Friday, March 07, 2003
Most of this morning and early afternoon were spent dealing with the arrival of a CD case/shelf thingy large enough to hold most of the 1500+ discs that Kathryn, Jennifer, and I own. It's now sitting in the hallway, waiting to be filled, reminding me that I should have let it wait until tomorrow and worked today. Of course, I'll have to work tomorrow anyway. And Sunday, as well. So what's the difference?
An e-mail brought the war back to my mind this morning, too. Well, it's not like the thought of it ever really leaves my mind, not for very long, at least. I think there are people getting various wrong ideas about my position on Iraq. And America, too, for that matter. And I'm not in the frame of mind or possessed of the patience at the moment to adequately explain. Sound bytes (or is it bites?) are dangerous. Just look how much Bush likes them. That should be proof enough. If I say, for example, that Bush has, to my thinking, failed entirely to provide justification for a war against Iraq at this juncture, for example. Or that we need to stop the promulgation of the idea that fighting Iraq is fighting the al-Qaeda and avenging those who died on 9/11. Or that I find our leaders' plans to drop thousands of bombs of Iraqi civilians as morally unacceptable as the suicide bombings of civilians at the World Trade Center was, or the killing of civilains in Vietnam, or Dresden, or London, or Afganistan, or Hiroshima. I could object to Bush's comment that American anti-war protesters, people who are citizens and voters, have no say in what's happening. I could point out that we do have time to seek another solution, that if anything going to war will only make the world more unstable. But each of these comments only begs for lengthy discourse. Arguments, facts and figures, lines of reasoning that I don't have time to pursue.
So perhaps I should stop talking about the war in this journal.
Or maybe I shouldn't. I hate what I see happening to this country, and I'm horrified at the thought of what we're willing to do to the rest of the world. I have a right to say so. But, in exercising that right, I also have a responsibility, which few of us ever acknowledge, to explain myself. I am accountable for my beliefs. I don't recall if they even bothered to teach us that part in high school civics. Probably not. But it's important to me.
I see protesters on street corners here in Atlanta and I do support what they're doing. I want very much to support them and join them. I only hope they understand their own protests, that their positions are more thought out than tautologous nonsense like "War is bad" or "Bush is an idiot." Kneejerk liberalism is as dangerous as kneejerk conservatism. Maybe I don't mean kneejerk. Maybe I mean "default."
Anyway . . .
Kathryn is still reading for continuity. At 12:30 this morning I was reading William Blake, thinking about chapter titles. Hopefully, the final revisions can be made tomorrow and we can print tomorrow night and/or Sunday. The book that might become Murder of Angels all over again is languishing in the extenuated process of getting this book back to NYC (and ready for Subterrean Press, too, for that matter). And I've been thinking a lot about the book that will come after Low Red Moon. Stray scenes keep flashing, bright and urgent, before my mind's eye. I've never had two novels in my head before, both urging me to write them now.
I listened to a lot of R.E.M. yesterday — Life's Rich Pageant and Green. Wait. That was day before yesterday.
Last night, we watched Hardware (1990). Spooky and I actually had to visit three different video/DVD rental shops to find a copy. We finally found it at Videodrome. Great selection, by the way. If you're in Atlanta, give them a try.
And tonight is Farscape. I missed the Wednesday reminder in the chaos of the week. After tonight, we only have two episodes to go, and then it . . . stops. Just stops. I will hope that the Henson Company succeeds in getting a Farscape film off the ground, and that someday we learn the rest of the story. I've felt a little odd, harping on the loss of a television show when so many lives are about to be lost. But that television show is art. And art is what makes life worth living. Art is one of the reasons we fight, or choose not to fight. It is the soul of civilization. If we abandon art, because it seems less important, less immediate, more trivial than the situation in Iraq or John Ashcroft's determination to unwrite the Constitution, we've already lost the fight. Ah, and Farscape has received nominations for three Saturn awards this year (it won two last year), including Best Series, Best Actor (Ben Browder), and Best Actress (Claudia Black). The Saturns are awarded by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. Last year Farscape brought home to Saturns for the Sci-Fi Channel, Best Series (Syndicated/Cable) and Best Actor. I'm pretty sure Sci-Fi knows what they're giving up; they just don't care.
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