The centerpiece of the presidents entire reelection campaign is attacking success.
--- Mitt Romney
Friday, August 31, 2012
It was a little after dawn on the twenty-first of March 1981 when Randall Pritchard torqued his Triumph Bonneville off the 101 interchange southeast of Silverlake. The seventeen-year-old girl behind him gave a terrified howl as she flew off the back of the motorcycle, cartwheeled twice, and slammed facedown on the pavement, breaking both wrists and four front teeth and going mercifully unconscious. Randall never made a sound. He simply followed the bike's trajectory, over the railing toward the sunrise, his long hair shining in the pink-gold glow and his arms outstretched to meet the rusty spokes of the construction barrier at the base of the concrete pilings. A skinny, pockmarked teenager from Inglewood was crouched nearby, rummaging through a stolen backpack. He saw Randall hit the barrier, the dust and rock that rose in a cloud, the blood that soaked Randall's blue cotton shirt.
"'Delia,'" the boy told reporters later. "The man just whispered 'Delia' and died."
Delia Byrd had been up for an hour, walking back and forth in the tiny garden behind the house in Venice Beach, thinking about the local convenience store, where the liquor was overpriced but accessible twenty-four hours a day. Eyes on the sunrise, fists curled up to her midriff, she was singing to herself, stringing one lyric to another, pulling choruses from songs she had not sung onstage in five years and segueing into garbled versions of rock and roll and folk. She told her friend Rosemary that there was real magic in some of those old melodies, especially the lesser successes of groups like Peter, Paul and Mary and the Kingston Trio. Rosemary laughed at the notion of a mantra in the mundane, but Delia found that after a few dozen repetitions of "The MTA" she could unfocus her eyes and laugh at the desire to drink.
"Oh, he never returned," Delia was singing softly as Randall's head dropped forward and the dark blood gushed one last time. She stopped then. Something may have passed her in the cool morning air, but Delia did not feel it. Focused on the muscles in her neck and upper back, the ones that ached all the time, she wrapped her arms around herself, gripped her shoulders so tightly she started to shake with the effort, and then let go abruptly. The release was luxurious and welcome. A little of the weight lifted, the weight of more than two solid years of trying not to do what she still wanted desperately to do, to sip whiskey until the world turned golden and quiet and safe, until Dede and Amanda Louise, the daughters she had left behind, ceased whispering and whimpering from behind her left ear. She hadn't had a drink since November, and the strain showed.
I'm tired, Delia thought the moment Randall died. A garbage truck rumbled up the narrow alley behind the cottage. A shabby gray cat jumped the fence with a yowl. Delia's neck pulled tight again as a shaft of sunlight cut through the tattered palm fronds by the fence. "I want to go home," she said out loud, and the two girls in her memory lifted their shadowy heads and turned hot eyes in her direction.
Behind Delia, in the little house, ten-year-old Cissy stirred in her sleep and burrowed deeper into the sheets. Her daddy was riding his motorcycle into a red-gold circle of flame. He was laughing and extending his arms high into the bright burning light. He looked so happy that Cissy almost woke up. He hadn't looked happy in so long a time. "Daddy," Cissy whispered, then slipped sideways into a dream of the ocean, the water sweet as the rum and Coke Delia let her sip when she was too drunk to say no.
* * *
Rosemary called at nine with the news, but Delia had already heard on the little radio she kept set low in the kitchen that opened onto the garden. Within minutes of the report, she had pulled down all the shades and barricaded the front door with a mound of dead plants and old newspapers, hoping the mess would make the house look empty.
When Cissy got up, Delia gave her daughter a bowl of strawberries and a toasted muffin, watched her eat, and then sat down to tell her girl that Randall was dead.
Cissy laid down her spoon and looked at Delia. "I don't believe you," she said. "You're lying. You'd say anything to keep my daddy away from me."
"Oh, baby, you know that's not true," Delia said.
"No!" Cissy threw off Delia's arm and pushed her away. "It's your fault!" she screamed. "It's your fault! He should have been with us. I hate you!"
Delia said nothing. She had lost count of how many times Cissy had said those words in the last two years, ever since Delia had moved them out of Randall's house. Keeping still and letting Cissy shout had become second nature to her.
Cissy pushed herself back from the table. "You killed him," she said. "You killed my daddy."
"Cissy, please," Delia said. "We're going to need each other now." Delia was still struggling for control. She crossed her arms over her breasts. "And that's no way to talk to me," she told Cissy.
"How am I supposed to talk?" Cissy's tone was sharp and wheedling. "Please, Mama, don't fall down drunk on the floor. Please, Mama, don't pass out at the breakfast table. Or please, Mama, don't forget what day it is and send me to school when nobody's there."
Delia flinched as though she had been struck.
Cissy glared at Delia's pink face. "I hate you," she said. "I hate you more than Satan and all the devils." She turned away to hide the tears she couldn't keep back any longer.
Delia forced herself to look at her daughter. The shape of Cissy's profile seemed to alter as she watched. "You don't even believe in the devil," she said softly.
"Oh yes I do," Cissy sobbed. "I believe in the devil. He's the one made you."
Delia felt the bones in her neck turning to concrete. She wanted to weep at what she saw, the child's face lengthening and closing against her. The left eyelid drooped a little as it had since the accident, but Cissy's eyes were Amanda Louise's eyes, her mouth the exact shape of lost baby Dede's.
Slowly Cissy, the daughter Delia had always sworn was pure Randall and none of her, had grown more and more like the babies Delia had left behind. With every day Delia was sober, Cissy became more pale and cold, more angry and hurt. In Delia's dreams her girls became one creature, one keening source of anguish, one child monster damning her name.
"I hate you," Cissy said, and it was as if Delia's three girls spoke in one voice. "I hate you" became the chorus that slowed Delia's pulse until she felt as if she were swimming a mud ride, the thick scum of her guilt clogging the chambers of her heart. For two solid years, Delia had scoured her own insides trying not to be what she knew she was--hated and deserving hatred in full measure. She had abandoned her babies and spent most of a decade drunk on her butt. Even the daughter she had tried to protect despised her.
Every time she went back to the bottle, Delia sang the same song. She called it the hatred song, the I-deserve-to-die song. It had no words but Cissy's curse, no melody but Delia's own pulse. Sunrise-sunset-goddamn-me-to-hell song. Delia sang it the way she had sung for Mud Dog, with her whole soul and every ounce of her blood. People said that hearing Delia Byrd sing in concert was like hearing heartbreak in a whole new key. Her voice could make you sweat, make you move, make you want to lift your hands and pull justice out of the air. But the song Delia sang inside herself was meaner than anything anyone ever heard onstage. It was almost meaner than she could stand.
* * *
When Rosemary came over that afternoon, Delia was sitting on the hassock near the big leather couch, turning over the same six photographs and humming "Puff the Magic Dragon." Three of the pictures were in color. One showed Delia leaning back against a lazy-eyed Randall, the infant Cissy cradled in her arms. Another showed Cissy at five, riding Randall's neck with a big smile and bigger eyes. The third, dated two years later, captured them in the same pose, but Randall was noticeably thinner, his face gray and lined, and Cissy wore an awkward bandage over her left eye.
The other three photographs were black-and-white snapshots with cracked edges. Delia fingered them tenderly. In the top one she was holding a baby exactly as she held Cissy in the color photo. A solemn-faced toddler was beside her, and leaning in over her shoulder was a man with washed-out features and stunned, angry eyes. Delia put her thumb over his face and stopped singing. "Damn you," she said, and looked up to find Rosemary watching her.
Without a word Rosemary picked up the two remaining photos. That man--Clint Windsor--lifting the toddler, Amanda, in front of a small frame house with a bare dirt yard and a porch half shaded by an awkwardly hung madras bedspread; and then baby Amanda, with her wispy blond hair pulled staight up into a knot at the top of her head, and baby Dede, hair just as blond and fine barely visible in the faded photograph, the two bracketing a dark-haired older woman whose hands were linked into a clumsy praying fist. The woman's eyes were on her hands, but the girls were looking straight out at the camera, eyes enormous and fixed.
"What are you going to do now, honey?" Rosemary asked, handing Delia the photos.
"Go home," Delia told her. "I'm going home to get my babies." From the back of the house came the sound of Cissy's heartbroken weeping.
"Oh, Delia." Rosemary shook her head. "Lord, girl, you do not want to do that. Those children are half grown now. They an't seen you in more than ten years. Nobody there is going to welcome you, honey."
"You don't know that. I got people there. I got friends." Delia rose suddenly, nearly overturning the hassock. "And they're my girls. I'm their mother. That don't go away. They'll be mad at me, yeah. But I can handle that. I been handling it here."
"But you got Cissy to think about, Delia." Rosemary looked toward the back of the house. "Listen to her. She's just lost her daddy, and you know how she is about Randall. Child thinks everything that happened is her fault, that he never done nothing wrong in his life. Take some time, Delia. Take some time and let yourself think about what you're going to do."
"I am thinking about Cissy. I'm thinking about all my girls." Delia's shoulders were shaking. The pictures in her hand crumpled as she tugged her elbows in tight to her abdomen.
"Rosemary, this is what I'm meant to do," Delia said. "It's what I should have done years ago. I don't belong here. I never have. Whatever I loved in the music an't got nothing to do with living here. I hate Los Angeles. It's the outer goddamn circle of hell."
Rosemary bit her lip. Delia's face was red and sweaty, but she did not smell of drink. She smelled of fever and grief and salty outrage.
"Honey," Rosemary said, and put her hand on Delia's wire-taut shoulder. "All I'm saying is you don't have to rush things. Just give Cissy a chance to absorb what's happened." But Delia was not listening. She's going to leave, Rosemary thought. She's going to go back to Cayro and fight those crazy people for her daughters. Her hand on Delia's shoulder reluctantly stroked and soothed. She looked down at the creased pictures in Delia's hand, the two girls' faces as bleak as her friend's.
"Oh, Delia," Rosemary said one more time. "Please, just take a little while to think."
The funeral made all the papers. All and all, it was a decorous affair. The Columbia Records executive who called about sending a car for Delia was astonished when she told him she was not going. "I'm not about to let you see me crying," she said. "Let them take pictures of that girl Randall nearly killed, get a shot of her without her teeth." But in the end, though she told Rosemary she would rather have chewed dirt than put on that black dress and drive over to the church in Glendale, Delia could not refuse the grieving Cissy. A plot at Forest Lawn had been donated, but no one could swear that Randall would wind up there. Booger, solidly sober and twice the size he was when he had been with the band, drove down from Oregon to handle the arrangements for the burial and he was stubbornly closemouthed about what exactly would happen to Randall's body. "Leave that to me," he said. "Just leave it to me."
"Bet he's going to haul Randall's corpse out to the Mojave Desert and cremate him over brittlebush and dried yucca," Rosemary told Delia.
"That'd be about right," Delia said, but kept her voice low so Cissy wouldn't hear.
Cissy cried all through Booger's mumbled eulogy and the unfamiliar service. Delia sat dry-eyed and silent. Some of the band members stood up to speak, but they kept it brief. Delia kept expecting someone to say what they were all thinking--that Randall's death was as close to suicide as made no difference, that half of them had not spoken to him in the last year and the other half only when they needed money, but all the speakers looked over at Randall's sobbing child and visibly rethought their remarks. There was more "God bless" than "goddamn," and people joined in on the gospel songs with real emotion. It was as close to a Pentecostal service as could be managed in an L.A. Episcopal church.
"Wasn't too bad," Delia told Booger on the steps after, and he nodded in agreement. They both knew Rosemary and a few of the band members from the early days had chosen the music, mostly blues, and the flowers--great stands of gladiolas and ridiculously cheerful giant sunflowers imported from Brazil. "One last thing we can charge to the record company," Rosemary said with a big grin. They had also managed to block the sermon the minister was determined to deliver.
"Randall weren't exactly religious," one of the brass players told the minister, prompting boisterous laughter from the other band members.
Standing on the steps, everyone said the same thing. "Wasn't too bad."
"Not at all."
The wake was something else again. Rosemary described it to Delia contemptuously as a goddamned carnival. "Rock and roll is dead" was the refrain, and the catering was done by a discount liquor mart. Most of those who came were already drunk or stoned when they arrived, their faces slack and eyes sheathed protectively in black shades. It was a mistake, one of the Columbia guys said, holding the event at Randall's place. Rosemary agreed. All of the old band members left in the first few hours. The open house drew the new crowd, the roadies and session players, the dealers and users who had been Randall's constant companions, and all those women who had trooped in and out of the house since Delia moved out.
"Rock and Roll is DEAD!" the crowd shouted repeatedly all evening. The drunks got angrier by the hour. People wandered through the house, picking up mementos and just as often setting them down. Around midnight someone dropped the crystal guitar Randall had been given after Mud Dog passed the half-million mark with Diamonds and Dust. The accident sparked a general melee, people smashing things just for the satisfaction of watching glass fly.
"Where's Delia?" one of the drunks demanded.
"Oh, she's pretty broke up," he was told.
"Well, goddamn it, so am I!"
Ignoring the weeping girls and cursing men, Rosemary went upstairs to look through Randall's closets. The seventeen-year-old who had been on the back of the bike swore at her awkwardly with her broken mouth but could do nothing with her pitiful hands encased in casts. Rosemary went about collecting what she had come for: all the pictures of Delia and Cissy, and a few pieces of jewelry from the big teak box on the burl table where Randall had always thrown his things.
Downstairs, a late-news repeat of a Reagan speech came on the television after the videotape of the funeral coverage clicked off. Those thin lips moved soundlessly while the roadies roared obscenities and poured beer into the back of the big-screen television set. When it finally blew up, everyone laughed helplessly as sparks sprayed the rug. Rosemary skirted the smoldering carpet as she left. The fire that flared up just before dawn probably started in that rug, abetted by the thirty or forty candles set up all over the living room with its gossamer curtains. The revelers swore the fire was Randall's creation, the flames trailing behind the ghost they saw walking the rooms in that dawn hour.
"He took his house," a roadie told the reporter from Rolling Stone. "He took it right down to hell."
Already Randall was becoming a legend, magnified Into what he had never been, the Doomed Prince of Rock and Roll. Snakeskin boots and suede jacket, dark glasses and flashing teeth--the ghost of Randall Pritchard took the house down, his last act leading that crippled girl onto the lawn before he sparked out in the smoke and stink of the morning. The record company knew what it had. They quickly issued a memorial edition of Diamonds and Dust that sold far more than the first printing. The new cover was all Randall, snakeskin and teeth and night. Delia and the band were cropped and gone.
"Randall would have loved it," Delia said when Rosemary finished her account of the wake. She was sorting Cissy's clothes and drinking black coffee, her face puffy from tears and pale from lack of sleep. Since Randall's death, her talisman songs had sunk to wordless hums and whispers, snatches of folk and Laura Nyro and Spanish lullabies Randall had taught her when Cissy was born. She still hadn't had a drink, but there was no sense of accomplishment in the act. It felt to Delia that if she did not get on the road, the beast would reclaim her and she would go down to the beach with a bottle. Going home was the answer. Making amends, getting her girls, that was the answer. It was all she could think about, all she would let herself think about.
"Cayro," she told Rosemary. "When I get to Cayro, I'll be all right."
Rosemary nodded, knowing better than to argue with a desperate woman. Somewhere in Delia, grief was waiting, and when it hit, she would wilt like all those flowers in the heat of the church. Then she would need someone to prop her up, and who was there in Cayro to take that on? Rosemary shuddered. No, not even for Delia would she move to Georgia. Whatever was going to happen would just have to happen.
"Hell, girl," Rosemary drawled in a deliberately exaggerated Valley accent, "you and I both know Randall would have preferred that all of Venice Beach go up." She gestured at the Times, where a news photo showed the blackened frame of Randall's house. "Man always did have a taste for that scorched-earth scenario. If the Columbia building burned down, he'd probably come back to piss on the pyre."
Delia laughed, then shot a guilty look at Cissy, who was sitting on the couch in a daze, sucking on a strand of her dirty red hair and hugging a silver-framed photo of her daddy that Rosemary had brought her. She had sworn she would not cry anymore, though that was all she wanted to do. She had also decided to ignore Delia, but that was proving harder still. Her mother had been packing like a madwoman, stripping the books off the shelves and the prints off the wall, giving everything that would not fit in the car to Rosemary. She talked continually about going home, as if Cissy was supposed to be happy at the idea. Now she came over to the couch and began her litany again.
