Good morning, love how you reach back for examples with an eye towards the future. When I find myself in times of trouble (like every other day or so), my lodestar is the pendulum. Makes the most sense to me that it always has to swing back to neutral, but I can't help but worry this swing was much wider, and find it even harder to avoid thinking violence is necessary to counter the madness. Too many rough beasts out there that need the shit kicked out of them to worry about getting my hands dirty or breaking a nail. Bring it
Yesterday I was talking with my daughter about the state of things, and I expressed my doubt that we will see the fruition of our hopes. I referenced the fall of the Roman empire and the ensuing dark ages in Europe. Change is constant, and interminably so. We wish to get there faster, but glaciers are strong because they grow slowly. Anyway, peace to you all today!
So much of the learning almost vanished forever at that time. Of course during the "Dark Ages" in Western Europe, the Arabs were making enormous advances in science, math, art, architecture, etc.
He said “The best lack all conviction,” but then he never heard of Obama, Buttigieg, Biden, or the Tennessee Three. They’re not perfect but have made a difference, are making a difference, enough to give me hope. And I still think Jack Smith and Fani Willis will come through. Not to mention Mickey Mouse. I love your writing but I’m thinking of all the young people and women, and men who love them, and I believe our fury and conviction will carry us to the polls. Could it be the center is already in the process of reforming?
I too think Yeats was wrong about the conviction of the best. We are in one of those extended periods where the passionate worst of us are able to drown out the voices of our best. The "rough beasts" are obnoxious little boys (and girls) with a lot of power, and right now they make a lot of noise.
I've never believed in a "second coming", just a hope that the "gyres" eventually lift us upward.
This is a quite perceptive comment. Gyres have both upward and downward elements. Edgar Allan Poe's short story 'Descent into the Maelstrom' describes a giant watery maelstrom into which the hero's boat is sucked and who finds a way out by his observations in a dangerous situation. (McLuhan's Wake, a film centered around McLuhan's The Laws of Media some 20 years after his death, has a bonus short animated film of Poe's work that graphically depicts the struggle.)
Atmospheric gyres also have both ups and down currents, like the one that has formed several years in a row over parts of the northwest Caribbean, over mid-Central America and parts of the eastern Pacific which can spit out tropical storms. So, the elemental up-and-down process in the course of human history, the human gyre as it were, would tend to have the same elements, I would think.
Always spellbound,and need hours for processing your word.Second Coming scared me in High School..and I had every right to be terrified,as in Literature Class we were discussing the A-bomb,a natural progression from Angry men trying to annihilate each other as swiftly as possible.Funniest thing about me and the wild birds on my farm,who try to communicate with me. A lot for me to sort out.Bird populations are in major decline!!.... Bravo Greg...you dissect the reality.🐦💙 I'm not sure even Papa would make sense of it all. Smartest man I ever knew.(better grades than Salk) Gandhi said Tyrants don't last forever,but infinite money even bought the good guys😞☮️💙..I will process🍵thank you
Thanks, Katie. Tyrants don't last forever, but corporate might is as close as we get to immortality...although even the East India Company petered out in time.
In this era, technology sires many rough beasts simultaneously. Once they sprang forth one by one. Perhaps the cacophony of all those growling monsters dissipates the noise. Maybe it multiplies.
Apr 30, 2023·edited Apr 30, 2023Liked by Greg Olear
From my eschatological rearing I have a gloomy habit of mind., but here's another hopeful me to rouse. That's who I am this Sunday morning. Thank you, dear Greg.
I enjoyed the short film about Sandy Lewis that you included at the end. I know him as a grumpy old angry curmudgeon who occasionally posts over on Heather Cox Richardson's substack page. Nice to see another side of him. Aren't you planning on doing an interview with him at some point?
Thanks, Stephen. Sandy is a brilliant and fascinating person. Yes, I've done the interview, and it's so different than anything else that it requires more time to set up and organize it properly, which I've not had. It's on my to-do list, and WILL be worth the wait.
