Giant Checks

"The Prime Minister then handed out giant checks to the bereaved
A sign, he said, that the state would take care of those who have lost so much"

— Thailand nursery attack (BBC report, October 7, 2022)

Giant checks, devoid of meaning
Thoughts and prayers, the theater of grief
A parade of penance and ritual tributes

Giant checks, post-facto regret
Consolation payments, the language of impotence
The wages of acceptable loss

Giant checks, base calculations of uniformed men
Seasoned with blood, whither the monopoly of violence?
Witness the performance of authority

Giant checks to the bereaved, a duty of care
Not to mention the provision of little urns and coffins
A fine display, the toll unbearable, the final indignities

Giant checks, props for a national calamity
The sobbing and shrieks, a symphony of despair
An unending stillness in others, more worrying are these vacant stares

Giant checks, empty gestures
Roused by tragedy, the coup maker's show of concern
Balm for communal numbness

Giant checks, strictly by the numbers
Effigies erected to solace, pain underwritten in large print
Sorrow in sans-serif and block letters

Giant checks disbursed in the aftermath of death
Survivor's guilt by way of comfort and healing
Mandatory compensation for those still breathing

Giant checks, lottery winners
A failure to protect, pageantry in the wake of slaughter
This too could happen to you

Giant Checks, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Check out your Mind by Curtis Mayfield
• King of Sorrow by Sade
• Can't buy me by Femi Kuti
• Sorrow, Tears and Blood by Fela Kuti
• Meaningless Money by Kuber Bhaskar
• Sorrow doesn't Resurrect by Ark Patrol

Bonus beats: Sorry ain't enough by Sault

See previously: Ritual Tributes and Action Items

File under: language, hatchet job, outrage, satire, violence, blood, theatre, Thailand, military, crime, humour, culture, observation, perception, grief, mourning, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, poetry, toli

Writing log. October 7, 2022

Best of 2010

My customary list of things that moved me in 2010...

Truth be told, I was mostly consumed by the World Cup last year especially since Ghana were bona fide contenders and could have/should have gone further/won it outright. Well the boys did great: Andre Ayew, Asamoah Gyan and all. I still haven't recovered from the Ghana-Uruguay match...

So, the year in numbers: I read 37 books, watched 100 movies (blame Netflix) and attended 12 concerts and 1 play.

I didn't write as much as I hoped and one reason is that I now also subscribe to about 1300 feeds; the resulting onslaught of information coming my way makes me lean towards consumption rather than production. Here's hoping for a different balance in 2011.

Books

Novels led the way in the 37 books I read (Incidentally two of these were e-books: Hilaire Belloc's essays and Charles Dickens's serial novels were great reads for the mobile phone moments, the interstices of modern life). The highlights in print were the young African writers.

• Nii Ayikwei Parkes - Tail of the Blue Bird

  Call it a case of deep empathy; it was the shock of the familiar. It's not often that I recognize myself on the book shelves. It was bracing to read a young Ghanaian writer, a modern traveler, equally at ease in London, the US, and my childhood neighbourhoods in Accra, and even someone who'll head up to the mountains near Aburi and make them the setting for his novel. Nii Parkes loves language and plain storytelling. My friend isn't afraid to take his time and tell stories and let them take us where they may, with humourous anecdotes and elliptical discursions thrown in for good measure. The genre and the form - the crime procedural, are almost unimportant even if finely detailed, it's the underlying story that matters. We are children of Ananse, lovers of social living, and the stories we can share. I have a deep and specific connection with his artistic impulse even when I disagree with him. To cap things off, The Makings of You, his poetry collection finally got its release in the US. Needless to say my man had a great year. I dig his brand of toli and recommend it to you. A head nod in your direction, brother.

• Petina Gappah - An Elegy for Easterly
  Brian Chikwava - Harare North

  "They" kept saying that I should read the new crop of Zimbabwean writers, that life in the shadow of Robert Mugabe was proving to be a fertile artistic ground, that the future of African literature lay in their palms. And there was a lot to their argument, these two wrote of dark matters and it was a tonic to read them. With a blast of furious energy, their voices asserted themselves immediately. Where Gappah was wry and humanistic, Chikwava's tone was utterly bleak, filled with irony and the darkest humour. Mugabe's victims are manifold but we can always fall back on this artistic response to his reign.

  Let me digress about book covers for a minute - as you may know I have an interest in the types and faces that represent writing about Africa. Consider the journey from the cover photo in the English edition of a London market

  
  
  

  to the following illustration in the US Edition

  
  
  

  "Fine", you say, there's a transformation from the photo of a street scene to a quite clever montage in the illustration that further manages to throw in a few more references to London: Big Ben, tube signs and all. "I get it".

  But look closer, if you will, at the bottom corners of the latter, and note the giraffe on the right and the tree in the savanna that has materialized on the left.

  Chikwava's book is a novel about Zimbabwean immigrants in London. True, there are plenty of predators in the book but they are all too human - there is no wildlife to be found in its pages. What scenes there are in Zimbabwe are all urban.

  (Incidentally, I can understand that the same tree and savanna appear on the cover of Gappah's book since at least one of her stories has that kind of backdrop.)

  Apparently it isn't enough to have Harare in the title, and the black head and anomic eyes of the main protagonist as a signifier; that would be too subtle an indicator of Africa. I wonder if that giraffe and savanna detail was part of the cover artist Yuko Kondo's initial vision or whether it was the publisher who needed to remove any doubt about provenance. I wonder, must every African novel face the world with wildlife or the savanna as its backdrop? I'm not a big fan of the safari quotient.

• James Ellroy - Blood's A Rover

  I am a big fan of Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy and the intricate worlds of bad men (and women in this final part) that he has constructed: "a new myth from the gutter to the stars". Indeed I read this twice in a feverish haze. He didn't disappoint; the trilogy will stand as one of the most ambitious and resolutely executed works of the past 20 years.

• Geoffrey Philp - Who's Your Daddy? and other Stories

  Call it Jamaican Gothic, a collection of stories full of wit and perception. His roving eye and his sharply attuned ear for dialog make for vivid reading. I also happen to love Geoffrey Philp's poetry.

• Heinrich von Kleist - The Marquise of O and Other Stories

  Luminous stories that linger in the mind. Plots that swirl every which way, with turns at once startling and engrossing. Writing that leaves you breathless, von Kleist was peerless as an artisan of literary tectonics.

• Geoffrey Household - Rogue Male

  A story so stripped down and spartan that the reader wants to apply metaphor to gain comfort. On the surface it's a hard-boiled thriller about life at the extremes, I came to read it as a prescient warning about the relentless challenge that Hitler's fascism would pose. What is your interpretation?