"Don't worry, baby. It will all be different in Cayro," Delia said. "It an't like here. People are different there. They care about each other, take time to talk to each other. They don't lie or cheat or mess with each other all the time. They're not scared, not having to be so careful all the time. They know who they are, what is important. And you'll be with your sisters. You won't be alone, honey. Not being alone in the world, that's something you've never had. That's something I can give you."
"I won't go," Cissy said, the same futile words she had hurled at Delia when they moved to Venice Beach.
"You'll be happier there." Delia's eyes glittered like the rocks near the ocean. "It will be like I always wanted it to be. You and me, Amanda and Dede, all of us together. Your only living kin in the world are in Cayro, yours and mine, your sisters, your granddaddy."
Cissy hugged Randall's photograph tighter and looked at Rosemary like a cornered animal.
"Your sisters," Delia said fiercely. "Your sisters are going to be amazed how much you look like them. You won't believe it yourself." A tear glistened at the edge of her left eye, hovered briefly, and slipped down her cheek.
Cissy kept her focus on that wet streak. Her sisters. Amanda and Dede. Dede and Amanda. There had never been a time when Cissy did not know their names, how terribly Delia grieved for them. The lost girls, the precious ones. Delia was always saying that Cissy's hazel eyes were the mirror of Amanda's, her red-blond hair the exact shade of Dede's when she was an infant. Birthday presents, Christmas presents, Easter baskets, back-to-school packages, all testified to the same legend: "From your sisters." "From Amanda." "From Dede." "Until we see you." "See you soon."
What was Cissy to believe? That the sisters she had never met of her, wrapped those presents, and signed those cards? No. The same packages and tokens were sent in her name, and Cissy knew how little she cared. She signed at Delia's direction, printing out the message Delia dictated in careful block letters, impersonal and precise. The tears, the passion were all Delia's. She never seemed to notice how Cissy turned her face away at the mention of Amanda and Dede.
"Oh, Cissy." Delia's voice was thick and husky. "It is going to be so good to get home. You'll see. You'll see."
Cissy put her lips to the metal edge of the picture frame, tasting the sweet alloy with the tip of her tongue. She had loved to climb up Randall's back and press her face into his neck. Her daddy had always tasted smoky and sweet, like no one else in the world. When Delia had hugged her tight at the funeral, her neck tasted like flat beer. She could stay sober forever and it wouldn't matter. Bitter and mean, that was how Delia tasted. Cissy looked over at her mother and sucked harder at the metal against her tongue.
"When we get to Cayro, I'll call you from Granddaddy Byrd's," Delia was saying to Rosemary, who was looking at Cissy's blank face, as empty as the wall behind her.
Cissy knew about Cayro. Cayro was where her crazy mother was born, the back end of the earth. Cayro was the last place Randall Pritchard's daughter ever wanted to be.
"I won't go," Cissy murmured again.
Delia put her arms around Rosemary's neck. "Oh God," she said. "This time I'm going to make it right."
Rock and roll, in Delia's opinion, might as well have died back in 1976, when Mud Dog stopped touring. That was the year Randall trashed his agent's office and spent a couple of weeks drying out at a sanitarium in Palm Springs. By 1978, the year the Rolling Stones cut a disco track, Randall had gone off whiskey and settled into what he called his Keith Richards solution, boosting his heroin with just enough speed to keep himself mobile and charming. Columbia was coaxed into putting Delia back on contract and financing another studio rental, but that spring Randall flipped the T-bird in Topanga Canyon, nearly blinded Cissy, and broke the last of Delia's love for him.
When she decided to leave Randall, Delia told him to his face. She thought of writing him a letter, but what she wanted to say would sound absurd on a page. Dear Randall, you almost killed us. Dear Randall, you're on your own. Dear Randall, you've broken my heart. Instead she tracked him down at the studio annex, where he had one of his girls with him, a child not even twenty and stoned out of her mind.
"You got a name?" Delia said when she came to the door.
The girl just blinked.
"Go get Randall," Delia told her.
A few minutes later Randall came out, his pupils huge and glassy. He stood in the sunlight and gave her that grin of his.
"What's up, sweet thing?"
"I'm moving out."
"Moving?"
"We can't live with you no more."
"Damn, Delia." He squirmed inside his loose denim jacket. "Don't I take care of you? Don't I treat you and Cissy right?"
Delia looked at him until he blushed, but his smile never faded.
"There's that house in Venice Beach," he said finally. "That one Booger and me bought. It's pretty messy, but it's empty. Booger didn't like the neighborhood. We could clean it up. You could go there."
Delia hesitated and looked away. The girl was watching them from the annex. "All right," Delia said, "all right."
"Do you need anything?" Randall asked, one hand pulling money out of a pocket.
She shook her head.
"Ah, Delia." Her name was thick in his mouth. "Honey," he said, slurring even that.
For a moment Delia hated him. She wasn't just another girl he'd picked up on the street. She was the mother of his child, the woman who had thrown everything away for him. He had no right speaking her name with that sleepy smile. She stood there and let him see the contempt on her face.
Randall held out the bills. Delia slapped him hard, then bent forward to kiss his cheek. The smell of his skin startled her.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The whole time she was packing, Cissy sobbing in her bedroom, Delia kept wiping her face and remembering how Randall smelled that day, the tang of him. What surprised her was how little pain his death caused her. He had been dead to her so long that it was hard to mourn all over again, hard to keep in mind that all the time when they had so rarely seen him he had been going on with his dying. Somehow, in the middle of everyone else's living, Randall had given up on his own life and started dying. That he had nearly taken Delia and Cissy with him was what stayed with Delia, the memory of shattered glass burning her skin, and the smell of the man she loved turning bitter. He had never expected her to get sober or leave him. He had never expected anything to change.
Delia taped a box shut and kicked it hard. She had loved Randall from the first time she saw that angel smile bright under the spotlights. It had seemed a miracle when he pulled her up into his tour bus, the blood from her abraded palms black on his cream shirt.
"Girl," he had said. "Lord, darling, look at you."
Delia's memories of that moment were as golden and smoky as two inches of whiskey in a thick tumbler. Jim Beam in a bar glass, a mound of crushed ice in a hand towel, the pervasive aroma of marijuana and patchouli oil. From the instant Randall helped her into the bus, Delia felt numbed and fragile. The whiskey he gave her warmed her belly, while the icy glass soothed her bruised temple. But it was Randall's soft embrace that made the difference, the open, easy way he wrapped her around. She shouldn't have trusted him, shouldn't have been willing to let him touch her with the mark of Clint's rage darkening steadily along the line of her face and neck. Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the bus wheels spinning clean and sure, taking her away from the nightmare behind her. Maybe it was that she had been wanting to run away for so long. But maybe it was just Randall and the way he had about him.
Delia wanted to scream at the figure in her memory, at Randall's body so long gone, so much of him wasted even when he was alive. He had been so beautiful when he took her in his arms, so strong and tender when she was so hurt. He had felt like the one man on earth she could hang on to and be safe with. How could she not have loved him? She loved him more than her life.
After the accident in Topanga Canyon, trying repeatedly to get sober, Delia stopped going over to Randall's place at all. Even when she slipped back into drinking, she wouldn't let herself be cajoled into climbing into one of the limos sent around by record companies hoping to sign her to sing on her own. She didn't like the parties anymore, and she'd never enjoyed talking business. Drunk or sober, Delia lived in the small town in her heart, ignoring the world in which all her love had turned to grief.
Once they moved to Venice Beach, Delia tried to behave as if it were just another small town too, a place like Cayro. It did not matter that behind her house loomed thousands of others, postage-stamp boxes layered across Los Angeles County up from Santa Monica or south to Long Beach and all the little suburbs that trailed down to San Diego. Delia rarely went outside her neighborhood, and as long as she stayed off the highways, she could pretend they were cut off from the world. When she took Cissy over to Randall's place in West Hollywood or went to the studio annex in Santa Monica, the sight of greater Los Angeles stunned her. The glass structures along Wilshire, the grotesque mansions in Beverly Hills, the interlaced freeways that Randall prowled, none of that was Delia's world. Her world was the cottage and its tiny garden, the convenience store a few blocks west, and Cissy's school two blocks past that, with the occasional trip down to Rosemary's in Marina Del Rey.
"It's strange. Every time I take a drink, I go back in time," Delia told Rosemary not long after she left Randall. "I imagine I am back on the bus, going nowhere in particular, just cruising with the band."
"Uh-huh." Rosemary blew smoke out her nose. "Cruising back to the toilet to puke your guts out and curse Randall with every heave of your stomach? I remember you pregnant and sick as a dog. I remember those bus trips."
Delia pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and shrugged. "In my imagination," she said, "it's always 1971 and we are all young and happy. It's like a dream, a good dream."
Rosemary shook her head. "Nothing like the dream life, huh?"
Delia was the only member of Mud Dog who had loved the road. While everyone else grew pale and exhausted, she blossomed, catching naps during the day and sleeping easily backstage. She drank a lot but ate little, mostly fruit and rice, and avoided the pills and powders that kept half the band wired and sleepless and sick as dogs. In the midst of the tour chaos, Delia was serene. She would drift up the middle of the overloaded bus with a smile and a bottle in her hand, trailing her long fingers over the greasy Formica storage cabinets as if they were flowers and sweet-smelling vines. Sometimes she just stood there, steadying herself with one hand, eyes almost closed. To her it seemed like dancing, balancing there while the bus swayed and rolled along. She would laugh at the thought of herself almost motionless yet hurtling forward.
What Delia did not love were the motels and the parties, the obsequious roadies dealing drugs behind the luggage vans, the hysterical fans who pounced on her before she could get away. There were always people coming up on her from behind, wanting to talk or to touch her, following her every move so closely she would start to shy away even from Randall or Rosemary or Booger, or Little Jimmy the drummer with his shy nudge. Her skin seemed to wear thin, to the point where she hesitated sometimes before following the band out onstage. After a while the road wore you down until you lost the satisfaction of the music everyone came to hear, and Delia knew that the only thing she loved without reservation was the music in her head. The road itself, the two-lane blacktop and the six-lane freeways, the truck stops where the only things you could be sure of were the eggs and the bottled beer, that was not something you loved. The road was something that took you over unawares--the unexpected poetry of road signs and the reassuring glint of reflective markers counting off miles, the backbeat of the wheels whooshing along the asphalt and the song it awakened in the back of Delia's head. She got drunk on the road the same way she did on whiskey, a gentle drunk, an easy binge, smiling and loose and careless as death on two legs.
Delia dreamed on the bus like nowhere else, humming with the wheels, drifting, her eyelids open just enough to catch the shine of the road lights. In that condition, neither asleep nor awake, Delia dreamed of home, of Cayro and Amanda and Dede. Sometimes she dreamed of them in their bodies, the babies growing into girls while she watched and cared for them. When she dreamed that dream, she would weep with relief as everything that had happened after Dede's birth erased itself. In that dream there was no band, no house in Venice Beach, no Cissy, no third girl child with Randall's lazy mouth and her own dark red hair. In that dream Delia was the good mother kneeling on the clay path near her old house in Cayro, her fingers cupping Dede's baby face and her tears burning her own cheeks.
Sometimes the dream would play out the years differently, Delia sweeping in like an angel the week after she climbed into Randall's bus and ran away. In that dream she snatched up her babies, pulling them to her throat as their arms reached to embrace her, her shoulders sprouting wings that carried them all high and far, like the Santa Ana winds over Southern California.
"Mama," the dream girls would say in one voice, "Mama," and Delia's heart would lurch in her breast. The dream children cried her name and held on to her: "Mama. We knew you would come." Their cheeks were hot and flushed, their hair smelling earthy and sweet, the way Delia's palms smelled when she worked in the garden. She breathed them in and felt her insides tremble as the scent filled her. But the arms that reached out to Delia were phantom arms. The dream daughters were ghost girls, imaginary creatures. The road that went everywhere never went to Cayro. As the scent faded, Delia would jerk awake, her face streaked with tears and her muscles straining to hold what was not there.
Sober and fully conscious, Delia knew these dreams for what they were, a comforting lie. If her daughters dreamed of her, they would not be loving dreams. Raging, angry nightmares, that's what her girls would dream of Delia. But in the weeks after Randall's death, she dreamed again her road dreams, Dede and Amanda Louise dreams, Mama dreams, guilt and hope dreams.
Emptying the closets of the little cottage, Delia picked at the raw sore of her conscience. It had been ten years. Dede and Amanda were not babies. They were eleven and thirteen, nearly grown, but what if they didn't hate her? What if her girls hoped for her as much as she hoped for them? From "what if" she fell to maybe, then to might be, could be, oh God! surely so. It was the way Delia thought when she was drinking, as detached from the real as anything could be. It was the voice in the back brain, the voice that swore one drink would not kill her and another was all right too. The devil or desperation, that voice whispered steadily and drew her on. Delia swore she would never drink again, but her girls were not liquor. Her girls were real. Cayro was real. Cayro was home. Maybe no one could earn forgiveness, but listening to that whisper, Delia Byrd packed everything she owned and decided to try.
(C) 1998 Dorothy Allison All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-525-94167-3
"'Delia,'" the boy told reporters later. "The man just whispered 'Delia' and died."
Delia Byrd had been up for an hour, walking back and forth in the tiny garden behind the house in Venice Beach, thinking about the local convenience store, where the liquor was overpriced but accessible twenty-four hours a day. Eyes on the sunrise, fists curled up to her midriff, she was singing to herself, stringing one lyric to another, pulling choruses from songs she had not sung onstage in five years and segueing into garbled versions of rock and roll and folk. She told her friend Rosemary that there was real magic in some of those old melodies, especially the lesser successes of groups like Peter, Paul and Mary and the Kingston Trio. Rosemary laughed at the notion of a mantra in the mundane, but Delia found that after a few dozen repetitions of "The MTA" she could unfocus her eyes and laugh at the desire to drink.
"Oh, he never returned," Delia was singing softly as Randall's head dropped forward and the dark blood gushed one last time. She stopped then. Something may have passed her in the cool morning air, but Delia did not feel it. Focused on the muscles in her neck and upper back, the ones that ached all the time, she wrapped her arms around herself, gripped her shoulders so tightly she started to shake with the effort, and then let go abruptly. The release was luxurious and welcome. A little of the weight lifted, the weight of more than two solid years of trying not to do what she still wanted desperately to do, to sip whiskey until the world turned golden and quiet and safe, until Dede and Amanda Louise, the daughters she had left behind, ceased whispering and whimpering from behind her left ear. She hadn't had a drink since November, and the strain showed.
I'm tired, Delia thought the moment Randall died. A garbage truck rumbled up the narrow alley behind the cottage. A shabby gray cat jumped the fence with a yowl. Delia's neck pulled tight again as a shaft of sunlight cut through the tattered palm fronds by the fence. "I want to go home," she said out loud, and the two girls in her memory lifted their shadowy heads and turned hot eyes in her direction.
Behind Delia, in the little house, ten-year-old Cissy stirred in her sleep and burrowed deeper into the sheets. Her daddy was riding his motorcycle into a red-gold circle of flame. He was laughing and extending his arms high into the bright burning light. He looked so happy that Cissy almost woke up. He hadn't looked happy in so long a time. "Daddy," Cissy whispered, then slipped sideways into a dream of the ocean, the water sweet as the rum and Coke Delia let her sip when she was too drunk to say no.
* * *
Rosemary called at nine with the news, but Delia had already heard on the little radio she kept set low in the kitchen that opened onto the garden. Within minutes of the report, she had pulled down all the shades and barricaded the front door with a mound of dead plants and old newspapers, hoping the mess would make the house look empty.
When Cissy got up, Delia gave her daughter a bowl of strawberries and a toasted muffin, watched her eat, and then sat down to tell her girl that Randall was dead.
Cissy laid down her spoon and looked at Delia. "I don't believe you," she said. "You're lying. You'd say anything to keep my daddy away from me."
"Oh, baby, you know that's not true," Delia said.
"No!" Cissy threw off Delia's arm and pushed her away. "It's your fault!" she screamed. "It's your fault! He should have been with us. I hate you!"
Delia said nothing. She had lost count of how many times Cissy had said those words in the last two years, ever since Delia had moved them out of Randall's house. Keeping still and letting Cissy shout had become second nature to her.
Cissy pushed herself back from the table. "You killed him," she said. "You killed my daddy."
"Cissy, please," Delia said. "We're going to need each other now." Delia was still struggling for control. She crossed her arms over her breasts. "And that's no way to talk to me," she told Cissy.
"How am I supposed to talk?" Cissy's tone was sharp and wheedling. "Please, Mama, don't fall down drunk on the floor. Please, Mama, don't pass out at the breakfast table. Or please, Mama, don't forget what day it is and send me to school when nobody's there."