Thanks again, Greg--There is nobody like Yeats. I keep a book of his poems nearby at all times. Also, thanks for recommending Poet's Choice. I'm reading it now. Love it.
Greetings, Greg Olear! What a week! Prevail, check! Podcast, check! Five/8, check! Lynell's Sunday lesson on poetry, check! With a double bonus of Sandy Lewis, check-check!
Does this mean there will be a podcast soon with Mr. Lewis?
Loved seeing this video of him, as he allowed for a window into his early beginnings. But my favorite was his cows. They are the most beautiful cows I have ever seen. I did not know about tetracycline being put into the drinking water in the rest of the country. We are fortunate to live near a farm who sells grass-fed beef. Before you walk into the little store, you see the cows grazing in the back acreage, and they resemble Sandy's healthy-looking stock.
Please thank your incredible wife Stephanie for sharing you with the rest of us. Glad to see/hear her talents are getting wider coverage. We be grateful for both of you.
As much as poetry made me "itch" (BEST description per Sharon), back in college, you manage to find literary poetry that doesn't suck! Some, like this one, seem like oracles of their own future, and really, who would have thought so before the past seven years or so? The passionately intense of this era, which I've recently seen called "The Trumpocene," are not the passionate intensity most of us share. OUR passion makes us better and stronger than any of the performative passion we see from the people you list. They may think that WE ALL will turn around one day and realize that they are "right," but that will never happen. They are NOT right. WE are. It's a pretty simple formula for success.
As much as it would feel normal to be scared of the results of the 2024 presidential election, I'm not. I see the insanity posing as passion on the other side and know that more and more people will see it as time goes on. They never try to hide anything now. They now just perform little skits for their voters, who, frankly, are too far gone in the cult to be voting at all. The cult doesn't even seem to be ONLY centered on the Mango anymore. The cult now revolves 100% around the idea of "owning the libs." So, while that is quite the noble way to carry on one's life, while they work on that, the rest of us are winning the White House and I would even go so far as to say, the full Congress. I have no fear of 2024. FEAR is all they have.
In all the Trump and Trump-adjacent books I've read through the years (and there are A LOT!), this one is special. It is a book of essays about what is basically, political activism. On both sides. The book starts with an extended essay with Harry Belafonte, which I read just days after he died. The man didn't just make music, in fact, that may have been the least of his many accomplishments. It then moves to Trump rallies, evangelical churches, and January 6th, which is where I'm at currently -- with extended musings on the meaning, inside the cult and outside, of Ashli Babbitt. I'm not describing it well because I'm not very good at that but read the synopsis on Amazon. I also noticed that there were times when I had to reread passages because they sounded so much like Greg, one of my favorite authors who actually got me to read a million-page book about the Byzantine Empire and a bunch of princesses and queens and kings!
OMG, Trumpocene! That's brilliant! And thanks for the book rec.
I'm with you on 2024. They are over...UNLESS they game the system, which they are trying very hard to do, with big assists from the judicial branch. That's the fear. Otherwise, yeah, the rout is on.
We see them! Unless they can manage a law like, "Only White Republicans can vote," there is always a way to get people registered and voting. And as far as them saying that the election is rigged, Trump SO overplayed that hand from 2020 on, that no one will believe THAT for a generation or two. Toast, I tell you! Toast!
I like your style Steve. I've read two other Sharlet books and have the Audible version you just recommended on order. I've been mostly out of action the last six months, but I feel my mojo roaring back. I have taken note of your likes on my quips here. Since I read Greg on email, I rarely get to the comments as regularly as you do. I'll change that as the comments are often nearly as good as the post. Yours is first class. A lot of that yeasty exchange in the blogosphere went away with Twitter. I was contemptuous and resentful of the blue bird for that. Finally, it got so lonesome in the blogosphere that I went to Twitter in 2019. That's where I met Greg. Manna from heaven. I discoed my account after Elon Musk got on my last nerve, but I couldn't find a substitute, so I re-upped minus all my followers and personal lists. I had a great The Five 8 list of guests and friends of the channel. It was my go to. Sigh.
