December 20, 2010

Bright moon setting far to the north. Did my Saint Nicholas gig at church yesterday, the time I think I have enjoyed it most. People remember me for doing this far more than I remember doing it–which is only when Thomas asks me to at the opening of Advent. They shout “Saint Nicholas!” across the street to me, and I have to stop and think what they mean. A little girl in one of the houses I looked at was beaming at me the whole time, and her father said, “She is proud to have Saint Nicholas in her house.” I bought balsa airplanes and balloons for the kids. This seemed to have the same temporary effect as very expensive gifts.

Putting up DJ’s Christmas tree. The stand would not unfold, and he handed it to me. I said, “I’m not really very mechanical.” He said, “You always seem to have your way.”

Haven’t been following the issue closely, but L seems to have written something in a Mountain Xpress review which provoked people to cry politics. Some of the same people defending her attacked me on the very same principle for my blog, and attacked SS for daring to give The Beautiful Johanna the review it deserved. Politics called for a hatchet job, and because he didn’t succumb, it was assumed he was indebted to me in some way. The most cravenly political are the first to cry politics. Now that L is tied to the Magnetic Field, dishonest people will assume dishonesty. Any review not glowing will be read by the offended party as meant to profit herself and the venue in some way. L bravely defends herself. I was so shocked that I laid low. Her defenders are vocal. I assumed I had none. But perhaps I’m being too careful on L’s account and mine. The sort of people who respond anonymously to reviews in the papers usually do not have an actual point of view, but merely vehemence of reaction. Maybe more people understand this than we realize.

Dream last night that I had insulted a judge or a magistrate or someone and was sentenced to a week in jail. Everyone shrugged and said “it’s only a week,” but I was devastated, and vowed to fast until the week was over. I think I’d watched too many episodes of CSI before bedtime. Curious thought about that: I adore the people on all the versions of CSI, which I watch whenever I can– yet viewed from the point of view of the public they’re supposed to serve, they’re arrogant, reckless, self gratifying assholes. Katherine in Los Vegas is a Nazified bitch, just as happy to destroy reputations as find the truth. Most of them are mightily pleased with themselves and smirkingly amused by their own abuses of power. When I’m in the fictional moment, I think it’s amusing too. When I put myself in the place of the public, I think they’re vaguely horrific; I feel that one must think twice to decide whether the protection they provide is worth the abuse they dole out. The more true to life this is, the more disturbing.

I know the solutions to two major problems of contemporary American society. The economy: legalize marijuana and tax it. This has the added benefit of getting a quarter million harmless people out of jail. Law Enforcement: change from the American paradigm of putting bad guys into jail to the Irish paradigm of keeping the peace. In a glimmer goes the whole brutal, wastefully expensive, asinine conception of law as a cock fight between prosecutors and defenders, wherein the truth is, by and large, irrelevant. The only argument against that is that people who get rich off the suffering of others would lose access to the sources of their wealth.

Incipient blossoms on the witch hazel.