Americans deeply regret that this stupid, stupid war ... unless we tell them?

kahlidjarrar can be reached at hot mail.
his brother raed.jarrar at google's free email service.