( previously, in the looking glass ) ( october ) ( november ) ( december ) ( 2002 ) ( 2003 ) ( back to frontpage )

The shadowy figure, clad in brown and black, stepped purposefully over the strip of dewy turf, strode across the broken concrete of the street, and prowled the sidewalks of the neighborhood, on a whim. Noisy laughter echoed in the streets, whose sidewalks were busy but not packed; college students on their first Friday night of the quarter flowed freely among restaurants, kitschy gift shops, and movie houses. Along the sidewalks whose young trees were festooned with strings of lights, among hip yuppie couples and packs of skate kids and clusters of dormmates, past buildings of the twenties and the sixties and the now, the prowler walked and looked and listened, and saw that all was well. Satisfied, she returned to her lair.

There are very few things that smell funkier than deceased potato cheese soup.

Happily the opening episode of Enterprise was good enough to eclipse the disorienting reeling incongruence of its opening credits music. Series-wise, I think they've struck a promising angle: instead of being the know-it-alls roaming round meeting up with primitive planets, we ARE the primitive planet, with attitude to spare. If, as in past series, episode quality keeps going up from here, we ought to be in good shape. I take the introduction of a long-term arc as another good sign.

I forget the name of the Republican congressman who was being soundbitten, but NPR kindly notified me during my drive home that he and some comrades are wanting the Senate to vote on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) oil drilling that the House approved a couple months ago. Because we still get over half our oil from furrin countries, an' that just ain't right. We should drain all our own first, disrupting pristine wilderness in the process, and then be completely dependent on foreign oil, if we have been stupid enough not to switch to some other energy source by then.

Pardon me, sorry: the proffered reason is that Middle East oil sources will be increasingly unreliable given that we are now "on a wartime footing." What? NPR observed that the price of crude is currently at a 22-year low, so the Senate is unlikely to take this up soon. (Thank you, Vermont guy, ... Jeffers? Jefford? ack i'm forgetting his name.)

Last I noticed, no one's talking of rationing anything yet (except privacy). Psst: patriotism may be popular again, but that doesn't make this like World War 2... I hope. Grandma was reminiscing about that, last weekend, and it sounded like a long hard grind even for those that stayed home. A community-building, purposeful grind, but still. Anyway it'd take years for ANWR production to get going even if they started now, and I get tired of people exaggerating the kind of impact it would have on our oil supplies.

end rant. Count on a House Republican to remind me why I didn't vote for them. I'd been almost forgetting, the last few days.

25 September 2001: scattered thoughts.

Every once in a while, I start drinking Fresca again, as a tasty citrusy way to drink 0 calories, until I remember that the reason I stopped before is that the ingredients list includes "glycerol ester of wood rosin." That just doesn't sound good.

I watched my first episode of Angel last night, because they held the world-premiere showing of the new Lord of the Rings trailer during a late commercial break. Woah! That's even better than the previous one. As if I weren't already impatient enough.

And I am sufficiently not alone that I haven't managed to elbow my way onto their server to download the trailer yet, even now, the next morning. snort.

oh and. In yesterday's bit I was thinking in terms of what our actions are going to be against terrorists in foreign countries. I wasn't thinking so much about busy bees domestically hurrying through overreactive 1984 legislation. Ok, I'll permit people to start worrying about that. I have this tendency to forget at least one important thing when I'm focusing on something. Let me try to catch up on what is going on in the search and seizure arena (key word "reasonable") before I go all long-winded-marginally-coherent about it. But I think there are enough people who would protest and resist and overturn anything really egregious even if they do initially pass such. It will all depend on what your definition of "reasonable" is: an important debate worth having even under less tragic circumstances (key word "debate").

Yesterday's sentiments influenced by some previously-read comments here and here. But Yankee Stadium was the clincher.

Not that I agree with every single point in those comments. The Salon guy, for example, says that we should only go to war if we're attacked. But inaction, like action, has consequences. What if Japan hadn't attacked us in World War 2? Would we have ended up in a world where Hitler ruled western Europe, and Japan ruled much of East Asia? Ask the Brits, the Chinese, the Russians, the Koreans, not to mention the Jews, whether that world would have been better or worse than the one we have now.

That's why I really liked Bush's big speech. Some people are focusing on the phrase "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." And I can understand what they're worried about, but I didn't take it that way. I understood it to mean what I think is true: there exist good people and evil people, in every country. The good people may disagree among themselves about anything under the sun or moon, and will continue so to do, worlds without end. But we must agree to fight the evil people, for they are determined to fight us, whether we will or no. He was saying to other governments: you must decide whom you will help. Actions, and inactions, have consequences.

