On Reason

Me, Jordan Williams and Micheline at the Haymarket in 2005.

Regular readers know that while I strive to be a very spiritual person, I've never really seen any human religion that any self-respecting deity would have anything to do with. While going through some ancient emails recently, I came across this interesting message from my friend Jordan Williams, referring to a piece I wrote about the dangers posed by those who replace reason with unproven religious dogma. Unfortunately, no complete version of my original essay is known to exist, although there is a long quote from it included in Williams' email. It also features a fascinating first hand account of a rock concert riot in downtown Springfield.

From: William, Jordan R jrwilli3@bechtel.com
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 10:11 PM

Hi Tom,

I must say I'm impressed by some of the great thoughts expressed in your most recent essay. As you so often do, you wrote about a difficult topic with great clarity. I especially appreciated the following passages:

"Anyone who abandons reason, whether it's the local Sunday school teacher or Osama Bin Ladin, is potentially dangerous. Bin Ladin is more aggressively dangerous because he has made his irrational religious beliefs central to his entire world view, while the Sunday school teacher is likely to be more harmless because she has compartmentalized her faith into a small activity.

"But history has shown that even a harmless Sunday school teacher can be transformed into an agent of evil quite quickly under the right circumstances. Observe any religious war or persecution you can think of and you can see that even the mildly religious can be inspired to engage in a whole host of bigoted, science defying and humanity crippling behavior when threatened in the right way or under the thrall of an evil religious leader. Once someone has abandoned reason and their own senses as their standard of judging reality, anything becomes possible, with the emphasis on those possibilities that are the most destructive.

"The wisest people try to accept the mysteries of creation without trying to make up or latch onto other people's explanations that are unprovable, no matter how uncomfortable those uncertainties may make us feel at times. It is often hard to accept things like death, our own and the death of those closest to us, without the comfort of imagining that we are somehow immortal, even though no evidence in the natural world supports that belief.

"It is hard to see terrible catastrophes and senseless tragedy, to see good people suffer and bad ones prosper, and accept that there is no one judging what is happening (except we humans) and that no cosmic justice rights such wrongs (that is our responsibility.)

"It is difficult to stand before the awesome majesty of the universe and confront the eternal questions, "What is it and what makes it go?" and to have the courage and the honesty to reply, "I don't know." In the meantime, I may not know what life is all about, but I'm gonna sure love living until I find out."

You are so right. You call to mind what people like Hitler and Mao and Stalin could accomplish when they controlled the major inputs to thought - and especially when they institutionalize such thought at a formative age. It is when reason is abandoned and the focus is on faith that Rwanda style slaughters become possible. Mass violence can be very exciting, as I learned once when I got caught up in a mob of concert goers in downtown Springfield.

 



It was around 1978 at a Jethro Tull concert at the Springfield Civic Center when several dozen of us guys, drunk and stoned, somehow mobbed up. I can't even tell you exactly what started it. I was not one of the ringleaders, but I have to admit that I was encouraging, even hoping for, more mayhem. We went rampaging through downtown, lighting fires, damaging cars and throwing bottles. It was VERY exciting! In all it probably lasted about 15 minutes, but it seemed much longer in our excited frenzy. I shudder to think of the carnage we would have been capable of as a group had it not been for the arrival of a baton swinging contingent of Springfield's finest. Once a few of us got hit by those nightsticks, we quickly reverted back to the generally well-behaved middle-class kids we were before the meelee broke out.

What's scary is that I honestly don't know who that person was, with my face and my name, in that mob. Thinking about it retrospectively, I'm frightened to think what it is like when evangelical fervor and/or racial/ethnic hatred is added to the mix. It isn't hard for me to imagine how mass murder could've seemed like great fun for we crazed youths.

Later,

-Jordan

P.S. I leave for Paris on Friday with "my aristocratic whore" Micheline (she likes the title) to watch the French Open, visit Versailles and stuff. We are also taking the TGV train (over 200 mph) to Brussels which should be a kick. I'll send a few pics when I return.

 

From Today's Wall Street Journal

 


"After a nearly century-long struggle we are on the cusp of making health-care reform a reality in the United States of America," Mr. Obama said on Saturday. He's forced to claim the mandate of "history" because he can't claim the mandate of voters. Some 51% of the public is now opposed, according to National Journal's composite of all health polling. The more people know about ObamaCare, the more unpopular it becomes....

Never in our memory has so unpopular a bill been on the verge of passing Congress, never has social and economic legislation of this magnitude been forced through on a purely partisan vote, and never has a party exhibited more sheer political willfulness that is reckless even for Washington, or had more warning about the consequences of its actions. 

