Furor Loquendi

I'm slowly reconnecting with my hoopy nature, after being relatively spinless for a few months.  I'm not sure how I drifted away from it; likely it was a combination of circumstances - work, travel, weather, ennui, etc.  Like any practice, maintaining it can be a daily struggle. 

While physical fitness was my initial motivator to pick it up again, it's the mood smoothing effect that keeps me heading outside for a twirl.  I find myself kind of pissy as I go about my life these days (we'll leave that for another time), but after a couple of weeks of regular hoop practice, I'm definitely a little less wound up. 

I've also been craving the sense of femininity that hoop dance brings.  Any dancing can energize your body and spirit, but shimmying inside a hoop, like belly dance or hula, can really pump up the self esteem by bringing out the grace, the sensuality of being a girl.  I'd like to think it doesn't matter if you're a sweet young thing, or a more savory morsel like some of us, though age should probably inform choice of outfit. 

But then again, this whole idea of "age appropriate" is grating on me lately.  None of us want to look like a horse's ass or, as Mom would say, "mutton dressed as lamb."  However, does that mean that we're supposed to swath ourselves in neutral colors and kindly take ourselves off public display as we hit middle adulthood?  Does our hotness license expire, condemning us to a future of shopping the Orvis catalog?  Are we banned from shakin' our groove thangs and feeling the joy in being alive?   Of course not.  But what to do about that voice, the one that whispers "you're too old to be doing/wearing/thinking/acting like that?"

Turn the music up.

Now that the storm of the election and elation of the inauguration have passed, it feels like time to start this broadcast again. 

It feels like I've gotten my country back, and I find myself wanting to get to know Her again.  Yeah, I could re-read The Federalist Papers, but why do that when I can soak up all that bright, shiny history TV has to offer?  Specifically, "The Presidents" on the History Channel, and "The American Future:  A History" on BBC America.   The former is a crossword lover's dream, a concise, whirlwind tour of the 43 men that have taken on what is very often the Worst Job in the World.  The NY Times better watch out - soon I'll be doing Saturday in PEN.

The American Future is a fascinating look at the 2008 election, and its place in American history, through the eyes of a British historian(who, admittedly, teaches at Columbia).  It's like sitting in a room while everyone talks about you as if you're not there.  While it treads on familiar ground (the Civil War, immigration, etc.), it's interesting to hear the conclusions a non-native reaches when presented with the same facts we all learned in school. 

If that's all too lofty, the Web is rife with adoring Obama-porn and LOL cats. 

I hereby declare this country groovy.

Because of a weak economy and cash-strapped donors, Focus on the Family said it is eliminating 202 jobs, the deepest cuts in the 32-year history of the Colorado Springs-based Christian nonprofit. The ministry laid off 149 workers, and cut another 53 vacant positions.

Could it be that the Republican disintegration is also spelling doom for their army of self righteous haters? Wee!

Sarah Palin is no wilting flower. She is a politician who took the national stage and sneered at the work of community activists. She boldly tries to pass off incuriosity and lassitude as regular-people qualities, thereby doing a disservice to all those Americans who also work two jobs and do not come from families that hand out passports and backpacking trips, yet still manage to pick up a paper and read about their government and seek out experience and knowledge.

When you stage a train wreck of this magnitude -- trying to pass one underqualified chick off as another highly qualified chick with the lame hope that no one will notice -- well, then, I don't feel bad for you.

When you treat women as your toys, as gullible and insensate pawns in your Big Fat Presidential Bid -- or in Palin's case, in your Big Fat Chance to Be the First Woman Vice President Thanks to All the Cracks Hillary Put in the Ceiling -- I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't take your own career and reputation seriously enough to pause before striding onto a national stage and lying about your record of opposing a Bridge to Nowhere or using your special-needs child to garner the support of Americans in need of healthcare reform you don't support, I don't feel bad for you.

When you don't have enough regard for your country or its politics to cram effectively for the test -- a test that helps determine whether or not you get to run that country and participate in its politics -- I don't feel bad for you.

When your project is reliant on gaining the support of women whose reproductive rights you would limit, whose access to birth control and sex education you would curtail, whose healthcare options you would decrease, whose civil liberties you would take away and whose children and husbands and brothers (and sisters and daughters and friends) you would send to war in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and wherever else you saw fit without actually understanding international relations, I don't feel bad for you.

