Written/posted on June 15th:

You and us and *les entrepreneurs du bonheur*. What is this “happiness” we seek?

Who is *us*? That’d be me… and you. And Scott. A very few.

And with that in mind, let’s look at someone who shares our revulsion with sentimentality and cant… ideals ordered ready-made. Someone who felt –nay, knew– that the milk of human kindness was too often the result of indolence of mind, or, as Enid Starkie [1] put it, “the egoistic desire to feel morally solvent.”

Baudelaire.

He poured scorn on those he called “the contractors of public happiness.”

It was quite groundbreaking during his time (1821-67) to declare that artists/poets did not necessarily have to be public-spirited… or have a *classic* social conscience. You know, use art and talent for the betterment of the masses a la Brecht.

In this quarter… on this afternoon… we are extremely interested, to put it lightly, in revolutionary politics. But no more interested in the political fare that’s bandied about for the most part… almost everywhere we look… than we are in art which is applauded routinely, be it elitist, populist or pedestrian.

Our only salvation lies in the full development of the individual, in the full exercise of his powers, in his own efforts to find his singular self and his own harmony. Which suggests not having “to try” very hard… midst the very hard work.

We cannot make humanity “happy” in 24 hours. And… although it’s not “our job” as such, 24 years is way too far in the future.

Something must be done… and our route is simply quite different than what you’ll find in other alternative outlets.

Do whining and worthy beggars win what they want through violence or pity? That question provides the limited parameters within which “activists” work.

It is lifelong complicated this fundamental issue which is *reduced* on the left and the right.

Look at what Enid Starkie has to say about Baudelaire’s attitude:

> “There was only one thing that he believed should be the right of everyone, liberty for the individual, liberty to protect his spirtual privacy, of whatever kind it might be, against all those who would encroach on it on the plea of improving him or of making him happy; the liberty, if it was his pleasure, to go to Hell his own way. The humanitarians, he thought, were mistaken in thinking that suffering lay alone in lack of material goods. He saw that the greatest source of misery in man was in himself, in his own inefficiency, and in his own sense of failure, and he told him this unpalatable truth. Nevertheless he had infinite sympathy for those who had failed in the battle of life –whether through the greed or avarice of others, or through their own weakness. He knew that there would always be the failures, whatever the form of government….”

He knew everyone was destined to fail… whether they acknowledged that or not.

Beckett made a big deal about all that. All we want to do is to make sure it’s included in *the equation*. The one that you use when you’re addressing inequality in the distribution of material goods, poor health care, etc.

With Cuba now looking at a so-called *bright future* based on oil discovery… we clearly have our socially-conscious and individual work cut out for us.

So I trust you’ll forgive us the form we use in pursuing mutual goals. Not only does the content dictate it… the times do.

Loving regards, Richard
P.S. We are preparing for “the death” we’re all slated for, whether it culminate on a slab or otherwise. That’s what’s *all about us*.

[1] See my piece on Enid Starkie who wrote a very special bio on Baudelaire; much of this is inspired by her work.

—–

Henry’s Hummingbird

> “To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour” — William Blake

As Henry Miller so eloquently put it in Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, the *quack* still dominates. We follow the injunctions of idiots, as we –simultaneously– give in to our itch “to free ourselves from the problems we have created for ourselves.” We refuse to acknowledge that we are “as mysterious and indestructible as the universe itself.” We follow a familiar pattern of “exploration, spoilation, exploitation, nullification.”

Dear Henry adds, “What makes it all the more ironical is that our problems here on earth are as yet so ridiculously petty. Hardly have we begun to use our minds when we find ourselves dying. We grow old before we have matured. Worse, for the better part of our lives we are diseased, crippled, frustrated. In short, we are used up almost from the start.”

Then Mentor Miller finds comfort in an inescapable truth: “Each time we run away from ourselves we are driven home again with greater force. Every effort to break out only pushes us further back into ourselves. It *may* be possible for man to reach the outer edges of the universe, but the importance of it will lie not in the getting there but in knowing more about ourselves. If we could pick up a stone in the field and truly grasp its nature, its essence, its being, so to speak, we would understand and know and appreciate the whole outer universe…. Being fully here and of the moment, we would also be there, anywhere, and of all moments.”

He concludes with “Much too simple, doubtless. But such is the nature of the real. Why change the world? *Change worlds!* Quite a difference.”

The only thing that I would add is that… on a given day, there’s zero wrong with paying mind to a landmine in lieu of that proverbial stone.

