December 29, 2008 - January 1, 2009
December 29, 2008 - January 1, 2009
Trade liberty for safety or money and you'll end up with neither. Liberty, like a grain of salt, easily dissolves.
The power of questioning -- not simply believing -- has no friends. Yet liberty depends on it. ***
Note from the Editors:
Thank you Israel for reminding us of our civilizing mission. Please keep killing and destroying your neighbors -- keeping them strangled behind Apartheid walls. What a wonderful New Year message you send to our children and to the world. Indeed, thank you Israel for your destructive generosity. Surely, it will sell well in the pages of The New York Times. Keep at it. Civilization depends upon your oh-so-enlightened behavior.
Which suggests to us that humor and irreverence are a much-needed trade, one that we try to afford once in a while, especially every year when we come up with our Infamous Predictions™. Art Shay adds his own prophecy with his usual mordant and witty prose; and Marie Rennard's statistical predictions, whose numerology doesn't bode well for world leaders in 2009, complete our traditional yearly production.
While much has been said about Bernard Madoff and his alleged Ponzi scheme, you'll be intrigued by what was left unsaid, which Gilles d'Aymery covers in a short and acute article. Action-oriented readers will want to read Jan Baughman's piece on the environmental efforts of the reputable Union of Concerned Scientists, and speaking of the environment, Martin Murie's friendly wolf has a few sensible suggestions for us top predators.
Next we have a series of cultural pieces, beginning with Charles Marowitz and Art Shay remembering playwright Harold Pinter, and Peter Byrne reviewing the lively history of the theatre in his native Chicago. We then move to the Indian subcontinent via the travelogue of Raju Peddada who's just back from a cathartic journey to the country of his birth where he visited with friends and family. True connoisseurs of the bard will savor the interview Marowitz conducted with Prince Hamlet and appreciate the Prince's "historical" answers. And in a world whose prospects are rather iffy, the multilingual and colorful poetry of Guido Monte and Vittorio Cozzo will bring a light of beauty, l'evidenza delle cose invisibili. We conclude this issue with a series of eclectic letters and our very best wishes for the New Year to all.
As always, please form your OWN opinion, and let your friends (and foes) know about Swans. It's your voice that makes ours grow.
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Swans' Definite Predictions
2009 Predictions
"Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life's absurdities by thinking absurdly about them." The man is sitting at the kitchen table of the small apartment he rents but cannot afford. He makes the TV news for he is one of 30-plus million Americans that depend on food stamps. He has nothing left but $3 in his wallet. His fridge is empty. He feels bad, slightly humiliated to have to depend on the hated government to feed him. But he manages a grin. He is optimistic after all. "I am an American and I believe in gawd," he says in front of the camera. We all ache at the fate of the poor fellow and think of our own blessings. We ain't there yet, we think with unsaid and untold fear that the TV news wants us to feel. Be afraid, be very afraid, the story goes. It could happen to you. So, bless gawd and embrace the flag -- that's all that is left in the insolvent land of opportunity. In this atmosphere of doom and gloom gawd and country will have to do for the many who are anxiously awaiting the "change we can believe in" and praying for the coming of a new Messiah, or whatever, as unemployment lines grow exponentially. For the rest of us, in the non-bigot reality-based community, it's going to be a time to hang on to the rails of sanity, and value a few laughs here and there, thus steering the ship far away from generalized despair. Indeed, there is much to laugh about, from flying shoes to Cheney's endearment; from the Vatican Poppy, alerting the world to the danger of Sodom and Gomorrah, to all the prophets of Americana, many of them residing in the bowels of oh-so-progressive academia; from the swindlers to the swindled; from blips on the radar screen (Sarah Palin, et al.) to old geezers, the list is long. Idiocy is the reigning paradigm of the young 21st century. Nothing has changed. Nothing is changing. The suffering of the whole benefits the few. An old story. A relatively friendly reader asked earlier on in a phone conversation: "So, you don't believe in capitalism?" Ha, ha, ha. Time to laugh. Read on to find out the answer to such a deep question. Welcome, once again, to our traditional Infamous Predictions™, courtesy of a bevy of Swans. May humor prevail...and life...and et cetera. More... Courtesy of an appropriately irreverent subset of the Swans' collective.
