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I am returning to the old ways I guess.  During the winter I can't/won't go outside with camera to take pictures for this little vanity, so I am going back to using art that is open for use by cretins such as myself.  I am also trying to go back to taking photos with a camera instead of using the phone.  I think that I am more comfortable with minimizing the use of that particular tracking device.  So I need to get into the habit of taking a camera on my walks. 

I have been reading a little red book with the cheeky title of "How Fiction Works" written by a gentleman named James Wood.  I don't presume to look into his bona fides, but it is allowing me to go back and look at what I wrote over at Lloigor and begin to get the idea that I might want to revisit that failed exercise.  If you don't at first succeed........

Return?

Oct. 25th, 2022 08:15 am
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Symbolism / Nicholas Roerich/ Himalayas


Just got a message from a friend who I have never met asking me where I have been.  Well, the answer to that question is complicated. 

I suppose that if you strip away all the rationalizations I have been here, I just haven’t been feeling like writing about the things that I usually write over here in “Degringolade”.  Now the real trouble is that I also haven’t felt much like writing over at “Lloigor” either. 

The simple truth is that I am not feeling it.  I think that perhaps the dam broke a couple of days ago and I am just now making the attempt to get back on track with writing.  I am not ashamed that my mood for the past couple of weeks has been to ignore the world and emphasize playing World of Warcraft as a way to pass the time.  

But to say that I have ignored the world is not quite accurate either.  I am morbidly fascinated by the shitshow that is taking place in the western end of the Eurasian continent.  It has been difficult for me to ignore as the colossal stupidity and the near-perfect stupidity of all the sides involved has me enthralled.  

I might spend a little time writing about it if the dam holding back my fingers is in fact broken.  I don’t want to rush it or push it, if I do that, I will become one of those sad bloggers who are out there, writing to write and not really getting anywhere.  There are folks out there who praise this odd form of masturbation, and to be truthful, there have been times where I succumbed to that siren song.  But I think that is no longer the case for me and I will make an effort to write about what I feel meaningful when the spirit moves me or at least make an effort to post an occasional something informing my sparse readership that Mother Hubbard’s cupboard is bare.

Packin'

Mar. 3rd, 2022 07:25 am
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Northern Renaissance / Pieter Bruegel the Elder/ The Magpie on the Gallows


Packing up to head north tomorrow.  A couple of days away will be good for the soul.  

Gas is ridiculous.  Premium is up to $4.77 a gallon here in RiotTown and it is going up quick.  Part of me wants to find a way to bet that regular hits $6.00 before this shitshow winds to a stop.  Of course, the youngest is heading down to Vegas for a bachelor party and I gave him $10.00 to bet on the Steelers for the 2023 Super Bowl.  Shows you the breadth and depth of my risk assessment skills. But I figure that if I win, the bet has to be enough that it is worth my while to drive down and collect.

Might throw something up tomorrow or Saturday, but probably not.  

degringolade: (Default)
 

Romanticism / Thomas Jones/ Naples. Buildings on a Cliff Top


Been out and about trying to figure out the vagaries of growing boomers.  Thus far, I have been a failure at what appears to be a fairly simple process.  But this kind of thing has happened before and I think that I stand pretty good odds of figuring things out, but currently I am figuring out what not to do.  More to follow.

So today I am working on something simpler.  I am working on making homemade sauerkraut.  I chopped up the cabbage, washed the cabbage, added salt while mashing with my hands, it is now resting covered in a big stainless steel bowl for a couple of hours while I pound it occasionally with a big wooden masher.  When that time is up, I will give it another good mashing and put it into a quart bottle, and mash it into the bottle.  I will then put a wight on the top of the protokraut and put an airlock on the top and then wait to see what happens.

Screed

I think that I might have to back away from the idea that I should be able to figure out what is happening by going to first principles and then working forward from there.  Simply put, this doesn’t appear to be working for me.  I am probably more confused and discombobulated than when I started.

I suppose that this is a normal facet of trying to get to the bottom of things.  But I suppose the real problem is that what I am searching for might be complex beyond my abilities to comprehend. 

I just might be making the same huge fuckup that Plato blundered into.  Maybe what I am attempting is the same thing as the shadows on the wall that he came up with while occupying his time with drinking wine and buggery.  

I am thinking that I am going to take some time out from the great chase and ponder something from good old Gottfried Wilhelm:

In On Contingency, Leibniz remarks that “there are two labyrinths of the human mind, one concerning the composition of the continuum, and the other concerning the nature of freedom (free will), and they arise from the same source, infinity.” (A VI iv 1654/AG 95)

Exodus

Oct. 1st, 2021 06:06 am
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Expressionism / Paul Klee/ Miraculous Landing


I do struggle a little with season changes.  I tend to sleep more than strictly necessary, I put off tasks more than usual.  I can’t really say why this occurs, at this point it has devolved into a data point that I deal with rather than a problem to be solved.