Loving best, Richard

P.S. Like G.E. Bentley, Jr. says, in his The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake, “It is not what we see that matters to Blake but how we see it. In Blake’s life, we must choose between the Realm of the Beast and the Stranger from Paradise. And if we are wise, we may learn from his life, as from his poetry, to understand the ‘Auguries of Innocence.’”

The OX: Hell’s Bells

by Richard Oxman

“Only Americans are so obsessed with labeling people as crazy.” — Helno, lead singer for Les Negresses Vertes, not long before he died January 22, 1993.

“With a daytime of sin and a nightime of hell
Everybody’s going to look for a bell to ring…
All through the night….” — Lou Reed, “All Through The Night”

It’s cracked. They’re cracked.

I write for compassionate, courageous souls…who don’t cut off the corners of their toast. Gui and Christian and Scott and Robin and Rhino The Sydney Harbour Fish and Gordon and Stephen and Gary and Derrick and my daugher Noelle (who doesn’t stay in touch enough) and Leila (who hasn’t been in touch at all of late) and Steven and Allegra and Inho and Seth (even though he’s probably madashell right now) and Mike and Debra (and Fabrice?) and Lance and Jason and Mark and Paul and Chuck and Merryheart and Collette and Sam, Tammy and Aja&Jesse&Marcel (even though they don’t read me) and…. Who’d I leave out (who hasn’t written recently)?

It’s like I’m a weird Mitch Heberg telling jokes I love to a vast hall of numbskulls, but… here and there… there you are… getting it quite enough… and letting me know… applauding wildly, making an echo of sounds that haven’t surfaced since…. It’s like Mom and Aunt Alma are in the dark hall. Where it’s always three o’clock in the morning.

Bells are ringing. Three to get ready.

But not for people who think they’re gonna be around twenty years from now
or
(even if they are) that life’ll be worth living on this planet
long before then
or
who haven’t torn into colleagues for too long.

Such hell, this. People wonder out loud –with no sense of irony– about why citizens didn’t leave Germany during the Nazi rampages. The answer my friends can be found by contemplating why hardly anyone’s making a move these days in light of Sgrena’s testimony, Giuliana Sgrena Blasts U.S. Cover Up, Calls for U.S. and Italy to Leave Iraq …with the startling juxstaposition of yet another Media Reform Conference advertised in the right hand column on the same page. Register Now! rings the cracked cash register bell.*

Follow the Alternative Money. Or Common Sense. It’s beyond the pale.

And contrast the parting words of Dahr Jamil on The L’il Orphan Amy Show …wherein he clarifies what must be done to stop our wars. Contrast…with the media reform efforts…the marches Amy cites…and talks about incessantly on her Grand Book Tour.

This is too much, these delusions, these Lewis Carrollian contradictions. Substitutes for Spine and Spleen. This lack of compassion. This Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Sacrificial Lamb Syndrome too.

Is it why Rimbaud resorted to running guns in the Ogaden?

Ding dong.

Please don’t turn this into an anti-Amy rant. Or anti-army rave.

Grave times astride the deepest of graves. Not a rut.

Let me give you an example to pull some of this together. Look at the following headline & description:

Florida Expands Right to Use Deadly Force
Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill on Tuesday giving Florida residents more leeway to use deadly force in their homes and in public. The move drew immediate condemnation from gun-control groups and several urban police chiefs who warned it would give rise to needless deaths. The measure is known as the “stand your ground bill.” It permits people to use guns or other deadly force to defend themselves in public places without first attempting to retreat. The National Rifle Association lobbied hard for the bill’s passage and said it would use the victory to push for similar measures in other states. Among the opponents of the measure is Miami’s Police Chief John Timoney, who called the bill unnecessary and dangerous, warning that many people, including children, could become innocent victims. He said the bill could make gun owners assume they have “total immunity.”

See, the problem doesn’t fundamentally lie in the content above. Rather, most of the left –forget about the nation as a whole– doesn’t see that that’s already the law! That one doesn’t go abominating abroad like we do without having issued “Do NOT Go Directly to Jail” cards to homeowners at large first…encouraging their monopoly.

Think how many will be wringing hands over this one in their old activist jalopy. Think how many will be fighting this with precious heartbeats…as if a victory will mean dip*hit. “We must not institutionalize such,” they’ll say. As if we haven’t already. Think. Feel.

Sylvie and me…we…invite one and all to join us in Southwestern France. ASAP. See www.frenchpaintbox.com for an open window on one of our past lives plus.

No cost to you. Aren’t we sweet? Well, it will cost you something. You’ll have to let go of what you’re probably holding onto right now. Otherwise we aren’t likely to want to be around you. Not interested in readers of France for Dummies… or any in the series.

