Istanbul 04: The Dervish

By revolving in harmony with all things in nature--with the smallest cells and with the stars in the firmament--the semazen testifies to the existence and the majesty of the Creator, thinks of Him, gives thanks to Him, and prays to Him. In so doing, the semazen confirms the words of the Qur'an (64:1): Whatever is in the skies or on earth invokes God.

Monday, May 19, 2008, Turkoman Hotel, Istanbul

Ate at the Rumeli restaurant before going to the large outdoor tourist cafe to watch a whirling dervish spin and spin. He was such a beautiful boy, probably in his mid-20s with a heavy five o'clock shadow and exquisite Sufi outfit. I kept thinking of how he (the man) disappeared in his dancing à la anātman in Buddhism, yet really more akin to Western mysticism because the experience of Śūnyatā within Buddhism is not supposed to be mystical at all.

Here he was, dressed all in "death": his robe a shroud for the ego; his camel-hair hat, a tombstone. But as any mediocre Tarot card reader will tell you, death is merely a symbol for change.

Istanbul 01: Call to Prayer

Five times a day the call issues forth from the amplified speakers mounted atop the minarets. These days, the muezzin need not bother climbing the steps up the tower. Because of my training, I wonder (fully aware that I am alone in this) about the metaphysical implications of relying so on technology.

You hear the short buzz and click of the microphone being turned on before the call actually begins. Sometimes you can make out a word; most notable, of course: “Allah,” even though it’s stretched beyond comprehension like countless amen’s of so many Christmas carols.

We arrived too late the first night. Old Istanbul was fast asleep by the time our shuttle reached the hotel. In the morning—even earlier, perhaps, with jetlag and insomnia factored in—the call shocked me awake, but not before shifting my otherwise mundane dreams into vivid Technicolor animation about a drunken vampire. I wanted it to shut up, to go away.

But when the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Camii) is directly across the street from your hotel, just beyond the paved track of the ancient Byzantine hippodrome, it is up to you to get used to it.

When I see Arabic written, I think of snakes, thanks to Sonia, who, so many years ago, once referred to it as “that snake language.” Every letter looks like a serpent—some with eyes, some with curved tails. Each hissing out the mysterious beauty of that ancient desert tongue. Hearing it—and I’m only assuming that the liturgical language of Turkey is (still) Arabic—made me think of snakes flying through the air, twisting their way into the ears of the devotees.

The call lasts for several minutes. At times, it seems endless, and at other times, abrupt and too quickly ended. And the echoes across Istanbul from the other mosques make it seem even more enigmatic and not of this world.

The evening call retained its splendor and sublimity throughout my entire stay, but already by the third day, I was sleeping through the morning call like a local.

Anger (Under New) Management

I could login here almost daily and list a dozen or more complaints about bothersome conditions that invade my otherwise placid world, but I’m tired of bitching. Tired of being a bitch.

Yeah, that’s right: you read it here first. Being a grumpy, middle-aged, overworked adult—despite all justifications—just isn’t who I ever thought I’d be. Primarily because I’ve been saving that up for when I’m 80.

So in an effort to conserve, to preserve, to reserve all that is good about who I am, I hereby list the conditions of my life for which I have every cause to be thankful. Enjoy.

• Two beautiful and delightful cats.
• A partner who still adores me after almost 17 years of washing my clothes.
• A handful of intelligent and beautiful friends spread over the globe who refuse to acknowledge my many flaws (or at least hold them against me).
• My passport as well as my ticket to Istanbul.
• Esteemed colleagues and mentors who challenge my intellect even when we’re drinking and laughing our asses off.
• Enough money to pay the bills and then some.
• A lifetime of experiences, loves, passions, and thrills both behind as well as ahead of me.
• The good sense to know what I need to do not to lose my mind.
• Stable (and relatively healthy) relationships with (what’s left of) my family.
• Good manners and a sensible diet. Remarkable hygiene. Straight teeth. A wicked sense of humor.

Broken Wing

There are few things more tragic than a suffering animal, whether that animal be human or not. Watching the demise. Witness to the dissipation. All you want to do, all you feel you can do, is hold on to something no longer there. If it ever was. Knowing full well that nothing you do can effect any change in the situation of our own mortal vastness.

I’ve studied enough Hinduism to know that it’s all illusion: the pain, the suffering, even the conception of life itself. But the illusion is all we have. All we can know of life.