 

Paolo's World

 



We didn't get much snow here in the Valley this weekend, but in New York City it got so blizzardy that the people of New York City reacted with a big old fashioned snowball fight! Northampton to New York transplant Paolo Mastrangelo describes the scene in pictures and video on his blog.

Check out the action here.

XMass Stuff

Former Valley newsman Jim Polito seems to taking his Santa shtick a bit over the top.

 



Radio dude Monte Belmonte's Christmas video features cute kids and a touch of psychedelia. 

Baskin's Bad Art

 

Leonard Baskin

One of the best known artists to live and work in the Pioneer Valley was the late Leonard Baskin (1922-2000). Personally I was never a fan. Here's a sculpture of an owl that is standing on the campus of Smith College in Northampton. Only Baskin could take a majestic bird like an owl and make it look squat, unbalanced and awkward. Owls also give the impression of wisdom, which is why they are often used as symbols of education, but Baskin manages to make his have an expression of blank stupidity. 

I first became aware of Baskin's work back when I was living in Northampton in the late 1970's and renting space in this great big house whose owner (a professor at Smith) was on a long tour of Asia. It was as beautiful a home as I’ve ever lived in, but its otherwise elegant reading room was almost ruined by having one of Baskin’s hideous drawings hanging on the wall. 

At the time I moved in I had never heard of Leonard Baskin before, and assumed he must be some acquaintance of the owners and that they must have hung the painting in order to humor a talentless friend. I couldn’t believe it when I later discovered that he was considered one of America’s foremost artists, and was even asked to make a contribution to the national monument to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington DC. Typically, his contribution is depressing.

Baskin is probably best known for his sculptures, but they are really just three-dimensional versions of his horrible drawings. Dark, ugly, hulking things, they are the kind of sculptures that frighten small children and cause dogs to bark. There are several to be seen on display in Northampton’s otherwise excellent Michelson’s Gallery, and it is a tribute to the other items on display in that establishment that they continue to draw customers despite having Baskin sculptures on prominent display.

The main flaw in Baskin's work is that an artist can't be considered great who cannot make something beautiful. By beautiful I mean inspiring, as in uplifting. The proper role of an artist in society is to put before the public objects whose beauty inspires the viewer to appreciate and understand what is the best that is possible, to visualize and present the ideal.

That is why the artist has traditionally had such a revered position in society. In a world where the perfect and the best are rarities, the greatest artists present us with their vision of the ideal. It is not the role of the artist to show us the world “as it really is." That is the role of the journalist. It is not the role of the artist to relieve their inner turmoil. That is the role of the psychiatrist. It is not the role of the artist to comment on the ills of society. That is the role of the sociologist, the politician and the propagandist.

The proper role of a great artist is to ask one question, “What is the most beautiful and most inspiring art I can create expressing the greatness of human race and our highest ideals?" The value of an artist in a healthy society is determined by how well their art answers that question. Therefore it is a sad reflection on the state of our society that Leonard Baskin was considered a great artist.

By the standard of art as an expression of mankind's best and highest ideals, Baskin was practically an anti-artist. His repellent drawings with their terrified, screaming faces and deformed bodies, his grotesque, menacing sculptures and all around complete negativity makes it impossible to consider him a first rate, or even a third rate artist. 

Leonard Baskin's career was one of many aberrations from a dark period in our cultural history, when we have forgotten what art is and what it should be, when we lost our way so badly that in our confusion we praised sick souls like Baskin. Our consolation is that his art will not endure. In better days we will remember to forget that we once praised him.

God's Presence



Every year since 1972 there's been a freak festival out west called the Rainbow Gathering. Last Saturday on the 4th of July they got their ultimate wish - a double rainbow! Dig this awesome video: 

 

Yoker Done Good

Northampton internet innovator Paolo Mastrangelo, now a video editor in New York City, alerts me that the fast rising comedian T.J. Jagodowski has local roots:

I am unwed, but I live with my brother in Chicago. The rest of my family is back in Massachusetts—in Holyoke, Mass. So they'll come visit. They'll take the train down and see the shows in New York usually. My mom literally loads up a van of 40 to 50 people—they'll load up a bus. My dad will cook up a bunch of snacks and they'll drive in during the day, all go out to eat in Little Italy, see the show and then go home. So these people ranging in age from 19 to 82 get back home at 4 in the morning and then drive home from the Holyoke Mall parking lot. They rally."

 

Give it Away

Food Not Bombs passing out food on the Amherst Common. 