Prophecy
I was the class prophet in 1939 at the then world's-most-populous high school, James Monroe in the Bronx. Our student population of 15,500 post-WWI babies included by my own estimate two African Americans, three half-Hispanics, a Chinese, an aggressively orgasmic nymphomaniac from Guam, 584 Protestants, 7,027 Catholics, and one lethargic Moslem, whose name Mohammed, may his tribe increase, was Yiddishized by us smart asses to "Slow-Mo the Shmo" behind his back and Abou Ben Adman to his face because he wanted to be an advertising tycoon like his fecund parents. It was they, I heard, who worked for or originated the agency that had the idea of mailing in coupons to a radio station to receive Chandu the Magician ching-a-linga-su coins with holes in the center like Chinese money. We traded them. The only thing he took fast was umbrage. His best defense was, "Just wait. My father says someday all you Jews will be our slaves and you will bow down to the freedom of Allah and the Koran or we will kill you and ship you as food to our starving African brothers." When I asked how a diet of Jews would go down, he laughed tolerantly at my stupidity and explained we'd all be converted first so as not to piss off the greatest Prophet of them all. I wonder what happened to Mo and his tribe. So it's about time someone asked me to make some predictions for 2009 as Swans' publisher did the other day, referring me to some of their entertaining and outspoken past seerage as a guide. More... Art Shay is the author-photographer of more than fifty books, "the pre-eminent photojournalist of the 20th century..."
Statistically Reckoned Predictions For 2009
Although numbers are all neutral when it comes to reckoning, some undoubtedly have a more fatal effect on human destinies than others. Take 9 and 13. Since the massive extinction of dinosaurs in 65,000,009 BC they have always proved to tap the most abysmal catastrophes. On behalf of Swans (and you, dear readers) I have gone through an exhaustive analysis of the world's history since antiquity and checked all the years that cast the harshest ruins on human beings, most of them ending with 9, which allowed me to venture a few statistical predictions for the coming year. More... Marie Rennard is an author and poet who lives in Annecy, France.
Patterns Which Connect
Bernie Madoff And The Establishment
Much of the reporting on the financial swindle perpetrated by Bernard Madoff -- an alleged $50 billion worldwide Ponzi scheme -- has concentrated on an ethnocentric subset of the tale, highlighting the Jewish character of the scandal, the suffering and sense of betrayal felt within Jewish circles in the U.S., but it has left out the more important part of the actual story: that the Establishment was cannibalizing itself; that an "establishmentarian" had pilfered the very Establishment of which he was a member in not just good, but perfect standing; and that the Establishment itself was running scared to death trying to figure out whether the Madoff deception was a fluke, an anomaly within the well-oiled machine of wealth creation, or, more ominously and worrisomely, the tip of an iceberg that is threatening the entire wealth structure of the few -- which it undoubtedly does. More... Gilles d'Aymery is Swans' publisher and co-editor.
Activism Under the Radar Screen
No Laurels To Rest On
While few are paying attention, George W. Bush is spending the remainder of his presidency pushing through pro-industry legislation, further undermining environmental regulations, relaxing pollution levels, circumventing protections for endangering species, and even permitting concealed, loaded guns in national parks and wildlife preserves, perhaps so we can shoot those bears whose habitat we're enjoying. Reversing these rules will require considerable time, money, and manpower in a period in which we should be drastically increasing our attention toward aggressive climate change solutions and environmental protections. In these final lame duck days, it would be futile to attempt to exert public influence on the outgoing administration -- its mission is clear -- but it's not too soon to make demands upon the incoming one while its staff and policies are being formed. More... Jan Baughman is a clinical researcher and Swans' co-editor.
Top Predators
You humans think you are beginning a New Year. For us it is the depth of winter. You think we wolves howl for you, for your entrance into the wildlife? No. Our howls are one of our ways of getting together, to know there are other packs out there, other wolves. That's all. We are not putting on acts for you. More... Martin Murie is a writer and veteran activist.
Remembering Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter: 1930 - 2008
In 1958, after the West End premiere of "The Birthday Party," it seemed to Harold Pinter, and most everyone else, that his future as a playwright was stone dead. The reviews were largely disastrous but the play resonated with a small number of Londoners who recognized a new and alluring tone of voice and a sense of unspoken dread that was very different from the plasticity of most English drama. At a meeting of the staff of Encore Magazine, a publication that would eventually emerge as one of the most influential theatrical periodicals of the next two decades, we decided that not only were the critics wrong, but that the play should be published so that it would not simply fall into the oblivion that awaited most dramatic works that roiled the largely antediluvian London critics. More... Charles Marowitz is an author of over two dozen books and numerous essays and articles.