The post-structuralists are accused of nihilism, but only by those who don’t understand them. They gesture toward the im/possibility of death. It is always already outside of our phenomenological experience of life. It’s a death that lives on (sur-vivre as survival), that dissolves ontology, absent both the ontic as well as the logos. Something singular yet universal, embracing all horizons.

And yet it’s not death that concerns us, as the Cynics would agree. It’s dying. It’s the slippage from being to nonbeing. The erasure of all but the trace. The omnipresent absence neither here nor there. The unbearable void that muffles the word, the name, the universe.

But everyone—even the so-called Christians—agree: it is only through dying that one becomes immortal. Too bad none of us will be around when it happens.

Please keep Bolesław in your thoughts.

Gay for Democracy

I wonder if I’ll ever post to this blog again. I wonder if my days will ever stop being so damned full of foolishness and nonsense and incessant busywork. I wonder if I’ll finally slip over the edge of sanity and land in a puddle of my own full-blown, hard-core, crazy-assed lunacy. I wonder if my neck will ever stop hurting.

These are all good things to wonder about as I get to luxuriate by not having to drive to campus this evening for the worst class in graduate school. Thank the heavens for crappy winter weather! Snow day in Texas in March—just two days before “spring” break? Why thank you very much.

Today I was thinking about tautologies and dogmatism … and how dogmatism is always a form of tautology: what could be more dogmatic and tautological than I AM THAT I AM? Even the skeptic critique of the dogmatists’ syllogism is based on the uselessness of tautology: premise A, that all human beings are mortal, is necessarily always (and in all ways) no less tautological than all black chess pieces are black. Dogmatism asserts its own meta-self-recursivity. And all must bow before it(self).

Truth however asserts in perfect Heraclitean fashion that I am that which I am not. Truth embraces its own opposite. In balance. And resonance: a non-Narcissistic echo that decenters and destabilizes its own frame of reference. The truth is big enough to embrace that which it is not. In my opinion, the apophatic god is the only one/not-one (not) worth worshiping!

And yes, I did vote in the Texas primary Tuesday. I even returned to the caucus afterwards to experience the glory of the chaos and insipidness of democracy. Sorry, Iraq. Sorry Afghanistan. Sorry Iran … eventually. Sorry for bringing all our overwrought freedom your way! And my small role in democracy is not over just yet: I’ve been elected a delegate to the district caucus. I’ll report back near the end of the month how absurd that procedure is.

A Valentine's Day Revolution

So six alleged terrorists who have been incarcerated for the past several years in Guantánamo will finally have their day in court, albeit a military court, but a court nevertheless. When will the confirmed terrorists who have been in charge of such prisons for the past several years finally be brought to justice?

And in the “do as I say and not as I do” category: was it Israel or the US (same difference, I know) who planted a car bomb in Syria to take out Imad Mugniyah?

Car bombs. Secret prisons. As the joke goes: if it quacks like a terrorist....

And on an even more political note, here’s an excerpt of Nikki Giovanni’s “When I Die” to help set the mood this Valentine’s Day:

and if ever i touched a life i hope that life knows
that i know that touching was and still is and will always be the true
revolution

Nothing to say about love...

This interview suffers from the “Dance, Monkey, Dance!” Syndrome: flaccid American asks the world's greatest living philosopher (at the time) to perform for the camera on a topic he clearly isn’t interested in. But Derrida, in his generous generosity obliges, indulging the weak-minded question with a somewhat articulate—particularly for being impromptu—response about the difference/différance between/among the who(s) and the what(s) of love.



Do I love you for who you are? My friend? My lover? Or for what you are? Intelligent? Sexy? Do I love you because of what you do? Because you love me too? Do I love the absolute singularity of who you are? And when I stop loving you, will it be because of who you are [not] (no longer my lover), what you are [not] (no longer sexy), or for what you have [not] done (not loved me in return)?

Or can I love you purely because of your replaceability? For the fact that I can choose anyone else at any other time—knowing full well that the metaphysics of identity and time collapse just as fully and unequivocally as all [other] metaphysical systems in the end?

But can the modality of love bring us even closer together by helping to eradicate the notions of I and you (and us) altogether? That is, if—in the same way that each word engulfs an equally and conterminously unsayable silence—the I and the you embrace the not-I and the not-you (mere placeholders in an attempt to say something (which remains not-a-thing) real about the irreality of love in the first place)—we finally move beyond/through the metaphysics of identity which we sorely cling to in the West, especially as it perpetuates itself [gets perpetuated] through language, and approach a pure modality of love wherein no I and no you [and no us] exist, at which point existence itself—neither it nor self—ceases to ex/ist.