Today's Video

Front porch music. 

 

Busy Me

Around Hamp

Couldn't find time to blog the last couple days, but as always the camera was clicking. I started my day today at Northampton's City Hall buying a PVTA bus pass for this month.

Frankly, I'm getting to the point of considering throwing enough money at the registry to get my license back, which was lost in my drunken past. Next I went to the Haymarket, which was surprisingly quiet.

I see from these posters in the window of Dynamite Records that Eminem has a new album out called Relapse. I haven't heard it, but the reviews have been less than glowing. 

Generally the public loses interest when an artist starts singing about their time in detox. Most people can't relate to such an experience.

I like this psychedelic car I came upon in front of the nail parlor next to the Cumberland's on King Street. 

My neighbor took this old bike and made the baskets into planters to make a unique lawn ornament.

This picture taken about two years ago shows my roommate Bert walking along the abandoned railway in Hamp near the skateboard park.

 



For the first time in ages I went that way and saw that it has been nicely paved into a bike path.

On the old stone railway wall was stenciled these Rubik Cubes.

Peeking around a Market Street corner.

Remember that mysterious dog cut-out that was in front of the Academy of Music?

It turns out to have been an ad for a production of Snoopy the Musical. I happened to be waiting for the bus just as they were delivering Snoopy's doghouse via the stage door. 

This poster in the window of the Hamp porn shop suggests a summer love.

 



May it be so.

 

Former Hamp Characters

Lord Russ is injured at home.



 

Valley sex symbol Paolo Mastrangelo was recently listed as among those whose tweets are followed by the staff of The New York Times, rated right between Nicole Richie and Newt Gingrich. Wow, what Paolo says is more influential than the former Speaker of the House? There is also a Paolo Popsicle hitting the market.

A good licker and an all day sucker.

 

Today's Video

Oh what can it mean?

Dylan and the Dead

A fruitful collaboration.

While killing time waiting to meet with my addiction councilor the other day, who should come up to me than the popular Springfield Republican columnist Tom Shea!

What did we talk about? We talked about writing, as well as politics, but you just can't talk very long to Tom Shea without the subject turning to music. He was full of praise for the Grateful Dead, especially for the important role he felt they played in the revitalization of the career of Bob Dylan. Shea is a huge Dylan fan.

Many observers were surprised when Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead teamed up for some major tours together in the 1980's. While they both came up pretty much at the same time in the mid-60's, Dylan and the Dead were not true musical contemporaries. The Dead were all about psychedelia, and Dylan never really had a psychedelic period. He did some crazy word-play that was very much in tune with acid consciousness, but musically Dylan never sounded trippy, which made the Dead seem an odd choice for Dylan to use as his band.

But as Dylan has recounted in his autobiography and elsewhere, his bond with the Dead was more personal and inspirational than musical. He formed a close personal friendship with Jerry Garcia, but more importantly the Dead helped Dylan overcome the fact that he was pretty much burnt out artistically at that point in his career. 

Years of personal trauma and drug use had left Dylan alienated from his own muse, unable to put himself in the mindset to perform his own songs with any passion. Working with the Dead, who were great admirers of Dylan and whose free form improvisational style gave Dylan the freedom to do musically anything he wanted, enabled Dylan to revive his spirit and make a major creative comeback.

When Garcia died in 1995, Dylan paid Garcia the highest public complement he ever made to another musician. He said that Garcia had "understood what it was like to be me" and coming from one of the 20th century's most mysterious figures, that was very high praise indeed.

Here's a ticket stub I saved from when I saw Dylan and the Dead. 

One thing Tom Shea asked me about was whether I saw anyone on the scene in Springfield who could be considered as someone who might transform Springfield for the better in a big way. I was saddened to realize I could not. I suppose a Tim Rooke mayoralty would be a good thing, but I'm not sure I consider Rooke (below) truly a transformational figure. 

Maybe that special someone who will bring back the glory that was once Springfield is a person not yet known, but who will rise from the streets to inspire us all. If so, I hope they will make their presence known soon.

For decades this tower atop one of the buildings from the former state hospital complex in Northampton looked down upon the city from Hospital Hill. 

The other morning I passed where they have just completed tearing that building down, and found the tower lying on the ground in the morning mist.

 



These cuffs in the window of the Hampshire County Courthouse make it clear that not all who enter that building do so voluntarily. 

Northampton is a very queer friendly community and some households want to make that very clear. 

We're Still Standing

Film versus reality.