I am certain that there are many many questions and comments flying among the world's diplomatic corps, as to exact courses of action; we won't know all of it until things get declassified in 50 years and everyone writes books. It is said that most governments are helping us in various ways: information, finances, use of territory. It is said that a few governments are providing one or more of these things to terrorists. Inaction now, and terrorists will continue to hate us and act against us. Actions of the wrong kind, and more will spring up to join them. But actions of the right kind, and we may catch many of the evil people and greatly hinder their ability to fight us. Not completely; never completely. But thousands of people may be saved just by hunting down one terrorist cell, and doing it without harming their innocent neighbors.

Bush did not say that Americans cannot criticize government policies. Not only would saying that be wrong, enforcing it against all our loud mouths and typing fingers would be happily impossible. I didn't vote for Bush, but I am willing to give him and his advisors, who know more than we do right now, the benefit of the doubt until proved otherwise. They can't tell us the plans yet, or the bad guys would know too. We haven't yet lobbed any cruise missiles at empty camps or pharmaceutical factories; the longer we go without something big happening, the more confident I become that our government is being careful and thorough, and the actions they finally take will be actions of the right kind.

I tried earlier this afternoon to visit the flag store I remembered seeing on Third Street Promenade, but I didn't find it, and there was an empty store space about where I thought it ought to be. Pity. I can only imagine, if the place just recently went out of business due to lack of demand, the current frustration of the former owner (perhaps tinged with guilt, but still).

Even before I discovered this, I'd decided to discard the joint-USA-and-UN flag idea of a few days ago. I think the final step was watching the event in Yankee Stadium this afternoon. Such a beautiful array of people, such beautiful voices they all had, such beautiful things they said and sang. And I decided, yes, I want to fly the flag, to express my love for all of this beauty, and to honor the people they were honoring, clearly and simply and unconditionally.

I am not flying it for the murderer in Arizona. I am not flying it for the bigot in Louisiana. I am not flying it for the ignorant who wish to co-opt it for their own. I am flying it for the brave, and the fallen, and the beautiful souls that are plentiful among us. I do not fly it blindly, but with hope in the strength of each person to speak up for what it means to them. It is my flag as much as anyone else's, the flag of a great country -- not perfect, but never quite despairing of perfection.

So this evening, I walked a couple blocks over to my local knickknacks-n-gifts type shop to see if I could get a little flag for my car antenna. The trip was successful. Little flag hangs now from my antenna, quietly, beautiful.

today i received in the mail, postmarked august, the free new york city tourist guide which i ordered in august from the nyc convention and visitors bureau. i wish it were not now a collector's item.

wow. that was a good speech. way to go speechwriters, and way to go Bush. good job. I wonder how many times we'll see excerpts of that quoted and replayed, over our lifetimes. I am happy I watched it live.

Little meeting in the office today: it seems that the FBI has heard of a 'credible warning that if we attack Afghanistan, a plan is in place to destroy one of the film studios.' My mom had already heard something about this on the news when I talked to her, so I am assuming this is not a secret or anything. They sent an email to all employees about it, though they used vaguer language. Whee. Just what I needed, a little extra helping of anxiety. Screenings, lot tours, and TV show audiences canceled until further notice; photo ID for everyone coming in and no strangers who aren't expected; they're completely closing three of the gates and putting up concrete barriers. If I get blown up, Stewart can have my stuff. ...no, that's not funny, is it. Arghhh. Stupid evil people. I don't want to die. I'm not finished yet.

As one person in the office said, upon being scolded for making a joke during the speech, "You gotta make light of it. It's all you can do."

(yes, Susan, we also noticed the Gone with the Wind reference. but the speech was so good i almost hate to mention it. almost.)

20 September 2001: colors.

You know what I want? (No, but you will in two seconds.) I want to get a little USA flag and a little UN flag, and fly them together. The blue ones are not quite as easy to find these days, but I may give it a try this weekend. I seem to remember a store at the Third Street Promenade that might be helpful.

Yesterday evening on my way home, I decided to swing by the former Macy's building (formerly Bullock's before that) and see how the remodelings are going. Somehow they're planning to fit a Ralphs, a Best Buy, a Longs Drugs, and an Expo (some kind of Home Depot design center thingy) into this former department store space. Lo and behold, the lights were on and there were people in the Ralphs! A sign said "Private Party - Grand Opening Tomorrow 8:00 AM." I also noticed they've put four TV monitors inside one of the old department store showcases on the Le Conte side, so you can watch people walking around inside. Kinda freaky.