I started an humble blog in 2013 when recovering from Cancer I. Very personal. Not for main street. (I wish I had Greg's range.) Funny how introspective you become when you have a front-row seat at the Mortality Follies. I dropped it for years and re-upped for Cancer II. Here it is if you're interested. https://algonquinonthebayou.blogspot.com/
The gregarious Greg of grace and grit strikes again. Always humble with those whom critique you. Its like you naturally know you are the niceness that lends toward... humankindness pulling that pendulum out of the hands of the bad guy and poking him in the eye with it...hard.
The critic responds..."but look at these good guys below the gyre."
"Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
Good morning, love how you reach back for examples with an eye towards the future. When I find myself in times of trouble (like every other day or so), my lodestar is the pendulum. Makes the most sense to me that it always has to swing back to neutral, but I can't help but worry this swing was much wider, and find it even harder to avoid thinking violence is necessary to counter the madness. Too many rough beasts out there that need the shit kicked out of them to worry about getting my hands dirty or breaking a nail. Bring it
Well put, Edna! Bring it.
Like you, Joni Mitchell also did this poem proud.
And Joan Didion.
Yesterday I was talking with my daughter about the state of things, and I expressed my doubt that we will see the fruition of our hopes. I referenced the fall of the Roman empire and the ensuing dark ages in Europe. Change is constant, and interminably so. We wish to get there faster, but glaciers are strong because they grow slowly. Anyway, peace to you all today!
The lack of education,the feckless media,it just adds to my confusion..time for me to go outside and consult the Bird Oracle🐦💙☮️
I saw my bird this morning on my walk! It's misty and gray and the orange on the wing really popped in the lighting.
'Feckless media' ! Love it!
So much of the learning almost vanished forever at that time. Of course during the "Dark Ages" in Western Europe, the Arabs were making enormous advances in science, math, art, architecture, etc.
Love the glacier metaphor.
He said “The best lack all conviction,” but then he never heard of Obama, Buttigieg, Biden, or the Tennessee Three. They’re not perfect but have made a difference, are making a difference, enough to give me hope. And I still think Jack Smith and Fani Willis will come through. Not to mention Mickey Mouse. I love your writing but I’m thinking of all the young people and women, and men who love them, and I believe our fury and conviction will carry us to the polls. Could it be the center is already in the process of reforming?
I too think Yeats was wrong about the conviction of the best. We are in one of those extended periods where the passionate worst of us are able to drown out the voices of our best. The "rough beasts" are obnoxious little boys (and girls) with a lot of power, and right now they make a lot of noise.
I've never believed in a "second coming", just a hope that the "gyres" eventually lift us upward.
Well said, Rick. Upward!
Yes, there are plenty of people who still have conviction, but nevertheless, the lines seem apropos to the moment.
This is a quite perceptive comment. Gyres have both upward and downward elements. Edgar Allan Poe's short story 'Descent into the Maelstrom' describes a giant watery maelstrom into which the hero's boat is sucked and who finds a way out by his observations in a dangerous situation. (McLuhan's Wake, a film centered around McLuhan's The Laws of Media some 20 years after his death, has a bonus short animated film of Poe's work that graphically depicts the struggle.)
Atmospheric gyres also have both ups and down currents, like the one that has formed several years in a row over parts of the northwest Caribbean, over mid-Central America and parts of the eastern Pacific which can spit out tropical storms. So, the elemental up-and-down process in the course of human history, the human gyre as it were, would tend to have the same elements, I would think.
Oh, I think the center is very much re-forming. The falcon is coming back. And he's angry!