• Meja Mwangi - Going Down River Road

  A deep dive into the slums of Nairobi. An exacting and brilliant novel that manages to find soul and brotherhood among the futility. Gappah is to Chikwava - and Kenya is to Zimbabwe in our millennium - as Going Down River Road is to Thomas Akare's The Slums.

• Alain Mabanckou - Black Bazar

  Reads almost like a follow-up of his 1998 tour de force, Bleu, Blanc, Rouge, wonderful writing all around.

  See also: The Ways of The Porcupine

• Emmanuel Dongala - Johnny Chient Méchant

  There's a fine translation, Johnny Mad Dog of this look at child soldiers and the damage they leave in their wake. I read also that it has been made into a film that is about to be released. I have a pending piece on the novels about child soldiers in Africa. Powerful stuff indeed.

• Sarah Ladipo Manyika - In Dependence
  The Nigerian writers are making us all of us proud. I thoroughly enjoyed this love story full of missed opportunities.

Theatre

The sole play was Marcus Gardley's ... and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi, a funny gumbo of a play with soul food, slavery, Greek choruses, and Michael Jackson's Billie Jean song and dance routine at its core. Homeboy's got a unique vision.

Movies

Two trilogies brought forth the heat in my film watching.

• Carlos the Jackal

  Olivier Assayas's take on that gremlin of terrorists featured a startling and dizzying performance by Edgar Ramirez as the eponymous Venezuelan revolutionary. There was no higher achievement in cinema.

• Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy saw Noomi Rapace embody that girl with the dragon tattoo with her singular talent. Actress of the year
• State of Play

  This BBC Miniseries was so engrossing that we had to watch all 6 hours in one sitting. Fodder for those with the journalistic impulse.

• Prince of Broadway
  Sean Baker's vibrant take on the hustle of Ghanaians in New York is almost too realistic.
• The Death Of Mr Lazarescu
  Quietly devastating and Kafkaesque.
• The Secret of the Grain
  I want to eat some couscous with everyone associated with La graine et le mulet.
• Boardwalk Empire and Treme
  The Wife and I fell for these HBO series, what can I say.
• Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart

  A great documentary on musical exploration. For me it stepped into high gear from the moment when Oumou Sangare picked him up at the airport. I saw him in concert with Toumani Diabete the previous year; it was a great collaboration, banjo met kora and all was well.

Music

I attended 13 concerts - but only blogged about one - adding to the pile of lost reviews that I keep meaning to publish.

• Amel Larrieux

  The highlight of my year was watching Amel Larrieux perform for two magical nights in August. I still have an orange glow from those sessions. Her 2006 album, Morning, has proven to be a fantastic bed of creativity, reinvented on stage. It was the album of the year in 2006 and, well, let me not beat around the bush, it is one of my two favourite albums of the decade - the other is Voodoo. The listening statistics seem to bear that out. The songs she previewed from next year's album ought to bring her to the wide acclaim she richly deserves.

• Van Hunt gave a solo performance almost exactly a year ago. He playfully alternated between acoustic guitar and grand piano and treated us to a tour of his soul songbook. It is deep and his musical vision is captivating.
• José James and Jef Neve For All We Know
  José James - Blackmagic
  
  
  

  Hands down the most romantic thing I did was to attend the concert José James and Jef Neve gave at the Gould Theater at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The classic setting, and the music, mon dieu, the music. I stand by my immediate reaction:

  Impossibly talented, extravagantly empathetic, lushly lyrical: the golden voice meets the angular piano. Loved it.

  It was really hard to believe that they had only played together twice before stepping into the studio. I'll have more to write about these young lions - José James especially (he had a busy year) deserves considerable critical attention, for this is the future of jazz.
  
• Dwele - Wants World Women

  Dwele still has that swagger - he deserves it needless to say. This year in addition to the seductive poses he struck on stage - a Dwele concert in Oakland is an event to behold. He brought some social observation into the mix - as ever it was over an infectious beat. Consider his take on our ongoing Great Recession in How I Deal

  See, I was employed
  But not today
  See Bush came and made all that go away
  Now I'm the crib with the fakest grin
  Waiting for Obama to kick in

  The chorus starts aptly enough with "I'm losing my power, chasing the almighty dollar". With unemployment at 10 percent and underemployment pervasive, we are all "waiting for Obama to kick in".

  
• Bilal - Airtight's Revenge

  In concert he was wild and fabulous and the new album was solid. It's great to have him back. The one-two combination of Restart and All Matter was exhilarating, Bilal went into a trance and we followed

• John Legend & The Roots - Wake Up!
  These guys deserve the Grammys they will be getting in the next few weeks.
• Hindi Zahra - Handmade

  We managed to catch Hindi Zahra live at Le Bataclan in Paris and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I guess you'd call it world music, it was worldly, grown folks music. Norah Jones watch out.

  
• Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I Learned The Hard Way
  How can one not love The Game Gets Old?
• Eric Roberson put the Music Fan First and continued to build his independent soul movement.
• Corinne Bailey Rae, mourning her late husband, found a way to sing again and released a set, The Sea, full of elegiac balladry.
• It was a year of returns. Massive Attack gave us Heligoland, Sade was a Soldier of Love and Gil Scott-Heron said I'm New Here - his take on Me And The Devil rocked hard.

  Erykah Badu came back to us and even went nude for the love of the music.

  Habib Koite and Bamada were mellow men as befits a band that has been together for 25 years. Like Sade, they were a seamless unit.

  

Finally two acts I caught at the end of the year who will be making waves in 2011:

• Les Nubians will be giving us a Nu Revolution in coming months. We caught them live as they readied a new stage show.
  
• I'm looking forward to Rhian Benson's Hands Clean, her first album in 7 years. Asked why she made us wait, she explained, "I had to do some living that I could then put in the album". She gave a short set at her release party in Accra - and even had a couple of wardrobe malfunctions, but it was worth it to hear her sing Say How I Feel and preview a few songs from the new album. Valentines Day is only weeks away.
  

Song of the year: Bilal - All Matter

Dearly Departed

In letters, Ferdinand Oyono, Robert Parker and gold old José Saramago passed away and are sorely missed.

In music, we lost Teddy Pendergrass - black masculinity incarnate, Gregory Isaacs - the cool ruler with the golden voice, Willie Mitchell one of the best music producers we have known, the ever versatile Lena Horne. The loss I took most personally was Abbey Lincoln; I'll forever miss her vibe.

For a playlist in memory of these greats, consider these albums: Joy, Night Nurse, Let's Stay Together and A Turtle's Dream.

File under: review, literature, appreciation, culture, observation, stereotypes, music, soul, movies, film, theatre, Africa, toli

Best of 2009

Everybody likes lists so here's a list of things that moved me in 2009. I didn't blog much (a mere 5 posts - I was quite shaken) but I did leave quite a wide digital trail by compulsively tracking my consumption of various cultural artifacts - especially as I tend to make time to write mini-reviews. A cursory summary of my year: 50 books, 120 movies (blame Netflix), 10 concerts and 1 play. I remain an omnivorous consumer of the web and additionally bookmarked or shared up to 680 articles and blogposts (blame the 1099 feeds I subscribe to Google Reader) - each of these was the occasion of some pithy commentary and tags, your basic frisson de folksonomie.

