Living in Germantown has given me a brand new appreciation for birds

Hafez says:

One rosy face from the world's garden for us is enough,
And the shade of that one cypress in the field
Strolling along gracefully for us is enough.

Look at the flow of money and the suffering
Of the world. If this glimpse of profit and loss
Is not enough for you, for us it is enough.

The dearest companion of all is here. What
Else is there to look for? The delight of a few words
With the soul friend is enough.

--

Listening to Chopin in my room, both windows open and the rain pouring down outside, incense burning, watching that nocturne spinning around on a beautiful turntable. Cascading notes getting twisted up into the quiet, repetitive chaos of the rain.

I suppose it will sound hyperbolic to say it, but wouldn't it be somehow opulent to ask for another dose of this? In the interest of modesty alone, wouldn't it feel appropriate now to put away this whole business of recorded music? Surely for me one side of a good record at the right moment is enough.

This morning I experienced the glory of God on my front porch--I was eating a grapefruit at 830 in the morning, jobless "downwardly-mobile" bourgeois dilettante that I am; I was surveying the front yard. A moment of silence creeps up on you and then the foreground of Yard and Breakfast and Schedule and What-I-Am-Doing-With-My-Life starts disintegrating, like expanding holes of acid consuming a piece of paper (where the acid is the dull, stubborn insistence of the Background to be noticed). White noise becomes colored noise and suddenly I get startled to notice all of these birds, singing, taking turns, overlapping and interrupting, screaming, calling from every direction, up in the trees all around, at every distance, at varied volume, all shapes and sizes. Lord have mercy I live in the center ring of a bizarre circus. Help, my homo sapiens frame of reference is outnumbered, drowning in the chaotic net of delicate sounds and drowning in what it represents: The day-to-day routines of a million tiny winged bodies (twitching, contracting, jumping into the air, pooping, hungry again), none of whom for even a moment have felt the need of taking up the burden of self-awareness. For goodness sakes what has the Robin or the Cardinal ever done to accommodate the grand narrative of the human race, much less the arc of my life?

Surely for me a half an hour with these little chirping aliens is enough. Surely I could move back to the cement jungle of North Philadelphia and live there for the rest of my life without ever seeing another exotic-looking migratory bird, protected by the reality of one such encounter.

Historical Philadelphia

Can't seem to get enough of this online database of historical Philadelphia photos, which is searchable by address, date and neighborhood.

Obama, Race, The Birthplace of Freedom

I'm about a week and a half behind the election game here, listening to Barack Obama's "race speech" just now on youtube. As a hardline reactionist, I would generally be disposed to dislike any media item so hyped. (More than one ecstatic commentator immediately dubbed it "one of the best speeches in American history"). However, it would not be fair to judge the man exclusively by the imbecility of his groupies--I found the speech itself to be remarkably good, particularly in the calm, even-handedness that marked both content and delivery. Here is the first speech by anyone remotely near the White House in recent memory who didn't appear to be talking down to his audience, who appears to actually be attempting to elevate rather than either denigrate or do damage control on "the national conversation." All things considered, "A More Perfect Union" was an extremely decent speech. All of which is to say that for once a politician is talking in a way that resembles the baseline standard of what a politician should be expected to talk like.

Obama's creation was a "classy" one; effectively and effortlessly transforming his campaign's latest PR hurdle into a balance beam on which might bounce and twirl Great American Themes such as Love, Freedom, Opportunity, and Life. It was ever so graceful at every turn, making concessions to everyone and everything, getting us to put our guards down. I confess, against my better judgment I felt assured and reassured as I listened--it was almost as if the tall, thin, quiet, obscurely effeminate dad that I never had was stroking my hair as I drifted back into a pleasant slumber, having awoken to a terrible nightmare on a stormy night.

Grace and charisma, of course, have their limits of usefulness. Sweet sentiments and boundary-blurring reassurances which mesmerize us on stage may quickly sour when exposed to the harder, clearer light found just outside the convention center: Sure, talk to us about the integrity of the American Dream, with an allusion or two to the need for CHANGE. That "More Perfect Union" sounds pretty nice. And yes, of course we believe in the "Decency And Generosity Of The American People." And what would we do without "Hope In The Next Generation"? Sure, Mr. Obama, lead us onward in that "March For A More Just, More Equal, More Free, More Caring, More Prosperous America."

But let's not get too carried away. We shouldn't make the mistake of completely uprooting this speech from all context, forgetting its pretext and stimulus: the "incendiary" and "divisive" views of one Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Obama's former pastor), views that according to Barack "have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but [also to] denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike."

I took the liberty of reading up on the Reverend's views. Here's a nice summation, nabbed from (his Wikipedia entry):

"Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change... And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness... The government gives them drugs built bigger prisons, passes a three strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America. No, no, no, not God bless America, God damn America, that's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America, as long as she pretends to act like she is God, and she is supreme."

And here:


If only Reverend Wright was running for office...

I understand the political pressures that require Obama to be a mediator and an ameliorator, to please everyone and thus distance himself from any voices anchored in objectivity or prophetic witness. To many, Barack Obama may be the best available presidential issue-resolution package. But sophistication and even-handedness don't lend themselves to "change" and Wright is the only one coming out of this whole media spectacle with anything resembling audacity.

As long as "political realities" necessitate that any vestiges of an ideal must be softened up and bent into the time-tested mold of vain optimism in order to survive in our nation's capitol, it will be impossible for me to really get excited about Obama's candidacy. Vapid whispers of progress, sweet political nothings, the sickly thin veneer of state religion--is it cynicism to hope for something more?

Today on the way to work my daily bus-time reveries were interrupted by the gentleman sitting next to me, who quietly and somewhat sheepishly brought to my attention the fact that I bear an uncanny resemblance to Sylar, a character on the hit NBC television series Heroes.

It was the second time a complete stranger on public transportation has informed me of this fact and the fourth time in five days that someone I've been introduced to has mentioned the resemblance.

I don't watch the show but apparently Sylar is an arch-villain who controls people and things with his brain. I suppose this association creates an unfortunate social hurdle for me, or an advantage, depending on the situation.

See what you think:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D