Always spellbound,and need hours for processing your word.Second Coming scared me in High School..and I had every right to be terrified,as in Literature Class we were discussing the A-bomb,a natural progression from Angry men trying to annihilate each other as swiftly as possible.Funniest thing about me and the wild birds on my farm,who try to communicate with me. A lot for me to sort out.Bird populations are in major decline!!.... Bravo Greg...you dissect the reality.🐦💙 I'm not sure even Papa would make sense of it all. Smartest man I ever knew.(better grades than Salk) Gandhi said Tyrants don't last forever,but infinite money even bought the good guys😞☮️💙..I will process🍵thank you
Thanks, Katie. Tyrants don't last forever, but corporate might is as close as we get to immortality...although even the East India Company petered out in time.
The British government shut it down because it came to have a 250k army and was gaining even more power. There's a lesson there for our government...
so true
OMG! I remember so well. Chills.
P.s. I love the Comments,and the commenters!! Gravity.
Yeat's mumbo-jumbo?
Oh, the humanity!
Sometimes he is a bit, shall we say, verbose.
Know what you mean. It's why poetry made me itch back in the day. We're such Philistines.
In this era, technology sires many rough beasts simultaneously. Once they sprang forth one by one. Perhaps the cacophony of all those growling monsters dissipates the noise. Maybe it multiplies.
Excellent point, Sharon.
From my eschatological rearing I have a gloomy habit of mind., but here's another hopeful me to rouse. That's who I am this Sunday morning. Thank you, dear Greg.
Thank you!
Love this post. Thank you for your writing and for the great poem.
Thanks, Peggy!
I enjoyed the short film about Sandy Lewis that you included at the end. I know him as a grumpy old angry curmudgeon who occasionally posts over on Heather Cox Richardson's substack page. Nice to see another side of him. Aren't you planning on doing an interview with him at some point?
Thanks, Stephen. Sandy is a brilliant and fascinating person. Yes, I've done the interview, and it's so different than anything else that it requires more time to set up and organize it properly, which I've not had. It's on my to-do list, and WILL be worth the wait.
Can’t wait for the interview!
I was going to say the same thing about Sandy, Stephen. He is a curmudgeon, as you say, but I have always found him fascinating.
Thanks again, Greg--There is nobody like Yeats. I keep a book of his poems nearby at all times. Also, thanks for recommending Poet's Choice. I'm reading it now. Love it.
Thanks, McClain! Oh, I'm so glad you got it and are enjoying it! I found so many wonderful poems through that book.
Greetings, Greg Olear! What a week! Prevail, check! Podcast, check! Five/8, check! Lynell's Sunday lesson on poetry, check! With a double bonus of Sandy Lewis, check-check!
Does this mean there will be a podcast soon with Mr. Lewis?
Loved seeing this video of him, as he allowed for a window into his early beginnings. But my favorite was his cows. They are the most beautiful cows I have ever seen. I did not know about tetracycline being put into the drinking water in the rest of the country. We are fortunate to live near a farm who sells grass-fed beef. Before you walk into the little store, you see the cows grazing in the back acreage, and they resemble Sandy's healthy-looking stock.
Please thank your incredible wife Stephanie for sharing you with the rest of us. Glad to see/hear her talents are getting wider coverage. We be grateful for both of you.
Thanks, Lynell! Yeah, it's been a busy week for sure!
I loved seeing the cows. Fascinating creatures to behold. And yes, a podcast is coming...as soon as I have the time to do it justice.
As much as poetry made me "itch" (BEST description per Sharon), back in college, you manage to find literary poetry that doesn't suck! Some, like this one, seem like oracles of their own future, and really, who would have thought so before the past seven years or so? The passionately intense of this era, which I've recently seen called "The Trumpocene," are not the passionate intensity most of us share. OUR passion makes us better and stronger than any of the performative passion we see from the people you list. They may think that WE ALL will turn around one day and realize that they are "right," but that will never happen. They are NOT right. WE are. It's a pretty simple formula for success.