Books

I read mostly novels last year and eschewed non-fiction since I haven't yet become American in my reading preferences. There was some poetry especially near the end; mostly web-based after I got interested in how poets are using the web.

Entertainments

Entertainments tend to get short shrift, dismissed as they are as guilty pleasures, yet there is something to be said to bask in the glow of literary entertainments. With hindsight, I prefer Graham Greene's self-described 'entertainments' to his serious pieces. I've resolved to increase the quotient of entertainments in my reading.

• Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
  A delightful entertainment and sublime take on a bygone era at Oxford. Compare to the best campus novels like those of Kingsley Amis and David Lodge or even more scabrous affairs like Porterhouse Blue. Satire and vicious cultural observation. Some of the dialog from the upper class twits reminded me of his Edwardian contemporary, Saki. For example,

  Are you fond of peasants? My tenantry are delightful creatures, and there is not one of them who remembers the bringing of the news of the battle of Waterloo.

  How to describe an effete English Lord in 2 sentences.
• Comment Cuisiner Son Mari À L'Africaine by Calixthe Beyala
  A novel in the form of a cookbook. A cookbook in the form of a novel. A fable in the form of a tasty barbecue. A romance spiced with flair. A delightful confection through and through, cooked with verve. A sensual read, it is also a thoroughly modern affair set in the milieu of low income housing in Paris. She was early in documenting immigrant life and prescient about the travails of exiled souls.
• The Charlie Mortdecai trilogy by Kyril Bonfiglioli
  The three Charlie Mordecai novels, Don't Point that Thing at Me, After You with the Pistol, and Something Nasty in the Woodshed have the highest concentration of effortless wit, zingers and cultural affectation I've encountered in a long while. Who knew that the intrigues of a disreputable coward, art snob and seasoned thief would be so entertaining? The increasingly intricate plots are almost incidental - verging at times on spoofs of James Coburn spy capers which were themselves spoofs, the towering pleasures are in the asides. I want to have cocktails with Mordecai.

  My life-long study of the art of warfare has taught me that running away is certainly the most cost-effective type of fighting. It doesn't win many battles but it saves you a lot of troops. Ask any Italian general if you can catch him out of his hairnet. Or, indeed, if you can catch him at all.
  
  — Kyril Bonfiglioli - After You with the Pistol, page 74

• The Parker novels by Richard Stark
  Donald Westlake sadly passed away late in 2008, his alter-ego's productions are the gold standard of hard-boiled noir, spare and stripped down tales of amorality and professional crime. Luckily many are being reissued these days. The Mourner, The Score and The Seventh were last year's comfort suites for me, variations on a heist with a relentless force of nature at the helm. Also revelatory was Darwin Cooke's graphic novel resurrecting Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter. Revenge has never been better.

Masters of Storytelling

There's nothing like letting go and putting your faith in one of these craftsmen of the tale:

• Verre Cassé by Alain Mabanckou
  I read a lot of Mabanckou last year and an appreciation piece is sorely overdue. He is one of the best living African writers and yet few focus on him perhaps because he writes in French. Let's hope that the new translations that have began appearing remedy the situation - Broken Glass seems to be getting some buzz. Short of that, I'll become his shill. His latest, Mémoires De Porc-épic, was also magisterial.
• Moses Ascending by Samuel Selvon
  After discovering the many pleasures of Zee Edgell last year I resolved to read more Caribbean literature and, after plowing through Selected Poems by Derek Walcott, I went back to that other master of Caribbean letters, Samuel Selvon, catching up on his great creation in 1970s England. A novel packed with hilarious observations about immigrants, poor whites, Pakistanis, black power, sexual mores, the relationship with authority figures, and throughout the resilient hustle of the Caribbean immigrant.
• The Dragon Can't Dance by Earl Lovelace
  Call it a masquerade or rather a prose calypso. Wonderful social commentary on Trinidad, straight from the slum hills overlooking Port of Spain.
• The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins
  Beautiful writing, haunting characters and an unerring ear for the nuances of language. The film adaptation is a classic of tragic noir, Robert Mitchum was never better.
• To Each His Own by Leonardo Sciascia
  A sardonic lament on the corruption of the mafia. He cut out all the fat in the narrative and the result is so restrained as to be unbearable. It lingered in my mind the whole year and resonated as I watched Gomorrah. What is to be done when this malevolent thing can blight an entire society? The follow-up, The Day of the Owl is, if anything, more menacing.

Urban Dread

• Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
  This one hit too close to home mainly because I know one of the barely fictionalized protagonists. Observations on race, identity and cultural anomie from the viewpoint of Boston black Americans close enough to the ivory towers to make their continuing travails and periodic falls from grace more heartrending and frustrating. An elegy for the modern strays of the world.

  Also in the same vein of urban dread, The Scholar: A West Side Story by Courttia Newland with its inner city London setting and The Turnaround by George Pelecanos who continues to mine the streets of the Washington DC area.

Heartwarming

I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

Young African writers are in ascendance these days. This wistful and funny study of world of the 419 scam was the best and most heartening of the lot. I never quite got to Sarah Ladipo Manyika's In Dependence or my friend Nii Ayikwei Parkes's Tail of the Blue Bird so those will have to be part of the 2010 contingent.

Theatre

The Cutting Ball's production of Ionesco's The Bald Soprano was a tonic, what with its great translation and interpretive gusto, but then you know that I love all things Ionesco.

Movies

• In The Loop
  The best film of the year. The best adaptation of the year. The most fun of the year. A satire of the build up to the Iraq war, it hit harder than all the war movies. The Alistair Campbell character is larger than life but the entire cast shines.
• Goodbye Solo
  Ramin Bahrani is fast becoming my favourite director; he manages to get so much out of his actors. I'm fairly sure I've been driven by a taxi driver with the same spirit as Solo (wonderfully played by Souleymane Sy Savane) in Boston. They caught the magic with this gripping meditation on life and family ties. The previous year's Chop Shop was gritty and heart-breaking.
• Killer of Sheep
  Talking about strays of the world, how about a portrait of working class life in 1970s Los Angeles. Charles Burnett's masterpiece only received a theatrical release after 30 years. I can still hear Dinah Washington's This Bitter Earth play in the background of a hot apartment in the summertime.
• Sin Nombre
  The most uncanny love story meets road movie meets Latin American gang life. Mesmerizing.
• Gomorrah
  No wonder the writer, Roberto Saviano, now needs police protection; Matteo Garrone's adaptation brings stark visuals to a relentless milieu of social corruption and violence.
• District 9
  I hope Neill Blomkamp never gets budgets ala James Cameron, his scrappy aesthetic and expedient innovations are fine by me.
• Nuts in May, Abigail's Party
  Happy-Go-Lucky also was my top film of 2008 hence I went on a Mike Leigh spree and revisited many of his early television pieces. Fun all around.
• Life and Nothing But
  The aftermath of the first world war is a great backdrop for a meditation on loss and love. Another Tavernier-Noiret collaboration.
• Mapp & Lucia (series one)
  I have long loved E.F. Benson's Mapp & Lucia series, its celebration of beastly manners are economical marvels of observation. The television series didn't disappoint.