Delia flinched as though she had been struck.
Cissy glared at Delia's pink face. "I hate you," she said. "I hate you more than Satan and all the devils." She turned away to hide the tears she couldn't keep back any longer.
Delia forced herself to look at her daughter. The shape of Cissy's profile seemed to alter as she watched. "You don't even believe in the devil," she said softly.
"Oh yes I do," Cissy sobbed. "I believe in the devil. He's the one made you."
Delia felt the bones in her neck turning to concrete. She wanted to weep at what she saw, the child's face lengthening and closing against her. The left eyelid drooped a little as it had since the accident, but Cissy's eyes were Amanda Louise's eyes, her mouth the exact shape of lost baby Dede's.
Slowly Cissy, the daughter Delia had always sworn was pure Randall and none of her, had grown more and more like the babies Delia had left behind. With every day Delia was sober, Cissy became more pale and cold, more angry and hurt. In Delia's dreams her girls became one creature, one keening source of anguish, one child monster damning her name.
"I hate you," Cissy said, and it was as if Delia's three girls spoke in one voice. "I hate you" became the chorus that slowed Delia's pulse until she felt as if she were swimming a mud ride, the thick scum of her guilt clogging the chambers of her heart. For two solid years, Delia had scoured her own insides trying not to be what she knew she was--hated and deserving hatred in full measure. She had abandoned her babies and spent most of a decade drunk on her butt. Even the daughter she had tried to protect despised her.
Every time she went back to the bottle, Delia sang the same song. She called it the hatred song, the I-deserve-to-die song. It had no words but Cissy's curse, no melody but Delia's own pulse. Sunrise-sunset-goddamn-me-to-hell song. Delia sang it the way she had sung for Mud Dog, with her whole soul and every ounce of her blood. People said that hearing Delia Byrd sing in concert was like hearing heartbreak in a whole new key. Her voice could make you sweat, make you move, make you want to lift your hands and pull justice out of the air. But the song Delia sang inside herself was meaner than anything anyone ever heard onstage. It was almost meaner than she could stand.
* * *
When Rosemary came over that afternoon, Delia was sitting on the hassock near the big leather couch, turning over the same six photographs and humming "Puff the Magic Dragon." Three of the pictures were in color. One showed Delia leaning back against a lazy-eyed Randall, the infant Cissy cradled in her arms. Another showed Cissy at five, riding Randall's neck with a big smile and bigger eyes. The third, dated two years later, captured them in the same pose, but Randall was noticeably thinner, his face gray and lined, and Cissy wore an awkward bandage over her left eye.
The other three photographs were black-and-white snapshots with cracked edges. Delia fingered them tenderly. In the top one she was holding a baby exactly as she held Cissy in the color photo. A solemn-faced toddler was beside her, and leaning in over her shoulder was a man with washed-out features and stunned, angry eyes. Delia put her thumb over his face and stopped singing. "Damn you," she said, and looked up to find Rosemary watching her.
Without a word Rosemary picked up the two remaining photos. That man--Clint Windsor--lifting the toddler, Amanda, in front of a small frame house with a bare dirt yard and a porch half shaded by an awkwardly hung madras bedspread; and then baby Amanda, with her wispy blond hair pulled staight up into a knot at the top of her head, and baby Dede, hair just as blond and fine barely visible in the faded photograph, the two bracketing a dark-haired older woman whose hands were linked into a clumsy praying fist. The woman's eyes were on her hands, but the girls were looking straight out at the camera, eyes enormous and fixed.
"What are you going to do now, honey?" Rosemary asked, handing Delia the photos.
"Go home," Delia told her. "I'm going home to get my babies." From the back of the house came the sound of Cissy's heartbroken weeping.
"Oh, Delia." Rosemary shook her head. "Lord, girl, you do not want to do that. Those children are half grown now. They an't seen you in more than ten years. Nobody there is going to welcome you, honey."
"You don't know that. I got people there. I got friends." Delia rose suddenly, nearly overturning the hassock. "And they're my girls. I'm their mother. That don't go away. They'll be mad at me, yeah. But I can handle that. I been handling it here."
"But you got Cissy to think about, Delia." Rosemary looked toward the back of the house. "Listen to her. She's just lost her daddy, and you know how she is about Randall. Child thinks everything that happened is her fault, that he never done nothing wrong in his life. Take some time, Delia. Take some time and let yourself think about what you're going to do."
"I am thinking about Cissy. I'm thinking about all my girls." Delia's shoulders were shaking. The pictures in her hand crumpled as she tugged her elbows in tight to her abdomen.
"Rosemary, this is what I'm meant to do," Delia said. "It's what I should have done years ago. I don't belong here. I never have. Whatever I loved in the music an't got nothing to do with living here. I hate Los Angeles. It's the outer goddamn circle of hell."
Rosemary bit her lip. Delia's face was red and sweaty, but she did not smell of drink. She smelled of fever and grief and salty outrage.
"Honey," Rosemary said, and put her hand on Delia's wire-taut shoulder. "All I'm saying is you don't have to rush things. Just give Cissy a chance to absorb what's happened." But Delia was not listening. She's going to leave, Rosemary thought. She's going to go back to Cayro and fight those crazy people for her daughters. Her hand on Delia's shoulder reluctantly stroked and soothed. She looked down at the creased pictures in Delia's hand, the two girls' faces as bleak as her friend's.
"Oh, Delia," Rosemary said one more time. "Please, just take a little while to think."
The funeral made all the papers. All and all, it was a decorous affair. The Columbia Records executive who called about sending a car for Delia was astonished when she told him she was not going. "I'm not about to let you see me crying," she said. "Let them take pictures of that girl Randall nearly killed, get a shot of her without her teeth." But in the end, though she told Rosemary she would rather have chewed dirt than put on that black dress and drive over to the church in Glendale, Delia could not refuse the grieving Cissy. A plot at Forest Lawn had been donated, but no one could swear that Randall would wind up there. Booger, solidly sober and twice the size he was when he had been with the band, drove down from Oregon to handle the arrangements for the burial and he was stubbornly closemouthed about what exactly would happen to Randall's body. "Leave that to me," he said. "Just leave it to me."
"Bet he's going to haul Randall's corpse out to the Mojave Desert and cremate him over brittlebush and dried yucca," Rosemary told Delia.
"That'd be about right," Delia said, but kept her voice low so Cissy wouldn't hear.
Cissy cried all through Booger's mumbled eulogy and the unfamiliar service. Delia sat dry-eyed and silent. Some of the band members stood up to speak, but they kept it brief. Delia kept expecting someone to say what they were all thinking--that Randall's death was as close to suicide as made no difference, that half of them had not spoken to him in the last year and the other half only when they needed money, but all the speakers looked over at Randall's sobbing child and visibly rethought their remarks. There was more "God bless" than "goddamn," and people joined in on the gospel songs with real emotion. It was as close to a Pentecostal service as could be managed in an L.A. Episcopal church.
"Wasn't too bad," Delia told Booger on the steps after, and he nodded in agreement. They both knew Rosemary and a few of the band members from the early days had chosen the music, mostly blues, and the flowers--great stands of gladiolas and ridiculously cheerful giant sunflowers imported from Brazil. "One last thing we can charge to the record company," Rosemary said with a big grin. They had also managed to block the sermon the minister was determined to deliver.
"Randall weren't exactly religious," one of the brass players told the minister, prompting boisterous laughter from the other band members.
Standing on the steps, everyone said the same thing. "Wasn't too bad."
"Not at all."
The wake was something else again. Rosemary described it to Delia contemptuously as a goddamned carnival. "Rock and roll is dead" was the refrain, and the catering was done by a discount liquor mart. Most of those who came were already drunk or stoned when they arrived, their faces slack and eyes sheathed protectively in black shades. It was a mistake, one of the Columbia guys said, holding the event at Randall's place. Rosemary agreed. All of the old band members left in the first few hours. The open house drew the new crowd, the roadies and session players, the dealers and users who had been Randall's constant companions, and all those women who had trooped in and out of the house since Delia moved out.
"Rock and Roll is DEAD!" the crowd shouted repeatedly all evening. The drunks got angrier by the hour. People wandered through the house, picking up mementos and just as often setting them down. Around midnight someone dropped the crystal guitar Randall had been given after Mud Dog passed the half-million mark with Diamonds and Dust. The accident sparked a general melee, people smashing things just for the satisfaction of watching glass fly.
"Where's Delia?" one of the drunks demanded.
"Oh, she's pretty broke up," he was told.
"Well, goddamn it, so am I!"
Ignoring the weeping girls and cursing men, Rosemary went upstairs to look through Randall's closets. The seventeen-year-old who had been on the back of the bike swore at her awkwardly with her broken mouth but could do nothing with her pitiful hands encased in casts. Rosemary went about collecting what she had come for: all the pictures of Delia and Cissy, and a few pieces of jewelry from the big teak box on the burl table where Randall had always thrown his things.
Downstairs, a late-news repeat of a Reagan speech came on the television after the videotape of the funeral coverage clicked off. Those thin lips moved soundlessly while the roadies roared obscenities and poured beer into the back of the big-screen television set. When it finally blew up, everyone laughed helplessly as sparks sprayed the rug. Rosemary skirted the smoldering carpet as she left. The fire that flared up just before dawn probably started in that rug, abetted by the thirty or forty candles set up all over the living room with its gossamer curtains. The revelers swore the fire was Randall's creation, the flames trailing behind the ghost they saw walking the rooms in that dawn hour.
"He took his house," a roadie told the reporter from Rolling Stone. "He took it right down to hell."
Already Randall was becoming a legend, magnified Into what he had never been, the Doomed Prince of Rock and Roll. Snakeskin boots and suede jacket, dark glasses and flashing teeth--the ghost of Randall Pritchard took the house down, his last act leading that crippled girl onto the lawn before he sparked out in the smoke and stink of the morning. The record company knew what it had. They quickly issued a memorial edition of Diamonds and Dust that sold far more than the first printing. The new cover was all Randall, snakeskin and teeth and night. Delia and the band were cropped and gone.
"Randall would have loved it," Delia said when Rosemary finished her account of the wake. She was sorting Cissy's clothes and drinking black coffee, her face puffy from tears and pale from lack of sleep. Since Randall's death, her talisman songs had sunk to wordless hums and whispers, snatches of folk and Laura Nyro and Spanish lullabies Randall had taught her when Cissy was born. She still hadn't had a drink, but there was no sense of accomplishment in the act. It felt to Delia that if she did not get on the road, the beast would reclaim her and she would go down to the beach with a bottle. Going home was the answer. Making amends, getting her girls, that was the answer. It was all she could think about, all she would let herself think about.
"Cayro," she told Rosemary. "When I get to Cayro, I'll be all right."
Rosemary nodded, knowing better than to argue with a desperate woman. Somewhere in Delia, grief was waiting, and when it hit, she would wilt like all those flowers in the heat of the church. Then she would need someone to prop her up, and who was there in Cayro to take that on? Rosemary shuddered. No, not even for Delia would she move to Georgia. Whatever was going to happen would just have to happen.
"Hell, girl," Rosemary drawled in a deliberately exaggerated Valley accent, "you and I both know Randall would have preferred that all of Venice Beach go up." She gestured at the Times, where a news photo showed the blackened frame of Randall's house. "Man always did have a taste for that scorched-earth scenario. If the Columbia building burned down, he'd probably come back to piss on the pyre."
Delia laughed, then shot a guilty look at Cissy, who was sitting on the couch in a daze, sucking on a strand of her dirty red hair and hugging a silver-framed photo of her daddy that Rosemary had brought her. She had sworn she would not cry anymore, though that was all she wanted to do. She had also decided to ignore Delia, but that was proving harder still. Her mother had been packing like a madwoman, stripping the books off the shelves and the prints off the wall, giving everything that would not fit in the car to Rosemary. She talked continually about going home, as if Cissy was supposed to be happy at the idea. Now she came over to the couch and began her litany again.
"Don't worry, baby. It will all be different in Cayro," Delia said. "It an't like here. People are different there. They care about each other, take time to talk to each other. They don't lie or cheat or mess with each other all the time. They're not scared, not having to be so careful all the time. They know who they are, what is important. And you'll be with your sisters. You won't be alone, honey. Not being alone in the world, that's something you've never had. That's something I can give you."
"I won't go," Cissy said, the same futile words she had hurled at Delia when they moved to Venice Beach.
"You'll be happier there." Delia's eyes glittered like the rocks near the ocean. "It will be like I always wanted it to be. You and me, Amanda and Dede, all of us together. Your only living kin in the world are in Cayro, yours and mine, your sisters, your granddaddy."
Cissy hugged Randall's photograph tighter and looked at Rosemary like a cornered animal.
"Your sisters," Delia said fiercely. "Your sisters are going to be amazed how much you look like them. You won't believe it yourself." A tear glistened at the edge of her left eye, hovered briefly, and slipped down her cheek.
Cissy kept her focus on that wet streak. Her sisters. Amanda and Dede. Dede and Amanda. There had never been a time when Cissy did not know their names, how terribly Delia grieved for them. The lost girls, the precious ones. Delia was always saying that Cissy's hazel eyes were the mirror of Amanda's, her red-blond hair the exact shade of Dede's when she was an infant. Birthday presents, Christmas presents, Easter baskets, back-to-school packages, all testified to the same legend: "From your sisters." "From Amanda." "From Dede." "Until we see you." "See you soon."
What was Cissy to believe? That the sisters she had never met of her, wrapped those presents, and signed those cards? No. The same packages and tokens were sent in her name, and Cissy knew how little she cared. She signed at Delia's direction, printing out the message Delia dictated in careful block letters, impersonal and precise. The tears, the passion were all Delia's. She never seemed to notice how Cissy turned her face away at the mention of Amanda and Dede.
"Oh, Cissy." Delia's voice was thick and husky. "It is going to be so good to get home. You'll see. You'll see."
Cissy put her lips to the metal edge of the picture frame, tasting the sweet alloy with the tip of her tongue. She had loved to climb up Randall's back and press her face into his neck. Her daddy had always tasted smoky and sweet, like no one else in the world. When Delia had hugged her tight at the funeral, her neck tasted like flat beer. She could stay sober forever and it wouldn't matter. Bitter and mean, that was how Delia tasted. Cissy looked over at her mother and sucked harder at the metal against her tongue.
"When we get to Cayro, I'll call you from Granddaddy Byrd's," Delia was saying to Rosemary, who was looking at Cissy's blank face, as empty as the wall behind her.
Cissy knew about Cayro. Cayro was where her crazy mother was born, the back end of the earth. Cayro was the last place Randall Pritchard's daughter ever wanted to be.
"I won't go," Cissy murmured again.
Delia put her arms around Rosemary's neck. "Oh God," she said. "This time I'm going to make it right."
Rock and roll, in Delia's opinion, might as well have died back in 1976, when Mud Dog stopped touring. That was the year Randall trashed his agent's office and spent a couple of weeks drying out at a sanitarium in Palm Springs. By 1978, the year the Rolling Stones cut a disco track, Randall had gone off whiskey and settled into what he called his Keith Richards solution, boosting his heroin with just enough speed to keep himself mobile and charming. Columbia was coaxed into putting Delia back on contract and financing another studio rental, but that spring Randall flipped the T-bird in Topanga Canyon, nearly blinded Cissy, and broke the last of Delia's love for him.
When she decided to leave Randall, Delia told him to his face. She thought of writing him a letter, but what she wanted to say would sound absurd on a page. Dear Randall, you almost killed us. Dear Randall, you're on your own. Dear Randall, you've broken my heart. Instead she tracked him down at the studio annex, where he had one of his girls with him, a child not even twenty and stoned out of her mind.
"You got a name?" Delia said when she came to the door.
The girl just blinked.
"Go get Randall," Delia told her.
A few minutes later Randall came out, his pupils huge and glassy. He stood in the sunlight and gave her that grin of his.
"What's up, sweet thing?"
"I'm moving out."
"Moving?"
"We can't live with you no more."
"Damn, Delia." He squirmed inside his loose denim jacket. "Don't I take care of you? Don't I treat you and Cissy right?"
Delia looked at him until he blushed, but his smile never faded.
"There's that house in Venice Beach," he said finally. "That one Booger and me bought. It's pretty messy, but it's empty. Booger didn't like the neighborhood. We could clean it up. You could go there."
Delia hesitated and looked away. The girl was watching them from the annex. "All right," Delia said, "all right."
"Do you need anything?" Randall asked, one hand pulling money out of a pocket.
She shook her head.
