Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

"finally it called its despair, its impotence 'God'---The Will To Power

If you can't bring yourself to wash in the sacred blood of jesus just ...
Swing a live chicken over your head three times and slit its throat.

"Swinging Chicken Ritual Divides Orthodox Jews"

Rabbi Shea Hecht plucks a chicken off a truck parked behind a synagogue in Queens, N.Y., and demonstrates how to swing a chicken.


Hecht holds the bird, waves it three times above his head, and says the prayer of Kapparot (or Kapparos, depending on heritage). He prays that his sins will be transferred to the bird and he will escape the divine punishment that he deserves. The prayer is more than 1,000 years old, and countless Orthodox Jews will recite it in the days before Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, which begins at sundown Sunday. Hecht says waving the chicken isn't the point of this ritual.

"The main part of the service," he says, "is handing the chicken to the slaughterer and watching the chicken being slaughtered. Because that is where you have an emotional moment, where you say, 'Oops, you know what? That could have been me.' "

Thinking about a picture I saw of a mob outside a school where a child with aids was admited. This was about ten or 15 years ago. It was a large group of people with faces contorted in hate. Many were carrying signs with religious slogans. One caught my eye, I can't remember exactly how it was worded but the gist of it was, "Jesus is coming back and he is going to kick some ass because he is pissed off". I will try to find the picture. I hope I can because it is worth a thousand words of my mangled prose. I despair of ever learning English grammar and punctuation at this late date.

A line from a vonnegut novel comes to mind,

" He had a faith in a meek and loving Jesus that the other soldiers found putrid" Slaugher House Five quoted from memory.

What concerns me here is that other messiah, the one the Jews were looking for. The military leader who was going to lead them to victory, was going to kick some ass.

The problem here is not only that, obviously, we DON'T live forever (the answer to this is that it is the Holy Spirit, the community of believers, which lives forever), but the subjective status of Christ: when he was dying on the cross, did he KNOW about his Ressurection-to-come? If yes, then it was all a game, the supreme divine comedy, since Christ knew his suffering was just a spectacle with a guaranteed good outcome—in short, Christ was FAKING despair in his "Father, why did you forsake me?" If no, then in what precise sense was Christ (also) divine? Did God the Father limit the scope of knowledge of Christ's mind to that of a common human consciousness, so that Christ effectively thought he was dying abandoned by his father? Was he effectively occupying the position of the son from a supreme Jewish joke, in which a Rabbi turns in despair to God, asking him what he should do with his bad son who deeply disappointed him; God calmly answered: "Do the same as I did: write a new testament!"



THE ACT AND ITS VICISSITUDES

First thoughts, I gots to go in a few mins, I'll have to look deeper later. I like to share first thoughts though.

It was just a rock and that was just some water.

I wanted to see what would happen in that minor little challenge. Am I more paranoid, I didn't know, still don't, but I like ripples.

I don't want religion. I'll read into it better later.

I liked the picture, by the way. It made me think of my daughter. I don't know if it's my fault, but she can carry more gunpowder, or dynamite across the border than I. I might talk about that sometime in a piece.

Still thinking.

Paranoia, imagine you were the child of Jewish refugees growing up during world war two. Imagine black out shades on the windows, air raid sirens, the blackness of the city streets with all the street lights off. Imagine sitting in a room listening to the broadcasts from Europe. Imagine the relatives not heard from in Poland. Hobbes said his twin brother was fear.

A stock phrase
"Thanks for taking the time to reply"

But I mean it.

I am still thinking too

Not done with this one.


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That picture reminded me of my baby sister

That's the one. I know that face. Thanks trucker.
Take a left turn here...
See that little used book store? I spent hours there. Most books were reasonable, $1.75. I bought one 'Portrait of a Lady', but gave it to a 10 year old girl on the trip, who wouldn't turn around and look forward in her seat. She did after that, for at least two hours or so.