Music

I have a series called The Lost Reviews in the works so I'll simply note the high points.

• Dwele was naughty and nice, touring in support of 2008's Sketches of a Man. The addition of the horns in the live show made all the difference especially on Travelin' Girl. The swagger was well deserved, he's an artisan of soul.
• Alice Russell caught the spirit during her Pot of Gold tour. She has impeccable taste and a golden voice. Let us be loving her.
• Meshell NdegeOcello had the baddest band since The Revolution.
• Amel Larrieux was in flight, my favourite musical brave bird continued to tour as she worked on her next album. Frankly I can't wait.
• Charlie Hunter was a bad man, a genius of the soulful guitar. Run to see him live or at least catch his latest album, Gentlemen, I Neglected To Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid.

And then there were the passings. Michael Jackson's death left a hole in my heart. The concert film was no consolation and the tributes barely salved the soul; the thrill is gone. Add to that the recent passings of Willie Mitchell and Teddy Pendergrass and what is a soul lover to do. Rest in peace.

Late Pass:

Kutiman's Thru You was the most creative album of the year, all the more impressive since Youtube was his orchestra and jam band. Dig it.

On to 2010. My mantra: focus and produce.

File under: review, literature, appreciation, culture, observation, music, soul, movies, film, theatre, toli

By Way of Ionesco

It must have been a few months ago, I was heading home after work; it was the usual thing, a perfectly ordinary evening. As usual, I was fumbling with my various bags, headphones and such. As I switched trains at Oakland, my sharp elbows ensured that I obtained a seat; I find it pays to be equipped at rush hour. I settled down, rummaged around and found my book. I opened it and relaxed; there's nothing like getting lost in a good book on the commute. A muffled announcement predicted a delay. Oh well, I settled in for the long haul. After a few moments, I heard someone muttering from across the aisle: "Ionesco" or something.

"Yes, yes", I gestured at the distinctive cover of my book, "Ionesco".

The guy continued talking but I couldn't quite hear him since I was listening to music. As I fumbled around with the controls to the cd player (no ipod as yet), it struck me that I had been speaking in French. What I had actually replied was "Oui. Oui. Ionesco... C'est La Cantatrice Chauve."

As I finally removed my headphones (those tangled wires), I realized that the other guy had also been speaking in French.

Well, no matter. If you're reading a French book on the subway, odds are that a passing Frenchman would notice and engage you. Perhaps you look vaguely francophone. It would stand to reason that you would start to speak in French also. Indeed the reason I had been reading that book was one of my periodic attempts to keep up my French. Still it was uncanny how I had unconsciously slipped into that other language, perhaps a switch had been involuntarily flipped as sometimes happens to polyglots (pdf). I don't get to speak the language much these days - I am awful about keeping up with the part of my family in France. True, every few months or so I dream in French (don't ask, don't tell) but I know that my fluency in conversational speech is at risk.

So anyway, there was a little pause as we both assessed each other. A couple of relatively thin thirtysomethings, hungry engineer types. Not many people chat on the subway, one is always wary about being solicited or otherwise bothered. As the song goes: don't talk to strangers. How often, however, does one find someone interesting on the commute?

Well, the conversation began in earnest. Ionesco it was. His plays, his ideas, the theatre.

What do you know, I was sitting across from someone who had directed four Ionesco plays; a fellow Ionesco afficionado no less. I'd acted in Les Chaises during my brief theatrical career at school. Heck I still sometimes view the world through his jaundiced lens. The guy was clearly a creative type, steeped in the stage. A man after my heart. And he knew his stuff it seemed.

Pretty soon we were getting into the intricacies of Ionesco's world. What we liked: the playfulness of the language, the sense of rhythm, the stacatto effects that leapt from the page. The often startling juxtaposition of mundane minutiae with profundity. The pauses and the fumbling to find meaning and the consequent resort to words that obscure rather than reveal. Heady stuff in other words.

My spoken french is a little rusty and, a couple of times, I too struggled to articulate some of these thoughts. It's one thing to write or read about the intricacies of art and another to verbalize them even forgetting the setting. Still it was coming back slowly: the quintessential abstractions of extinct philosophers. The accent too - I was a scion of la Lorraine, straining my 'ains'. Perhaps the long lamented fluency would be returning soon.

Somehow we got onto the nomadic element in Ionesco's writing and the fact that he was Romanian and first gained fame writing in french in a piece about observing the English. What is it about outsiders being such stylists? Why are they often the best bridges and windows on society? Perhaps the margins provide a good standpoint for cultural observation. But what are the downsides of the lives of exiled souls? Does multi-lingualism or the crossing of linguistic borders sharpen one's outlook? We weighed the evidence. I brought up Nabokov who in later life turned out to be perhaps one of the great stylists of the English language. He wasn't impressed, he felt that Ionesco got closer to the gypsy element of modernity than Nabokov ever did. I demurred, both, I thought, were modern travellers that disdained boundaries and pushed the forms in which they wielded their pens. The response: well Ionesco carried less baggage. Anyway we got back to the plays.

He liked Rhinoceros and Les Chaises for their theatricality but for him La cantatrice chauve was the most playful with the language. We went back and forth on whether it was a play best performed in French. He didn't like the English productions he'd seen and claimed that they got the zaniness all wrong. I thought that so long as you got into the spirit of things, it didn't matter. To him the confusion started with the way the play's title was translated: he preferred The Bald Prima Donna to The Bald Soprano. Thus we found ourselves seriously arguing away in French about which English translation of a nonsensical phrase a Romanian playwright had promulgated was truer to the essence of the play. I can't imagine how we must have sounded to the rest of the train car: flurries of French intermittently interupted by English exclamations: "The Bald Soprano" or "Mais non. The Bald Prima Donna". C'est ridicule, n'est-ce pas?

Funnily enough we never actually mentioned the word absurd although the theatre of the absurd was our ostensible subject. Nor indeed did we get to Beckett who looms large in such matters. To my mind, Ionesco is the more formidable pillar of that theatre, if only because his conceptions weren't as arch as those of Godot's father. The discongruities of modern life are presented simply and with wit. I love Beckett to death yet his edifices were intricate constructions. Ionesco makes the absurd more mundane, it is through almost imperceptible distortions that you find yourself in the realm of the improbable. Each step on that road makes sense.

