Took another night walk last night. Alas, the moon that was full the night before
was nowhere to be seen. To the north
there were stars, but over to the east, there wasn’t even a hint of moon
glow. Off behind clouds and pollution we
all supposed. Or perhaps the moon too,
has gone off course and disappeared.
Conspiracy theorists must be having a field day with our missing
Malaysian Airlines jet. How long before
we have our first Bermuda Triangle-like book that “uncovers all?” The poor members of the families who just
want closure will have to endure accounts of the survivors as abducted by
aliens, prisoners on a tropical island, or living somewhere, in a parallel
universe. China Inc., never known for
nuance has “ruled out the possibility of Chinese passengers
engaging in destruction or a terrorist attack” which, although unequivocal and stern,
seems plausible and even laudable since there was a Uighur gentleman on
board. This places that much more burden;
squarely back with the Malaysian authorities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/beijing-says-no-chinese-passengers-were-involved-in-jets-disappearance.html
It’s enough to make you wish you could
fast-forward a bit to see what actually comes to pass. But don’t fast forward all the way to 2540AD
or 632 A.F. That’s not the world we want
to see transpire, for that is when Aldous Huxley’s "Brave New World" is set. My older daughter and I finished off
“L'Étranger”, aka “The Stranger” yesterday.
I must say, I don’t think either of us were sorry to leave Meursault,
lying in his cell contemplating the guillotine.
Now we are happy. We are off in
the future with hatcheries and “the Epsilons” and of course, soma.
First published in 1932, Huxley was apparently
moved to write the grim prophecy of cheeriness after spending prolonged time in
the U.S. and confronting youth culture and its sexual promiscuity, and perky
commercial vapidity. He was worried
about the Americanization of Europe. Now
we can consider the future Sino-ization of America.
My daughter wants to know what it all about. We’ve spent the first twenty pages at the
hatchery going through dry, clinical processes wherein people are manufactured
by the state for different destinies. I
haven’t read it since I was only a little older than her, so I can’t really
recall who the main protagonists are.
This is, quite different from my memories of “1984” and the unforgettable
travails of Winston. Perhaps we’ll move
on to Orwell, after we’ve had our fill of soma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
I recently updated my playlists and have dumped
a few thousand more tunes into my “running” mix that I listen to at the
gym. All kinds of interesting things
keep popping up now. The Impressions,
“Gone Away” from the 1968 album “This is My Country” arrived mid-way through
the routine. Co-written by Donny
Hathaway, (whom Amy Winehouse adored), with the inimitable Curtis Mayfield, was
never my favorite tune on the album. But
it has its own groove. And the strings
and the horns are part of that just-so sound on the album which, as a whole is gorgeous. My mind flooded back to the first time I
encountered it, which must have been some dozen years ago.
I saw Curtis Mayfield on his ill-fated tour of
1990. He’d played in Central Park and
friends and I all went out to see him.
In retrospect I only knew a pitifully small part of his oeuvre at the
time. All of us were familiar with the
funky soundtrack to "Superfly" but were ignorant of his remarkable work with
Impressions and his inspiration to the Civil Rights movement and a generation
of heroes of mine. Not long after I saw
him, while he was playing out in Flatbush, a rig of lighting equipment fell on
him, while he was on stage. It paralyzed
him from the neck down. Now the hands
that played such beautiful guitar and influenced everyone of his generation,
including Hendrix, (think ‘Little Wing’) were immobile. He wrote, sang and directed his last
composition, lying down, unable to move, 寸步难行[1].
For all the
prancing, screaming, ridiculously bedecked idiots who’ve leapt about a stage
why should such a thing befall the kind, noble man with he celestial voice and
unerringly positive spirit? I have an
easier time explaining why Huxley’s world might come to pass to my daughter,
than I do the core of that unfairness; a hero lying for nine years like Meursault, unable to escape his fate.
[1] cùnbùnánxíng:
unable to move a single step (idiom) / to be in an (extremely) difficult
situation
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