reframe

Return to Waldzell

// August 28th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Leadership Development

After a year, I’ve returned to reading Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game. I’d put it down half-way through when I realised my mind was not focused enough on digesting and applying the deep lessons being so carefully laid out in his last and consummate work. On reflection, perhaps it was even more important that I continue. Nonetheless, it is a joy to return to it in these clearer and more fertile moments. A small extract that struck me last night;

“”Awakening,” it seemed was not so much concerned with truth and cognition, but with experiencing and proving oneself in the real world. When you had such an awakening, you did not penetrate any closer to the core of things, to truth; you grasped, accomplished, or endured only the attitude of your own ego to the momentary situation. You did not find laws, but came to decisions; you did not thrust your way into the center of the world, but into the center of your own individuality. That, too was why the experience of awakening was so difficult to convey, so curiously hard to formulate, so remote from statement. Language did not seem designed to make communications from this realm of life. If once in a great while, someone were able to understand, that person was in a similar position, was a fellow sufferer or undergoing a similar awakening.”

Last October I wrote of another favourite extract from the masterwork.

Neil Gaiman and the Nature of Free

// March 6th, 2008 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Series is the perfect introduction to anyone who thinks that “Graphic Novel” is a euphemism for “children’s comic“. Seventy-five issues, compiled into ten books, issued over seven years- it is the only comic to ever win the World Fantasy Award and the only comic book to be on the New York Times Bestseller List. Still Skeptical? The main characters are anthropomorphic manifestations of states of consciousness- Dream, Delirium, Despair, Desire, Destiny, Destruction and Death. Bam..

He has forged a plethora of work: comics, “real” books and film- becoming one of the UK’s top contemporary authors. See Mirrormask, part The Labyrinth, part The Never Ending Story, it’s the most wonderful children’s film I’ve seen in a good decade and graphically dark and absolutely gorgeous.

Whenever I move continent/nation-state/side of the canal all but two of my books get thrown into giant bags and pragmatically smashed around. The first exception is the collected work of the late Australian painter, Brett Whiteley, a master of the surreal and hyperreal. The second is a copy of Gaiman’s Endless Nights- written as a post-script to the Sandman series, although it can easily be read as a standalone piece. It is comprised of seven stories, each in a unique style and with a different artist, each expressing the essence of one character/mode of consciousness. The Fifteen Portraits of Despair are the most beautifully, gut-renchingly despondent piece I’ve ever read- definitely not for those with depression issues, unless they want to plumb the very base of there emotion. A tender taste.

She decides to make a list of the things that make her happy.
She writes ‘plum-blossom’ at the top of a piece of paper.
Then she stares at the paper, unable to think of anything else.

Eventually it begins to get dark.

I suggest you read Endless Nights first, however, for the hasty he has made the first book in the Sandman series available free here, to begin your fragile addiction. On his blog, he has a nice rant on the nature of free books, and offers a great deal more free audio, essays and short stories.

Comédie Noire

// September 22nd, 2006 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

A Softer World is a weekly webcomic/photoart expression by Canadians Joey Comeau and Emily Horne.

In my time in South Africa I remember a couple of conversations where I tried to explain the genre Black Humour. The challenge, in the racially sensitive environment, was to find a term without underlying racist connotation; black humour, ahh dark humour? Off-colour humour? Damned unconscious racist sentiment in the roots of our language…. Morbid Humour? That works. And by morbid humour- we’re talking about the Joseph Heller (Catch 22) and Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse 5) or perhaps South Park and the Daily Show- for those who prefer audio with their visual.

Some weeks ago I picked up a copy of Catch 22 from the second-hand bookstore below my place, where it had been beckoning me for a while. This is a book so damned good Heller got away with the following gangstaesque front-

“When I read something saying I’ve not done anything as good as Catch-22 I’m tempted to reply, ‘Who has?’”

The ten years since I had last read it only opened me further to the unique mixture of tragicomic delirium and piercing, humanistic truth. I remember it was also key to me realising that not all humour in the olden days (“pre 1986″) was based on slap-stick, cream pies and the twirling of a dandy’s moustache.

“You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You’re dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!” Chapter 27, pg. 309

“History did not demand Yossarian’s premature demise, justice could be satisfied without it, progress did not hinge upon it, victory did not depend on it. That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though, was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. But that was war.” Chapter 8, pg. 75

Synergies, a Salute and So on

// September 21st, 2005 // 3 Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

A few days ago an expat friend who lives in my building gave me a book that Tom left when he was in Alexandria a few months back. Actually the book was one I vividly remember seeing Tom locked upon, drinking intensely from the pages in a manner that is uniquely his. And so by the by this copy fell upon my way and I too have been so locked. The title reads “Slaughterhouse Five; or, The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod (and Smoking Too Much) Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire-Bombing of Dresden, Germany, the Florence of the Elbe, a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale: This Is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where The Flying Saucers Come From”. (1969)

Possibly the best subtitle given an English text and for a book so good that Joseph Heller, author of “Catch 22″, endorsed it as a damn fine absurdist/humanist war story. The Banned Book Project says it was “Banned by almost everyone at some point since its publication. Burned in Drake, N. Dak. (1973). Banned in Rochester Mich. because the novel “contains and makes references to religious matters” and thus fell within the ban of the establishment clause. Challenged at the Owensboro, Ky. high School library (1985) because of “foul language, a reference to ‘Magic Fingers’ attached to the protagonist’s bed to help him sleep, and the sentence: ‘The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty.’ ” Challenged, but retained on the Round Rock, Tex. Independent High School reading list (1996) after a challenge that the book was too violent.”