There was a brief diversion onto Sartre - we discussed Huis clos, and judged him impractical. More to the point, his dilemmas weren't weren't of the everyday variety nor indeed did they work on the stage. No, not quite.

I hipped him to the show I'd seen in Boston a couple of years ago, Ionesco not Ionesco, three rarely performed plays. The takeaway message: Ionesco as the aspirin for modern day life, the playwright of the fringe, the governor of the borderlands. You are easily underestimated if there is a humour to your approach and many did underestimate the fugitive notions of the man.

I forgot myself for a moment, soaking in the discussion, and looked around. The rest of the car looked utterly bemused at the sight of these young men vigourously discussing French literature in their midst, throwing out existential themes — the left bank transplanted to the subway car, heck all we were missing were the berets. No matter.

It was the week of the French elections and I mentioned the story about those old campaign posters of Mitterand that were being resurrected twenty years later as ironic commentary on the choices facing the French. He liked the idea and applauded the juxtaposition. A François Mitterrand 2007 campaign seemed appropriate for this dark time. We wondered how many votes he would get.

The Cold War deserved a Ionesco. The nuclear age deserved a Ionesco. Gremlins and parasites, thine playwright is Ionesco.

We wondered who were the heirs to Ionesco's ethos. We decided that there was something to be said for plays even in this TV and film era. That the stage often had the right level of pathos for the strange incongruities of the human condition. As we parted (he gave a card, I told him to google me), we resolved that we should get back to the theatre, support it in whatever way we could. Who knows maybe we'll put together a production some time soon. It need not be Ionesco. Heck we would write our own plays.

...

When a week or so later, I received that secret tape of Negroponte meeting Gaddafi, I was struck by the element of malign play among in their discourse and world views. As I transcribed, I found it was all there: words intended to obscure, words that ostensibly communicate were instead combined into phrases that mangle reality: constructive engagement, collateral damage and so forth.

The playground of misdirection is often dominated by politicians but others too have their niches. The lowly bureaucrat and the well-meaning citizen play their part is adopting the language of bromides. Ionesco would have loved the notion of recent non-specific general threats and the obfuscation of the language of homeland security.

In any case, it stands to reason that I am now being read by folks from both the US Navy Marine Corps and Libyan embassies around the world. I do try to bring people together in my writing. A belated welcome to the toli. Enjoy your stay. Excellent. Excellent discussions.

Salut Alex.

File under: Ionesco, subway, conversation, observation, culture, theatre, literature, language, French, France, absurd, art, life, Bay Area, Things Fall Apart, toli

Public Nuisances 63 and 64

Travel this past couple of weeks and considerable jet lag prompt a few entries in an occasional series...

Public Nuisance Number 63

The single greatest improvement in the quality of life for the traveling masses of humanity will be the abolition of those public announcements about "cars left unattended (being) subject to towing". The seven and a half minute frequency of said announcements is a blight on society.

It must drive airport employees mad to hear this business. No wonder bags get misplaced and creative thefts occur. I'd rebel if I had to hear it 72 times a day, 360 times a week, 10,000 times a year. And that is at the laidback airports I've been patronizing where a few hours of flight delays prompted my timing investigations. What, I wonder, is the typical frequency of such announcements, say, at Logan airport in Boston where guilt about terrorists attacks past reigns. Good Lord.

Really, does one need to warn about towing? If you come out on any street and don't see your car, well yes, it's probably been towed, if illegally parked, or stolen, or borrowed if you're lucky. Regardless you're either stupid and/or unlucky. Such is life. Why do you need to be warned? Or is the message intended for a different audience? Is it simply a piece of security theatre deftly designed by security experts to heighten a sense of vigilance, in the best reading, or fear, in the more probable reading. Or is it one of those vestigial announcements that no one questions but that spread inexorably out of bureaucratic inertia. Somewhere a soul dies every time that recording plays. I know that my fortitude was tested...

I can understand the "be on the lookout for suspicious __" or the "don't accept packages" items but that business about towing cars needs to stop. It pollutes our ears. It pollutes our minds. It's that simple. Stop it. Erase that message from the system. Please. Pretty please.

Public Nuisance Number 64

Is there a more diseagreeable verb in the English language than deplane? I believe it is beyond objectionable, nay it is simply indecent in any good company.

Deplane indeed. What's wrong with disembark? The sole saving grace in this sad tale is that board or embark have fewer or the same amount of syllables than emplane which has consequently not seen the same adoption as its obverse (although a Delta employee used it on a recent flight).

But back to deplaning...

May catastrophic bankruptcy befall all airline companies that deploy that verb as part of their linguistic arsenal. Moreover, may the authors of the style guide of said airline companies, those syllabic bean counters who foisted those words on humanity be consigned to a sojurn of no less than six months and a day working at the most gruesome meat rendering factory — I can think of several if consultations are required. Further, may all airline personnel who utter said verb and follow the airline scripts be ignored by their progeny come Mother's or Father's Day.

Deplane! No wonder one hears about air rage even in this post 9/11 world, forget alcohol, I'll deplane you. United Airlines, consider yourself on probation. Continued toli patronage is hanging on a very frayed thread, indeed Jetblue beckons.

Sigh... It's been far too long since my last boycott day. What are you boycotting today?

File under: nuisance, rant, life, language, annoyance, irritation, boycott, indignation, bureaucracy, security, air, travel, theatre, small things, toli

Excellent Discussions

Sour — Sweet

I. Blood Brothers

Apropos strange bedfellows, I came across the following report this week:

Tripoli. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte left Libya on Wednesday without meeting leader Muammar Gaddafi after becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country in half a century, officials said.

Negroponte said he held "excellent" discussions with Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam and Ali Triki, Libya's envoy on Chad and Sudan, during a 24-hour visit aimed principally at discussing the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.

Dig: Gaddafi presumably refused to meet Negroponte because the esteemed cold warrior was involved in Ronald Reagan's attempt to kill him in the 1980s (the bombing ostensibly killed Gaddafi's adopted daughter amongst others). There is honor among rogues it seems, and there are still some lines that mustn't be crossed. As we have seen, "he tried to kill my dad" was cited as a motivating factor in the geo-politics of the past 6 years. It stands to reason that "he tried to kill me" would provoke scruples even among those not noted for possessing consciences.

Tom Stoppard in Travesties imagined the scene in 1917 in the Zurich public library at the point where Vladimir Lenin, James Joyce (working on Ulysses) and Tristan Tzara (father of the Dada movement) might have run into each other. The result was inspiration itself.