Here's something from the archives, an essay I wrote seven years ago on the occasion of the arrival of the year 2001:

There should be nothing surprising about the fact that the 1968 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" seems to keep popping up on television, somewhere on some channel, at least once a week. I mean, if this, the year 2001 is not the year to overplay it, then what is?

It would be much easier to take, however, if the movie weren't such a damn bore. Let's be honest, there is nowhere near sufficient plot to the story to justify a full-length feature. A half-hour episode of the Twilight Zone would have sufficed. The movie's sole saving grace is the cosmic beauty of the special effects, which are no doubt best viewed under the influence of pot or LSD, and were probably purposely intended to be seen in an altered state (this is, after all, a 60's movie).

Stoner sensibilities alone could've justified the stupefyingly slow pace of the film, the banal dialogue and the famously unsatisfying conclusion, which aims to be mysterious but ends up merely annoying. "I sat through all that crap for a ending I can't even understand?" is a pretty common reaction. I like the response of one witty person who told a reporter who asked him upon leaving the theatre what he thought the mysterious monolith was and replied, "A giant chunk of hashish."

Yet there is at least one perspective to viewing the film that still holds some interest. That is to marvel at how the people of the 1960's imagined we would be living today. In some respects they gave us way too much credit. For example, the film imagines that in 2001 space travel would be as commonplace as airplane flights. Actually, we just this year had our first paying passenger in space, and at $20 million dollars a ticket, I don't expect to see many more anytime soon.

But at least we have better fashion sense than the 60's predicted. The makers of 2001 foresaw us walking around in these tight leotard type things all the time. It isn't hard to figure out why such attire never evolved into a fashion trend in real life. To wear skin-tight leotards and not look ridiculous you've got to be in near perfect shape, and while it may be 2001, flab has not been eliminated. They also showed us using telephones where you can see the person you're talking to. I've heard the arrival of such an invention heralded my entire life, and even seen pictures of prototypes, but never have I actually encountered one in anyone's home.

So I guess in some respects we never really lived up to what the 60's thought we would be, but then maybe they just weren't looking ahead to the right things. In the 1960's we were in the midst of the Cold War, with nuclear annihilation at any moment a distinct possibility. It is no small matter that we made it to 2001 without anything like that occurring. Of course aside from that singular accomplishment, much of the 20th century was a non-stop horror show of stupidity, cruelty and folly, with every mistake imaginable being made and with most of them being made more than once.

Just the same, here we are, a year past the end of the century, and frankly things are really not half bad. Yes, the Middle East is a hotbed of violence, Africa is a nightmare of poverty and AIDS while China, representing a quarter of humanity, suffers under socialist oppression. But for most of us human beings floating along on our funky spaceship Earth, things have really never been better. Never have so many, had so much, for doing so little. Never have we had so many toys. Never have we had so much to eat, so much so that today more people are dying from the complications of being overweight than from starvation.

No, 2001 didn't turn out to be the space odyssey the flower power generation expected of us, but it has been an odyssey just the same. A little grittier, a little less glamorous and a lot more down to earth than hoped for, but it IS 2001, and we ARE still here, and continuing to move forward in our awkward, stumbling way. On the whole, it looks like everything might turn out alright, and for that the 60's could be proud of us, and certainly we should be proud of ourselves.

 

I have an article in the Valley Advocate this week.

 



To read what I wrote click here.

I see that now that the students are gone they're doing some sidewalk work on the UMass campus.

 



In a victory for walkers, the University has been putting in sidewalks where people actually walk instead of using the inconvenient roundabout walkways currently in existence, which result in these unsightly paths all over campus.

It's a concept whose time has come - put the sidewalks where the people actually want to walk!

Blogger extraordinaire and Northampton sex symbol Paolo Mastrangelo has gotten a place in New York City! I'm gonna miss him, but I love seeing people's dreams come true! This song's for you, kid.

 

UMass Student Capitalism

Taking care of business.

Dig the intensity of Paolo.

This sign on a fence in Hadley urges people to visit a local Maple sugar shack.



The days have been warm and the nights have been cold, perfect weather for getting the sap to run, resulting in a bountiful crop with lots of the sugary goo available at reasonable prices.

Today was a nice warm day. I spent some time sitting with a friend from the Survival Center at the UMass Minuteman statue, where my buddy took my picture. 

Later we wandered over to the Student Business Fair. 

The campus socialists are slipping, there were no protesters. Instead various student-run businesses peacefully promoted their products. 

One of the most successful businesses on campus is run by the Bike Co-op, which repairs and customizes bicycles and skateboards. They do excellent work. 

I sampled some homemade ice cream. It was delicious!

Good to see these students taking care of business!