oh yeah....

I am now "MySpace-ing".... You may find me here.

A Carnival, David, and the greasy hand of Pop culture

A quick story,

Once, when I was a boy, a small time, one ring circus came to town... one of those dandelion strip mall deals with the token "Zipper" coasters and ant-farm funnel cake vestibules popped up in one of the larger parking lots of my local community college. A couple of nights before, my then High school aged sister and brother graciously allowed me to tag along with them. In my tightly framed fourth grade mind, it was a glorious night. I rode the "Round up," succumbed to the ancient call of the Carny to win glorious stuffed prizes for the price of a buck and three dulled darts, and even caught a glimpse of Rossette... She was a girl that I didn't really notice before, but at that moment, I instantly fell in love with her. She was on one of the larger thrill rides (no doubt also accompanying her older brotherand/or sister in their respective escapades). Perhaps it was for the very fact that she was on a contraption which I wouldn't dream of boarding, but there it was... She was it... end of story...
The night ended with the visions of her and the soundtrack of several cheesy 80's songs (No More Lonely Nights by Paul McCartney comes to mind) swirling through my head... I went to bed that night vowing to re-live it again... to taste again the thrill of first crush... the night air... the racing heart.
A day or so later, my friend Kevin and I were walking home from school, as we did every afternoon. The carnival was still in town, so we decided to meet up later and go. Since the college was only about a mile away, and both he and I knew that our parents would not be happy about us going alone, we hatched an ingenious plan to fool them... I think I made up some sort of story about building a tree house, or fort or other such nonsense, thus hopefully evoking in my dad some long recalled boyhood ideal.

Kev' and I met by the old broken down fence, which marked the border of the said college... We walked the mile or so to the aforementioned parking lot. I was still hopeful, but a pang of uneasiness fluttered in my stomach. We walked around and played a couple of games, rode a couple of rides, but what really should have been an unadulterated and carefree time, became a dully nauseating burden, filled with a cheesy, sticky, and cheap veneer of phony pleasure; a facade of halloween joy, complete with the candy corn stomach upset, hitting home (no less) as I rode once again the “Round Up,” now drained of any sort of thrill or bliss.
Kevin and I headed home just as the streetlights came on (an often spoken of code to the neighborhood kids) as the appropriate time to go home. Neither he nor I spoke of it again, as I sensed in him the same sort of disappointment as I felt... nor did I ever tell my parents, not that they would care... Really, no one really should give a rat’s ass, but alas, I have just experienced something similar.....The greasy, clammy, carny hand guiding my perception....

.......I’ve just read The DaVinci Code.

Now, I don’t mean to berate anyone who liked it... Hell, I tore through it in two nights. It really was a pretty good yarn. I also don’t want to give the impression that I have a theological aversion to it either... In my opinion, fiction is fiction, and if God can stand up to thousands of years of blasphemy, he can certainly withstand this book... he‘s God; he can take it... If you take this work as a challenge to your faith, however, you may want to look into studying it a little more, or posing some serious questions to it. My point is, it didn’t effect me in that way.

I did have some problems however, in both the unfolding of the tale (I figured out the so-called amazing twist a full three chapters before I was supposed to; a pathetic attempt at an M. Night Shyamalan Sixth Sense moment, which pissed me off to no end) and some of the (what I perceived to be) hippie-dippy type symbolic interpretations that Mr. Brown imparted to us. A quick example; The Star of David.
I wear that symbol around my neck, with a great deal of pride... Though I am not Jewish (I am Christian, [but not necessarily all that that implies]), I have a Star of David and wear it every day. It is my connection to both a people with whom I share a common theological ancestry and a people who I admire deeply... It’s a symbol of pride for the perpetually oppressed; the underdog. It’s a symbol of a King who is one of my heroes. A symbol of many a family friend from both my childhood and my adulthood. In it’s very design, it’s a reminder of the Divine which is to the east, to the west, north and the south, and up and down(i.e. God is everywhere). It’s a reminder of the reciprocity of the relationship with God and human; with the holy and the incarnate. All in all, though I believe in Jesus of Nazareth's divinity, I find that this symbol a little more meaningful (and quite a bit less creepy)than a cruciform or a crucifix. To have Dan Brown reduce it to a mere Yin-Yang leaves me rubbing my head in frustration. What pisses me off even more is that when someone sees it around my neck, they may well believe it to be Dan Brown’s idea of what it is.

Not to mention, I have often cited as one of my greatest heroes Leonardo DaVinci, a renaissance man in it’s most Platonic form. Now when I say this, most people at least for the next five or so years will conjure up images of the “Priory of Scion” or the rest of the whole two dimensional, stereotypical world of Brown‘s vision of Europe and Europeans, with it’s Earl Grey swilling, crumpet munching, tweed-wearing Englishmen (Lord Teabury... I mean come on...TEABURY!!!!), or it’s self centered, corrupt but artistic Frenchman. I also feel that if I travel to Europe in the next few years, I have a feeling that the locals will be thinking ”Oh... The silly American... He must be going to Newton’s tomb” or if God forbid, if I visit the Musée du Louvre ... well... you get the idea...

I know that in my heart of hearts, Europe is a wonderful place, but also perfectly normal at the same time. People there eat, sleep, piss, die, fuck, cry, laugh, shit, drink, give birth, slit their wrists, make meals, get married, break up, graduate, live lonely lives, divorce, take out mortgages, love their pets, buy petrol, go to the grocery, grill out, visit grandma, and do all the other things that everyone else does on every continent, island, or isthmus on the face of this planet. Sometimes, it’s the simple ordinary that brings out the extraordinary in life and literature. And that is precisely what was missing in this book.

Again, please don’t take offence if you did like it. I found it enjoyable to read as well, and if Dan Brown can get millions of Americans reading at least ONE book, than God bless ‘im. I just couldn't help feeling a little queasy and manipulated along the way....

I'll write again soon...

Thanks to all!!!

Hello again,

I just wanted to give a quick thanks to everyone who supported me in the walk last weekend. There was a great turnout (several thousand people, and almost as many dogs), even though the weather threatened to turn sour (it didn't... it was actually gorgeous!). Stella and I had a blast!

Mom, Aunt Mary, Nancy, Megan.... you guys rock!

Remember... It's never to late to help in the cause.
Cheers!