"Ah, Delia." Her name was thick in his mouth. "Honey," he said, slurring even that.
For a moment Delia hated him. She wasn't just another girl he'd picked up on the street. She was the mother of his child, the woman who had thrown everything away for him. He had no right speaking her name with that sleepy smile. She stood there and let him see the contempt on her face.
Randall held out the bills. Delia slapped him hard, then bent forward to kiss his cheek. The smell of his skin startled her.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The whole time she was packing, Cissy sobbing in her bedroom, Delia kept wiping her face and remembering how Randall smelled that day, the tang of him. What surprised her was how little pain his death caused her. He had been dead to her so long that it was hard to mourn all over again, hard to keep in mind that all the time when they had so rarely seen him he had been going on with his dying. Somehow, in the middle of everyone else's living, Randall had given up on his own life and started dying. That he had nearly taken Delia and Cissy with him was what stayed with Delia, the memory of shattered glass burning her skin, and the smell of the man she loved turning bitter. He had never expected her to get sober or leave him. He had never expected anything to change.
Delia taped a box shut and kicked it hard. She had loved Randall from the first time she saw that angel smile bright under the spotlights. It had seemed a miracle when he pulled her up into his tour bus, the blood from her abraded palms black on his cream shirt.
"Girl," he had said. "Lord, darling, look at you."
Delia's memories of that moment were as golden and smoky as two inches of whiskey in a thick tumbler. Jim Beam in a bar glass, a mound of crushed ice in a hand towel, the pervasive aroma of marijuana and patchouli oil. From the instant Randall helped her into the bus, Delia felt numbed and fragile. The whiskey he gave her warmed her belly, while the icy glass soothed her bruised temple. But it was Randall's soft embrace that made the difference, the open, easy way he wrapped her around. She shouldn't have trusted him, shouldn't have been willing to let him touch her with the mark of Clint's rage darkening steadily along the line of her face and neck. Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was the bus wheels spinning clean and sure, taking her away from the nightmare behind her. Maybe it was that she had been wanting to run away for so long. But maybe it was just Randall and the way he had about him.
Delia wanted to scream at the figure in her memory, at Randall's body so long gone, so much of him wasted even when he was alive. He had been so beautiful when he took her in his arms, so strong and tender when she was so hurt. He had felt like the one man on earth she could hang on to and be safe with. How could she not have loved him? She loved him more than her life.
After the accident in Topanga Canyon, trying repeatedly to get sober, Delia stopped going over to Randall's place at all. Even when she slipped back into drinking, she wouldn't let herself be cajoled into climbing into one of the limos sent around by record companies hoping to sign her to sing on her own. She didn't like the parties anymore, and she'd never enjoyed talking business. Drunk or sober, Delia lived in the small town in her heart, ignoring the world in which all her love had turned to grief.
Once they moved to Venice Beach, Delia tried to behave as if it were just another small town too, a place like Cayro. It did not matter that behind her house loomed thousands of others, postage-stamp boxes layered across Los Angeles County up from Santa Monica or south to Long Beach and all the little suburbs that trailed down to San Diego. Delia rarely went outside her neighborhood, and as long as she stayed off the highways, she could pretend they were cut off from the world. When she took Cissy over to Randall's place in West Hollywood or went to the studio annex in Santa Monica, the sight of greater Los Angeles stunned her. The glass structures along Wilshire, the grotesque mansions in Beverly Hills, the interlaced freeways that Randall prowled, none of that was Delia's world. Her world was the cottage and its tiny garden, the convenience store a few blocks west, and Cissy's school two blocks past that, with the occasional trip down to Rosemary's in Marina Del Rey.
"It's strange. Every time I take a drink, I go back in time," Delia told Rosemary not long after she left Randall. "I imagine I am back on the bus, going nowhere in particular, just cruising with the band."
"Uh-huh." Rosemary blew smoke out her nose. "Cruising back to the toilet to puke your guts out and curse Randall with every heave of your stomach? I remember you pregnant and sick as a dog. I remember those bus trips."
Delia pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and shrugged. "In my imagination," she said, "it's always 1971 and we are all young and happy. It's like a dream, a good dream."
Rosemary shook her head. "Nothing like the dream life, huh?"
Delia was the only member of Mud Dog who had loved the road. While everyone else grew pale and exhausted, she blossomed, catching naps during the day and sleeping easily backstage. She drank a lot but ate little, mostly fruit and rice, and avoided the pills and powders that kept half the band wired and sleepless and sick as dogs. In the midst of the tour chaos, Delia was serene. She would drift up the middle of the overloaded bus with a smile and a bottle in her hand, trailing her long fingers over the greasy Formica storage cabinets as if they were flowers and sweet-smelling vines. Sometimes she just stood there, steadying herself with one hand, eyes almost closed. To her it seemed like dancing, balancing there while the bus swayed and rolled along. She would laugh at the thought of herself almost motionless yet hurtling forward.
What Delia did not love were the motels and the parties, the obsequious roadies dealing drugs behind the luggage vans, the hysterical fans who pounced on her before she could get away. There were always people coming up on her from behind, wanting to talk or to touch her, following her every move so closely she would start to shy away even from Randall or Rosemary or Booger, or Little Jimmy the drummer with his shy nudge. Her skin seemed to wear thin, to the point where she hesitated sometimes before following the band out onstage. After a while the road wore you down until you lost the satisfaction of the music everyone came to hear, and Delia knew that the only thing she loved without reservation was the music in her head. The road itself, the two-lane blacktop and the six-lane freeways, the truck stops where the only things you could be sure of were the eggs and the bottled beer, that was not something you loved. The road was something that took you over unawares--the unexpected poetry of road signs and the reassuring glint of reflective markers counting off miles, the backbeat of the wheels whooshing along the asphalt and the song it awakened in the back of Delia's head. She got drunk on the road the same way she did on whiskey, a gentle drunk, an easy binge, smiling and loose and careless as death on two legs.
Delia dreamed on the bus like nowhere else, humming with the wheels, drifting, her eyelids open just enough to catch the shine of the road lights. In that condition, neither asleep nor awake, Delia dreamed of home, of Cayro and Amanda and Dede. Sometimes she dreamed of them in their bodies, the babies growing into girls while she watched and cared for them. When she dreamed that dream, she would weep with relief as everything that had happened after Dede's birth erased itself. In that dream there was no band, no house in Venice Beach, no Cissy, no third girl child with Randall's lazy mouth and her own dark red hair. In that dream Delia was the good mother kneeling on the clay path near her old house in Cayro, her fingers cupping Dede's baby face and her tears burning her own cheeks.
Sometimes the dream would play out the years differently, Delia sweeping in like an angel the week after she climbed into Randall's bus and ran away. In that dream she snatched up her babies, pulling them to her throat as their arms reached to embrace her, her shoulders sprouting wings that carried them all high and far, like the Santa Ana winds over Southern California.
"Mama," the dream girls would say in one voice, "Mama," and Delia's heart would lurch in her breast. The dream children cried her name and held on to her: "Mama. We knew you would come." Their cheeks were hot and flushed, their hair smelling earthy and sweet, the way Delia's palms smelled when she worked in the garden. She breathed them in and felt her insides tremble as the scent filled her. But the arms that reached out to Delia were phantom arms. The dream daughters were ghost girls, imaginary creatures. The road that went everywhere never went to Cayro. As the scent faded, Delia would jerk awake, her face streaked with tears and her muscles straining to hold what was not there.
Sober and fully conscious, Delia knew these dreams for what they were, a comforting lie. If her daughters dreamed of her, they would not be loving dreams. Raging, angry nightmares, that's what her girls would dream of Delia. But in the weeks after Randall's death, she dreamed again her road dreams, Dede and Amanda Louise dreams, Mama dreams, guilt and hope dreams.
Emptying the closets of the little cottage, Delia picked at the raw sore of her conscience. It had been ten years. Dede and Amanda were not babies. They were eleven and thirteen, nearly grown, but what if they didn't hate her? What if her girls hoped for her as much as she hoped for them? From "what if" she fell to maybe, then to might be, could be, oh God! surely so. It was the way Delia thought when she was drinking, as detached from the real as anything could be. It was the voice in the back brain, the voice that swore one drink would not kill her and another was all right too. The devil or desperation, that voice whispered steadily and drew her on. Delia swore she would never drink again, but her girls were not liquor. Her girls were real. Cayro was real. Cayro was home. Maybe no one could earn forgiveness, but listening to that whisper, Delia Byrd packed everything she owned and decided to try.
(C) 1998 Dorothy Allison All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-525-94167-3
Godfather II synopsis
In the town of Corleone, Sicily, in 1901, Vito's father Antonio Andolini and his brother Paolo are killed on the orders of the local Mafia chieftain, Don Ciccio. Vito's mother goes to Ciccio to beg him to let young Vito live. He refuses, saying that Vito will someday come back for revenge. Vito's mother then holds a knife to his throat, sacrificing herself to allow Vito to escape, as Ciccio's gunmen shoot her dead. With the aid of some townspeople, Vito takes a ship to New York City. Arriving at Ellis Island, an official registers him as "Vito Corleone" and he is quarantined for smallpox.
In 1958, Michael Corleone deals with various business and family problems at his Lake Tahoe, Nevada, compound during an elaborate party celebrating his son Anthony's First Communion. Michael meets with Nevada Senator Pat Geary, who despises the Corleones. Geary, aware that Michael plans to gain control of another Las Vegas casino, demands a high price and kickbacks for a new gaming license, while insulting the Corleones and Italians in general. Michael offers Geary nothing.
Michael meets Johnny Ola, the right-hand man of Jewish gangster, Hyman Roth, who tells him that Roth would not object to Michael's attempting to gain control of the extra casino. His sister, Connie, recently divorced, is planning to marry a man of whom Michael disapproves. His brother and underboss, Fredo, is having trouble keeping his drunken wife, Deanna Dunn, under control; Michael's men have to haul her away. Michael meets with a drunken Frank Pentangeli, who took over the old Corleone New York territory after caporegime Peter Clemenza's death. To maintain a smooth business relationship with Roth, Michael refuses to allow Pentangeli to kill the Rosato brothers, who, backed by Roth, are attempting to intrude on Pentangeli's territory. Pentangeli leaves after arguing with Michael.
Later that night, an assassination attempt is made on Michael. He tells family consigliere Tom Hagen that the hit was made with the help of someone close. Michael then insists that he must leave and entrusts Hagen – Michael had excluded him from the Roth and Pentangeli negotiations – to protect his family. As Michael suspected, the assassins are found dead.
In 1917, Vito Corleone, now married and living in a tenement with his wife Carmela and son (Santino), works in a New York grocery store owned by the father of his close friend Genco Abbandando, who looked after him after he came to New York. The neighborhood is controlled by a member of the Black Hand, Don Fanucci, who extorts protection payments from local businesses. Abbandando Senior is forced to fire Vito and give his job to Fanucci's nephew. One night, Vito's neighbor Peter Clemenza asks him to hide a stash of guns for him, and later, to repay the favor, takes him to a fancy apartment where they commit their first crime together, stealing an expensive rug.
Michael drives to Hyman Roth's home near Miami, and tells Roth that he believes Pentangeli was responsible for the assassination attempt. Traveling to Pentangeli's home, Michael lets Pentangeli know that Roth was actually behind it and that Michael has a plan to deal with him, but needs Pentangeli to cooperate with the Rosato brothers in order to keep Roth off guard. When Pentangeli goes to meet with the Rosatos, their men garrote him, claiming to have been sent by Michael. However, the attempted murder is interrupted by a policeman.
Elsewhere, Tom visits one of the brothels owned by the Corleone family, where Geary has been found in a room with a dead prostitute. Geary says he cannot remember what happened, and Hagen says he will cover up the death as a token of the Corleones' "friendship" with the senator.
Meanwhile, Michael meets Roth in Havana, Cuba, at the time when dictator Fulgencio Batista is soliciting American investment, andguerrillas are trying to bring down the government. Roth is celebrating his birthday with business partners, splitting up territory in Havana and telling them that Michael and the Corleone Family will be taking over the operation when he dies, when Michael reveals to Roth and others that he is hesitant to invest after having seen a rebel kill several of Batista's policemen in a suicide bombing, convincing him that Fidel Castro is capable of taking over. Roth privately requests Michael's investment once again.
Fredo arrives in Havana, carrying the money promised to Roth; Michael confides in him that it was Roth who tried to kill him and that he plans to try again. Michael assures Fredo that he has already made his move and that "Hyman Roth will never see the New Year." Instead of turning over the money, Michael asks Roth who gave the order to have Pentangeli killed. Roth avoids the question, instead alluding to the murder of his old friend and ally Moe Greene – who Michael ordered to be killed years previously – saying, "This is the business we've chosen. I didn't ask who gave the order because it had nothing to do with business!"
Michael asks Fredo to show Geary and other important American officials and businessmen a good time, during which Fredo pretends not to know Johnny Ola, Roth's right-hand man. Later in the evening, however, Fredo drunkenly comments that he learned about the place they're in from Johnny Ola, contradicting what he told Michael twice earlier. Michael realizes that his own brother is the family traitor and dispatches his bodyguard to kill Roth. Johnny Ola is strangled with a wooden coathanger, but Roth, whose health is failing, is taken to a hospital before he can be assassinated. Michael's bodyguard follows but is shot and killed by police while trying to smother Roth with a pillow.
At Batista's New Year's Eve party, at the stroke of midnight, Michael grasps Fredo tightly by the head and kisses him harshly on the lips, telling him "I know it was you, Fredo—you broke my heart." Batista announces he is stepping down due to unexpected gains by the rebels, and the guests flee as Castro's guerrillas pour into the city and the people begin celebrating. Michael appeals to his brother to join him in leaving the country, but Fredo runs away frightened.
Michael returns to Las Vegas, where Hagen tells him that Roth escaped from Cuba after suffering a stroke and is recovering in Miami. Hagen also informs Michael that Kay had a miscarriage while he was away. Michael angrily asks if it was a boy which Hagen replies that he doesn't know.
In New York, in 1920, Don Fanucci has become aware of the partnership between Vito, Clemenza and Sal Tessio. He collars Vito in his delivery truck and tells him that he knows the trio has recently committed a robbery. He demands that they "wet his beak" or the police (on Fanucci's payroll) will arrest Vito, and his family will be ruined. Clemenza and Tessio agree to pay, but Vito - guessing that Fanucci's grip on his ghetto was only one man deep - asks his friends to allow him to convince Fanucci to accept less money, telling them, "I make him an offer he don't refuse. " Vito manages to get Fanucci to take one hundred dollars instead of the original six hundred he had demanded ($50 from each of his friends, but holding his own back - money he took back after killing Fanucci anyway). Immediately afterward – despite having earned Fanucci's respect and an offer of employment – Vito shoots him dead in a darkened stairway outside Fanucci's apartment during a neighborhood festa, and escapes across the rooftops. Later, on the steps of his tenement building, he sits with his family, cradling the newborn Michael in his arms. The screen fades to black as this hinge point was the intermission in some cinema performances.
Michael returns to his compound in Lake Tahoe, declining to go into the same room as his wife and instead asking advice from his mother. In Washington, D.C., a Senate committee, of which Geary is a member, is conducting an investigation into the Corleone family. They question disaffected "soldier" Willi Cicci, but he cannot implicate Michael because he never received any direct orders from him.
In New York, in the early 1920s, Vito has become a respected figure in his community. He intercedes with a slum landlord who is evicting a widow. Vito offers the landlord extra money to let her stay, but the man becomes angry when Vito demands that she also be allowed to keep her dog. A few days later the landlord, terrified after finding out who Vito is, calls on him and announces that the widow can stay, along with her dog, at a reduced rent.
When Michael appears before the Senate committee, Geary makes an announcement generally supportive of Italian-Americans and then excuses himself from the proceedings. Michael makes a statement challenging the committee to produce a witness to corroborate the charges against him. The hearing ends with the Chairman promising a witness who will do exactly that, who turns out to be Pentangeli. Michael and Hagen observe that Roth's strategy to destroy Michael is well planned. Fredo has been found and persuaded to return to Nevada, and in a private meeting he explains his betrayal to Michael; he was upset about being passed over to head the family, and helped Roth, thinking there would be something in it for him. He swears he didn't know they wanted to kill Michael. He also tells Michael that the Senate Committee's chief counsel is on Roth's payroll. Michael then disowns Fredo and privately instructs bodyguard Al Neri that " nothing is to happen to him while my mother's alive. "
Pentangeli has made a deal with the FBI to testify against Michael, believing Michael was the one who organized the attempt on his life. He is considered very credible, since as a caporegime there is no insulation between Michael and himself. At the hearing in which Pentangeli is to testify, Michael arrives accompanied by Pentangeli's brother, brought in from Sicily. Upon seeing his brother, Pentangeli recants his earlier written statements, saying that he runs his own family, thereby derailing the government's case. The hearing ends in an uproar with Hagen, acting as Michael's lawyer, irately demanding an apology.