I don't know why I do most things, if anyone confronts me on a why, I usually have no good answer, except that I was interested or curious. I can't offer more until I think of how I felt then. I know I was blistered up on emotion. Because I thought of how my daughter gets double dose back at me. Spit and vinegar? I was slightly mad, but can't explain why. Or maybe frustrated, always misunderstood, who knows. Like a trance, it's gone and I recall it in dream form, which isn't the most detailed.

Trucker, I mention the used book store because I bought Diary of a Young Girl there for $1.75. No, I had an extremely easy life. Spoiled even the past few years, not on money or gifts, but I didn't work. But, yes I can semi imagine it. Enough that picturing it under those pages of a little girl's voice had my gut twisting. A maternal, I guess.

I try to understand and I'll continue. Still listening and thinking.

This is neither here nor there Jack, well, here I guess because I am. It has nothing to do with paranoia either. I just read it and thought of you and my other friends who were jews or of jewish heritage or persuasion:

http://www.jewishtucson.org/page.aspx?id=103346

I thought you might forgive me for hi-Jack-ing your thread. So please do.

The pomegranates in my backyard are evidently travelers, brought to the USA many years ago by Jewish settlers. Those fruits were important it seems but now, relegated to my salsas and toppings on fish or just for sitting on the deck eating. Makes me think too.

There is so much sadness and suffering in the world but sitting and eating a pomegranate seems to soothe my soul (if I have one, not sure but I don't spend a minute worrying 'bout it.) Anyway, it makes me feel good.

Thank you kind sir.

I don't know how many of your onther jewish friends are first genreation americans who were born before world war two soozen. Who lived through the fears of world war two in house of refugees.


I don't know how many of your other jewish friends had crazy fathers who locked them in basements stinking of dead rats and maggots. I have given myself a happy childhood because I remember my brothers and sister. I am very close to my brothers. and sister. I suppose that is the most precious gift my parents gave me outside of this life of mine. my siblings. We clung together in respoonce to the insanity we grew up in.

You know one of the things m y nazi friends have told me is that the jews brought it on themselves by flounting their wealth in germany after the first world war when so many germans were destitute.

So here is a guy who writes a poem about Madoff that seems to say that Jews are bringing it down on them selves again. Empassis mine.

Tonight/tomorrow begins Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, when (most western) pew-ters in their late(!) Summer finery amble to the Synagogue to begin the ritual purging (taslich) of their past years' "sins" (wonder about Bernie whom madoff with the gelt?), only to return, again & again...(one definition of insanity is "repeating the same behavior expecting a different result!" H'H./H.e.m.

http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=17174

I like his poetry but not sure where he is coming from with that. Madoff is bat shit crazy and many jewish charities took a hit. "He acts like he has no family" Navajo saying about people who do bad things and bring shame on their families.

Why I got so upset with so many of those 911 truth sites that also were holocaust denial sites.

Hey what the heck we are all absolutely unigue right?
just like everyone else. Just that some of us feel we must live in Israel.

But my brothes are not paranoid, so I just think it is me. But they were not locked down that basement either. Unitl I was in my thirties (until my first acid trip) I could not climb a set of stairs leading out of a basemnet without the hairs on the back of my neck rising in dread that there was something behind me pursuing me.

Thans for taking the time to reply.
I mean that.

I deleted some stuff mz dame
get back to you on it
thanks again for your kind attention to these matters.

Can I admit I'm too shallow?
I don't know where to start or zoom in on.
My answers will be all over the board.

I'm sort of overwhelmed on the topic and not at all confident.
Is it started because I said I loved Jesus?
Had I offended you in someway, because I hadn't meant to. I don't try to force that to anyone.

Any thing past just speaking of paranoia in prolly more of an LSD tripper fashion.

To be locked in a rat infested basement with cold, damp, molded floor space, maggots and dead things, it'll have an impact on you spiritually, as well as mentally, emotionally and physically.

I only know if I ever find a child in such horrific or frightening circumstance, I'd do anything in my power to help them.

