Reputation: Building on Trust
Add comment November 2, 2008
Mackenzie’s Review - “We On” - Gemini & Lupe
My Youngest Sons
There are lots of reasons for me to engage the notion of resilience and hope - my boys (two of my six, 3 boys and 3 girls) form the core. From their earliest days I’ve insisted that they learn to think before they take on something to do. They have responded well to this suggestion (nagging). This is not to say my daughters have not followed in the same way - (but they have not given me material to post - once they do they too will be featured on this blog) for the most part they too take up my suggestion.
Whenever I receive material from either of them I will publish their words here. For years I have wanted any, if not all my children to publish their writings. So far I have published “Me Metaphors“, Seth’s poem, then there is Mackenzie’s short story “And his eyes read ‘End’” and now the follow, which Mackenzie’s review that is being published in an online magazine (his second such review).
Like KISS piro-technicians that stole the nuclear codes, Lupe and Gemini have perfect timing and scary fire power. Put you head phones and you float towards Grant Park, Chicago on Independence Day. Lay your blanket down, any where’s fine. Just relax, just look up over the skyline to the clear atmosphere over the lake, and you’ll see. Gemini’s arsenal is armed with sky sized fireballs and earth-trembling sonic booms. His cannon shots fly up one after another, piercing the horizon, then rapidly breaking against the black. Smoke billows out like continents. With no pause for breath, Lupe emerges like Zeus flooding the night sky with brightness that constellations envy. Lupe arms his missiles with evil genius precision and daredevil wit. Each of his rockets flying into the fray, both to complement the still simmering sparks of the last strike, and to add a new color and angle to the display. Time will tell if the first gunner, Gemini, will have the staying power of the proven blazer, but do the Tupac thing and “keep your head up”, you never know when you could see another shooting star.
Add comment October 30, 2008
Post Modern to Where?
Over the course of this blog’s life I have often taken the road into abstract spaces - religious - deconstruction - happiness and resiliency. On other blogs I’ve written about how the post modern condition affected notions of leadership and organizational behavior. As a searcher - learner by nature - I expected that at some point all these various tactics would expose an implicit statement about where I was going - exposing the decaying modernist I yet hold within .
Going someplace is a very modern notion - it suggest progress - a point - utopia. The post modern themes that are part of these many statements decry these notions. Until know I simply thought of my state as a paradoxical mood - a kind of infestation of my spirit. The until I saw the following video.
It proposes that the Post Modern mood is only another step along a path to “Now”. In many religious traditions to being in this moment - the Now - is a state of Grace.
Add comment October 26, 2008
If You’re Out There
As the race for the Presidential campaign continues - keep in mind that work needs doing - don’t pass it off to someone else.
Add comment October 12, 2008
Dedication to Life (Resilience: Faith, Focus, Triumph)
The simple feeling of love does not mean that you stop there - Alonzo takes the next step - giving.
Add comment October 5, 2008
Why You?
Every once in awhile I awake to a need to open a door into why and what’s going on with me. The other day on EONS I was asked about a couple of quotes I use for signatures. This is what followed:
- The lyricism of “addiction” may find inspiration in the image of the “outlaw, ” the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order”,
- “Remind in the state of constant departure while always arriving - this saves on introductions and good byes.”
Hi,
The first quote - Michel Foucault, well kind of - I took a part of a quote of his relating to the “Mad” and inserted what I did; the second comes from the movie “Waking Life” - directly. The next paragraph are my views of the process relating to the in-person social networking to the online. In fact I might say it a little differently now - in the sense that social networking of all types are at the same time competing for superiority - they are also in a state of paradox while they are bucking the head winds of fragmentation - a lost of cohesion (trust) within the social body, as exampled this week in the United States Congress over the Bailout Bill and the credit freeze.
I read your profile - I liked the tracing of your journey - thus far. I’m at a similar point inasmuch as I am being pulled out and deeper into the social networking space. I resist. I resist a path while I continue to search. I would have my search play out differently except it stays open to we while others close.
An, example - as you may notice I joined EONS some time ago (2007) - pretty much as I have done with so many others - if you travel around social networking sites I am engage lots of places. I did not put any effort into EONS as it was awkward to use (so I thought) it was for an older demographic - I still like to think of myself as someone “hot enough” for all ages. I did not get involved with any of the group conversations or inviting people to become friends or any such tactics until recently.
This space was just to slow - too old - too too, I think this demonstrates that one of the reasons I come to social networking - to attract the females like yourself - maybe younger - but good looking ladies, nonetheless. But as my past female attraction tactics where based on “being chosen” all I thought I needed to do was to show my face - you remember “if it is built - they will come” well for me it was “IF I show my face, they will chose me”.