In a hotel room afterwards, Kay tells Michael she is leaving him, taking their children with her. Michael at first tries to mollify her, but when she reveals to him that her "miscarriage" was actually an abortion to avoid bringing another son into Michael's criminal family, Michael explodes in anger and slaps her in the face.
In 1925, Vito visits Sicily for the first time since leaving for America, now accompanied by all four of his children. He is introduced to the elderly Don Ciccio by Don Tommasino – who initially helped Vito escape to America – as the man who imports their olive oil to America, and who wants his blessing. When Ciccio asks Vito who his father was, Vito says, "My father's name was Antonio Andolini, and this is for you!" He then stabs the old man to death. In the resulting gun battle, Tommasino is shot, confining him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Mama Corleone dies and the whole Corleone family reunites at her funeral. Michael is still shunning Fredo, but relents when Connie implores him to forgive their brother. Michael and Fredo embrace, but as they do so, Michael exchanges glances with Al Neri.
Michael Corleone, Tom Hagen, Al Neri and Rocco Lampone discuss their final dealings with Roth, who has been unsuccessfully seeking asylum from various countries, and was even refused entry to Israel as a returning Jew. Michael rejects Hagen's advice that the Corleone family's position is secure and that killing Roth and the Rosato brothers is an unnecessary risk. Later, Hagen visits Pentangeli at the military base. He leads Pentangeli, a student of history, into a discussion on how families were organized likeRoman legions, which ends with Hagen's veiled assurance that if Pentangeli were to commit suicide then, just as the Romans did after a failed plot against the Emperor, his family would be spared and taken care of. With Connie's help, Kay visits her children but cannot bear to leave them and stays too long. When Michael arrives, he closes the door in her face.
In 1925, Vito and his young family board the train to leave Corleone, as family and friends wave.
The film then reaches its climax in a montage of assassinations and death:
As he arrives in Miami to be taken into custody, Hyman Roth is shot in the stomach and killed by Lampone, who is immediately shot dead by FBI agents.
Frank Pentangeli is found dead in his bathtub, having slit his wrists.
Finally, Neri shoots Fredo in the head while they are fishing on Lake Tahoe, as Fredo is saying a Hail Mary to help catch a fish. Michael watches from his den.
The final scene takes place as a flashback to December 1941 as the Corleone family is preparing a surprise birthday party for Vito.Sonny introduces Carlo Rizzi (who would later be complicit in Sonny's death) to Connie. Tessio comes in with the cake, and they all discuss the recent attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Michael shocks everybody by announcing that he has dropped out of college and enlisted in the Marines. Sonny is furious with Michael's decision, Tom incredulous, and Fredo supportive. Vito arrives (offscreen) and all but Michael leave the room to greet him.
The Speech; The Huge Lie
What we have been allowed to see is so spectacularly vacuous, I really don't know what to say. There is also a huge lie to start with:
Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections. We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than divides us.
In the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s, in his first weeks in office, the GOP monolithically voted against his stimulus, including the third of it which was tax cuts. They even opposed tax cuts because Obama proposed them! Mitch McConnell said the following out loud:
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
Americans did not come together. One party, Mitt's, set out from the get-go to destroy Obama's presidency, regardless of the impact of the recession, which they helped intensify by slashing public sector jobs across the country and blocking any new stimulus after 2010. Then this lie about the situation in early 2009:
Every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through the hard times, open a new store or sponsor that Little League team. Every new college graduate thought they'd have a good job by now, a place of their own, and that they could start paying back some of their loans and build for the future. This is when our nation was supposed to start paying down the national debt and rolling back those massive deficits.
Again, this is surreal. As the country was losing jobs at a rate of what can only be called free-fall, did everyone expect a sudden immediate boom, the best years of their lives? Was that the time when we should have suddenly started cutting spending? Romney knows this line of argument is premised on a fantasy. It's as if Romney cannot address the actual reality and propose solutions, but chooses to invent an entire alternative universe in which he can invent dreams no one in February 2009 had, listening to an Inaugural Address that told them that affairs were grim and foreboding and difficult. This also makes no sense to me:
If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had, was the day you voted for him.
I don't think people expect to feel as exhilarated at the end of a first term as they were at the start. I sure don't. But then I was aware we were facing the worst global economic meltdown of my and my parents' lifetimes. I think many people were aware. Romney is asking us to believe that Obama inherited Clinton's economy. He inherited Bush's - a name we have yet to hear in prime time once.
We are testing a hypothesis. Can a campaign be based on lies that are premised on a deeper invention of the past - and still win? Has Ailes successfully created a new reality? We will find out. But what is at stake is the very empirical basis of our democratic debate. Are we about to live in a post-truth world? Is the Republican belief-system about to replace reality?
What we have been allowed to see is so spectacularly vacuous, I really don't know what to say. There is also a huge lie to start with:
Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections. We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than divides us.
In the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s, in his first weeks in office, the GOP monolithically voted against his stimulus, including the third of it which was tax cuts. They even opposed tax cuts because Obama proposed them! Mitch McConnell said the following out loud:
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
Americans did not come together. One party, Mitt's, set out from the get-go to destroy Obama's presidency, regardless of the impact of the recession, which they helped intensify by slashing public sector jobs across the country and blocking any new stimulus after 2010. Then this lie about the situation in early 2009:
Every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through the hard times, open a new store or sponsor that Little League team. Every new college graduate thought they'd have a good job by now, a place of their own, and that they could start paying back some of their loans and build for the future. This is when our nation was supposed to start paying down the national debt and rolling back those massive deficits.
Again, this is surreal. As the country was losing jobs at a rate of what can only be called free-fall, did everyone expect a sudden immediate boom, the best years of their lives? Was that the time when we should have suddenly started cutting spending? Romney knows this line of argument is premised on a fantasy. It's as if Romney cannot address the actual reality and propose solutions, but chooses to invent an entire alternative universe in which he can invent dreams no one in February 2009 had, listening to an Inaugural Address that told them that affairs were grim and foreboding and difficult. This also makes no sense to me:
If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had, was the day you voted for him.
I don't think people expect to feel as exhilarated at the end of a first term as they were at the start. I sure don't. But then I was aware we were facing the worst global economic meltdown of my and my parents' lifetimes. I think many people were aware. Romney is asking us to believe that Obama inherited Clinton's economy. He inherited Bush's - a name we have yet to hear in prime time once.
We are testing a hypothesis. Can a campaign be based on lies that are premised on a deeper invention of the past - and still win? Has Ailes successfully created a new reality? We will find out. But what is at stake is the very empirical basis of our democratic debate. Are we about to live in a post-truth world? Is the Republican belief-system about to replace reality?
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The GOP convention in Tampa is well underway and it's already given the gun lobby an early Christmas present. Last night, national Republicans gleefully adopted their most pro-gun platform ever.
It reads like a direct rebuke of my years of work in Congress to save lives from illegal guns and avoidable gun violence.
Their platform directly opposes bans on high-capacity ammunition magazines – the same exact devices that enabled shooters to take many lives on the Long Island Railroad and in Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, Arizona, Colorado and Wisconsin to take more lives
House Speaker John Boehner’s speech starts out with just about every out-of-context quote used by Republicans to bash President Obama. Two of his examples were featured in our Gaffe-check videos: “The private sector is doing fine” and “If you’ve got a business, “you didn’t build that.”
Such gaffes are effective when they reinforce an existing stereotype—in this case, the notion that Obama is hostile to private enterprise. But as our videos show, both of these quotes were taken out of context.
Such gaffes are effective when they reinforce an existing stereotype—in this case, the notion that Obama is hostile to private enterprise. But as our videos show, both of these quotes were taken out of context.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Buchanin vs. the new GOP
A deep-seated fear, a gnawing anxiety among Republicans that the positions they have held and hold on social and moral issues, and even on economics and foreign policy, no longer command the support of a majority of their countrymen.
Consider. While the three amigos — John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham — are all for intervention in Syria, the Republican Party has fallen largely silent.
Where are the Republican and neocon hawks of yesteryear now that Barack Obama is pulling out of Afghanistan, when the expected result of a U.S. withdrawal is a Taliban takeover and massacre of many of those Afghans foolish enough to have cast their lot with the Americans?
Any Republicans demanding we stay the course in Afghanistan?
Rather than hearing the old paeans to free trade we used to get from Bush I and II, Republicans now talk about getting tough with China and fighting the “unfair” trade practices of foreign regimes.
Milton Friedman, whose writings Republicans once read as gospel, said we should throw America’s markets open to the world, no matter the protectionist policies of others, because cheaper imports benefit all of America’s consumers.
No Republican talks like that anymore. Yet none seems to have a solution to these endless trade deficits debilitating our economy other than to ignore them or accuse the Chinese of “currency manipulation.”
With homosexual marriage gaining converts among the young, the party of the Moral Majority declines to stand with Chick-fil-A.
On right-to-life, see the Republicans flee from Todd Akin, who committed a gaffe while restating his support for what has been a plank of the Republican platform since 1980.
Bewailing deficits, Republicans demand a balanced budget. And the Ryan budget does that — in 28 years.
Why so long? Because real budget cuts entail real pain.
Where is Mitt Romney going to slash a budget that consumes a fourth of the U.S. economy?
Not defense. Mitt promises to increase that. He cannot cut interest on the debt, which must rise as interest rates climb from today’s near-zero levels. He says he will not cut Medicare.
Is he going to cut Social Security? How about taking an ax to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, school lunches, Head Start, aid to education, Pell Grants, EPA, the FBI and the earned income tax credit?
What the reactions to Akin’s gaffe and the congressional skinny-dipper in the Sea of Galilee expose is a fear in the soul of the GOP that history is passing it by and the end may be near.
For decades, the GOP has been the party that cuts marginal tax rates, opposes abortion, defends traditional marriage, sends troops to fight for our values abroad and slashes government spending.
Today’s GOP establishment is queasy even talking about social issues and recognizes that the new America has had it with the Afghanistans and Iraqs, wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent and contains scores of millions who will punish any politician who threatens their benefits.
The GOP’s insoluble problem is that the multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual country they created with their open borders appears not to like the brand of dog food the party sells.
Beating up on Todd Akin is not going to change that.
Consider. While the three amigos — John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham — are all for intervention in Syria, the Republican Party has fallen largely silent.
Where are the Republican and neocon hawks of yesteryear now that Barack Obama is pulling out of Afghanistan, when the expected result of a U.S. withdrawal is a Taliban takeover and massacre of many of those Afghans foolish enough to have cast their lot with the Americans?
Any Republicans demanding we stay the course in Afghanistan?
Rather than hearing the old paeans to free trade we used to get from Bush I and II, Republicans now talk about getting tough with China and fighting the “unfair” trade practices of foreign regimes.
Milton Friedman, whose writings Republicans once read as gospel, said we should throw America’s markets open to the world, no matter the protectionist policies of others, because cheaper imports benefit all of America’s consumers.
No Republican talks like that anymore. Yet none seems to have a solution to these endless trade deficits debilitating our economy other than to ignore them or accuse the Chinese of “currency manipulation.”
With homosexual marriage gaining converts among the young, the party of the Moral Majority declines to stand with Chick-fil-A.
On right-to-life, see the Republicans flee from Todd Akin, who committed a gaffe while restating his support for what has been a plank of the Republican platform since 1980.
Bewailing deficits, Republicans demand a balanced budget. And the Ryan budget does that — in 28 years.
Why so long? Because real budget cuts entail real pain.
Where is Mitt Romney going to slash a budget that consumes a fourth of the U.S. economy?
Not defense. Mitt promises to increase that. He cannot cut interest on the debt, which must rise as interest rates climb from today’s near-zero levels. He says he will not cut Medicare.
Is he going to cut Social Security? How about taking an ax to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, school lunches, Head Start, aid to education, Pell Grants, EPA, the FBI and the earned income tax credit?
What the reactions to Akin’s gaffe and the congressional skinny-dipper in the Sea of Galilee expose is a fear in the soul of the GOP that history is passing it by and the end may be near.
For decades, the GOP has been the party that cuts marginal tax rates, opposes abortion, defends traditional marriage, sends troops to fight for our values abroad and slashes government spending.
Today’s GOP establishment is queasy even talking about social issues and recognizes that the new America has had it with the Afghanistans and Iraqs, wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent and contains scores of millions who will punish any politician who threatens their benefits.
The GOP’s insoluble problem is that the multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual country they created with their open borders appears not to like the brand of dog food the party sells.
Beating up on Todd Akin is not going to change that.
Another political tradition in black America, running counter to the one publicly embraced by Obama and Booker T. Washington, casts its skepticism not simply upon black culture but upon the entire American project. This tradition stretches back to Frederick Douglass, who, in 1852, said of his native country,
“There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.”
It extends through Martin Delany, through Booker T.’s nemesis W. E. B. Du Bois, and through Malcolm X. It includes
Martin Luther King Jr., who at the height of the Vietnam War called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
And it includes Obama’s former pastor, he of the famous “God Damn America” sermon, Jeremiah Wright.
The Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy, in his 2011 book, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, examines this tradition by looking at his own father and Reverend Wright in the context of black America’s sense of patriotism. Like Wright, the elder Kennedy was a veteran of the U.S. military, a man seared and radicalized by American racism, forever remade as a vociferous critic of his native country: in virtually any American conflict, Kennedy’s father rooted for the foreign country.
The deep skepticism about the American proj ect that Kennedy’s father and Reverend Wright evince is an old tradition in black America.
Before Frederick Douglass worked, during the Civil War, for the preservation of the Union, he called for his country’s destruction. “I have no love for America,” he declaimed in a lecture to the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1847. “I have no patriotism … I desire to see [the government] overthrown as speedily as possible and its Constitution shivered in a thousand fragments.”
Kennedy notes that Douglass’s denunciations were the words of a man who not only had endured slavery but was living in a country where whites often selected the Fourth of July as a special day to prosecute a campaign of racial terror:
On July 4, 1805, whites in Philadelphia drove blacks out of the square facing Independence Hall. For years thereafter, blacks attended Fourth of July festivities in that city at their peril. On July 4, 1834, a white mob in New York City burned down the Broadway Tabernacle because of the antislavery and anti racist views of the church’s leaders. Firefighters in sympathy with the arsonists refused to douse the conflagration. On July 4, 1835, a white mob in Canaan, New Hampshire, destroyed a school open to blacks that was run by an abolitionist. The ante bellum years were liberally dotted with such episodes.
Jeremiah Wright was born into an America of segregation—overt in the South and covert in the North, but wounding wherever. He joined the Marines, vowing service to his country, at a time when he wouldn’t have been allowed to vote in some states. He built his ministry in a community reeling from decades of job and housing discrimination, and heaving under the weight of drugs, gun violence, and broken families. Wright’s world is emblematic of the African Americans he ministered to, people reared on the anti-black-citizenship tradition—poll taxes, states pushing stringent voter- ID laws—of Stephen Douglas and Andrew Johnson and William F. Buckley Jr. The message is “You are not American.” The countermessage—God damn America— is an old one, and is surprising only to people unfamiliar with the politics of black life in this country. Un fortunately, that is an apt description of large swaths of America.
Whatever the context for Wright’s speech, the surfacing of his remarks in 2008 was utterly inconvenient not just for the Obama campaign but for much of black America. One truism holds that black people are always anxious to talk about race, eager to lecture white people at every juncture about how wrong they are and about the price they must pay for past and ongoing sins. But one reason Obama rose so quickly was that African Americans are war-weary. It was not simply the country at large that was tired of the old Baby Boomer debates.
Blacks, too, were sick of talking about affirmative action and school busing. There was a broad sense that integration had failed us, and a growing disenchantment with our appointed spokespeople. Obama’s primary triumphs in predominantly white states gave rise to rumors of a new peace, one many blacks were anxious to achieve.
And even those black Americans who embrace the tradition of God Damn America do so not with glee but with deep pain and anguish. Both Kennedy’s father and Wright were military men.
My own father went to Vietnam dreaming of John Wayne, but came back quoting Malcolm X.
The poet Lucille Clifton once put it succinctly:
They act like they don’t love their country
No
what it is
is they found out
their country don’t love them.
