In a suicidal letter to a cute girl, though she's only sixteen (but so
intelligent, I swear), I cried out with the vehemence of Jeremiah
that I could think of no positive act or invention
to match the dismal immensity of the atom bomb.
She argued sensibly for me to think of more intimate
and simple acts, her antithesis of mushroom clouds blossoming,
suggested that eating pussy might make me feel
more useful. "It feels like an inner atom bomb to us ladies"
she exclaimed, her prose bright as a bluejay eating seed. I replied
with great maturity (and felonious intent) that though an increase in
cunninglingus might not uninvent the atom bomb, I would certainly go
down on her in a daze of gratefulness if ever she came up
from her grey New York
to my green New Hampshire.
intelligent, I swear), I cried out with the vehemence of Jeremiah
that I could think of no positive act or invention
to match the dismal immensity of the atom bomb.
She argued sensibly for me to think of more intimate
and simple acts, her antithesis of mushroom clouds blossoming,
suggested that eating pussy might make me feel
more useful. "It feels like an inner atom bomb to us ladies"
she exclaimed, her prose bright as a bluejay eating seed. I replied
with great maturity (and felonious intent) that though an increase in
cunninglingus might not uninvent the atom bomb, I would certainly go
down on her in a daze of gratefulness if ever she came up
from her grey New York
to my green New Hampshire.
6 comments:
Hi Bill.
I have read your series, and perhaps I should've left a reply to it on your site, because I take issue with the following:
"...we need to transform culture so that birth pangs and babies' cries are more exciting and desired than the sounds and spasms of orgasm."
I would rather not live in any culture where one is desired MORE than the other--I think they are both desirable, and from what I've read in biology books about sex, I'm pretty sure that the "spasms of orgasm" as you so viscerally describe them, are part of the process of conception that leads to "birth pangs and babies' cries". Why should the pleasure of sex be valued LESS, desired LESS, than "birth pangs and babies' cries"?. Honestly, your program for the sexual reform of our civilization sounds downright sinister to me, here. It sounds a bit like a humanbeing factory.
"I believe there is an answer and that the answer is wonderful. Most people, I would guess, would not like the answer. Sort of in the way suggested by Chesterton's great line:
'Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.'"
Wouldn't it make this exchange more useful and lucid if you revealed in very clear terms what you believe that wonderful answer IS? If you believe that, as Wesley Willis once sang, "Jesus is the answer", come right out and say it with a trumpet, for the benefit of our readers. Don't just leave it up to good ol' Gilbert Keith say it FOR you.
And in order to shed more light on what Chesterton believes you and I should do with our lives, let's take a look at something Chesterton said in one of his best-written and most witty books, 'What I saw in America'--this is from page 144, last paragraph in a chapter entitled 'Presidents and Problems'...Chesterton is complaining that England and America are always insisting that they are very much like each other in many ways, but that they ignore, or lamely downplay, the only way that really matters:
"In a battle where we really are of one blood, the blood of the great white race throughout the world, when we really have one language, the fundamental alphabet of Cadmus and the script of Rome, when we really do represent the same reign of law, the common conscience of Christendom and the morals of men baptised, when we really have an implicit faith and honour and type of freedom to summon up our souls as with trumpets--then many of us begin to weaken and waver and wonder if there is not something very nice about little yellow men, whose heroic stories revolve around polygamy and suicide, and whose heroes wore two swords and worshipped the ancestors of the Mikado."
Alright! Onward, great white Christian soldiers!
"For most people the reality is "Answers? We don't need no stinkin' answers!"
I agree that the vast majority of humanity seems prefer mucking around in their oblivion. But I find, upon self-examination, that I have often hated not their oblivion so much as their refusal to accept MY answers. Do you think this might also be the case wih you? This isn't an accusation. But I wonder.
In order to balance what has been a somewhat aggressive letter, I will say that I enjoy your mind and your writings, even the way in which you express opinions that I disagree with. But any capable reader would be able to see that you clearly have some sort of (probably Christian) agenda in your post here, so I'm forcefully asking you to be more explicit & detailed about it in the future, in the interest of clarity.
May Blog bless you and keep you and cause its blue electronic face to shine upon you,
Luke B
Hi Bill.
I can see how I may have mistakenly given the impression that you believed something as simplisticly put as "Jesus is the answer" or "the Bible is the answer" was what was on your mind. Or that I thought you were wimpily hiding behind Christian legends. I apologize if I made it sound that way. But I WAS sincere in asking you to be more explicit in the future, partly because not everyone who's going to read your letter at this site will be as familiar with your views as I am. This is a public forum, remember? I wasn't asking you to write mindless propaganda. Not everyone who reads this is going to visit YOUR website, and since I consider you a friend and respect your intelligence, I wanted to offer you the opportunity to be more in-depth in your reply to the article, so that nobody will be able to shrug you off as something less than what you are. I was impolite in my attempt to draw your specific convictions into the open. That's because I am not a particularly polite person. That you should be taken aback by my rudeness in letters after experiencing it for three years seems rather strange, unless your reaction was only to the apparent intellectual bankruptcy of my reply, which was more of a deliberate (and probably foolish) attempt to draw you out in the open than at anything particularly examining. I was hoping you'd take it in stride. Maybe that's unfair.