Indeed, I think we've all had enough of the pity party. At least, all of us still able to form a coherent thought while suppressing that primal scream of anguish over the raging shit pile 8 years of W have wrought.

After a week of decompression, I can start to encapsulate the Burning Man 2008 experience. Reading through my journal entries, it's interesting the number of times I started a sentence something like: “Maybe that's the lesson to be learned from Bman.” I went into it with the determination to get as much out of it as possible, to endeavor to be part of the scene, to participate. It's not surprising, then, that I was looking to bring something back.

So, what were these numerous, yet singular, learnings? A sampling:

* We really do make our own reality. If you come out to Black Rock City and have a great experience (and that's “great” in the “impactful” sense, not the “party” sense), regardless of conditions, that's a powerful illustration.

* I now have a true appreciation of the structural utility and elegance of the ball bungee.

* In a raging dust storm, if you don't have a vehicle to retreat into, you might as well pull up chair, get a straw for your cup, and have a cocktail. You're not going to stay any cleaner in your tent anyway, so you might as well be “in it.”

* The raw unpleasantness that can permeate life on the Playa is a great tool for appreciating the simple pleasures of your life at home (yes, my default life is “home”). By the time you've decided to face the exodus, you don't mind spending how ever long it takes in your comfy car seat.

Those are all valuable, but after some time to reflect, I believe the most meaningful experience/lesson learned, the one that will make me pause next January to consider heading back to the Playa, is this: at it's best, the spirit of Burning Man is one of expansive generosity. It makes me smile to remember how I was kind of stressing out before the event about the money I was burning through, getting ready. I realize now that at least some of that investment was a kind of municipal contribution to Black Rock City. Like many, I over-packed for my own needs (and in anticipation of catastrophes that luckily didn't materialize), and instead found myself transferring that slack, that investment to my fellow citizens. Need extra ball bungees? Here's a dozen. Trying to build shade? I have extra tarps and rope you're welcome to. Having trouble getting your structure set up? Here, let me help.

How cool is it to have something as simple as attention, a hug, a beer, be a valued and appreciated gift? Yes, those things are often appreciated in the default world as well, but I submit that those gestures are amplified in a the commercial quiet of the Playa. Other gifts remind me of the broad definition of “treasure” we have when we're kids. One of my valued treasures from this year is a beautiful polished stone that I was given in return for helping a couple register their camp at Playa Info. I'll think about how nice they were, and what a sweet gesture of gratitude the stone is, every time I look at it. What a gift.

More to follow...

An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.

This is a bit of a nostalgia piece for me. Oh, to be back in those halcyon days of the early 90s, when the War on (some) Drugs was one of my top civil liberties concerns. I guess it's sort of like looking back from a "South Park" reality, to a time when the world thought "Beevis and Butthead" was the height of offensive television. Almost cute, really.

Kinda bitchy, but too accurate to ignore:

What a great city to stroll around in. Even better if you're swathed in coat and scarf, a light drizzle creating a drippy mystique.

The London Bridge Hotel is agreeably situated in Southwark, a block from the Southwark Cathedral and the Thames. Just returned from a worshipful dinner at the temple that is Wagamamma. In a neighborhood full of pub food and snooby up-market eateries, it attracts long lines of young and old willing to wait tens of minutes to eat noodles. I'm surprised it hasn't hopped The Pond to the States.

I love the mix of old (and ancient) with contemporary trendiness that's everywhere here. For instance while viewed in isolation, the London Eye is a bit of an abomination, when you're standing in Westminster with Parliament, the Abbey and Big Ben in the foreground, the contrast it presents somehow elevates the historical grandness. The view of all that as you ascend out of the Westminster Underground is breathtaking. Yesterday I got to enjoy that view both in daylight and by night. Fantastic.

[Corrected URL 3.26.08]

Note to the Vatican: You want true sin? Here you go: Lying to women is a sin. Pathological hypocrisy is a sin. Half a billion dollars in pedophilia lawsuit payouts is a sin. Homophobia is a sin. Hiding those golden vaginas is a sin. And creating new sins in a strange attempt to stay relevant as your church withers and struggles and falters in the new and spiritually hungry but religiously mistrustful world, that's surely a sin.

No, wait. Check that. That's not a sin at all. It's actually just a sad, inexcusable joke.

As usual, Mark Morford hits the nail on the head. Easter has fallen off my calendar radar during my many years of liberation from The Church, and folks like Matt keep me from ever feeling nostalgic. Mazel Tov.