It’s beautiful and illustrative and absurd and too real and is told to the reader like some confidante, drunken uncle who knows you understand his kind of crazy. I shall not parade samples of his genius and ruin the meal – if you like wonderful things, and you do, read this book. But I digress. Whilst reading this felicitous copy I switched to a cultural landmark of our times, John Stewart’s “Daily Show”, and surprisingly John was interviewing this same Vonnegut, now at age 82. He looked like the confidante uncle would at his age and luckily for us his kind of crazy still had the ring of laughter, truth and vinegar to it. So synergies and salutes to this great man, who by the by falls in league with both Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell as World Federalists- ie those who advocate a democratic federal world government. Please tell these fathers of modern physics and western philosophy that they were not “in touch with reality”.

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why”. – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5

A fleeting victory

// May 10th, 2005 // 1 Comment » // World Issues

Across Europe governments are leading celebrations for the 60-year anniversary of Victory in Europe. They remember the victory over the Nazi’s and the millions who lie in the ground because of the struggle. I fear that in this remembrance we look back, not forward, we remember who died, not how can we ensure that our children will not pay the same price. We recall a victory over oppression as if it that war had really ended- we forget it was just a critical battle against the ongoing enemy- a darkness of corruption and hate whose elements reside in all human society. In 1926 in Weimar Germany an author Herman Hesse captured the essence of this misguided focus in part of his genius fiction “Steppenwolf”- the cruel unfolding of history has proved it’s worth.

“Now and again I have expressed the opinion that every nation, and even every person, would do better, instead of rocking himself to sleep with political catchwords about war guilt, to ask himself how far his own faults and negligences and evil tendencies are guilty of the war and all the other wrongs of the world, and that therein lies the only possible means of avoiding the next war. They don’t forgive me that, for, of course, they are themselves all guiltless, the Kaiser, the generals, the trade magnates, the politicians, the papers. Not one of them has the least thing to blame himself for. Not one has any guilt. One might believe that everything was for the best, even though a few million men lie under the ground. And mind you, Hermine, even though such abusive articles cannot annoy me any longer, they often sadden me all the same. Two-thirds of my countrymen read this kind of newspaper, read things written in this tone every morning and every night, are every day worked up and admonished and incited, and robbed of their peace of mind and better feelings by them, and the end and aim of it all is to have the war over again, the next war that draws nearer and nearer, and it will be a good deal more horrible than the last. All that is perfectly clear and simple. Anyone could comprehend it and reach the same conclusion after a moment’s reflection. But nobody wants to. Nobody wants to avoid the next war, nobody wants to spare himself and his children the next holocaust if this be the cost. To reflect for one moment, to examine himself for a while and ask what share he has in the world’s confusion and wickedness–look you, nobody wants to do that. And so there’s no stopping it, and the next war is being pushed on with enthusiasm by thousands upon thousands day by day. It has paralyzed me since I knew it, and brought me to despair. I have no country and no ideals left. All that comes to nothing but decorations for the gentlemen by whom the next slaughter is ushered in.” – Hesse, 1926

il nuovo papa

// April 20th, 2005 // No Comments » // Travel

Several months ago I faced the bottom of several empty beer glasses and the fallen hopes of Manhattan on the election of the neo-conservative President. Yesterday in Italy we did away with such new fangle inventions and fell back on plain conservative. A new Pope is in town and may all liberal media be proven wrong. May he strive to bridge the gulf between religions and humankind. May he seek to raise common values and fundamental rights for all. May he help return quest for the spirit to western society beyond it’s religious institution and may he fuel faith in other societies through knowledge and discovery rather than ritual and rhetoric. Big demands I know, but the resume says he was selected by God and is infallible, so it shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Am back in beautiful Rotterdam and reading “Steppenwolf”by Herman Hesse. A year ago I read Siddhartha, a work that became more than a parallel to my journey- it formed a critical and definitive event. This speaker of the soul has once again unfolded a story that I now find written on the walls of some cavern deep within me. Here’s an excerpt that trapped me entirely.

“Humor alone, that magnificent discovery of those who are cut short in their calling to highest endeavor, those who falling short of tragedy are yet as rich in gifts as in affliction, humor alone (perhaps the most inborn and brilliant achievement of the spirit) attains to the impossible and brings every aspect of human existence within the rays of its prism. To live in the world as though it were not the world, to respect the law and yet to stand above it, to have possessions as though “one possessed nothing,” to renounce as though it were no renunciation, all these favorite and often formulated propositions of an exalted worldly wisdom, it is in the power of humor alone to make efficacious.”

Tomorrow I will blog on my Misr experience.

Hunter’s Wave

// March 4th, 2005 // No Comments » // World Issues

Writing the previous post reminded me of a singular piece by one of the greatest modern livers of life, a man who captured the essence of the living/commenting whole, until he recently and abruptly ceased doing so, Hunter S Thompson.

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era – -the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle – -that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting – -on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – -the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.