In this vein I imagine Gaddafi, Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, and Negroponte all in the same room. You might think that it is unfair to place Negroponte in such exalted company since he's an enforcer and not an idea man; a mere civil servant and career diplomat. He's just doing his job after all, scion of John Foster Dulles. And yes, it would be unfair, not to mention a case of "insinuendo" as it were. And a matter of blood.

Still, Negroponte floating the "El Salvador option" in Iraq in recent years was iconic, and his statements were followed in the ensuing months by, well lets put it this way, a plethora of death squads dumping dead bodies at night with gruesome efficiency in the streets of that sad country. I'm reminded that General "Gitmo" Miller's visit to Iraq and emphasis on Gitmo-izing things obviously had nothing to do with all that Abu Ghraib hullabaloo that also followed. Several Pentagon investigations affirm that insight, right? There's no proven connection. It's all shades of gray when the gloves come off. Necessary exoneration.

One wonders what happens when these lords of war get together. Oh to be a fly on the wall of such encounters. Imagine: the architect of the CIA in El Salvador meeting with the architect of almost every malfeasance in the Middle East and Africa for a good generation. The Good Shepherd meets El Capo, rogue division. Death squads in Latin America meet death squads in West Africa. On Monday: mighty masters of macabre mayhem. The high priests of collateral damage tangle in the desert. Live exclusively on pay-per-view. The Great Game.

Further one wonders: are they truly ideologues? At what point does collateral damage itself become the prime motivation for their misdeeds? What ultimately separates these guys from the blood lust of Ayman al-Zawari and company? There is a difference to be sure. But is it simply style or rhetoric? The panache or subtlety with which they dispatch enemies, real and imagined? For indeed, even at a remove and intentions notwithstanding, their body counts are impressive.

And could one even shed a micro-tear for a millisecond for al-Bashir? Good Lord, you prompted Negroponte to seek out Gaddafi, the first high level meeting in decades. What world class malfeasance must you be orchestrating in Darfur? Carnage of champions. Hell froze over. The enemy of my enemy and all that. The rough beast.

I've often wondered what it was like to attend, say, an OAU meeting circa 1989. That must surely have been a rogues gallery sans pareil. Could you shake hands with everyone in that room and look at yourself in the mirror the next day? For that matter, could you sleep that night? And what did the small talk of the nifty fifty sound like? Scratch that, what exactly was their big talk? Inquiring minds want to know.

Comparing notes about fiscal looteries past
Idle boasts of military efficiencies
The minutiae of collateral damage

II. Excellent Discussions

The following is a rush transcript of the secret meeting held between John Negroponte and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya on Wednesday April 18, 2007. The videotape was leaked to the toli and was immediately handed over to the relevant authorities for authentication. All transcription errors are mine.

[Inside a tent. Decor is well appointed, if not luxurious. Purple silks, indigo cloths etc. Soothing sounds. Negroponte and an aide are shown in by Libyan foreign minister and envoy. Inaudible exchange of pleasantries as they take up seats and are served cups of tea. After a minute or so Gaddafi walks in, flowing robes as usual. Takes up his seat opposite Negroponte. Stares. Long silence... They appear to be sizing each other up. Eventually, after a few false starts, they begin their conversation.]

Gaddafi: Brother Leader of the Great Socialist Arab People's Jamahiriya.

Negroponte: Deputy Secretary of State

Gaddafi: Guide of the Revolution

Negroponte: Director of National Intelligence

Gaddafi: Grand Commander of The Order Al-Fatah

Negroponte: US ambassador to Iraq and Honduras

Gaddafi [indignant]: He of The Little Green Book

Negroponte [impressed, but not wanting to show it.]: Skull and Bones... [Low steady voice] Death squads in Honduras.

Gaddafi: Death squads in Liberia.

Negroponte: Massacres in El Salvador.

Gaddafi: Small boy units. Charles Taylor. 'Nuff said.

[both men seem to relax... become expansive in their gestures]

Negroponte: El Mozote.

Gaddafi: Sierra Leonean amputations. Heard about Foday Sankoh? Trained a few miles from here.

Negroponte: Special intelligence units, Nicaragua..

Gaddafi: Semtex for the IRA. Provisional and Real IRA. Training camps.

Negroponte: Weapons for Savimbi. Hosting Unita via Mobutu. Heck: Mobutu. The fat lady sang.

Gaddafi [absentmindedly]: Those Basque separatists... um... what's their name, again?

Negroponte [interrupts]: Noriega!

Gaddafi: Oh yeah. ETA.

Negroponte: Paraguay!

Gaddafi [nodding... fondly]: ETA.

Negroponte: The El Salvador Option. Iraq. The latest. Militias. Pershmerga. Shia. Badr corps.

Gaddafi: Propped up Idi Amin.

Negroponte [whistles]: Ancient history... Death squads in Guatemala.

Gaddafi: A pattern. Let's see: Jammeh in Gambia, even gave him a medal.

Negroponte [air quotes]: "Dedication to democracy".

Gaddafi: Operation No Living Thing

Negroponte: Our "special project"

Gaddafi [curt]: Chad.

Negroponte [smiles broadly]: Nicaragua. Iran/Contra baby.

Gaddafi: Mengistu.

Negroponte: Old school... Hmm. School of the Americas.

Gaddafi: Rawlings... Campaore in Burkina Faso.

Negroponte: Small fry. New school. Black ops. Extraordinary rendition.

Gaddafi: No. No. Beat this: Carlos the Jackal.

Negroponte [a brief pause for reflection, then triumphant]: Pinochet!

[It looks like a stalemate... Both men pause to reassess. It's almost as if they are racking their brains for something that could top the other. Negroponte sips his tea. Almost a minute passes... several false starts]

Negroponte [curious]: So... was Black September one of your... affairs?

Gaddafi [wagging his finger]: No. No. Room and board only... Abu Nidal. That guy, now there was a wild one... Black September. Black ops... Let me ask: Abu Ghraib?

Negroponte [quickly]: Rumsfeld, Cambone, Miller. Axis of- [cuts himself off]... Mugabe?

Gaddafi [shaking head]: Nope, strictly business with Bob. Mining interests.

Negroponte: Yes, yes. We also have interests. The United States only has interests.

Gaddafi: Pawns.

Negroponte: Allies.

Gaddafi: Proxies.

Negroponte: Cut-outs. Drill bits.

Gaddafi: Valued partners.

Negroponte: Plausible deniability.

Gaddafi: No fingerprints.

Negroponte: Our hands are clean.

Gaddafi: Clean hands.

Negroponte: Strictly business.

Gaddafi: Only interests.

Negroponte [nods]: Only interests.

Gaddafi: Pragmatism.

Negroponte: Realism.

Gaddafi: Breadth.

Negroponte: Depth.

Gaddafi: Burden of responsibility.

Negroponte: Noblesse oblige.

[leaning closer together]

Gaddafi: Revolutionary sanctions.