Waiting For Pinter's Funeral
• Ishmael: He's gone. At least that's what the Times says. Dead and gone. • Blurg: Who's gone? • I: Pinter. Only 78 and gone. He was an actor then a playwrote.* He was a Hebe married to this Lady -- Antonia Fraser. • B: The one they called the kiddie machine. She had five or seven. Kept slipping out of her like launching submarines at Southport. With her first husband till Pinter nailed her. I don't know if they had any together. She was royalty, like Princess Diana, but sober. I heard maybe eight kids, three they don't mention. More... Art Shay is the author-photographer of more than fifty books, "the pre-eminent photojournalist of the 20th century..."
Hungry Man, Reach For The Book
On Stage Chicago
There are two inescapable truths about live theater: It depends on money and it has been in crisis for centuries. How then can a 175-year slice of theater history in one city be constantly exhilarating and a joy to read? Only when the author cherishes whatever excellence, be it ticket-stub small, that he can squeeze out of a performance. Richard Christiansen covered the arts over the second half of the twentieth century for the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. He would have paid the editors to let him do the job. More... Peter Byrne is an American-born teacher and writer who lives in Lecce, Italy.
Travelogue
Indelible India!
India is the antithesis to what Morocco is in every conceivable way. We were in Morocco this past summer and just three days ago returned from a trip to "incredible India," as the understated advertisement claimed. This expiatory, elegiac, and cathartic trip I undertook with family was to honor my father's memory, and was primarily to experience the "air-spaces" we lived through with him. Personal pathos restricted my visitation with some old friends, as this piercing loneliness is the hallmark of pain, suffering, and loss. This then was for being alone with my father, to experience him in mental images, in his prime guiding us in life. It was also a poignant reminder to me of how short life is and how our dysfunctions dominate our living moments. The well-known photojournalist Art Shay once referred to "air-space" as a place where one's memories took shape, a place where the air and space meant time and space lived by people, who later relive those memories by visiting those places. More... Raju Peddada is an industrial designer and purveyor of ultra luxury furnishings from Des Plaines, Illinois.
Arts & Culture
Exclusive Interview With Prince Hamlet
[For the very first time, Prince Hamlet of Elsinore has agreed to be interviewed by a member of the press, in this instance, the National Enquirer. The replies to all questions put to the Prince are, according to prior agreements, in his very own words with no editorial embellishments added -- although our reporter has attempted to convey the Prince's various moods.] • (Interviewer) I'm so sorry I'm an hour late; I'd forgotten they moved the clocks back. • (Prince Hamlet) The time is out of joint. • Yes, you could put it that way. -- Now, in order to put us on a kind of friendly footing, do you mind if I just call you Ham? • Nay, that follows not!!! More... Charles Marowitz is an author of over two dozen books and numerous essays and articles.
Multilingual Poetry
Ausländer
it was just the clandestine voyage Guido Monte teaches Italian and Latin literature in Palermo, Italy. Vittorio Cozzo a free-thinker who lives in Palermo.
Letters to the Editor
David Saslav's holiday epiphany that would "humanitize" humanity; troubling climate change quotations and the far-reaching effects of melting methane in permafrost and logging-industry herbicides in our water; a few and unusual suggestions from a libertarian economists, and more. More... We appreciate your comments. Please, remember to sign your e-mails with your real name and add your city, state, country, address and phone number. If we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country. Thank you.
Swans by Subject
- Activism under the Radar Screen Keep in Mind...
– According to researchers at the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Agriculture, an average of more than 7 calories of fossil fuel is burned up for every calorie of energy we get from our food. So, it takes 3,500 calories of fossil fuel to eat your 500-calorie breakfast. – "They" say that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary to end the Pacific War and save lives. Was Hiroshima necessary? You be the judge. What will "they" say once they have nuked Iran? – According to tolerance.org, every day at least eight blacks, three whites, three gays, three Jews, and one Latino become hate crime victims. – Please support Swans. – You can syndicate Swans with our RSS Feed, courtesy of Sean M. Burke. – Support your local businesses. – Say NO to Amazon.com and the corporate bookchains! Support your local independent bookstores! Books can be ordered through Booksense. Simply enter your Zip code and click on "Go" to find all local independent bookstores near you: – You can visit Swans READING ROOM for some books we recommend. – Every time you reload the front page, one of 87 different quotes appears randomly in the left margin. – Thank you for visiting Swans and for reading its contents. Endeavor to become an agent of change. – And consider supporting our efforts.
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