It’s not the France the French own. French is not required. And you don’t even have to have had good experiences with the French. Don’t have to like the French.

It’s not about that kind of visit. It’s just that it’s all over here. Maybe making it all over over there too too soon.

In fact, you don’t have to visit us in France in France. There are very special hideaways just over that mountain range that runs from the Bay of Biscay to the Gulf of Lions. None of that extended area is theirs any more than the land under your feet here is the property of trailer trash or tyrants.

For that matter, you don’t have to leave your…backyard. I just trust you have one.

In the meantime, we’re interested in helping you earn a living, enjoy the flowers whereever you reside. The “OX” of the title is not about me; the letters are a hug and kiss for you.

You can take a look at Inho’s “Come with Me” and/or “Brilliant Purity” at Inho Lee Photography if you want to bounce off of some poetry on this count.

I don’t particularly recommend the earlier drafts of this Preamble for the Grand Opening, but they’re available…upon request. The package is different than what’s in the archives here…but closer to those articles than this. Truly mere drafts*.

*Which include references to Cannes, Sundance, Dean, Kerry, Harkin, Wyden, Boxer, Feinstein, the Senate (in gen’l), Finding Neverland, Sideways, Marat/Sade and Silver City/Sayles, Jackson Browne/Daryl Hannah, Beach Boys, Simone Weil, CO2 for activists, Pascal, Sacrificial Lamb Syndrome, James M. Barrie, Two Johns (Bolton and The Negro), Eric Ossart the genius garden designer and landscape architect from Morocco, Chellis Glendinning, Dante, uninhabitable Utah, Alaska/Greenland, Oprah’s Book List and Groucho.

This is neither nihilism nor quietism.

Nor Labelingville in Pigeonholing Province.

Visit this site on your own initiative henceforth, please. Please recruit a core readership for this costly, courageous enterprise… setting up each contact with us directly, if you will. If you’re looking for “romance”…after you’ve seen Tony Gatlif’s The Crazy Stranger… we’ll provide possible leads, and… maybe… you’ll connect under the banner of Today’s Alternative Blind Dates. We’re into providing leads, not serving as leaders. TABD will also have infamous historical dates plus highlighted for your daily pleasure. Other items should be added daily; perhaps it’ll be fun to search…perhaps we’ll have a running list of what. The Bio part of About Us will have entries from time to time, and Money for Nothing is slated to offer opportunities for making $$$. Those ops won’t arise as often, however, as the frequent free items available on Friends Don’t Lend Books… which title plays on the fact that we’ll be giving away interesting reading plus to interested parties. That’ll probably be a good place to post some select reader responses to books, films, etc. referred to in articles. Some items will be sold at bargain prices in that section also. I’m hoping to set up a free video circulation system, drawing on our extensive collection.

Scott and I put this all together to get something up ASAP. Much more will follow. Better not to sleep. For more reasons, perhaps, than what James M. Barrie offered up: “Children should never go to sleep. They always wake up…a day older.”

Well, rest, for sure. Just don’t down you forget as up you grow,
Your Ox

P.S. The Billy Bragg Poodle piece, Blair’s Poodle: the Billy Bragg Interview, underscores how little togetherness exists… how little we can count on for the future among our own shock(ed) troopers. A well-written article with various aspects of interest…we come down, finally, to realizing the betrayal that can’t be overcome, what’s endemic to our mutual delusions. Please understand how many readers will get caught up with the nooks and crannies of undergraduate Omar’s piece…and not truly digest the thrust of his efforts. To wit, that we not only have lost Billy Bragg…we never had him. And…there’s no one in the wings. No space to fly. Regardless of the author’s conscious intention, that’s the main message I come away with. If you have any doubts on this score, see the expose of Whole Foods/Wild Oats. Virtually no one’s waiting to take your arm in solidarity. Not even those serving up healthy food. It’s very unhealthy to proceed as if none of this has been made public, that there are no revolutionary ramifications with the ripples. I can rip off a number of parallels with people in my personal life which confirm the above. But whereas I can tolerate the disappointments in interpersonal communication at home… I cannot be but discouraged at the prospects of overcoming the negatives in imaginary political solidarity. When we talk about recruitment henceforth…we may be talking about something we never dreamt of previously.

After carefully delineating the first 31 years of my life (and looking forward to doing the same with the last 31 for readers), I’ve decided to make bio info available…upon request. To trot out an outline of my coming out as an alternative citizen seemed…not necessary/desirable. My background comes through in my articles. And anyone who wants to know more about me personally…only needs to inquire*.

*There was that Kazan shooting of On the Waterfront in Hoboken where I….