Negroponte: Executive orders.

Gaddafi: Decisive principles.

Negroponte: Deterrent facilities.

Gaddafi: Resistance procedures.

Negroponte: Presidential findings.

Gaddafi: Fraternal solidarity.

Negroponte: Covert capabilities.

Gaddafi: Preventive action.

Negroponte: Policy imperatives.

Gaddafi: Independent agitation.

Negroponte: Unitary executive.

Gaddafi: Area of operations.

Negroponte: Spheres of influence.

Gaddafi: Vanguard strategies.

Negroponte: Trade. Lower barriers.

Gaddafi: Uh-uh. Business.

[pregnant pause]

Gaddafi: Business. Never personal.

Negroponte: Strictly business.

Gaddafi: Strictly business.

[A bodyguard peeks into the tent, checking on her charge. Her appearance seems to reminds Muammar of something]

Gaddafi: Oh yeah. The hare- [gestures] -em Bodyguards. Personally dedi-

Negroponte [nonplussed]: Women from Honduran villages. Just ask Wilkes. Congressmen, agents. They all want more.

Gaddafi [suppresses a look of admiration... then]: Back to business.

Negroponte: The other business.

Gaddafi: Unfinished business.

Negroponte: Business as usual.

Gaddafi: Liberation movements.

Negroponte: Preserve our liberties.

Gaddafi: Unity in freedom.

Negroponte [quickly]: Democracy.

Gaddafi: Liberation.

Negroponte: Manifest destiny.

Gaddafi: Diplomacy.

Negroponte: Diplomacy.

Gaddafi: Freedom fighters.

Negroponte: Freedom fighters.

[louder]

Gaddafi: Weapons.

Negroponte: Weapons systems.

[louder still]

Gaddafi: Blood.

Negroponte: Blood.

Gaddafi: Blood!

Negroponte: Blood!

Gaddafi [infuriated]: Lockerbie.

Negroponte [shocked, then recovers, coldly]: Your daughter.

Gaddafi [smiles inwardly at first, then acts hurt]: Blo- ... I feel... Need to...
[recovers]
Clean hands... That will do.
[shakes his head]
Business. Never personal.

Negroponte: Strictly business.

[Gaddafi gets up and begins to walk out... Imperceptible nod to subordinates who look attentive and acknowledge him. As he reaches the tent exit, he turns.]

Gaddafi: We never met.

Negroponte [nods]: You refused. We never met.

Gaddafi: We never met.

Negroponte : We never met.

[Gaddafi leaves]

[Negroponte sports a self-satisfied smile. He believes he got the better of the exchange. Turns towards aide. Nods. Finishes his tea. Pauses. Then hands his portfolio to aide and starts to walk out. His aide follows.]

Negroponte [to subalterns]: I think we can do business.

Foreign minister and envoy: [inaudible]

[At the exit]

Negroponte: A good meeting. Excellent. Excellent discussions.

[exits the tent]

[A song has been playing in the background throughout. Provisionally identified as Wynton Marsalis - Blood on the Fields. Revisit.]

[end of transcription]

---

Strange bedfellows are among my favourite subjects. Consider this note part of an occasional series. The banner is Fallen Angels.

Part III. By Way of Ionesco

Next: He of The Little Green Book

Possibly related: Recent Non-Specific General Threats

File under: Gaddafi, Negroponte, rogues, Libya, USA, Africa, war, blood, arms, politics, strategy, language, policy, play, satire, absurd, theatre, literature, hatchet job, imperialism, crime, neocons, waste, CIA, cold war, Great Game, Strange Bedfellows, Fallen Angels, toli

Recent Non-Specific General Threats

In which we consider homelands and security, and specifics and generality... A digression in the Things Fall Apart series, an entry under the banner of The Rough Beast...

The letter that I reproduce below was slipped under the door to my apartment about a month before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It originated from the NAA, which I learned stands for the National Apartment Association. It's a form letter that my landlords didn't bother to customize with their identifying details - they don't believe in the new formula. It was sent to them by said association and they in turn simply photocopied and distributed it to all the tenants in the apartment building. Thus we all returned home after another cold Bostonian work-day and bent down to pick up our unadulterated advisory. We considered, with alternately concern and bemusement, the message of the day from The Authorities on the slightly-faded ink of their overtaxed fax machines and photocopiers.

Recent

The letter concerned "recent non-specific general threats to apartment buildings" by Al Qaeda and the like. It was all there: the terrain of uncertainty, the exquisite precision of the language, the advisability of duct tape and social living in our communal relationships, not to mention the knowledge that The Authorities would deign to helpfully provide warnings about our homelands and security. Suffice to say that our little apartment community would have something to discuss in ensuing months.

When the histories of the 2003 Iraq war (the second or third Gulf War depending on who is counting) and the so-called Global War on Terror are written, I hope historians and anthropologists alike can use some of this material. Where others ponder the significance of Downing Street Memos and parse notions of fixed intelligence, I'll instead focus on the small things that troubled me and my neighbours.

As they search for colourful anecdotes about these trying times, I hope they might consider delineating the contours of the strange infrastructure of fear, the bureaucracy, the homelands and the security that we have seen. Perhaps like the vintage 1950s drills about jumping underneath your school desk, or hurtling into designated nuclear fallout shelters when the atomic bomb sirens sounded and that godless enemy attacked heating up that Cold War, these letters will come to be seen as quaint as some currently see the Geneva Conventions.

The cynics might also consider just how fear can be manipulated and to what ends. It is surely a matter of pure coincidence that just two days earlier the then Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had made his legendary speech apropos Saddam Hussein's purported Weapons of Mass Destruction to the United Nations. Now safely retired after long and loyal service to his country and two generations of Bush Presidents, the good General has apparently let it be known via an aide that the WMD speech was the "lowest point in my life". I find comfort that the terrorist infrastructure of those heady days reached out to affect not just apartment dwellers in Cambridge but also the high-powered politicians and fiercesome soldiers.

It gives one pause; timing is everything in life. The world got ominous tomes and Powerpoint presentations about aluminium tubes, uranium and specific bio-weapon trailers during prime time; the next day we got advisories about threats to our apartment communities. But let me not digress about burnt-out cases and fallen angels like Colin Powell even though these are some of my favourite topics, instead I thought I'd share some historical marginalia. Make of it what you will.

SAMPLE LETTER TO RESIDENTS ON RECENT NON-SPECIFIC, GENERAL THREAT TO APARTMENT BUILDINGS

From NAA 02/07/03 6:28PM p. 2 of 2

February 7, 2003

Dear Resident:

Your apartment operator has been notified by the National Apartment Association of a possible terrorist threat targeting apartments and hotels. This alert closely parallels a similar alert in May of 2002. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and FBI Director Robert Mueller raised the national terrorism threat-level to "orange" indicating a "high risk of terrorist attacks".