As much as it would feel normal to be scared of the results of the 2024 presidential election, I'm not. I see the insanity posing as passion on the other side and know that more and more people will see it as time goes on. They never try to hide anything now. They now just perform little skits for their voters, who, frankly, are too far gone in the cult to be voting at all. The cult doesn't even seem to be ONLY centered on the Mango anymore. The cult now revolves 100% around the idea of "owning the libs." So, while that is quite the noble way to carry on one's life, while they work on that, the rest of us are winning the White House and I would even go so far as to say, the full Congress. I have no fear of 2024. FEAR is all they have.
Let me shoehorn in a book recommendation for everyone: "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War" by Jeff Sharlet. https://www.amazon.com/Undertow-Scenes-Slow-Civil-War-ebook/dp/B0B3G1JL7W
In all the Trump and Trump-adjacent books I've read through the years (and there are A LOT!), this one is special. It is a book of essays about what is basically, political activism. On both sides. The book starts with an extended essay with Harry Belafonte, which I read just days after he died. The man didn't just make music, in fact, that may have been the least of his many accomplishments. It then moves to Trump rallies, evangelical churches, and January 6th, which is where I'm at currently -- with extended musings on the meaning, inside the cult and outside, of Ashli Babbitt. I'm not describing it well because I'm not very good at that but read the synopsis on Amazon. I also noticed that there were times when I had to reread passages because they sounded so much like Greg, one of my favorite authors who actually got me to read a million-page book about the Byzantine Empire and a bunch of princesses and queens and kings!
Good week to all!
OMG, Trumpocene! That's brilliant! And thanks for the book rec.
I'm with you on 2024. They are over...UNLESS they game the system, which they are trying very hard to do, with big assists from the judicial branch. That's the fear. Otherwise, yeah, the rout is on.
And come now, my book is only 700 pages!
(Thanks for reading it!)
We see them! Unless they can manage a law like, "Only White Republicans can vote," there is always a way to get people registered and voting. And as far as them saying that the election is rigged, Trump SO overplayed that hand from 2020 on, that no one will believe THAT for a generation or two. Toast, I tell you! Toast!
To God's ears
I like your style Steve. I've read two other Sharlet books and have the Audible version you just recommended on order. I've been mostly out of action the last six months, but I feel my mojo roaring back. I have taken note of your likes on my quips here. Since I read Greg on email, I rarely get to the comments as regularly as you do. I'll change that as the comments are often nearly as good as the post. Yours is first class. A lot of that yeasty exchange in the blogosphere went away with Twitter. I was contemptuous and resentful of the blue bird for that. Finally, it got so lonesome in the blogosphere that I went to Twitter in 2019. That's where I met Greg. Manna from heaven. I discoed my account after Elon Musk got on my last nerve, but I couldn't find a substitute, so I re-upped minus all my followers and personal lists. I had a great The Five 8 list of guests and friends of the channel. It was my go to. Sigh.
I started an humble blog in 2013 when recovering from Cancer I. Very personal. Not for main street. (I wish I had Greg's range.) Funny how introspective you become when you have a front-row seat at the Mortality Follies. I dropped it for years and re-upped for Cancer II. Here it is if you're interested. https://algonquinonthebayou.blogspot.com/
BTW, I just ordered Greg's book. I haven't had the bandwidth for long fiction in a year.
The gregarious Greg of grace and grit strikes again. Always humble with those whom critique you. Its like you naturally know you are the niceness that lends toward... humankindness pulling that pendulum out of the hands of the bad guy and poking him in the eye with it...hard.
The critic responds..."but look at these good guys below the gyre."
A hitjob of hope. A+.
Thank you, Kindness!
I love that: "hitjob of hope." That's the blurb right there!
"Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
—Roger Ebert
Thank you, Sharon. You covered a lot of the medical field here.