Now that was not the only reason I engaged in social networking - it was also to make a living and by building a consulting practice, but the tactics all follow the same line of reasoning. “If I show up, tell my story, share my thoughts, they will chose me”.
My ongoing experience has had less success than I desire and I have to believe that inside this fact is the lesson that draws me deeper along a path I am yet to take. Part of me thinks that to make and enhance relationships is happenstance - stuff happens without reason or cause; part of me thinks that deep social movements can be influenced directly through an understanding of the conspiratorial nature of social existence - a spin off from Michel Foucault’s notion of “Power”.
In it he sees that “Power” is characterized by tactics of people like myself - you - everyone/anyone often quite explicit at the restricted level where they are inscribed (the local cynicism of power), tactics which, becoming connected to one another, attracting and propagating one another, but finding their base of support and their condition elsewhere, end by forming comprehensive systems (folk you hang with - social networks - groups within groups - outlaws); the logic is perfectly clear, the aims decipherable, and yet it is often the case that on one is there to have invented them, and few (my ego laments its own arrogance into taking my own interest seriously) who can be said to have formulated them.
All of this while I still hold on to a notion of God’s mighty deeps still and always working in the NOW. I tell you all this - I’m not sure why. It’s 5:44am - I’ve never seen nor read not know anymore about you - yet here I am. It’s a hoot!
Now what?
Levy
Tags: power, resilience, confession
Add comment October 4, 2008
Love is not the enemy - Resilience
Poet-performer Jessica Care Moore’s “Love is Not the Enemy: Manifesto for 28″, Moore conveys a tough-minded resilience and a mature return to self in the face of disappointment. She isn’t sure what’s ahead of her, but there’s no doubt about how she’ll face it:
All my new boyfriends
are scheduled for 2009
No more lions in my bedroom
King is the most important thing in my life
I’m married to my art, my life, my work.
Grownups are over-rated.
My wonder woman cape never needs to be ironed, even in Detroit
.Skinny is the new thick.
Jessica worship required
(Insecure niggas need not apply)…
I have dream catchers for arms
We need to talk about mental illness in
The black community.
Am I crazy because I don’t expect my son to be forgotten
Just because it “happens all the time?”
My name is jessica Care moore
I’ve been a Simmons.
I’ve been a Poole.
(legally, still am today)
I will die a Moore.
Ain’t giving my name away no more.
Yeah, moore’s back. She’s evolved. She’s matured. She’s become a mentor, a mother, a publisher and a leader. Having come full circle from home out to the world and back again, she’s completed a sort of heroine’s journey that seems both inspiring and mythical.
In the title poem from her forthcoming book, Moore moves from the gritty rebellion of “Black Girl Juice” to a piercing kind of universal truth:
God is not an American
No, God is not an American.
But she could be a woman
That would explain why we have sugarcane,
Little red corvettes and chocolate.
And why she so graciously spared us an external sex organ
That would constantly get in the way of our brains
But maybe if women had penises
They wouldn’t know how to cook, or wash or fix or kiss or blend,
Or fold in all those special ingredients
that women bury inside the earth
And where do you think a woman would put her penis
During a time of war?
In the mouth of an intern?
Deep into their fathers history…
Pushing the same buttons
A decade later
Metro Times - Arts: Love is not the enemy
Tags: resilience, poetry
Add comment September 30, 2008
Grandparents - Listen Up
To listen to Sarah is sometimes tough due to her “raw” way to making her point. Beyond that its funny and her point is real.
Add comment September 28, 2008
Me Metaphors
Laid back like lions
Pure and Clean, A crisp c-chord
A brown and used bill
The good deed without the credit
Credit, without the promise
The perfect words
A welcomed popup
The sole inhabiter of the moon
A tree amongst the trees
I am
1 comment July 15, 2008
And his eyes read “End”
Youngest Son
THE OFFICIAL’S RULES:
1. The person performing the illusion must dig his way to a tomb with one way entrance.
2. The person must fill in any hole created with the soil from that whole.
3. The person is not allowed to use any technology in digging, or moving any soil – only his hands and feet.
4. The person in the grave is not to be allowed out by anyone, he must either escape himself, ala “KILL BILL VOLUME II” or die.
5. There is to be a live-feed camera in the tomb, which cannot be shut off.
6. No one is allowed to interfere with the illusion.
These were the parameters to a young magician’s, Pirlo, final illusion. A crescendo. Pirlo’s pinnacle performance was to be both a homecoming and a farewell to the art.
There was speculation. Despite reporters, scientists, and engineers, rummaging through the tomb, and finding no gadgets or trapdoors – there was speculation. Some assumed that the tomb had an escape hatch; others thought that he would never enter the tomb, but only appear to.
