And Then There's Rilke

Torso of an Archaic Apollo


Translated by C. F. MacIntyre


Never will we know his fabulous head
where the eyes' apples slowly ripened. Yet
his torso glows: a candelabrum set
before his gaze which is pushed back and hid,

restrained and shining. Else the curving breast
could not thus blind you, nor through the soft turn
of the loins could this smile easily have passed
into the bright groins where the genitals burned.

Else stood this stone a fragment and defaced,
with lucent body from the shoulders falling,
too short, not gleaming like a lion's fell;

nor would this star have shaken the shackles off,
bursting with light, until there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

From Rilke: Selected Poems (Univ. of California Press, 1957)

Ursula K. Leguin, speaking of this poem, observed:

True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible
source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical
inquiry and artistic renewal. The real myth is not destroyed by
reason. The fake one is. You look at it and it vanishes. You
look at the Blond Hero - really look - and he turns into a
gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you.

The poet Rilke looked at a statue of Apollo about fifty years
ago, and Apollo spoke to him. 'You must change your life,' he said.

When the genuine myth rises into consciousness, that is always
its message. You must change your life.

(from "Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction", 1976; reprinted in
The Language of the Night, 1989)

And Now That We're On the E-Train

There's this gem from the late 1980's. Be sure to turn it up very loud.

Peace, Love and Understanding

Always loved this one...

This is the Season of What Now

I saw Bob Weir and Rat Dog play a stellar show in Raleigh on Sunday night. Weir's fellow musicians (Young Turks all) seem to have morphed from a back-up band to a highly accomplished ensemble of improvisational players, playing with Bobby instead of behind him. The opening set was fairly workman-like--a little over an hour in length to limber up. The first song out of the box, however, was the Hunter/Garcia tune "Here comes Sunshine"--reminding all assembled of the sheer joy that lay at the heart of much of the Grateful Dead experience. After a 45 minute break, the band returned to the stage to play for another couple of hours--jamming for much of the time in Dead-like fashion. It was an inspiring performance. But what was perhaps most inspiring of all was the way that it ended--with the Dead's "The Eleven":

No more time to tell how
This is the season of what now
Now is the time of returning
Our thought jewels polished and gleaming

Now is the time past believing
The child has relinquished the reign
Now is the test of the boomerang
Tossed in the night of redeeming

Eight sided whispering hallelujah hatrack
Seven faced marble eye transitory dream doll
Six proud walkers on the jinglebell rainbow
Five men writing with fingers of gold
Four men tracking down the great white sperm whale
Three girls waiting in a foreign dominion
Ride away in whale belly, fade away in moonlight
Sink beneath the water to the coral sand below
Coral sand below
Coral sand below

No more time to tell how
This is the season of what now
This is the season of what now
This is the season of what now
What now...

No more time to tell how
This is the season of what now...
What now...

The 60 year-old Weir fairly shouted the final refrains as a challenge to whomever had ears to hear: this is the season of what now!

And for those who still weren't sure what had hit them, Bob returned to the stage to encore with the Rev. Gary Davis classic "Samson and Delilah":

If I had my way in this wicked world/I would tear this building down!

Yes, the criminal plutocracy has our democracy against the ropes, but this, my friends, is the season of what now, what now...

We must thank Mr. Weir for his years of Deadication by moving forward with the Whitmanian Republic. All of our politicians are irrelevant--even the one or two decent ones. All they can accomplish is self-service and disaster. But this is the season of what now.

What now...

War costs could total $1.6 trillion by 2009, panel estimates

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The total economic impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is estimated at $1.6 trillion by 2009, a congressional committee said in a report released Tuesday.

That is nearly double the $804 billion in direct war costs the White House requested so far from Congress, the Democratic-led Joint Economic Committee said.

The committee estimated $1.3 trillion in war costs by the end of 2008 for Iraq, and the remainder for Afghanistan.

The total war costs could grow to $3.5 trillion by 2017, the committee estimated.

The higher total economic impact comes from, among other things, the cost of borrowing money to pay for the war, lost productivity, higher oil prices and the cost of health care for veterans, the committee said.

The committee calculated the average cost of both wars for a family of four would be $20,900 from 2002 to 2008. The cost for a family of four would go up to $46,400 from 2002 to 2017, the committee said.

The estimate was released as Democrats launch a new effort to force a withdrawal from the widely unpopular conflict. Senate Republicans dismissed the report as a political document, arguing that Democrats have "hyped" the war's impact on oil prices.

"For every dollar we spend directly in Iraq, we're going to pay another dollar for the indirect, but immediate, costs of the war," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said. "We of the baby boom generation and our children and grandchildren will be paying for this war for a very long time to come."

"We cannot afford this war -- $12 billion dollars a month?" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said. "We just can't. We can't continue."

Schumer said finances will become a significant factor in the ongoing debate regarding the course of the conflicts.

"The cost of the war is becoming the $800 billion gorilla in the room when it comes to opposition in the war," he said. "It is becoming the first thing that people mention after the loss of life when they're opposed to this war."

"And the people who mention it, many of them, are not people who were against the war in the past," Schumer added.

Office of Budget and Management Director Jim Nussle dismissed the report, saying "the Congressional leadership is attempting to manipulate economic data for public relations purposes."

"There are several ... distortions within the report, such as attempting to tie war costs to overall business investment and the price of oil."

Republicans, who said they were not included in the preparation of the report, also said the country has little choice but continue to bear the costs of the war.

"We have been protected from attack here at home," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky said. "There's progress that is obviously being made in Iraq."

"We need to finish the job, and finish the job is to leave Iraq in a condition that it can defend itself and be an ally in the war on terror," he said.

"What's their alternative?" Don Stewart, a McConnell spokesman, asked of the Democrats. "Should we not fund veterans? Should we not send MRAPs [armored personal carriers] to Iraq? Not fund the GI Bill?

"And how much will oil cost if the progress in Iraq is reversed and al Qaeda shuts down the oil deliveries? What will that do to the markets?" Stewart asked.

Stewart called the report "a Democrat report, prepared by the head of the Democrat campaign committee" -- a reference to Schumer, the head of the party's effort to add Senate seats in 2008.