beyond the garbage pail
I. GARBAGE POLICE
I loved this story. Some local bigwigs declared garbage public property, liable to searching without a warrant if it's on the curb, so some journalists stole their trash and reported on the results. Legal? Illegal? Hysterical. One of the three targets takes it really well, and the other two react with predictable defensiveness. Amazing that such children wield such legal powers. There have been mini-Trumps across the nation for decades.
It's past midnight. Over the whump of the wipers and the screech of the fan belt, we lurch through the side streets of Southeast Portland in a battered white van, double-checking our toolkit: flashlight, binoculars, duct tape, scissors, watch caps, rawhide gloves, vinyl gloves, latex gloves, trash bags, 30-gallon can, tarpaulins, Sharpie, notebook--notebook?
II. MATH IS ACTUALLY INTERESTING, YOU GUYS
It's possible we live in 10 dimensions. Or five. If it's five, we're going to owe Christopher Nolan some apologies for Interstellar. Math is the science of symbols, but to the extent some math lands, we can sometimes outpace our understanding of the natural world with some really good calculus! I promise this is exciting. Here's a breakdown for those of us less number-oriented:
Square beholds a three-dimensional version of himself, the Cube, and begins to dream of pushing on to a fourth, fifth and sixth dimension. Why not a hypercube? And a hyper-hypercube, he wonders?
Sadly, back in Flatland, Square is deemed a lunatic, and locked in an insane asylum.
Historically, of course, art leads the way:
Long before physicists embraced the Euclidean vision, painters had been pioneering a geometrical conception of space, and it is to them that we owe this remarkable leap in our conceptual framework.. . . From the 14th to the 16th centuries, artists such as Giotto, Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca developed the techniques of what came to be known as perspective – a style originally termed ‘geometric figuring’. By consciously exploring geometric principles, these painters gradually learned how to construct images of objects in three-dimensional space. In the process, they reprogrammed European minds to see space in a Euclidean fashion.
III. THE LOVE COMMANDOS
Pursuing forbidden love in rural India, a young couple, Dawinder and Neetu, joins up with (not a joke) THE LOVE COMMANDOS! My friends, we must aspire to name our aid groups so well.
The Love Commandos...advertises a one-time fee that covers the cost of a wedding ceremony and registration; couples are invited to stay as long as they need. Perhaps more important is Sachdev’s promise to protect them even when it compromises his safety. Armed men and disgraced relatives routinely come knocking, he said, and at least four khaps have issued bounties for his death. None have made good on their promise, but he and his colleagues have been beaten. “Look, we are madmen,” he explained. “We are not scared of dying.”
But, of course, there's the fact that Sachdev is also certainly exploiting these same people. Sigh. Just the sort of human turn a cynic (a realist) might expect. Dawinder's father and mother come out looking like sympathetic heroes, Neetu's family looking like moral oppressors, and the whole system a complicated mess of tradition and tragedy. No one is happy, and the starkness between infatuation and marriage - the latter necessarily a social condition whether or not it's a romance - seems not irrelevant to the West.
IV. MORE MASON CONSPIRACIES, PLEASE
There maybe is an actual Italian conspiracy problem that has actual contact with Masons? Great. Please feed this review directly into my veins.
When a Mafia suspect called Joseph Miceli Crimi led police, in March 1981, to an office safe in Castiglion Fibocchi, near Arezzo, which contained the names of prominent Italians and documents linking them to a series of dubious and highly confidential deals, the stability of the entire country came under threat. So, too, did the international institution of Freemasonry.
The conspiracy involves the Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due (P2), which wasn't even recognized by the British Masons until 1973. The lodge's possible fascist and mafia connections probably explain that decision.
[Some] evidence has come to light linking [Licio] Gelli [the lodge's head] and P2 with two abortive right-wing coups and some of the terrorist outrages of recent years. What is well documented, however, is that over a period of about ten years Gelli, friend of Peron and other Argentine leaders, was able to recruit to his most secret of secret lodges in Italy three Cabinet ministers, 40 MPs, the head of every branch of the Armed Services, the head of the Intelligence services and senior officers in banks and corporations, who between them gave him access to and, information being a form of power, some control over an enormous array of deals, contracts, preferments and appointments.
I'm surprised, to be honest, there isn't a stronger hashtag-NotAllMasons movement. Although the Masons I know might insist it should be hashtag-NotAnyMasonsThisStuffIsCrazyWeJustHaveAnAwesomeClubThatIsPartlyAwesomeBecauseWeHaveFunSecretMeetings;TheSecretPartIsWhyIt'sFun. Hashtag-StopBlamingJackTheRipperOnUs.
V. OPINION
I mostly didn't watch the Golden Globes. What I did catch was funnier and more provocative than some years - Natalie Portman's jab about "And here are the male nominees" was wry and efficient. Otherwise, I'm not sure I really have an original take on what was a performative, self-congratulatory evening in which James Franco, possible problem man, was applauded roundly by all despite, supposedly, his conduct being yet another "open secret." I guess Frances McDormand was worth the ticket. She seems genuinely weird and interesting and is so damn talented.
Also, there was Oprah. And, uh, y'all: Oprah shouldn't run for President precisely because she'd win. Perhaps people have forgotten, but we're currently bombing something like 7 to 8 different countries. I'm not sure what human is equipped to grapple and direct such decisions, but the woman responsible for hucksters Drs. Phil and Oz doesn't have a chance in hell of getting my vote. Isn't she also one of the nitwits behind the success of The Secret? Has Trump so derided our hope in sane governance that we'd rush to give the keys of power to someone who is basically Trump-like in their talents (rhetorical flourish, nauseating self-promotion). I just can't believe a well-delivered speech at an awards show has somehow launched a thousand thinkpieces.
I guess I'm another idiot adding to the same. At least there's still ClickHole jokes to keep us sane.
Anyway: Happy New Year! My resolution is to keep writing despite the fact that my life, in five or six months, will once again change in dynamic and anxiety-inducing ways. Apologies that some of that writing will be forced into your mailbox once a week.