I do have to spend a bit of time in the none too distant future doing the winter prep thing.  After living in the Northwest for 32 years now, I have finally made the commitment of purchasing a dedicated rain jacket.  I have always just gotten wet and dried off.  This kind of thing is kind of a harbinger of my activities in the near near future.  As I won’t be making excess money anymore, things need to be in place to allow me to shelter in place during the upcoming storms.

So in the next couple of weeks I need to sit down with a glass of whiskey and ponder the current running stock in the apartment.  Some additions, some subtractions.  I am thinking that the aforementioned inventory/tuneup will need to focus on ease of maintenance and simplicity.

Justify

Jun. 11th, 2021 05:59 am
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Neo-Impressionism / Albert Dubois-Pillet/ Le Puy in the Snow


"There are people everywhere who want to convince you of the wisdom of their opinion.  It is not the one who declares his viewpoint the most loudly or vociferously who is the wisest, but the one who is vindicated over time. 


Wisdom is not proven by argument or debate.  Wisdom is proven over time.  Some people adamantly proclaim that their opinion is best.  Regardless of how convincingly these people defend their viewpoint, time is the best judge of their wisdom. 


If you wait patiently, time will reveal the wisdom of your actions far better than you could through argument." 


Henry Blackaby, Wisdom Justified


Nuff Said

we'll see

Aug. 12th, 2020 04:32 am
degringolade: (Default)
 

Interesting to see how such a thing will play out.  Kamala huh?  Well, not a terrible choice.  We'll see how the interplay between the BLM crowd and a vicious prosecutor play out.  Bit of cognitive dissonance there.

Back to work today.  Played hooky yesterday and hunted around for potential places to live should the choice for living end up in Vancouver.  I think that things will be playing out here in the not-to-distant future and maybe rents will be going down.  No job offer yet, not job acceptance yet, we'll see.

Other than that, just bracing for the week.  It will be interesting to see how all the world on a macro scale plays out in the micro scale where I earn my daily bread.  I think that I am just beginning to see things start to get traction and start to slip.  There are a whole passel of reputations out there just waiting to to be punctured.  We'll see.
degringolade: (Default)
 
My Beer

It is Sunday morn with the Elder.  

Today I am going to try and take in one of these vaunted Zoom lectures that are happening.  Not really certain how it will go

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/549593687


Since I am reading trash right now, I will need to get a little more smart stuff in my brain.  Too much time in quarantine has made me eat too much and and let things go.  I find it easier to keep mentally active when I am around people. Since hanging out and having conversations seem to have gone the wayside, I need another means of brain improvement.

Michael seems to think that this guy is good.  I have read his work and sometimes the fucker just confuses me.  But I will keep trying, tell you the truth, most philosophy confuses me the first time I read it.

Other than that, I think that I will spend the morning prepping a wash for distillation and blending whiskey stocks.  Might even consider a label and sealing wax



degringolade: (Default)


Not going to be too God-Awful motivated today. Nope. Just get through the day is the order of the day. Not another thing.

One of the real symptoms of the Rona appears to be weight gain. Oddly enough, it happens across the board.
degringolade: (Default)

Moving along well on the "listening" and the "reading" aspects of my dotage.  Forty-eight hours of music and a now getting my lectures downloaded and backed up.  I should have all the audible files converted this week and the great courses downloaded. 

Thus far pretty chill.  I am driving more than my preference, but that kind of stuff happens during the holidays.  Eldest isn't a terrible driver and hanging out with him on his belated driving lessons is not onerous.


Screed:

I am hearing more rumblings about folks getting rid of their stuff.   I am happy to hear these rumblings.  I really kinda wonder if this rumbling will come to anything meaningful.  I kinda doubt it though.  So much of what causes our depression and our inabilities to connect are wired into the system that we use as a narrative. 

I think that the only chance that us boomers have is to start doing just this, reducing our weight on the planet and the society that is the environment that we choose to live in.  When us boomers start retiring in a serious way, and stop pulling our share of the load, things are going toe get ugly, ugly, ugly.   Now, what we need to do is talk about this ugliness in real terms.  One tends to think of the boomers as portrayed by TV, fairly well off middle class types, usually white, with a home and a retirement plan and social security and a strong hankering to get out and see the world after a lifetime of being subservient to the man.