So of course I had to go this morning and see the new place. I was half hoping to get some kind of "Congratulations, you're one of the first X customers!" freebie, but no such luck. I simply wandered around with other happy shoppers.

The main thing that struck me was how orderly, and full, the aisles were. It looked like I might have been the first person ever to remove a box of cereal from those brimming, and perfectly arranged, shelves. Ditto the bread section. All the loaves of bread and bags of bagels were standing at attention, shoulder to cozy shoulder, labels facing out. I have never seen such a tidy bread aisle, and probably never will again. All the aisles were like that, but the breads are I think the first and worst rummaged in your normal everyday supermarket.

I felt a tiny bit silly walking around with a smile on my face, watching other people do the same, but it was just so unusual. It felt like we were walking around in a cold-war commercial for bountiful capitalism. And we were all playing the game of exploring the new store, learning a new layout. Part of the unreality may also have come from how few people shop for food at 8:30 am Wednesday compared to 3 pm Sunday, especially when the market has only just opened. There was a very high cheerful-ralphs-employee to exploring-shopper ratio.

And then there were the (optional) self-checkout stations, touch-screen operated, for 15 items or less. You put your handbasket down on one side of a scanner, scan the items one by one yourself, and put them in a bag on the other side. To pay, there's the usual cardswiper keypad, but you can also deposit cash, even coins, even pennies. There's a ralphsperson at a central computer supervising the bank of four stations in case people need help, and also that's where you go to sign a credit card slip. I managed to get through the process without too much help, only advice on how close to the glass to hold a barcode. Kinda fun. I think we're in the twenty-first century now.

Dagnabit, I remember when they used to have them old TURN-TABLES and the cash registers would make them CLICKETY-CLACK noises. yessir, them was the days, of them clickety-clack noises. dadgum beep-beep-beep, that ain't no real music.

Oh. And. Maybe I haven't been out of California enough to judge, but: you know you're in California when there are supermarket aisle signs for "Health Foods," "Natural Foods," and "New Age Beverages."

Being the person that I am, I've been thinking about these passages for the last few days:

And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.

...[Ilúvatar ends the Music]

Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said ... thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme shall be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

(read Ilúvatar = God, Melkor = Lucifer; Tolkien was a devout Catholic)

I'm having a bit of trouble imagining it myself, but I suppose you never know.

On Friday at nine, I watched the service in the National Cathedral. During the singing of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," I had tears in my eyes from the beauty of the song and the people singing it. The camera found a man and his wife hugging each other, crying, and I saw the man say "I can't stand it." Then, finally, I cried.

On Friday at noon, most of the people on the lot walked to "Midwest Street," a set built to look like it sounds, centered on a little town square parklet with a gazebo/bandstand in the center. A beautiful huge flag was suspended from the ladder/crane of a fire truck, maybe thirty feet tall. At noon, silence spread from the center of the crowd to envelop us all.

After a little while, the town church bell slowly struck twelve. A fellow with a wonderful voice sang "God Bless America," slowly, so slowly that it was a bit hard for people to sing along, but some of us quietly tried. More people chimed in when he repeated the verse, though some of us had a little trouble finishing when people spontaneously started holding their little flags up and waving them slowly to the rhythm. Then a couple of people in the bandstand said a very few words, and guards presented colors. Then a bagpiper played "Amazing Grace," two verses' worth. Some of us also tried to sing along to that, with occasional success. And then it was ended, and we quietly dispersed back among the sound stages.

On Friday at seven, those of us who were still in the office (about fifteen) went outside and set a line of little white votive candles on the ground, and stood quietly talking for five or ten minutes. We weren't being wholly solemn, but we knew why we were there.

On Friday at eight, with my extinguished votive candle in my pocket, I arrived at UCLA's Royce Hall plaza to see if anyone was still there. I got a light from one of the ten or so people on the library steps, and we all talked for a little bit. Not a lot of people had been there at seven, they said; more had gone down to the federal building on Wilshire. The UCLA marching band drummers were practicing down at the other end of the plaza, sending rattles and booms echoing down and around the bricks of the paths and buildings. After a little while, we dispersed, some to dinner. I wandered around the plaza a bit, meditating on the view from the top of Janss Steps as the drums crashed and boomed far behind me.

On Friday at nine, votive candle again in my pocket, I arrived at the federal building on Wilshire just east of Sepulveda. At least twenty people were there; many had flags and were standing along the curb of Wilshire's four lanes just west of the Veteran intersection, waving the flags and chanting at the traffic. Plentiful honking replied from all corners of the intersection, and flags often waved from the cars in response.