---- Ta-Nahisi Coates
Black anti patriotism
Another political tradition in black America, running counter to the one publicly embraced by Obama and Booker T. Washington, casts its skepticism not simply upon black culture but upon the entire American project. This tradition stretches back to Frederick Douglass, who, in 1852, said of his native country, “There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.” It extends through Martin Delany, through Booker T.’s nemesis W. E. B. Du Bois, and through Malcolm X. It includes Martin Luther King Jr., who at the height of the Vietnam War called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” And it includes Obama’s former pastor, he of the famous “God Damn America” sermon, Jeremiah Wright.
The Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy, in his 2011 book, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, examines this tradition by looking at his own father and Reverend Wright in the context of black America’s sense of patriotism. Like Wright, the elder Kennedy was a veteran of the U.S. military, a man seared and radicalized by American racism, forever remade as a vociferous critic of his native country: in virtually any American conflict, Kennedy’s father rooted for the foreign country.
The deep skepticism about the American proj ect that Kennedy’s father and Reverend Wright evince is an old tradition in black America. Before Frederick Douglass worked, during the Civil War, for the preservation of the Union, he called for his country’s destruction. “I have no love for America,” he declaimed in a lecture to the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1847. “I have no patriotism … I desire to see [the government] overthrown as speedily as possible and its Constitution shivered in a thousand fragments.”
Kennedy notes that Douglass’s denunciations were the words of a man who not only had endured slavery but was living in a country where whites often selected the Fourth of July as a special day to prosecute a campaign of racial terror:
On July 4, 1805, whites in Philadelphia drove blacks out of the square facing Independence Hall. For years thereafter, blacks attended Fourth of July festivities in that city at their peril. On July 4, 1834, a white mob in New York City burned down the Broadway Tabernacle because of the antislavery and anti racist views of the church’s leaders. Firefighters in sympathy with the arsonists refused to douse the conflagration. On July 4, 1835, a white mob in Canaan, New Hampshire, destroyed a school open to blacks that was run by an abolitionist. The ante bellum years were liberally dotted with such episodes.
Jeremiah Wright was born into an America of segregation—overt in the South and covert in the North, but wounding wherever. He joined the Marines, vowing service to his country, at a time when he wouldn’t have been allowed to vote in some states. He built his ministry in a community reeling from decades of job and housing discrimination, and heaving under the weight of drugs, gun violence, and broken families. Wright’s world is emblematic of the African Americans he ministered to, people reared on the anti-black-citizenship tradition—poll taxes, states pushing stringent voter- ID laws—of Stephen Douglas and Andrew Johnson and William F. Buckley Jr. The message is “You are not American.” The countermessage—God damn America— is an old one, and is surprising only to people unfamiliar with the politics of black life in this country. Un fortunately, that is an apt description of large swaths of America.
Whatever the context for Wright’s speech, the surfacing of his remarks in 2008 was utterly inconvenient not just for the Obama campaign but for much of black America. One truism holds that black people are always anxious to talk about race, eager to lecture white people at every juncture about how wrong they are and about the price they must pay for past and ongoing sins. But one reason Obama rose so quickly was that African Americans are war-weary. It was not simply the country at large that was tired of the old Baby Boomer debates. Blacks, too, were sick of talking about affirmative action and school busing. There was a broad sense that integration had failed us, and a growing disenchantment with our appointed spokespeople. Obama’s primary triumphs in predominantly white states gave rise to rumors of a new peace, one many blacks were anxious to achieve.
And even those black Americans who embrace the tradition of God Damn America do so not with glee but with deep pain and anguish. Both Kennedy’s father and Wright were military men. My own father went to Vietnam dreaming of John Wayne, but came back quoting Malcolm X. The poet Lucille Clifton once put it succinctly:
They act like they don’t love their country
No
what it is
is they found out
their country don’t love them.
The Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy, in his 2011 book, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, examines this tradition by looking at his own father and Reverend Wright in the context of black America’s sense of patriotism. Like Wright, the elder Kennedy was a veteran of the U.S. military, a man seared and radicalized by American racism, forever remade as a vociferous critic of his native country: in virtually any American conflict, Kennedy’s father rooted for the foreign country.
The deep skepticism about the American proj ect that Kennedy’s father and Reverend Wright evince is an old tradition in black America. Before Frederick Douglass worked, during the Civil War, for the preservation of the Union, he called for his country’s destruction. “I have no love for America,” he declaimed in a lecture to the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1847. “I have no patriotism … I desire to see [the government] overthrown as speedily as possible and its Constitution shivered in a thousand fragments.”
Kennedy notes that Douglass’s denunciations were the words of a man who not only had endured slavery but was living in a country where whites often selected the Fourth of July as a special day to prosecute a campaign of racial terror:
On July 4, 1805, whites in Philadelphia drove blacks out of the square facing Independence Hall. For years thereafter, blacks attended Fourth of July festivities in that city at their peril. On July 4, 1834, a white mob in New York City burned down the Broadway Tabernacle because of the antislavery and anti racist views of the church’s leaders. Firefighters in sympathy with the arsonists refused to douse the conflagration. On July 4, 1835, a white mob in Canaan, New Hampshire, destroyed a school open to blacks that was run by an abolitionist. The ante bellum years were liberally dotted with such episodes.
Jeremiah Wright was born into an America of segregation—overt in the South and covert in the North, but wounding wherever. He joined the Marines, vowing service to his country, at a time when he wouldn’t have been allowed to vote in some states. He built his ministry in a community reeling from decades of job and housing discrimination, and heaving under the weight of drugs, gun violence, and broken families. Wright’s world is emblematic of the African Americans he ministered to, people reared on the anti-black-citizenship tradition—poll taxes, states pushing stringent voter- ID laws—of Stephen Douglas and Andrew Johnson and William F. Buckley Jr. The message is “You are not American.” The countermessage—God damn America— is an old one, and is surprising only to people unfamiliar with the politics of black life in this country. Un fortunately, that is an apt description of large swaths of America.
Whatever the context for Wright’s speech, the surfacing of his remarks in 2008 was utterly inconvenient not just for the Obama campaign but for much of black America. One truism holds that black people are always anxious to talk about race, eager to lecture white people at every juncture about how wrong they are and about the price they must pay for past and ongoing sins. But one reason Obama rose so quickly was that African Americans are war-weary. It was not simply the country at large that was tired of the old Baby Boomer debates. Blacks, too, were sick of talking about affirmative action and school busing. There was a broad sense that integration had failed us, and a growing disenchantment with our appointed spokespeople. Obama’s primary triumphs in predominantly white states gave rise to rumors of a new peace, one many blacks were anxious to achieve.
And even those black Americans who embrace the tradition of God Damn America do so not with glee but with deep pain and anguish. Both Kennedy’s father and Wright were military men. My own father went to Vietnam dreaming of John Wayne, but came back quoting Malcolm X. The poet Lucille Clifton once put it succinctly:
They act like they don’t love their country
No
what it is
is they found out
their country don’t love them.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Obama campaign
Given all that, what do you think the general election is going to look like, and what do you think of Mitt Romney?
I think the general election will be as sharp a contrast between the two parties as we've seen in a generation. You have a Republican Party, and a presumptive Republican nominee, that believes in drastically rolling back environmental regulations, that believes in drastically rolling back collective-bargaining rights, that believes in an approach to deficit reduction in which taxes are cut further for the wealthiest Americans, and spending cuts are entirely borne by things like education or basic research or care for the vulnerable. All this will be presumably written into their platform and reflected in their convention. I don't think that their nominee is going to be able to suddenly say, "Everything I've said for the last six months, I didn't mean." I'm assuming that he meant it. When you're running for president, people are paying attention to what you're saying.
I think the general election will be as sharp a contrast between the two parties as we've seen in a generation. You have a Republican Party, and a presumptive Republican nominee, that believes in drastically rolling back environmental regulations, that believes in drastically rolling back collective-bargaining rights, that believes in an approach to deficit reduction in which taxes are cut further for the wealthiest Americans, and spending cuts are entirely borne by things like education or basic research or care for the vulnerable. All this will be presumably written into their platform and reflected in their convention. I don't think that their nominee is going to be able to suddenly say, "Everything I've said for the last six months, I didn't mean." I'm assuming that he meant it. When you're running for president, people are paying attention to what you're saying.
In research carried out at PERC this summer, Jonathan Klick, a PERC Lone Mountain Fellow, argues that reusable grocery bags contain potentially harmful bacteria, especially coliform bacteria such as E. coli. Klick finds that, in the wake of San Francisco’s ban, deaths and ER visits related to these bacteria spiked as soon as the ban went into effect.
Monday, August 20, 2012
TOO MUCH TV?
The average American spends slightly more than five hours a day in front of the tube. THREE HOURS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, SEVEN HOURS FOR SENIOR CITIZENS. MORE THAN DOUBLE, AND YOU PRESENT AN AVERAGE. THAT IS LYING WITH STATISTICS.
AVERAGE IS MISLEADING. SOME PEOPLE LEAVE THE TV ON for hours. THE WHOLE STATISTICAL STUDY IS SIMPLY WRONG.
The figure drops to three hours and twenty minutes a day of average TV viewing time among 18-24 year olds but rises to seven hour a day among those aged 65 and older. And those between 24 and 65, not mentioned in the article.
In any case. given movie rentals, news, and sports, and the tendency for people to leave the tv on and hardly watch it, the study is simply misleading.
THE BEST WAY TO GET NOTICED IN THE MEDIA IS TO PRESENT SOMETHING THAT SEEMS WRONG. MAKE PEOPLE THINK.
=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-
HERE'S THE ARTICLE. AND ONE MORE CREEPY COMMENT. TIME SHOULD BE PRESENTED IN HOURS NOT IN MINUTES. 420 MINUTES IS GARBAGE. YOU HAVE TO DO SOME MATH. ITS 7 HOURS. 420 MINUTES. BULLSHIT. BUT YOU CAN SEE HOW PETTY I'M GETTING. I'M TURNING INTO ANDY ROONY. BUT HE WAS GOOD FOR A WHILE.
Adult Americans spend an average of more than eight hours a day in front of screens -- televisions, computer monitors, cellphones or other devices, according to a new study.
The study also found that live television in the home continues to attract the greatest amount of viewing time with the average American spending slightly more than five hours a day in front of the tube.
I HATE THAT. AVERAGE BETWEEN TWO HOURS AND SEVEN HOURS. THAT MEANS YOU DON'T PRESENT THE AVERAGE FIGURE. THAT IS DELIBERATELY MISLEADING. BREITBART.COM SHOULD BE ABOVE THAT.
The figure drops to 210 minutes a day of average TV viewing time among 18-24 year olds but rises to 420 minutes a day among those aged 65 and older.
The "Video Consumer Mapping" study was conducted by Ball State University's Center for Media Design (CMD) and Sequent Partners for the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence (CRE).
For the year-long study, observers recorded the exposure of 350 subjects to four categories of screens: traditional television, computers, mobile devices and other screens such as store displays, movie screens and even GPS navigation units.
The study found the average amount of screen time for all age groups was "strikingly similar" at more than eight-and-a-half hours although the type of devices and duration used by the respective groups throughout the day varied.
It found that people aged 45 to 54 averaged the most daily screen time at just over nine-and-a-half hours.
The study did not include anyone under the age of 18.
Among other finds:
-- computer video consumption tends to be quite small with an average time of just over two minutes a day.
-- Adults spend an average of 6.5 minutes a day with videogame consoles with the number rising to 26 minutes a day among those aged 18-24
-- Adults spend an average 142 minutes a day in front of computer screens
-- Adults spend an average 20 minutes a day engaged with mobile devices with the highest usage -- 43 minutes a day -- among the 18-24 age group
"What differentiates this study from all other attempts to measure video exposure at the consumer level is its scale, the range of media covered and the fact that it is focused on consumers first and the media second," said Mike Bloxham, director of insight and research for Ball State's CMD.
"It?s not a study about TV or the Web or any other medium -- it?s about how, where, how often and for how long consumers are exposed to all media."
AND THE BEST WAY TO DO THAT IS TO ACTUALLY PRESENT SOMETHING WRONG.
THE OVERALL EFFECT THOUGH IS SLIGHTLY PERNICIOUS. IT CAN'T BE CONTROLLED, AND IT IS SOMEWHAT HARMFUL. BUT THERE IS NO SOLUTION.
Posted by ziferstein at 7:10 PM
The average American spends slightly more than five hours a day in front of the tube. THREE HOURS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, SEVEN HOURS FOR SENIOR CITIZENS. MORE THAN DOUBLE, AND YOU PRESENT AN AVERAGE. THAT IS LYING WITH STATISTICS.
AVERAGE IS MISLEADING. SOME PEOPLE LEAVE THE TV ON for hours. THE WHOLE STATISTICAL STUDY IS SIMPLY WRONG.
The figure drops to three hours and twenty minutes a day of average TV viewing time among 18-24 year olds but rises to seven hour a day among those aged 65 and older. And those between 24 and 65, not mentioned in the article.
In any case. given movie rentals, news, and sports, and the tendency for people to leave the tv on and hardly watch it, the study is simply misleading.
THE BEST WAY TO GET NOTICED IN THE MEDIA IS TO PRESENT SOMETHING THAT SEEMS WRONG. MAKE PEOPLE THINK.
=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-
HERE'S THE ARTICLE. AND ONE MORE CREEPY COMMENT. TIME SHOULD BE PRESENTED IN HOURS NOT IN MINUTES. 420 MINUTES IS GARBAGE. YOU HAVE TO DO SOME MATH. ITS 7 HOURS. 420 MINUTES. BULLSHIT. BUT YOU CAN SEE HOW PETTY I'M GETTING. I'M TURNING INTO ANDY ROONY. BUT HE WAS GOOD FOR A WHILE.
Adult Americans spend an average of more than eight hours a day in front of screens -- televisions, computer monitors, cellphones or other devices, according to a new study.
The study also found that live television in the home continues to attract the greatest amount of viewing time with the average American spending slightly more than five hours a day in front of the tube.
I HATE THAT. AVERAGE BETWEEN TWO HOURS AND SEVEN HOURS. THAT MEANS YOU DON'T PRESENT THE AVERAGE FIGURE. THAT IS DELIBERATELY MISLEADING. BREITBART.COM SHOULD BE ABOVE THAT.
The figure drops to 210 minutes a day of average TV viewing time among 18-24 year olds but rises to 420 minutes a day among those aged 65 and older.
The "Video Consumer Mapping" study was conducted by Ball State University's Center for Media Design (CMD) and Sequent Partners for the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence (CRE).
For the year-long study, observers recorded the exposure of 350 subjects to four categories of screens: traditional television, computers, mobile devices and other screens such as store displays, movie screens and even GPS navigation units.
The study found the average amount of screen time for all age groups was "strikingly similar" at more than eight-and-a-half hours although the type of devices and duration used by the respective groups throughout the day varied.
It found that people aged 45 to 54 averaged the most daily screen time at just over nine-and-a-half hours.
The study did not include anyone under the age of 18.
Among other finds:
-- computer video consumption tends to be quite small with an average time of just over two minutes a day.
-- Adults spend an average of 6.5 minutes a day with videogame consoles with the number rising to 26 minutes a day among those aged 18-24
-- Adults spend an average 142 minutes a day in front of computer screens
-- Adults spend an average 20 minutes a day engaged with mobile devices with the highest usage -- 43 minutes a day -- among the 18-24 age group
"What differentiates this study from all other attempts to measure video exposure at the consumer level is its scale, the range of media covered and the fact that it is focused on consumers first and the media second," said Mike Bloxham, director of insight and research for Ball State's CMD.
"It?s not a study about TV or the Web or any other medium -- it?s about how, where, how often and for how long consumers are exposed to all media."
AND THE BEST WAY TO DO THAT IS TO ACTUALLY PRESENT SOMETHING WRONG.
THE OVERALL EFFECT THOUGH IS SLIGHTLY PERNICIOUS. IT CAN'T BE CONTROLLED, AND IT IS SOMEWHAT HARMFUL. BUT THERE IS NO SOLUTION.
Posted by ziferstein at 7:10 PM
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Romney mediscare
"The amount of financial support that a person would get would be adjusted based on their income; more help would go to the poor -- and less help would go to those that are financially better off."
This is an interesting passage about Romney's medicare. It does give the left something to chew on. In my case it would mean my younger counterpart would have to pay more for benefits than I currently do, as I am not "poor". So that is a step down from the current plan. Again, not for my group but for yours.