Famous at thirteen, for fermenting the Chicago River overnight, Pirlo had toured the world for years giving magic shows to packed arenas.
He bought a full block of real estate in upper Manhattan – the biggest retail purchase of a decade. He raised all the buildings in the area, and constructed an elaborate palace for himself, in which to live and work. He called it Giza.
The tabloids and news crews reported every step and maneuver as he prepared for the performance.
The Informant, a small-town southern news paper, announced that it had obtained segments of Pirlo’s “private magic documents”. Pirlo offered the newspaper billions to not reveal the trick. However, the editor, a man of modest means, released the concealed documents billions in a private film called “Pirlo’s secrets”. Teems of millions flooded movie theaters worldwide, but were frustrated by the inconclusiveness: no concrete explanation, no theory, no proof – the “private
basic idea
magic documents” were all encoded. Rather than an unveiling, the movie was a dialogue of possible explanations, using fragmented analysis and extrapolation. The most convincing evidence was presented in the last scene of the hour-long film, when a computer programmer described encrypted blueprints of a lifelike robot, in the image of Pirlo.
Pirlo maintained that a robot was not the secret to his trick. He alluded to something “older and more primitive, more innate”.
Days before the performance an Fx-Tech, a video game blog, produced a decoded version of the blueprints for Pirlo’s robot. Thinkers in every field stated that it was technology from a century in the future, Pirlo’s robot cures cancer, joked the onion.
However, hope amongst the masses grew. Scientific America indulged the public reporting “if it can do the things, the blue prints, say it would be the greatest technological breakthrough in a millennia, maybe two!”
Millions scanned the feed for clues. And s the moment drew closer, the bars and homes and stadiums were replete with eager masses, awaiting the bodacious.
Pirlo eats dinner with the OFFICIAL, on the balcony of the highest floor of Giza, surveying his garden. The OFFICIAL, saintly white skin radiates, beneath her whip cream gown. She tells him he needs to shave, and look tidy. At ten he leaves his abode. With a backdrop of pouring rain, and devastating electric vibrations, Pirlo walks naked, through his garden. One hundred thousand white candles illuminate Giza. He kneels. His eyes closed, he places his forehead on the muddy ground. With a flick of the neck, and crack of the jaw, he punctures the earth. He engages the bubbling blackness, biting, clawing, and carving. He makes a dent. A hole. A tunnel. Hours pass before he reaches the tomb, and without flinching he lunges into the chasm. Kicked by his falling foot, the walls of his tunnel collapse and the dirt follows him into the grave.
The Defense department monitored the ground to ensure that there was no tunneling of any kind.
Hours pass.
Pirlo walks up to the camera sobbing. On “Coffin-vision” Pirlo announces his failure. Then his regret. Then fear. “I mis-performed the procedure; I was never supposed to be in here. Oh my god help me, is anyone out there. It’s dark…” Millions watch silently; the feed is one way. “I fell in, the bot was supposed to fall in, but I did as well. He was supposed to be here alone. He was supposed to die here.” He presses. Presses a craftily made robot into the cameras, and says “yes, this is my trick, I’m sorry…You were all right, the rumor, the movie…” Crying, “I’m just a kid. I never wanted to do this, please. Mom I’m SORRY…” Pirlo cries, shivers, slams on the camera. The OFFICIAL watches from her bed.
TV Audiences everywhere sent billions of letters and videos, death threats, and lynch threats, to the OFFICIAL; pleading for her to forgo procedure and let the crew dig him up, chants of “let him
live” were in every public square for weeks. From Moscow to Shanghai, from Barcelona to Reno, to Omaha, to Prague, there were the chants “LET HIM LIVE”, “LET HIM LIVE”. “LET HIM LIVE”…
However, a common trend in intellectual circles was to either accept and enjoy the fateful event – bask in the irony the rules he created; or to hold judgment till the last in order to not be fooled by his magic. Descartian precautions: it could camera tricks, a devious demon, dancing through our perception – cynics.
Still the masses: “LET HIM LIVE”.
The OFFICIAL did not flinch. She would not save Pirlo. She spoke of rules. Lawsuits, court orders, and procedures persisted, as the public and the government fought itself. Fought itself as to whether or not to allow The OFFICIAL to let die Pirlo. Even foreign nations sent in petitions stating their desire to not rescue the poor boy, “we cannot take the risk to wait and see if this man or machine. Save first, and then ask” – spoke Russian Federation President, Vladimir Putin. “
“Vlad: LET HIM LIVE”, tribune echoed.
Supreme Court Case characterized in the media as The OFFICIAL v. The WORLD, came down in favor of The OFFICIAL, and Pirlo or Pirlo’s robot in the cage was set
“TO DIE…”- times lamented.