The majority of people were over on the curb. Some of us stood over by one of the three-foot concrete ring pillars at the edge of the building's wide lawn. A little forest of candles glowed around one pillar that stood in the center of the sidewalk leading towards the building. I lit my candle for the third time and set it with the others, and stood watching the flickering lights. A couple of women arrived and, after setting their candles down, worked to relight some that had gone out. Another girl, later, also brought a wandlike fire-lighting tool that worked well. Later, the number of people around the candles dwindled a bit, and I went to join the people on the curb, though I didn't make much noise. Watching, listening. Thinking. Talking, with a couple of guys, for a little while, about Star Trek and Babylon 5 of all things. Agreeing to sing the Star-Spangled Banner with them, though we had some trouble in the high reaches.

On Friday sometime after ten, I went home and found an email sent earlier about my friends planning to have dinner and go to a park somewhere together, with candles. That would have been good too; I wish I had seen it in time. I need to remember to use the phone more often. But in my pilgrimage through the day, in the places I did go and the people I met, I finally began to find a little peace.

Special message to the lady interviewed on the local news this afternoon (I forget which channel I was on) who was complaining angrily about the chaos at LAX because they're making all private cars park in the outer lots and people have to take shuttles in -- "People saying go this way, go that way,... this isn't a good way to do it, I've been here since ten o'clock!" -- special message to her: fuck you! It's because of people like her that our security wasn't good enough to stop this.

I have probably used as much profanity in these last three days (both typed and spoken) as in the whole preceding year at least.

As I think more about what we may do, to whom, why, I just want to say - stop, please stop. be careful. think. root causes. causes and effects. true, these individuals were evil people and I hope that hell exists only so they may populate it. but consider why they and others hate us so. why?

I started to go into a few why's, but i'm still not really coherent so i better not. I feel like I need to do more research first anyway. all i really want to say is, if we are the good guys (which I do believe we are, all things considered), that means we better not bomb any innocent people. I'm not even certain how much good it would do to bomb guilty ones. they seem to like dying. so I'd actually rather put them in a bastille, or one of those prisons that the man in the iron mask or the count of monte cristo were in. except without the people escaping part.

thing is, even as i say that, that's not all true either. what i really want is for them to somehow realize that they are wrong. and unlikely as that is, i figure it's more likely if they're still alive than if they're dead. i want each one, twenty years later in his little cell with his long beard, as his pet rats steal his bowl of gruel and bite his fingertips for the umpteenth time, to have an epiphany.

on the other hand, "never start a fight, but always finish it." told you i'm not coherent.

somewhat irrational but irrepressible desire: put the towers back, build them again, replace them. but what brave souls would dare to enter?

it didn't register with me until later, driving to work, that the music playing over those opening and closing credits of Working Girl is Carly Simon (?) singing about "the new Jerusalem."

this evening, driving on the 405, emerging from the sepulveda pass, i saw a bright bright star very low, with a ray of light beaming from, up ahead to the left of the freeway. a helicopter, hovering, pointing and sweeping with a searchlight. "uh oh," i thought, "is something going on at the federal building?" for there is one, on wilshire right near the freeway, a building that looks rather like the oklahoma city building once did. i kept driving, nervously, having few alternatives, and as i got closer i saw that the chopper was a bit north of the fed building. it was using its light on the freeway itself. it didn't seem to be following a particular car. it might have been looking for one, i wonder. the beam of light moving, touching each side of the freeway, like an insect's exploring antenna. i passed through the circle of light in my turn; the beam continued to search. the wilshire exit was normal. the federal building sat inside its post-oklahoma-city ringfence of thick concrete perimeter posts, calmly, quietly.

"Hm," I thought on Monday morning. "In all my excitement over the storytelling, I forgot to mention the earthquake a couple hours previous. Ah well, I'll get to it soon."

When my mom called me at 8 am (Pacific) yesterday morning, and said the world trade center towers had collapsed, I thought she was exaggerating. And then I saw the videos.

To add to the surrealism, initially they didn't have sound. simply a tall tall building, smooth and square, sliding silently straight down as if there were a slot in the ground that it was descending into, calmly.

and then the other one.

A week or two ago, I was eagerly starting to plan my October visit to NYC, and took out my DVD of "Working Girl" because I remembered the opening shot was a 360-degree pan of the Statue of Liberty, and I wanted to try to see which direction the statue faces, in order to determine what time of day I should visit for best photography. I also noticed that the end credits feature one long slow zoom-out looking at Lower Manhattan from the south, and happily freeze-framed it to compare the picture to the maps I'd been looking at: where the ferry docked, where the Brooklyn Bridge comes in, where the World Trade Center is. was. I was so looking forward to going up to the top of it.