In other words, or at the risk of repeating myself, my Medicare regardless of Romney, is better than yours would be under Romney. That is, unless you're poor. Then it will be the same time it depends on a sliding scale, the meaning of "poor". And that could mean actual poverty line, bottom fifteen percent, with almost everybody else paying more.
Not really tricky or difficult, but again, complicated enough so that the whole question might have no effect on voters' thinking. I'm beginning to believe this will simply not play a part in voter choice.
Its going to be a very close race. All eyes are on some one million undecided swing state voters. And that's a coin toss to predict.
Most of our discussion is about what moves staunch right and left wingers. And we simply don't count. Our minds are made up. The small drift over individual issues is a wash. Vernoff for Israel, me for my Medicare advantage under Romney. (staunch democrat seniors clever or studious enough to see what I see are probably just a handful, though that could turn out to be a hidden advantage for Romney come November).
Now if our side picks up on this 67 problem, that might be neutralized or even turned into a rich source of republican defectors.
My prediction here is our side will not bring it up. Which is terrifying because it implies that the whole damn drama is controlled. So there I am saying the whole damn drama is a sham to keep us watching tv while all the good shows are on hiatus,
There are people who believe this sort of heavy weight conspiracy stuff. I'm not one of them. But if the number 67 isn't a conspicuous part of obama's campaign, then I have to consider moving some chips into that column.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Public-Opinion/477263832284004?skip_nax_wizard=true
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Romney-Ryan plan, by contrast, achieves its savings by turning Medicare into a voucher whose value doesn't keep up with expected increases in healthcare costs -- thereby shifting the burden onto Medicare beneficiaries, who will have to pay an average of $6,500 a year more for their Medicare insurance, according an analysis of the Republican plan by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Moreover, the Affordable Care Act uses its Medicare savings to help children and lower-income Americans afford health care, and to help seniors pay for prescription drugs by filling the so-called "donut hole" in Medicare Part D coverage.
The Romney-Ryan plan uses the savings to finance even bigger tax cuts for the very wealthy.
Moreover, the Affordable Care Act uses its Medicare savings to help children and lower-income Americans afford health care, and to help seniors pay for prescription drugs by filling the so-called "donut hole" in Medicare Part D coverage.
The Romney-Ryan plan uses the savings to finance even bigger tax cuts for the very wealthy.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Motivated reasoning (lying) and lying for the team.
Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at New York University’s business school, argues in a new book, “The Righteous Mind,” that to understand human beings, and their politics, you need to understand that we are descended from ancestors who would not have survived if they hadn’t been very good at belonging to groups. He writes that “our minds contain a variety of mental mechanisms that make us adept at promoting our group’s interests, in competition with other groups. We are not saints, but we are sometimes good team players…..”
Psychologists have a term for this: “motivated reasoning,” which Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale, defines as “when a person is conforming their assessments of information to some interest or goal that is independent of accuracy”—an interest or goal such as remaining a well-regarded member of his political party, or winning the next election, or even just winning an argument.
Psychologists have a term for this: “motivated reasoning,” which Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale, defines as “when a person is conforming their assessments of information to some interest or goal that is independent of accuracy”—an interest or goal such as remaining a well-regarded member of his political party, or winning the next election, or even just winning an argument.
True Grit
I have known some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces?”
Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooters, the fastest runners, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.
Making no concessions to modern, egalitarian sensibilities, Patton is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made.
·
Monday, August 13, 2012
Different from, than
Different from, than, or to?
Is there any difference between the expressions different from, different than, and different to? Is one of the three ‘more correct’ than the others?
In practice, different from is by far the most common of the three, in both British and American English:
We want to demonstrate that this government is different from previous governments. (British English)
This part is totally different from anything else that he's done. (American English)
Different than is mainly used in American English:
Teenagers certainly want to look different than their parents.
Different to is much more common in British English than American English:
In this respect the Royal Academy is no different to any other major museum.
Some people criticize different than as incorrect but there’s no real justification for this view. There’s little difference in sense between the three expressions, and all of them are used by respected writers.
See also
Bored by, of or with?
Shall or will?
Is there any difference between the expressions different from, different than, and different to? Is one of the three ‘more correct’ than the others?
In practice, different from is by far the most common of the three, in both British and American English:
We want to demonstrate that this government is different from previous governments. (British English)
This part is totally different from anything else that he's done. (American English)
Different than is mainly used in American English:
Teenagers certainly want to look different than their parents.
Different to is much more common in British English than American English:
In this respect the Royal Academy is no different to any other major museum.
Some people criticize different than as incorrect but there’s no real justification for this view. There’s little difference in sense between the three expressions, and all of them are used by respected writers.
See also
Bored by, of or with?
Shall or will?
God given rights
On a special broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Saturday, weekend morning host Melissa Harris-Perry expressed her displeasure with the selection of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate.
In particular, Harris-Perry took issue with Ryan quoting Thomas Jefferson’s line in the Declaration of Independence, in which he declared rights come from God and nature and not from government.
“The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov. Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence,” she said. “I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say ‘God and nature give us our rights, not government,’ that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man.”
Harris-Perry said the words didn’t initially mean rights for African-Americans and women.
“When you sit in a body like mine as an African-American woman, you know that God and nature have in fact made us — inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she continued. “But we could not have them until there was a Civil War that allowed the federal government to impose those nature and God-given rights would actually be respected by our government. And I think that they cannot continue to go down this line on the Declaration of Independence.”
Follow Jeff on Twitter
In particular, Harris-Perry took issue with Ryan quoting Thomas Jefferson’s line in the Declaration of Independence, in which he declared rights come from God and nature and not from government.
“The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov. Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence,” she said. “I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say ‘God and nature give us our rights, not government,’ that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man.”
Harris-Perry said the words didn’t initially mean rights for African-Americans and women.
“When you sit in a body like mine as an African-American woman, you know that God and nature have in fact made us — inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she continued. “But we could not have them until there was a Civil War that allowed the federal government to impose those nature and God-given rights would actually be respected by our government. And I think that they cannot continue to go down this line on the Declaration of Independence.”
Follow Jeff on Twitter
Hansel and Gretel kill their captor by baking her in an oven, Cinderella's evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves and the evil queen in Snow White is forced to wear red hot slippers and dance until she is dead, Scalia said.
"Certainly the books we give children to read - or read to them when they are younger - contain no shortage of gore," Scalia added.
But Justice Clarence Thomas, who dissented from the decision along with Justice Stephen Breyer, said the majority read something into the First Amendment that isn't there.
"The practices and beliefs of the founding generation establish that "the freedom of speech," as originally understood, does not include a right to speak to minors (or a right of minors to access speech) without going through the minors' parents or guardians," Thomas wrote.
Unlike depictions of "sexual conduct," Scalia said there is no tradition in the United States of restricting children's access to depictions of violence, pointing out the violence in the original depiction of many popular children's fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and Snow White.
Hansel and Gretel kill their captor by baking her in an oven, Cinderella's evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves and the evil queen in Snow White is forced to wear red hot slippers and dance until she is dead, Scalia said.
Hansel and Gretel kill their captor by baking her in an oven, Cinderella's evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves and the evil queen in Snow White is forced to wear red hot slippers and dance until she is dead, Scalia said.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Patton Speech
[edit]Opening speech
(The real speech was made by Patton to the Third Army, on June 5, 1944, the eve of D-Day. For the motion picture it was moved to the beginning of the film, out of historical-chronological sequence.)
I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.
Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooters, the fastest runners, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
Now, an army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.
Now, we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. You know, by God I, I actually pity those poor bastards we're going up against, by God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards; we're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel.
Now, some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty.
The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.
Now there's another thing I want you to remember: I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose.
Now, there's one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you: "What did you do in the great World War II?" You won't have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
Alright, now, you sons-of-bitches, you know how I feel. Oh... I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle anytime, anywhere.
That's all.
[edit]Battle of Carthage
(To Omar Bradley at the ruins of Carthage):
It was here. The battlefield was here. The Carthaginians defending the city were attacked by three Roman Legions. The Carthaginians were proud and brave but they couldn't hold. They were massacred. The Arab women stripped them of the tunics and swords, and lances. And the soldiers lay naked in the sun. 2000 years ago. I was here. (Looking at Bradley) You don't believe me, do you Brad?
You know what the poet said:
'Through the travail of ages,
Midst the pomp and toils of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon a star.
As if through a glass, and darkly
The age-old strife I see—
Where I fought in many guises, many names—
but always me.'
Do you know who the poet was? Me.
(The real speech was made by Patton to the Third Army, on June 5, 1944, the eve of D-Day. For the motion picture it was moved to the beginning of the film, out of historical-chronological sequence.)
I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.
Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooters, the fastest runners, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
Now, an army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.
Now, we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. You know, by God I, I actually pity those poor bastards we're going up against, by God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards; we're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel.
Now, some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty.
The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood. Shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.
Now there's another thing I want you to remember: I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose.
Now, there's one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you: "What did you do in the great World War II?" You won't have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana."
Alright, now, you sons-of-bitches, you know how I feel. Oh... I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle anytime, anywhere.
That's all.
[edit]Battle of Carthage
(To Omar Bradley at the ruins of Carthage):
It was here. The battlefield was here. The Carthaginians defending the city were attacked by three Roman Legions. The Carthaginians were proud and brave but they couldn't hold. They were massacred. The Arab women stripped them of the tunics and swords, and lances. And the soldiers lay naked in the sun. 2000 years ago. I was here. (Looking at Bradley) You don't believe me, do you Brad?
You know what the poet said:
'Through the travail of ages,
Midst the pomp and toils of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon a star.
As if through a glass, and darkly
The age-old strife I see—
Where I fought in many guises, many names—
but always me.'
Do you know who the poet was? Me.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Debussy
Debussy
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
Gentle people, a moment of silence!
Find yourself in the presence
of God, as in prayer:
because here you will know, by mystery,
the most holy suffering
of this young martyr
who draws his everlasting youth
from the fountain of his blood.
Very gentle people, hear sounds and songs.
We ask, in the name of
Saint Denis and the Oriflamme.
Then look how blue the sky is,
How red the blood, in the name of God,
For the salvation of your soul.
First Mansion
The Court of Lilies
Prélude
The Twins, Mark and Marcellian
Brother, what will the world be like without our love?
In my soul, your heart lies heavy
like a stone in a catapult.
I feel its weight; I throw it from the darkness towards the light
Brother, what will the world be like without our love?
I was gentler than the dove,
You are redder than the surroundings.
Always, never! Never, always!
Iron does not scare you, fire cannot tame me.
Beloved Christ, what will the world be like without our love?
Narrator (the Saint)
If I am worthy to serve your Son, the Martyr of martyrs;
If I am given from the Lord Christ
this stigmata of his pain
in my strong hand
Adonai, God of the invincible cohorts,
grant, grant, this prayer, which is sharpened
by the iron of the last arrow.
I aim.
My God, If I am worthy,
I ask you to give me a sign.
- We no longer see the arrow!
- Silence!
- It’s going to fall!
- No, it doesn’t fall!
- The arrow does not fall.
Glory, O Christ the King
And now I disarm myself!
I am the Archer with a sure aim.
Remember, I am the target.
Remember that terrible hope
and that I will be worthy to ask God for the most dazzling signs.
Chorus (The archers of Emesa)
Sebastian! Sebastian! Sebastian!
Narrator (the Saint)
My brothers, my brothers, I hear
The melody of holy combat,
The divine choir of the seven scourges,
The annunciation of the heavens,
And the march of the new god
Alongside the new man,
And the ends of the earth
Trembling like the edges of a banner unfurling,
And the thunder in the tombs which unites
Dead souls to their bones.
Chorus (The archers of Emesa)
Sebastian! Sebastian! Sebastian!
You are a witness!
Narrator (The Saint)
Blow, Blow,
Quickly, with the forge’s bellows!
So that the flame shoots up, so that the sparks
Fly like intoxicated bees, so that the fervour becomes
Seven times more fervent, O Archers,
Archers, if you ever loved me!
I would have bare feet and legs,
Like the agile grape-picker
Who learns to tread the red grapes
In the steaming bowl!
I will dance higher, higher
Than the flame, seven times higher,
I say to you.
Killers, see, I disarm myself.
I put down my bow, throw my arrow behind me,
give up my harness. See, I shimmer with joy like at the start of a battle when the spirits in my heart jangle like the spears in the quiver.
I am ready, I am ready!
My feet are bare for the dew of Christ,
And my knees are bare for the wonderful transformation.
O Gemini, harmonious sound of the double flute, arms of the great lyre,
Sing the glory of Christ,
Brothers, what would the world be without our love?
Oh sweet miracle, sweet miracle!
The lily! The lily!
Ecstatic Dance of Sebastian on the Live Coals
The Twins, chorus
Sing praises, all the shadows are fading.
God is and always will be God.
Celebrate his name with fire.
Sing of his gracious works.
Praise his works in all places
Spread his mysterious name.
Narrator (the Saint)
I dance in the heat of the burning lilies.
Glory, O Christ the King!
I tread in the whiteness of the lilies.
Glory, O Christ the King!
I press the soft lilies.
Glory, O Christ the King!
My feet are naked in the dew!
I love you, King.
It is as if my soul
Were made with willow leaves,
It is as if my veins
Were made of music and the dawn!
It’s as if I were shaking off
A frost of sonorous stars.
I love you, King.
Chorus Seraphicus
Hail! O Light,
light of the world,
Cross, broad and deep,
Sign of victory,
And palm of glory,
And tree of life!
Narrator (the Saint)
I hear another song.
I hear the seven eternal lutes.
The lilies produce all the light,
They compose the whole melody.
You cut them back, and they re-grow.
You break them, they rise again.
Their stem is imperishable.
See, see! They look at me
Like angels covering their eyes
For the terrified.
Chorus Seraphicus
Here are the seven witnesses of God,
Who lead the passionate fighters.
All the heavens sing!
Second Mansion
The Magic Chamber
Prélude
Narrator (The Saint)
I’ve found the exit. The byways
Are unclear. Don’t stray!
The gates! The gates! I am going
to tear them off their sealed hinges.
Who are you? You are
Shackled to the work of charmers,
Magicians.
The Virgin Erigone
I was mowing the ears of corn,
Forgetting the asphodel.
My soul, under the mild skies,
Was sister of the swallow;
My shadow was like a wing,
Which I trailed in the harvested fields,
And I was the Virgin,
faithful to my shadow and my song.
Narrator (the Saint)
Guardian of the closed gate, enchanted creature, listen!
I want you to open for me.
Phantom, phantom of charms, I call on you.
I will break down the gate; and the King of glory will enter.
Unknown messenger, created
Or not created,
I salute you. I bow before you.
I vouch for my spirit; I vouch for my
Eternal love. Unseal
the cross of your arms and
reveal the imprint of the Divine Body.
See his bloodstained body,
See the horror of his torture!
Alas, cry, cry for your crimes!
He was killed for our sins.
God, make us the same as your body!
God, come back to us in death!
Love, that I will be sated!
Lord Love, here is my life.
Vox Coelestis
Who cries for my child so sweet,
my lily, born in pure flesh?
He is radiant on my knees,
He is without blemish or injury.
See. And in my hair
All the stars praise his clarity.
From his face he illuminates
my sorrow and the summer night.
Third Mansion
The Council of the False Gods
Fanfares
Narrator (the Saint)
César, I already have my crown,
I don’t fear iron.
I have no other art than prayer.
César, know that I have chosen my god.
Only Christ shines, the Unique One!
With his hand he governs the force of
the empty skies like the sailor
controls the sail.
Between you and the day, he is there.
Between you and the dead sun,
He is there, the Unique One.
Musicians (zither players)
Paean, Golden Lyre, Silver Bow.
Lord of Delos and of Sminthe,
Great king crowned with light,
Paean! O Apollo!
Narrator (the Saint)
Stop! Stop,
O zither players,
Celebrating a demon who no longer has a chariot,
Nor arrows, who no more has the nerves
for the lyre and the bow, no more
crown to hide his shame. Silence! Silence!
César, listen to the other lyre.
I will not sing my praises.
Ah! I have too much love on my lips
To sing; and my heart strangles me
Until I can hear it no more. That he would remember you, César!
For your wise men and your believers.
I will dance the passion
Of this young Asiatic man,
Of this tortured prince;
César, look. And remember
The star which was nailed to the living heart of the heavens,
as a token of
the radiant word
spoken by the Anointed One.
You will know this.
Narrator (the Saint)
Have you seen him, the one who I love?
Have you seen him?
Then he said: ‘My soul is sorrowful
until death. Rest here
And watch.’ And he knelt
and prayed. ‘Take this cup from me, Lord.