I feel terribly small.

I have such a difficult time sorting out what exactly I believe. I admit, I try to simplify something extraordinary and mysterious.

The two backbones to my beliefs are from lucid areas of my life; childhood and a death experience heightened from a couple bready bites. Strange areas that aren't very solid to choose from. But, I'm convinced and so I leave many giant blank areas, because I'm convinced. When one becomes convinced of ones own anything, they need very little to fill in the blanks.

It's the only exact thing I can say on the subject.

I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. My emotions were a fury, I couldn't fix what had happened, especially to the children, infants, the little girl with her white flag, humans. Tragic history, it's incredibly unreal almost.

I'm apologizing if my comments about not caring unless the postcard were in hand. I didn't mean it as terribly as that sounds, I just meant it in people 'forget' they are needed unless reminded with something such as the postcard. To feel the natural sadness is easy, but to connect to it almost takes being there, smelling it, looking at the ruin. I was just attempting honesty and not pretending to be some great caring human, for anyone to truly be, would be superficial. It rips on the spirit.

sOrry SooZen I misread your post.

Maybe I should have said it this way...
are you just fucking with me?
I do care, I'm a tad air-headed.

Just going with the flow Jack.

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around abuse, especially of children because I was a fortunate child, raised in love and encouragement. The basement scene sounds like a movie, a bad movie to me and the reality of it might give me nightmares.

I stay away from horror or horrible if I can although my life has not exactly been Pollyanna's by any means. But you know about Nate and some of that. It seems I am deemed a caretaker by who knows who and so I do what I must.

My friend Mary calls me an alien like I am from another world because of my family and my upbringing. She knows of no one else who could say their family was pretty damn functional. (All with a sense of humor despite what tragedies came and went.)

Sorry you are still carrying your wounds from the war, if you get my drift. I hope they heal, I hope you become healthy and whole before you die and put down all that pains you from the past. I can't even imagine, really, living in regret or guilt or jealousy or any of those negative emotional states.

Now is about it for me, only now...

I have been reading your poetry. Lady Abandoned made me smile.

I deleted this stuff because it seemed to wander all over the place. Something about Jung's most important book "An Answer To Job"

And a bit about my mother and Sister.
It took me years of talking to my sister to understand her guilt about our mother. She believed that her mother did nothing to protect her from Crazy Mike. But that is not true. Rose put him out of the house and for a man like him (he was born in the 19th century) that was a death sentence. He did not last six months on his own.

After the death of her father Slyvia Plath gave her mothe a contract to sign that asked her to promise to never marry again.

My sister pretty much did the same to our mother. My mother never married although she had suitors. One was a short little Jewish tailor who loved her, kind man who could make her laugh. But my sister set her face against it. she did not want another man around the house. After Crazy Mike who could blame her. So my mother sacrificed her happiness for her daughter and never let her forget it. What good is a sacrifice that is resented? Ah the things we do for love.


No I am not fucking with you
I am as serious as a fart in a space suit.
I learned something that stunned me the other day
Kafka could not understand why his friends did not laugh at his stories. He thought they were funny.
I have a sick sense of humor too. I suppose.

Most of all I am interested in what mothers do to their sons out of their resentment against men. "It's up against the wall Red Necked mothers, all you mothers who have raised your sons so well" Bobby Bear song I think.
For all the times I broke my mother's heart she only broke mine twice.
For all my shitty diapers that she cleaned up I am grateful that I got to clean up her shit after her stroke. Crazy Mike could see me all to well, that is why he called me a little back stabbing son of a bitch. He saw that glint in my eyse. Rose spent twenty two years telling me what a son of bitch he was. And when he died I could have cared less. But then at his funeral my mother went postal. Shrieking and throwing her self on his coffin and callling out his name. At the time I could not understand her guilt, I did not know what transpired with my sister. This was about the time I started going to bed with a shot gun under my chin. (a figurative shot gun not a real one but even so the thought was there)

Sorry about dumping my core on you. I like that Neil Young song
Ready For the Country. "they got to tell their story I don't know why"
I got to tell this story I don't know why.