Ashcroft described the non-specific threat. 'Recent intelligence reports suggest that al Qaeda leaders have emphasized planning for attacks on apartment buildings, hotels and other soft or lightly secured targets in the United States."

At this time, we want to emphasize that this is not a specific threat against any particular apartment building, nor is there a particular time frame or location identified. Please keep abreast of local and national news for emergency information and updates.

All residents are asked to be aware of any suspicious activities and report them to the local FBI Field Office <go to http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm to find the field office that is closest to you> and then to the apartment management office <insert the phone number and names of on-site personnels>. If you believe the activity is an emergency, call 911 immediately, and then report it to the apartment management office.

Here are some tips that can help make a difference at your apartment community.

• Report suspicious people or activities at the apartment community to the management. For example, vehicles, visitors, unusual traffic, noise, solicitors, abandoned packages, residents changing their own locks.
• Get to know your neighbors. Terrorists can succeed through the anonymity that apartment communities may provide.
• Keep apartment keys, access cards and amenity access cards in a secure location and let management know if any have been lost.
• Do not provide building access or access codes to persons unknown to you.
• Do not open your door for service/maintenance personnel without first obtaining proper identification.
• Make sure the emergency contact information that we have on file for you is up-to-date.
• Know the emergency evacuation procedures for your apartment home, if one is required. <apartment operator you may want to attach evacuation procedures to this letter, or instruct residents what to do.>
• Adopt a Family Disaster Plan. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has developed a model plan for you to use ([now a broken link - a copy at the Internet Archive])

The federal government issues these alerts to raise awareness among Americans in hopes that a vigilant community can help thwart terrorist actions. Many potential threats here and abroad have already been halted because residents like you have seen and reported suspicious activity.

Sincerely,

<Apartment Operator: Insert your standard closing>

Non-Specific

I've been wondering of late how these things are propagated, that is, how the opaquely named Department of Homeland Security gets the word out. What I wondered is the relationship between said department and the National Apartment Association? From all appearances in the letter, the NAA is simply acting as as an agent of the government but nowhere is the exact connection explicated. The NAA and its authority are simply facts on the ground.

The thrust of the letter is about vigilance against things falling apart. The "be prepared" rhetoric doesn't go too far into the demonization of the amorphous enemy but the undertone is there. The possible threat, we are advised, "closely parallels" an earlier scare. There are the injunctions to report suspicious people or activities (echoes of McCarthyism) although here it is tempered with the eminently sensible "get to know your neighbours" proposition. There's the listing of officious officials and authority figures, the reassuring comfort of the names of Messers John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge - now safely consulting and lobbying said departments in lucrative private practice. The complete impersonality of this bureaucratic note should be noted, it is the language of Homeland Security. Oh well...

Ponder the title again, I'll remove the caps:

"Sample letter to residents on recent non-specific, general threat to apartment buildings"

I can't think of a better example of non-specific bureaucratese. There's a musical logic in its various clauses, or is it the poetic cadences that one should celebrate? One wonders how many other sample letters exist in the association's portfolio on any number of different topics and to any number of different audiences. One wonders also what the difference would be if the threat were old or indeed specific instead of recent and non-specific, and if the message would be more finely calibrated.

Consider also this comforting sentence with some emphasis on what someone who skimmed might take away

At this time, we want to emphasize that this is not a specific threat against any particular apartment building, nor is there a particular time frame or location identified.

One doesn't want to dwell on a cynical reading of these things because there must have been a fairly well-founded fear. I am well-versed in the anonymity in apartment life and, not to get all existential, that life can be impersonal and anomic. We could all spend more time building communities. The problem is having officialdom mandate the effort. There is only a fine line between the tame "be friendly" admonition and the hectoring "spy on your neighbours" proposition, and the plain reading of the message goes beyond "be vigilant" to "be scared".

General

Fear is a funny thing and, in small doses, it can be a great motivator; its close counterpart, hysteria, is an unhealthy thing and therein lies the rub. There is a fear tax that we pay when these levels are elevated and it manifests itself in paralysis and uncritical thinking. Those who capitalize on fear can go a long way in exploiting our impairment. It is somewhat ironic then that the injunctions in the letter, like the threat that prompted them, are unfocused, generalized and, yes, non-specific. One definition of the word terror is of a non-specific fear. Those skilled at the theater of fear are much like those who spread gossip and then add "I'm not the gossipy type. I just wanted to let you know so that you would be aware."

The letter ends as follows

<Apartment Operator: Insert your standard closing>

Kafka, Orwell, Ionesco and Beckett couldn't have written it better. You are made aware that there is an interlocutor, the Apartment Operator, who is taking instruction from a higher authority. Ideally the NAA should be in the background, reassuringly disembodied. Fear not said he... Everything has been personalized for you. That is what the script calls for, simply follow it. My landlords paid lip-service to the threat; they were concerned enough to circulate the warning but they were mildly subversive at the same time. I appreciate the fact that they passed the letter on without any editorial changes. Life is too short.

I know a ninetysomething year old lady who gave short shrift to the letter. She had seen it all before and instead regaled us with eye-opening tales of Red Scares and life during the Cold and paranoid War. In our apartment building it was lights out that brought us together. Our coping mechanism for these troubled times was conversation. Indeed in our hallways we were mostly outraged at the sense of insecurity that the letter tried to instill in us. Our search for community was organic and we hardly needed the intervention of that terrorism industry or that army of well-meaning bureaucrats. Not to mention that the urls listed in the letter turned out to be broken links as FEMA immediately revamped its website. At present, only the FEMA kids' disaster plan page remains up. Things fall apart they say.

Threat

Beyond the timing of the release of general warnings, non-specific and otherwise, it has been noted that the color-coded threat level system instituted in the US has been a little handicapped since its inception. The reason is that in order to have green be the colour for the "all-clear" threat level, the natural spectrum of light, as normally seen in rainbows, has been altered in the Homeland scheme. Thus ice cool blue has been promoted to "guarded" whereas tropical green has been demoted to "low". A bureaucrat or marketing person's intelligent design is at odds with evolution, physics and reality.

I arrived in the United States at the end of the Cold War hence I missed most of the distortions that long episode had caused in the culture. I seem however to be getting an education in fear writ large over the past few years of homeland security. As I ponder a life unmoored in a sea of current liquid threats, I look fondly back to those days before sample letters came my way. These days I'm not aiming for green loot or greener pastures, I'd rather have the blues. I seek comfort in recent non-specific general threats, those I can live with.

<Apartment Operator: Insert your standard closing>

Next: The Game of the Rough Beast

File under: language, fear, USA, homeland, security, threat, theatre, manipulation, community, history, politics, cynicism, bureaucracy, earnest, terror, policy, Iraq, communities, The Rough Beast, Things Fall Apart, toli