Cessation's Farce

A cloud was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather,
Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together.--G.K. Chesterton


I did not read Christopher Hitchens' last review of Chesterton in the Atlantic, but I did read Bennet's editorial note on kindle about the processes involved in editing a polemicist who was literally breathing his last on a hospital mattress, and I had to wonder if in the modern sense of the word, terminal conditions have become a consequential folly, a paradox that the Menippean G.K. himself might have appreciated. Ebert also engaged in a form of self delusion. His optimism could not bargain with death any more than anguish does not hasten it, unless the anguished utilize accouterments; the will to die must have to be very great indeed, and the bargaining with the limits of our biology is nothing new. On his deathbed Henry James bestirred himself to consider Napoleon's delusions of grandeur (again, oddly not uncommon among homosexuals) and it is asserted that Proust revised his lost time to his last breath; J Edgar Hoover, I believe, died in office at a near miraculous time of history. Hollywood would have us believe that Charlton Heston revived Rex Harrison from his deathbed.

Is it necessarily a good thing that Westerners refuse to yield to the inevitable? Cripples face the constant threat of annihilation, and the more astute are circumspect about ontology, but not Caucasians with contemporary bourgeoisie sensibilities. I do not mean to suggest that people past 50 should not fight disease and attempt to remain relevant, only that eradicating death as a ritualized transition, giving way to a sterile clinical environment where our cadavers are rolled to the morgue, seems too much of a trade off to banality. This is more than the residue of religious nostalgia. Death needs to be respected as part of the natural process of a living ecosystem.

Whan That Aprill

I've been trying to sit still for the last three hours, since I boiled up breakfast and glided my view over a hale Warren Beatty and a still comic Stockard Channing in The Fortune (1975), and though I could make a few preliminary observations, all I will note is Warren's telling love of the jazz age. He must have heard tales as a young fellow, and I heard more than a few on my bad Catholic side of the family. I also respect Channing a great deal. [Self-editing note: For now, I am not returning to mass, and think what you like, but this is not about the legend of the Christ. Jesus can go fuck himself, and I am more than likely not cursing a historical figure, let alone a dual-equal human-god, which is apparently the primary concern of every Christian sect. What I am struggling with is the need for social cohesion, but I cannot be self-fraudulent. I can lie out of respect for my grandmother, but not for the sake of looking for a good white Catholic male of the right age, not yet. I am not as hard as Hitchens, who I emailed not so long ago before he died, and I cannot say he read what I wrote but think that he did, or was informed, given his subsequent article; I am not sure why he pissed me off too, because I certainly cannot say Hitch was stupid in the way that Daniel Schneider is a thick skulled dumb ass, but maybe Hitchens upsets me for exactly this, that most of us are softer, even with atheism. I cannot return to my parish under a lie, however. It repulses me even though I mourn the Vatican.]
Allow me to ensure today that my sister will never speak to me again, for in my odious want of tact, her abortions messed up her life, in those early years, as much as her inability to control her pregnancies later had the same impact. This does not mean that I want Roe v. Wade overturned. I am talking about her narcissism and lack of personal responsibility. When one of my girls terminated later, that was different, precisely because she was black, already had one baby, and did not have the supports that Stephanie, by contrast, would have had available. The first major rift between Stephanie and myself was over her first abortion; she leapt on top of me, throttling me, screaming "Shut up!" It is in my bad autobiographical story. I took her and future white trash husband in, and there we were, killing each other. Painfully funny, maybe, but progressive rights, in the abstract, are not always what they seem.

I am angry enough at my sister that I would give spammer predators her personal information, but it is not an effective backlash tactic.

I cannot hunt down that source today, as my nerves are an odious jangle, even though I had the presence of mind to buy hard peppermint candy, to help me sally. I could swear that I had a beautiful Middle English edition of The Canterbury Tales . But if I did, it is buried somewhere.