I am beyond air head. I am losing it. My mind is a joke. They tell me I used to be smart. I look up the spelling of a word ten times a hundred times and can't remember it.
Ask me what I had for lunch on May 25 1948 and I can probably tell you.
Spooky geezer mind.

I need to install Firefox on this computer, at least it has a spell checker.

Thanks for reading. I throw all this out there in case there is something in it you can use.

Crazy Mike told my mother that one day she would regret turning me into a mama's boy. And it all came raging out of me on November 22, 1963. Whe I come within a pubic hair of suicide by matricide. Did I tell you about tripping with my mother ten years later and her telling me the joke about the jewish boy who murdered his mother.

Yeah sunday funnies, I live for them. Opus is gone, Calvin and Hobbes, but I still got Prince Valiant and Bucky Kat.

Sorry you are still carrying your wounds from the war, if you get my drift.

I worked with a lot of combat veterans susan, a lot of walking wounded if you get my drift.
Amazing how many truckers are retired military. Maybe it is the gypsy life style, the sweet solitude of the road.

Stone cold life takers. Read Headless Rooster by Mingo sometime.
You could always tell the combat vets from the ones who were in the rear with the gear back in Fort Dix. The combat vets took the pissant civilian problems of life in stride, they never lost the their sense of humor. The others would bitch and moan about little things that go wrong day to day.

Those good men accepted me. I understood myself better one explained what the adrenalin shakes are. I always thought I was a coward. They say that is how the Quakers got their name,

One of those men I worked with I think about every holloweenie. I hate that fucking holiday. Well I hate to drive on it. I would rather take my chances with the drunks on new years eve.

I think about Johnny because what happened to him on a holloween night in Utah. Some trickster hung a cinderblock on a rope from a highway over pass. Just windshield high for a truck.
Johnny was a big bear of a man, a gentle ben, I never felt a mean vibe from him but he told me the story aobut how he shot a man in an alley behind a bar some where in the USA, I can't remember the city or maybe I dont want to. The guy took a dislike to him and kept coming at him, he had blood in his eye but he did not realize it was going to be his own. Johnny walked away from him and got in his car the guy followed him and tried to grab him. Johhny shot him dead, just like that, just like a reflex and drove away and left him laying there.
. After he told me the story Johnny looked at me expectantly to see what I would say. I said if it was me I would stay out of bars and away from drunks. Going to be a lot of walking wounded coming home. The murder and abuse rates for military wives is climbing.

You don't have to go to war to get PTSD.

don't mind me susan
I am that poor old silver back gorilla
the beta male.
without a mate
I like the way leaonard cohen said it.
"Some of us are still out on the street with no arrows of direction to guide our feet, no angel to keep us from the heat."
I prefer it that way at this point in my life
But I wil take all the sisters I can find.
I think the purest love between a man and a woman is the non sexual love of a
brother and sister
it is for me.
at least.

Yes, trucker, I take stuff from it. I admit, a lot of the stuff is well over my head, but if I store it for later, it can be useful down the road. I feel like a squirrel.

I know my independence seems extremely feminist. I'm not though. It's complicated, in my head I have a match, in reality I don't see the face. I exhaust it in writing. I've empowered my son, he's doing extremely well. I raised him hippy, he was allowed to be exactly who he was born to be. I let him stay strongly opinionated, head strong, and very individual. It's my daughter I worry about. She had to connect to me, because she's very much like her father. See the pains I may cause her? I sit feeling a failure on connections.

I'm thinking your mother seemed one way, but with maturity you'd noticed her complications. Mother's try to hide the humanness. Mine was perfectly put together, flawless, and an identical twin, so I felt I'd only had half of her. It's amazing what we contemplate.

I'm absorbing.