Nevertheless, not as I want,
But how you want.’
The Women of Byblos
Ah! You weep for the beloved!
You weep for the archer of Lebanon.
O sisters! O brothers!
Alas! You weep for Adonis!
He is dying, the beautiful Adonis!
He is dead, the beautiful Adonis!
Women, weep!
See the beautiful adolescent
Lying in purple blood.
Give him balms and incense.
Vox Sola
‘I suffer,’ he moaned. Listen!
‘I suffer! What have I done?
I suffer and I bleed.
The world is red with my torment.
Ah! What have I done? Who beat me?
I breathe my last breath, I die – O beauty!
I die, but to be reborn forever.’
The Woman of Byblos
Adonis! Adonis!
Alas! Weep! Weep!
Narrator (The Saint)
Who is the young man sitting at the entrance of the sepulchre?
You are looking for the crucified man,
And why are you searching for the living among the dead?
He is there, stood before us. He says:
Do not weep any more.
Vox Sola
Stop, o mourners!
The world is Light, as he says.
He will live as god, virgin and young man, flourishing!
He is reborn, he is renewed.
O twin brother of the seasons, arise!
Death is immortal, god, by your blood.
The Woman of Byblos
The god, there is the god!
He has arisen.
Chorus
Chorus of Syrians
Lo! Lo! Adonis!
O sisters, o brothers, rejoice!
The Lord is resurrected!
He leads the dance of the stars.
Lo! Lo! Let down your hair,
Lo! Lo! Unknot your belts, women!
From darkest Hades, where our souls go,
He comes back to us, the Blessed One!
Narrator (the Saint)
Help, lord! In my support,
My spirit, my flame, my King!
César, the evil one.
I have broken your idol, I have broken
Your gold, like you yourself will be broken,
You will be trampled on.
In truth I say to you,
Jesus will glorify me.
Christ and I, we are One.
Eternal Glory!
Christ reigns! You are only mud.
Death is life.
Chorus of Syrians
He is dead, the beautiful Adonis!
Weep! Weep!
He descends towards the black gates.
All that is beautiful, the gloomy Hades takes.
Lower the torches.
Eros! Weep! Weep!
Fourth and Fifth Mansions
The Wounded Laurel
Prélude
Narrator (the Saint)
César said: ‘Take him
To the wood of Apollo; tie him
To the trunk of the most beautiful of the laurel trees;
Then unleash on his naked body your arrows
Until you empty your quivers
Until his body is like that of a wild hedgehog.
Yes, my archers, this is what I want.
I must fulfil my destiny,
I must be killed by the hands of men,
Your hands… your brotherly hands.
O trembling of my soul!
I feel that my soul and the tree tremble
To the bottom of the most hidden roots.
Do you not see the three startled women?
The three veiled women who are sitting at the foot of the altar.
They are quivering. I see them.
He is here, the shepherd. Look.
He carries a sheep around his neck,
on his shoulders.
My blood starts to flow, in the shadow that believes.
Draw near.
Night is falling. You must look closely, closely, to make a good hit.
Do not tremble, do not cry!
But be intoxicated! Be intoxicated
with blood, like in battle.
Aim carefully. I am the Target.
From the depths, from the depths
I call forth your terrible love.
Be the first! Blessed will be the first star!
Your love!
Your love!
Eternal love!
Chorus of Syrians
Alas! Alas!
Ah! Weep, o women of Syria.
Weep: ‘Alas, my Lord!’
All the flowers have withered.
He goes to the pale prairie!
Weep! Cry!
He descends towards the black gates.
All that is beautiful, the gloomy Hades takes.
Lower the torches.
Eros! Weep! Weep!
Paradise
Interlude
Chorus of Martyrs
Glory! Let our wounds shine beneath our armour.
Who is coming?
The lily of the cohort,
Its stem is the strongest
Praise the name it bears: Sebastian!
Chorus of Virgins
You are praised
Faraway, star speaks to star
And says one name: yours.
God crowns you.
All the night, like a drop that dissolves on your forehead, Sebastian.
Chorus of Apostles
You are a Saint. Whoever says your name
Will see the son of man.
Whoever holds you in his heart will shine with your grace.
John gives you his place,
You will drink from his cup, Sebastian.
Chorus of Angels
You are beautiful. Take six angel wings,
And scale the heights
Of music’s fires
Sing a new hymn
To the heaven which is studded with
Your immortal wounds,
Sebastien.
The Soul of Sebastian
I come, I rise.
I have wings.
Everything is white.
My blood is the manna
That whitens the desert of Sin.
I am the drop and the spark of life.
I am a soul, Lord,
A soul in your soul.
Chorus of All Saints
Praise the Lord for the immensity of his strength.
Praise the Lord on the dulcimer and organ.
Praise the Lord on the sistrum and the cymbal
Praise the Lord on the flute and the zither.
Alleluia.
Translation by Rebecca Franks
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian
Gentle people, a moment of silence!
Find yourself in the presence
of God, as in prayer:
because here you will know, by mystery,
the most holy suffering
of this young martyr
who draws his everlasting youth
from the fountain of his blood.
Very gentle people, hear sounds and songs.
We ask, in the name of
Saint Denis and the Oriflamme.
Then look how blue the sky is,
How red the blood, in the name of God,
For the salvation of your soul.
First Mansion
The Court of Lilies
Prélude
The Twins, Mark and Marcellian
Brother, what will the world be like without our love?
In my soul, your heart lies heavy
like a stone in a catapult.
I feel its weight; I throw it from the darkness towards the light
Brother, what will the world be like without our love?
I was gentler than the dove,
You are redder than the surroundings.
Always, never! Never, always!
Iron does not scare you, fire cannot tame me.
Beloved Christ, what will the world be like without our love?
Narrator (the Saint)
If I am worthy to serve your Son, the Martyr of martyrs;
If I am given from the Lord Christ
this stigmata of his pain
in my strong hand
Adonai, God of the invincible cohorts,
grant, grant, this prayer, which is sharpened
by the iron of the last arrow.
I aim.
My God, If I am worthy,
I ask you to give me a sign.
- We no longer see the arrow!
- Silence!
- It’s going to fall!
- No, it doesn’t fall!
- The arrow does not fall.
Glory, O Christ the King
And now I disarm myself!
I am the Archer with a sure aim.
Remember, I am the target.
Remember that terrible hope
and that I will be worthy to ask God for the most dazzling signs.
Chorus (The archers of Emesa)
Sebastian! Sebastian! Sebastian!
Narrator (the Saint)
My brothers, my brothers, I hear
The melody of holy combat,
The divine choir of the seven scourges,
The annunciation of the heavens,
And the march of the new god
Alongside the new man,
And the ends of the earth
Trembling like the edges of a banner unfurling,
And the thunder in the tombs which unites
Dead souls to their bones.
Chorus (The archers of Emesa)
Sebastian! Sebastian! Sebastian!
You are a witness!
Narrator (The Saint)
Blow, Blow,
Quickly, with the forge’s bellows!
So that the flame shoots up, so that the sparks
Fly like intoxicated bees, so that the fervour becomes
Seven times more fervent, O Archers,
Archers, if you ever loved me!
I would have bare feet and legs,
Like the agile grape-picker
Who learns to tread the red grapes
In the steaming bowl!
I will dance higher, higher
Than the flame, seven times higher,
I say to you.
Killers, see, I disarm myself.
I put down my bow, throw my arrow behind me,
give up my harness. See, I shimmer with joy like at the start of a battle when the spirits in my heart jangle like the spears in the quiver.
I am ready, I am ready!
My feet are bare for the dew of Christ,
And my knees are bare for the wonderful transformation.
O Gemini, harmonious sound of the double flute, arms of the great lyre,
Sing the glory of Christ,
Brothers, what would the world be without our love?
Oh sweet miracle, sweet miracle!
The lily! The lily!
Ecstatic Dance of Sebastian on the Live Coals
The Twins, chorus
Sing praises, all the shadows are fading.
God is and always will be God.
Celebrate his name with fire.
Sing of his gracious works.
Praise his works in all places
Spread his mysterious name.
Narrator (the Saint)
I dance in the heat of the burning lilies.
Glory, O Christ the King!
I tread in the whiteness of the lilies.
Glory, O Christ the King!
I press the soft lilies.
Glory, O Christ the King!
My feet are naked in the dew!
I love you, King.
It is as if my soul
Were made with willow leaves,
It is as if my veins
Were made of music and the dawn!
It’s as if I were shaking off
A frost of sonorous stars.
I love you, King.
Chorus Seraphicus
Hail! O Light,
light of the world,
Cross, broad and deep,
Sign of victory,
And palm of glory,
And tree of life!
Narrator (the Saint)
I hear another song.
I hear the seven eternal lutes.
The lilies produce all the light,
They compose the whole melody.
You cut them back, and they re-grow.
You break them, they rise again.
Their stem is imperishable.
See, see! They look at me
Like angels covering their eyes
For the terrified.
Chorus Seraphicus
Here are the seven witnesses of God,
Who lead the passionate fighters.
All the heavens sing!
Second Mansion
The Magic Chamber
Prélude
Narrator (The Saint)
I’ve found the exit. The byways
Are unclear. Don’t stray!
The gates! The gates! I am going
to tear them off their sealed hinges.
Who are you? You are
Shackled to the work of charmers,
Magicians.
The Virgin Erigone
I was mowing the ears of corn,
Forgetting the asphodel.
My soul, under the mild skies,
Was sister of the swallow;
My shadow was like a wing,
Which I trailed in the harvested fields,
And I was the Virgin,
faithful to my shadow and my song.
Narrator (the Saint)
Guardian of the closed gate, enchanted creature, listen!
I want you to open for me.
Phantom, phantom of charms, I call on you.
I will break down the gate; and the King of glory will enter.
Unknown messenger, created
Or not created,
I salute you. I bow before you.
I vouch for my spirit; I vouch for my
Eternal love. Unseal
the cross of your arms and
reveal the imprint of the Divine Body.
See his bloodstained body,
See the horror of his torture!
Alas, cry, cry for your crimes!
He was killed for our sins.
God, make us the same as your body!
God, come back to us in death!
Love, that I will be sated!
Lord Love, here is my life.
Vox Coelestis
Who cries for my child so sweet,
my lily, born in pure flesh?
He is radiant on my knees,
He is without blemish or injury.
See. And in my hair
All the stars praise his clarity.
From his face he illuminates
my sorrow and the summer night.
Third Mansion
The Council of the False Gods
Fanfares
Narrator (the Saint)
César, I already have my crown,
I don’t fear iron.
I have no other art than prayer.
César, know that I have chosen my god.
Only Christ shines, the Unique One!
With his hand he governs the force of
the empty skies like the sailor
controls the sail.
Between you and the day, he is there.
Between you and the dead sun,
He is there, the Unique One.
Musicians (zither players)
Paean, Golden Lyre, Silver Bow.
Lord of Delos and of Sminthe,
Great king crowned with light,
Paean! O Apollo!
Narrator (the Saint)
Stop! Stop,
O zither players,
Celebrating a demon who no longer has a chariot,
Nor arrows, who no more has the nerves
for the lyre and the bow, no more
crown to hide his shame. Silence! Silence!
César, listen to the other lyre.
I will not sing my praises.
Ah! I have too much love on my lips
To sing; and my heart strangles me
Until I can hear it no more. That he would remember you, César!
For your wise men and your believers.
I will dance the passion
Of this young Asiatic man,
Of this tortured prince;
César, look. And remember
The star which was nailed to the living heart of the heavens,
as a token of
the radiant word
spoken by the Anointed One.
You will know this.
Narrator (the Saint)
Have you seen him, the one who I love?
Have you seen him?
Then he said: ‘My soul is sorrowful
until death. Rest here
And watch.’ And he knelt
and prayed. ‘Take this cup from me, Lord.
Nevertheless, not as I want,
But how you want.’
The Women of Byblos
Ah! You weep for the beloved!
You weep for the archer of Lebanon.
O sisters! O brothers!
Alas! You weep for Adonis!
He is dying, the beautiful Adonis!
He is dead, the beautiful Adonis!
Women, weep!
See the beautiful adolescent
Lying in purple blood.
Give him balms and incense.
Vox Sola
‘I suffer,’ he moaned. Listen!
‘I suffer! What have I done?
I suffer and I bleed.
The world is red with my torment.
Ah! What have I done? Who beat me?
I breathe my last breath, I die – O beauty!
I die, but to be reborn forever.’
The Woman of Byblos
Adonis! Adonis!
Alas! Weep! Weep!
Narrator (The Saint)
Who is the young man sitting at the entrance of the sepulchre?
You are looking for the crucified man,
And why are you searching for the living among the dead?
He is there, stood before us. He says:
Do not weep any more.
Vox Sola
Stop, o mourners!
The world is Light, as he says.
He will live as god, virgin and young man, flourishing!
He is reborn, he is renewed.
O twin brother of the seasons, arise!
Death is immortal, god, by your blood.
The Woman of Byblos
The god, there is the god!
He has arisen.
Chorus
Chorus of Syrians
Lo! Lo! Adonis!
O sisters, o brothers, rejoice!
The Lord is resurrected!
He leads the dance of the stars.
Lo! Lo! Let down your hair,
Lo! Lo! Unknot your belts, women!
From darkest Hades, where our souls go,
He comes back to us, the Blessed One!
Narrator (the Saint)
Help, lord! In my support,
My spirit, my flame, my King!
César, the evil one.
I have broken your idol, I have broken
Your gold, like you yourself will be broken,
You will be trampled on.
In truth I say to you,
Jesus will glorify me.
Christ and I, we are One.
Eternal Glory!
Christ reigns! You are only mud.
Death is life.
Chorus of Syrians
He is dead, the beautiful Adonis!
Weep! Weep!
He descends towards the black gates.
All that is beautiful, the gloomy Hades takes.
Lower the torches.
Eros! Weep! Weep!
Fourth and Fifth Mansions
The Wounded Laurel
Prélude
Narrator (the Saint)
César said: ‘Take him
To the wood of Apollo; tie him
To the trunk of the most beautiful of the laurel trees;
Then unleash on his naked body your arrows
Until you empty your quivers
Until his body is like that of a wild hedgehog.
Yes, my archers, this is what I want.
I must fulfil my destiny,
I must be killed by the hands of men,
Your hands… your brotherly hands.
O trembling of my soul!
I feel that my soul and the tree tremble
To the bottom of the most hidden roots.
Do you not see the three startled women?
The three veiled women who are sitting at the foot of the altar.
They are quivering. I see them.
He is here, the shepherd. Look.
He carries a sheep around his neck,
on his shoulders.
My blood starts to flow, in the shadow that believes.
Draw near.
Night is falling. You must look closely, closely, to make a good hit.
Do not tremble, do not cry!
But be intoxicated! Be intoxicated
with blood, like in battle.
Aim carefully. I am the Target.
From the depths, from the depths
I call forth your terrible love.
Be the first! Blessed will be the first star!
Your love!
Your love!
Eternal love!
Chorus of Syrians
Alas! Alas!
Ah! Weep, o women of Syria.
Weep: ‘Alas, my Lord!’
All the flowers have withered.
He goes to the pale prairie!
Weep! Cry!
He descends towards the black gates.
All that is beautiful, the gloomy Hades takes.
Lower the torches.
Eros! Weep! Weep!
Paradise
Interlude
Chorus of Martyrs
Glory! Let our wounds shine beneath our armour.
Who is coming?
The lily of the cohort,
Its stem is the strongest
Praise the name it bears: Sebastian!
Chorus of Virgins
You are praised
Faraway, star speaks to star
And says one name: yours.
God crowns you.
All the night, like a drop that dissolves on your forehead, Sebastian.
Chorus of Apostles
You are a Saint. Whoever says your name
Will see the son of man.
Whoever holds you in his heart will shine with your grace.
John gives you his place,
You will drink from his cup, Sebastian.
Chorus of Angels
You are beautiful. Take six angel wings,
And scale the heights
Of music’s fires
Sing a new hymn
To the heaven which is studded with
Your immortal wounds,
Sebastien.
The Soul of Sebastian
I come, I rise.
I have wings.
Everything is white.
My blood is the manna
That whitens the desert of Sin.
I am the drop and the spark of life.
I am a soul, Lord,
A soul in your soul.
Chorus of All Saints
Praise the Lord for the immensity of his strength.
Praise the Lord on the dulcimer and organ.
Praise the Lord on the sistrum and the cymbal
Praise the Lord on the flute and the zither.
Alleluia.
Translation by Rebecca Franks
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)