Since Chesterton, in all his major writings, obviously wants us to "try" Christianity, I thought it was fair to show a good, specific example of how ludicrous he could be; anyone who could be so proudly and flamboyantly racist should be viewed with EXTREME skepticism when they are advocating a social program or religions for the salvation of humanity. (They should be viewed with skepticism anyway, of course, but his racism just happens to brutally underline this point.) I don't condemn him for his racism; I even find it morbidly amusing. I also knew that you'd reply and that I'd get a chance to say more about it here.
Was there something about Christianity that made it so easy for GKC to maintain his racist views while simultaneously practicing his Roman Catholic brand of it? That's a good question, and I don't pretend to know the answer. I do know that racism has run rampant in many churches througout history, but since it's always simultaneously existed outside the church as well, I can't always point to why this is.
I still like GKC as a writer, and for what I know of him as a man, but then I usually take art more seriously than the opinions of artists, including their religious opinions. You know that I'm already aware that Chesterton isn't defined and summed up by his racism any more than Ezra Pound is defined by his. All my other references to him online have been friendly, and I was aware of his racism when I made them. I wouldn't take him seriously when he proposes Christianity as an answer, even if he had been friendlier to the Japanese. Because--and let ME be lucid here for a moment: if I believed that Christianity was truth, I still would not live a Christian life. It simply doesn't appeal to me. If I thought I were going to go to eternal damnation for living my life as I see fit, I believe I would be willing to pay the price, just as I would be willing to go to jail or be beaten to death for resisting a military draft, for instance.
Let me be even more lucid; and this should show some of my reasons for rejecting Christianity: I think there is plenty of room on this planet for people who value sexual prowess more than procreation in their own lives, and plenty of room for those who favor sex with procreation in mind over sex without the intention to procreate, as long as they aren't trying to outlaw or otherwise oppress each other. I think there is plenty of room for cartoonish language like "eating pussy" and "fucking" to go hand-in-hand with a view of sex as sacred (it certainly works, at least for me, in some of the erotic poetry of Cummings, for example); this language can be playful, tender and nurturing if it is properly used in tandem with other, more serious kinds of language. That this may sound ludicrous to you doesn't bother me; I'm talking about my own personal experience here. I know you agree that lovemaking should be done with a sense of humor, that sacredness need not always be grave in presentation; I think our senses of humor are simply different, and that doesn't bother me.
I haven't seen any evidence, religious or scientific, that your relationship with your wife is evil, or that my gay friend's relationship with his boyfriend is evil; I have seen no evidence that either is consistently and authoritatively condemned by nature or science, though I have often seen religion condemn both of those kinds of relationships without any reason at all except, apparently, ignorance. I don't think you are entirely ignorant on these issues--far from it--but I think you're a little naive and one-sided, judging by remarks you've made to me in person (which I'll discuss with you via e-mail if you're curious). So, I bless you both. I don't think that the truth is often as simple as it seems.
I think the human race, though I don't claim to know why or how they came to exist, is made up of people who are often built very differently from each other, and I don't think all of them are built for marriage, monogamy or heterosexuality. I don't know why this is so; but it's something I've observed since I can remember. None of your writings on the subject have convinced me otherwise. I don't believe that nature always gives us clear signs to go on; I don't believe science has resolved this debate, or that religion is specific enough to even contribute to it at this point.
In fact, I once saw you yourself quoted in a newspaper on the debate over the ordination of Gene Robsinson as a bishop in the Episcopalian church as saying something like: "It's a complex issue. Equality isn't found in nature. It'll never be black and white." Now, I don't trust newspapers, and I wouldn't be surprised if they took you out of context. But wouldn't you agree that, so to speak, the jury is still out on many of these issues? In the meantime, I have to in many cases rely on my emotions, and my emotions have always told me that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, marital, premarital or extramarital sex, in and of themselves.
I don't defend or glorify my OWN sexual practices in the article, mostly because I lied to someone; in fact, my untruthfulness was the principle reason her feelings were hurt. And remember, I pointed out part of why I think our traditional concept of "cheating" is usually entirely bogus, even silly.
As for the rest of your gripes with my article, they are probably well-founded, and since they look to me more like a continuation of the article than a rebuttal, I'll just let them sit there for everyone to see.
Luke B
Hi Bill.
Did you ever watch 'American Gladiator'? I don't know if it's on anymore, but they had a contest in which two people standing on ten-foot pedestals above a big cushion wielded large batons with cylinders of rubbery foam at either end. Wearing helmets and codpieces, they went at each other with a vengeance, until one of them stumbled off the pedestal and dropped to the mat below.
That would be more fun, and perhaps even more gentlemanly, than the kind of jousting we've been doing here. Not that I'm not enjoying our ongoing debate; but we might develope a better comraderie through smacking each other with big rubbery batons.
Seriously, though, the end of the letter really illustrates your intellectual bankruptcy. I used to spend a lot of time reading about dinosaurs, Mr. Gnade, and I can tell you with some authority that you are not a dinosaur. I am even more puzzled as to how you will defend the baffling assertion that you are a fossil(!)
I have never had an online debate with a dinosaur fossil, though I did once have a nightmare in which I found myself trapped in a museum where all the dinosaur skeletons were jabbering at me ceaselessly. I'm still not sure what it meant.
Peace
Luke
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