I would argue that is a pretty small tranche of the boomers, maybe 30% tops.  If you take a look around at the "invisible" people working at low wage jobs in the marketplace, you will find a lot of boomers in that crowd.  They go to work and rub shoulders with GenX and Millennials and the like daily.  Some of us actually kinda like the kids coming up after us.  But, like your humble correspondent, these "invisible" boomers don't have that much in the way of retirement, and keeping up has landed us in more debt than is preferable. 

So there are a bunch of us boomers out there who see the problem as clearly as the Millennials.  As a matter of fact, I would posit that the majority of the boomers feel every bit as screwed as any of the mythical basement-dwelling Millennials residing in the mythical home of their mythical rich boomer parent.  But that is not the narrative that has been popularized.  We boomers have become our parents, artlessly defending a system that works for no one but the elite because we so wish to be considered part of the elite.

Nope, I am thinking that trying to cause an age war between the differing cohorts is a ploy by the elite that have taken far too large a portion of the proceeds to deflect the blame away from a corrupted and corrupting system.  The boomers offer an easy target. 

But, the war has been started.  The hatred and blame has been sowed.  We are just waiting for the harvest.  That is why I chose the title that I chose.  If us boomers are going to escape the anger of the younglings, we are going to have go to ground, and we most certainly won't be able to take our stuff with us.  Right now, the boomer generation, for better or for worse, is going over the edge of being useful to the general population and is demanding a retirement and a lifestyle that simply isn't possible when considering the parlous state of the American economy and body politic. 

So going to ground is my plan.  I will use the next three years to get to a break even point and devise a lifestyle that will be low impact and low drag to slide through my waning years.  I am planning a small life.

onward

Oct. 18th, 2019 04:59 am
degringolade: (Default)
Emile Claus/ The Ice Birds

Off to work early.  Gotta catch up.  Move along.  Nothing here to see.
degringolade: (Default)
Hokusai:  Rainstorms Beneath the Summit

I am actually back to being a touch ahead on writing.  I just posted Monday's and are now doing the setup for Tuesday.  This is the way that it should be, but rarely manages to come to pass. 

Going to take a break for a week from going out.  I do want to see a movie soon, but must negotiate the borrowing/going with a child so that I can watch Disney children's movies without being creepy.  Aladdin looks good and the new Lion King looks interesting.

Today's Screed


If our impressions are too distinct, we are held to the hour and minute of the present and have no way of knowing how our ancestral psyches listen to and understand the present – in other words, how our unconscious is responding to it. Thus we remain ignorant of whether our ancestral components find elementary gratification in our lives, or whether they are repelled. Inner peace and contentment depend in large measure upon whether or not the historical family, which is inherent in the individual, can be harmonised with the ephemeral conditions of the present.

Carl Jung:  Memories, Dreams and Reflections

I am coming to the conclusion that the society in which I live is quite mad.  Now, some folks will take offense at this simple statement, but work with me here.

I have a feeling that this will be coming off as the far-too-standard gum-sucking fretting so popular as folks get older.  I suppose that I am as guilty of this as many.  But I am actually trying to think this though and refine away the geezer-bitching and get down to the idea that I wish to convey. 

I tend to feel that societies are organic things.  Like Toynbee, I feel that a society has leaders and followers and it is the success of the society as a whole that is the touchstone of what is valid.   In other words, the collective unconsciousness a la Jung is the driving force of the overall happiness of the society.  The happiness of the individual is of secondary importance.

And by the simple fact that the last sentence in the previous paragraph will be taken by most as the blackest of heresies is in itself proof of the failure and madness of the society. 

Our madness is an old one.  In a sense, our singleminded pursuit of individual happiness for the self has turned us into the lotus eaters with which Odysseus had so many problems.  In pursuit of individual happiness and self, we have left behind a cultural desire (granted it wasn't that strong) to work toward the good of the many.  Now it it just a myth of individual choices and individual happiness making for the greater happiness of the society.

Nope, when you drill down on it, we have become a society where narcissism is celebrated and rewarded, and if that isn't a recipe for madness, I don't know what is.

 


degringolade: (Default)
 Pieter Bruegel the Elder:  Armed Three Master with Daedelus and Icarus in the Sky

Not really all that much to say today.  Move along.  Nothing Here.  Chasing the filthy lucre instead of thinking.

Anal Lysis

Apr. 27th, 2019 06:34 am
degringolade: (Default)
 Gustave Dore:  Don Quixote and Sancho Setting Out

Analysis is not advocacy.

I really wish that more folks would remember this simple statement.  