I took Working Girl out again this morning as a sort of impromptu memorial. As the camera holds position on the ferry heading in, straight toward the towers, I again got as close as I have been several times already to crying.

the videos have audio, now. and there are more of them. and you can hear the people screaming and crying, watching. and i feel like they do. why can't i cry?

a friend yesterday said he felt just like he did watching the challenger explode. i agree. i couldn't quite cry then, either, though (as now) I teared up several times. it just seemed too wrong, the things I was seeing. "that," said my brain, "is incorrect. therefore it cannot be real."

I did something this evening which I did not expect, did not plan. I got up and told my Rocketship Park story [www dot medianstrip dot net/arc/author/clk/050800 dot shtml], impromptu, to an audience of complete strangers (except for Tehshik), sitting on a stool on a coffeehouse stage with a microphone in my hand. Aside from the butterflies, and blanking halfway through on whether I'd remembered to tell about the sign at the beginning, I seem to have done all right. At least, I triggered a discussion amongst the event organizers afterwards, reminiscing about other such rocketships that they had known. I hadn't realized there were others.

The event was Fray Day 5, which I had never heard about until Tehshik (who is a longtime reader of the {fray} website) suggested going. Fray Day seems to have started in San Francisco and gone global; this was the first year that a group was participating in Los Angeles (at the Un-Urban Coffee House in Santa Monica).

There was a band, at the beginning. And then "featured performer" storytellers. And then open mic. As I listened to the featured performers tell anecdotal, personal experience stories, just the sort of thing I tended to write as part of the medianstrip gang, I thought: I can do that. I sort of already have, except I typed it instead of speaking.

So I did. And I think it worked.

I wrote down this purpletricycle.com address, both on the open mic signup sheet and on a piece of paper for a person I spoke to, a coffeehouse regular curious whether all these people had shown up for the band or for the {fray}, and how we'd heard about it. Doing that, talking with the organizers, and sitting on the stool on stage with people watching and listening to me, brought it home to me that there are some of you, out in the wide world, reading what I write here, and soon a few more may look in. It's not just for my family and friends, not just for me. Other. People. I mean, I already knew this in theory, but I never check my web logs, so I could blithely not think about it.

Scary, but fun. I'll try to make it worth your while. ("Do or do not, there is no try.")

[adjusted to take out the direct link to my old story, since an email address appears there and I don't want any more spambots finding it, but I don't have access to that page's code. likewise, the "gang" in "medianstrip gang" was originally a separate link to www dot medianstrip dot net/arc/ --clk 10 may 2003]

I was driving along the freeway this evening, when I became aware of a bit of honking. I wasn't sure where it was coming from or who it was aimed at; I hadn't done anything to be honked at, just then. There it was again! I glanced to my right, and there was a guy in a (blue?) SUV to starboard, holding even speed. After a quick glance forward I looked back at him, as he honked again and motioned towards my aft section. "oh no, is there something wrong with my car?" thought I. But then he mouthed the word on my license plate, and gave me a thumbs-up with a big grin. I broke into a big grin myself (partly of relief) and gave him a thumbs-up back. My first proof that complete strangers are noticing -- and understanding -- my license plate!

While I probably shouldn't reveal my license plate to the world, let's just say it's a Tolkien word that anyone who's read Lord of the Rings ought to recognize.

random act of joyful. whee!

Beginning of another month. Must submit something written. Sent that poem off again, to another website. Round two: DING!

To my disappointment, I notice that in Internet Explorer (spit), there are no background-purple-bars between each entry here, as there are when I look at it in Netscape. Tired, oldnews moral: Microsoft sucks eggs.

The moral could also be "carrie needs to learn better html skills," but I'm going to ignore that because, dammit, i'm sick and lazy today. It's summer! I'm not supposed to get a cold in the summer! I hardly ever get colds even in the winter! What the hell. Stuck in with a stuffed-up nose and no energy (down from my plain normal low energy) on a lovely sunny three-day-weekend Saturday. Bleah.

Welcome to another step in my master plan. Not very different from my other layout, true, but a little different, and sufficient on short notice and lack of FTP ability. Sufficient in my opinion anyway, which controls a majority of the stock.

small moves.

( previously, in the looking glass ) ( october ) ( november ) ( december ) ( 2002 ) ( 2003 ) ( back to frontpage )