Dusk, March, 21st, Pirlo dies. The world watches in silence, as Pirlo twitches, loses breath, and
fades. Celebrities and politicians sprinkle the special, “Coffin vision”, with voice-overs and speeches – sermons of hope and wisdom. The general public shuns and lambastes the few critics that remain – insensitive brutes, cynics.
Pirlo lies on his back, eyes piercing the cameras stare. Minutes go by without a blink. His eyes close steadily, and he emits a baritone sigh, that steadily sputters and ends. Minutes, pass and his body remains still. The lids of his eyes creep open for an instance, then close, as a smile grows on his face…
Scholars, and politicians, and religious leaders would discuss the meaning and severity of his death, and the introspection it incites within them. How could a state, with laws and dignity, let this little boy die? Millions attended shrines
Three days later, The OFFICIAL is walking through bustling time square. She stops, her flowing white dress waving in the wind. She is smiling as she glances upward. She ignores autograph seekers, and pick up artists, and just stands glancing. A few around her stop and squint, searching for what absorbs her – a stick figure on top of the coke bottle. “It’s him!” cries a peanut vendor, the bustle seems to stop as thousands follow his finger into the sky.
“It is, it is, it. Look…”
Pirlo waves; the crowd erupts. He stands on the oversized advertisement, adjacent to a stereo and microphone. He picks up the mic and shouts full force. “I GOTTTCHAAAAAA
SNNNNITITTTITITTCHESSSS”, repeats, repeats, repeats.
“Robot Died, PIRLO LIVES”,
announced Life Magazine.
Many Hated it. Critics raved it. The Press Consumed it. The young worshipped it. Christians were split; some thought it was an act of great understanding to bring the world together in mourning, others thought that it was blaspheme, a crude reproduction of the death of Jesus. Liberals thought it was beautiful, the Republican’s “don’t like to talk about that stuff much”. Time Magazine showed teary eyed grandma’s and studio executives glued to the “universal prestige special”, as it came to me known. The world gossiped through the cruelty and the brilliance, the dedication and the mystery.
The OFFICIAL immediately released all documents and procedures relating to the illusion. Including a letter sent to the Informant with attached “private magic documents; and the decoded robot blueprint emailed to the Fx-Tech.
The day after his resurrection Pirlo announced, through his friend and confident Andre 3000, his plans.
Andre approaches the microphone, “One Love” instrumental pulsating. The mass of youngsters, flippant from juking, cringes. In slow Shakespearean tone and rhythm:
“Prince of metacognition, prince of precision,
Through me, Pirlo proclaims, his fiercest collision.
One journey done – of that you know none –
The next really isn’t the one
Magnificent Pirlo visits the sun.
The public was enthralled. The man of the year.
Godspeed quoth Time.
Pirlo gave interviews, lectures, even stadium renditions of his life story. Oprah got an exclusive, from his car.
He wanted to have one last interview on the Tonight Show on the night of his departure.
On the air he gave a delight chuckling interview, and talked about how its time to go and that he’s not sad, and understands what he needs to get out of, and come free into the next step. Not in a preachy tone, more of a controlled pray like tone, like a southern reverend coming home for the end of tearful piece. The crowd laughed, cried, and danced with him for half an hour.
As he is about to leave to the shuttle, he gets up and something eerie had happened. He hobbles about and looks back and see that a robotic leg has fallen out of his hip. As the public saw this, the Band struck out a creepy, screeching rhythm. The camera shoots to the band, questioningly, and back to the Pirlo. He chuckles and says “um excuse me”. It was a procedure after “I went surfing in my youth in Hawaii, just kidding seriously, could you hand that to me.” Jay Leno jumps over and grabbed the leg and examined, the camera peals in. Marvelously computers flutter with graphs and colors on the monitor of the leg cover.
Pirlo slowly starts to laugh, then laugh and shake, and shout with laughter. Then shake. Then shake, and then burst into a thousand pieces of metal. All but his head burst into shrapnel, missing the audience and all those on stage. A fisherman in Indonesia and a car salesman in Kansas City shutter as they realize: He chose this.
The intact, robotic head lay on in the middle of the tonight shows stage. Jay Leno and the camera man, crawls from under his desk, and scurries towards the head. Coughing and beckoning the cameraman, the host simply pushes the microphone to the lips of the object. “You got me, I’m no Pirlo. Anyways I’m out you guys,” the head says chuckling, “we’ve had a lot laughs. Peace.” The system twists’ and malfunctions. Then it utters in twisted slow tone. “Through my father’s death, we hope, you’ve seen life.”
…and his eyes read “End”
Add comment July 14, 2008