I cannot for the life of me say that I have advocated for any particular political "solution" or "system" or "candidate" in this ongoing affectation that is my journal.  I kinda do the same in my conversations with people.  This lack of enthusiasm is made easier by the options being served up by the political elite in this country being so god-awful.  If I have ever done so, I honestly think at this point that either I misspoke or was too stoned to think straight.

I strongly feel that politics and our country is in the midst of a generational change.  The problems that we face only have unpleasant solutions that we haven't thought of yet.  The two parties that call the tunes careen through the failed solutions of the old white men of my generation, and baby, us old white dudes have failed immensely with everything that we have touched.  

Trump will probably win.  I don't see the two probable candidates (right now Bernie and [shudder] Biden) as having a snowballs in hell chance against the Donald provided that things don't go completely shithouse in the next 556 days.  To be honest, being fat, dumb, and happy currently, I am not particularly interested in such a thing occurring just to have the current fuckwad at 1600 Pennsylvania sent a' packin. 

What folks don't want to face, and what the two parties want desperately to hide from the voters is that we have started the long decline.  Oh, I am fairly certain that momentum and inertia will mean that the inflection point in history which we straddle won't be noticed yet, but we are going from a positive slope to a negative slope, and none of the solutions being bandied about by the gerontocracies dominating the two current political parties have the mental or moral courage to address and lead the society through to the next phase.

My co-workers at the VaSpa have convinced me to make the attempt to watch "Game of Thrones".  Being of a curmudgeonly and sullen nature, I reluctantly agreed and will watch the same on DVD at the rate of once a week.  I wasn't all that impressed by the books, Martin could use a good editor and I gave up on reading them after the third book.  

I think that the reason that I agreed to dip my toes into this current pop culture phenomenon is to watch the first season with the only catchphrase that I remember in mind.

Winter Is Coming.


degringolade: (Default)
 
 

I just made the mistake of re-reading my recent rant about air travel.  It would appear that I was particularly bilious that day, so, I think that it is appropriate for me to take some time and expand on one of the subtexts within this ill-humored bit of fluff.

Lets speak of travel and differing culture.   Going to another place and immersing oneself in another culture is a great way to grow as a person.  Don’t kid yourself, your home, wherever it is, is just another spot on the planet.  It is not especially favored by God and does not hold the keys to all truth and goodness.  Travelling and spending time and energy within another culture is one hell of a good thing.  Makes you work on your humility and thankfulness, something that is always needed here in the good old USA.

What offends me so much in our ways of travelling is the tourist/business travel way of life.  It is not limited to Americans, though the Japanese and us have elevated the lifestyle to an art form.  Travelling to a distant land and trying desperately to keep the local culture at arms length, like something to be coolly examined under a naturalist’s lens.  Subtle mocking is the order of the day, to be performed while catching a quick golf game and being served cocktails by servile/nubile locals.  Jimmy Buffet put it best in this excerpt for “A Cowboy in the Jungle”

Steel band in the distance 
And their music floats across the bay 
While American women in moomoos 
Talk about all the things they did today 
And their husbands quack about fishing 
As they slug those rum drinks down 
Discussing who caught what and who sat on his butt 
But it's the only show in town. 
Chorus: 
They're tryin' to drink all the punches 
They all may lose their lunches 
Tryin' to cram lost years into five or six days 
Seems that blind ambition erased their intuition 
Plowin' straight ahead come what may.

I have spent too much time and mileage on jet planes.  My Continental Airlines frequent flyer statement by itself shows 329,957 miles.  This number doesn’t include Delta, American Airlines, or the Military Airlift Command, which add about probably twice that to the total.  I’ve been to a couple too many continents and have no intention whatsoever to see the last two.  Traveling to do stuff was part of my life for quite a bit.  But all that time in a bad chair going somewhere else allowed me to watch the bad parts and become thoroughly disgusted by them.

It turns out that my real problem with the current travel model is that it allows one little chance of truly interacting with other people.  You understand other cultures by being invited to weddings; sitting in a back alley in Beijing getting drunk on big bottles of Yanjing beer with your work buddies; watching a young Thai man getting his head shaved in preparation for being a monk; sitting in a bar in Little India with the smell of the spice market overwhelming you while the monks at the Buddhist temple down the street send out a bass line to their prayers; carefully listening to the little Arab kid who sells you the hash cookie and not eating the whole damn thing.

So, if you want to travel, quit your job and catch a boat.  Get an apartment on the rive gauche and argue Sartre.  Squat in a market in Katmandu and dicker over the price of hashish, or go work in a nunnery in Calcutta helping the poor.

But for Chrissakes, don’t go there to play golf.

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