Or maybe we should just spend the rest of our lives searching for the “true love” Charlene sang about all those years ago:

Year of the Whirlwind

In honor of a Japanese tradition I recently learned about, I have chosen sempū as the kanji to represent the passing year. Sempū means “whirlwind” and is written thus:

From teaching new courses to conducting some of the most advanced research of my academic career, from hitting the gym up to six times a week to beginning to learn German, this entire past year has whirled about my dizzy, complicated, overly complex, and insomnious head.

My wish for 2008—itself admittedly a silly designation that has nothing to do with science or any other respectable metaphysical system—is for the wind to continue to whirl but that the center to remain forever (and always already) still.

Other things to look forward to this year: the first major move in more than ten years, the fortieth anniversary of my birth, a vacation to Istanbul, completion of my coursework and exams and the beginning of my dissertation, teaching new courses, conferences, writing projects, relaxation and meditation, better health (and less of me to love), and—the gods willing—more than a few nights of blissful sleep.

Happy New Year.

California Dreamin'

Just a week after returning to the States from Europe I had already had enough of Dallas and crap at the university.... Or at least I knew I was going to have already had enough, so Stephen organized a blissful weekend away to San Francisco (while I was still in Germany) since he and Kris were going to be there for work. And Jola is there.... So many wonderful people I care so deeply about in a wonderful city by the ocean. I read chapters in the U.S. history textbook for the class I TA for on the flight, so technically it was a working vacation.... Anyway, here are some of the photos of that most relaxing getaway (where gallons of coffee were drunk at Bazaar Cafe, we sat through an hour-long reflexology session, did qigong (as well as napped) in the sand on the beach, and ate incredibly delicious meals at ethnic restaurants throughout the city. I guess gluttony is yet another form of relaxation....).

15 Songs for a Solstice

...to help keep the cold in on the first day of winter. (As if most of us needed help with that.) Here's to a new season of personal (and universal) growth.

For those of you not on MySpace, I'm currently reading Edmond Jabès' The Book of Margins. After only the first 35 pages, I can definitively state that it will be one of my most favorite books I have/will ever read:

The word is distance within non-distance, that is, the width of a gap that every letter stresses while bridging it. What is said is always said in relation to what will never be expressed. At these extreme limits we recognize ourselves.

This winter will (always already and yet again) prove the truth of the infinite distance I must travel in order to recognize myself in the extremities of the here and now. And now to the soundtrack that will be playing on that trip:

• "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" by Leonard Cohen
• "Winter Kills" by Yaz
• "Drink Before the War" by Sinéad O'Connor
• "Dreamer" by Toni Childs
• "All the Candles In the World" by Jane Siberry
• "Bells Ring"by Mazzy Star
• "25th December"by Everything But The Girl
• "Trouble In Mind (The Return)"by Marianne Faithfull
• "Mad World"by Gary Jules
• "Untitled 3" by Sigur Rós
• "New Lost World" by Chris Whitley
• "Soon This Space Will Be Too Small" by Lhasa De Sela
• "Baby In Two" by Pernice Brothers
• "Wo willst du hin?" by Xavier Naidoo
• "Archangel" by Burial

R.I.P.

Stockhausen 1928-2007

Northern Latitude Dreaming

Instead of just sitting still long enough to grade 39 quizzes in US history over my break/office hour I've instead read through a couple of blog posts, did a search for Joris-Karl Huysmans' novel À rebours at my university's library (we have several copies), and ate a 280-calorie dark chocolate "energy" bar. I've holed up on the 5th floor of the library, sitting next to a window from where I can see--apart from a few office buildings in the distance and a handful of cars in the parking lot--a line of trees running alongside the western creek on campus. I seem to have caught fall fever: I don't want to be in love or run naked in nature. Instead, I'd really prefer to wrap up in some warm clothes in front of a fire somewhere and read a good book (perhaps Huysmans' novel) with a warm drink and even warmer cats. Considering this is Texas and today's high is in the mid-80s, it is unlikely I will get to have this experience any time soon. Even the promised thunderstorms don't seem to be on their way.

I have slightly more than a week to complete my term paper over Celan, about two weeks before submitting my final drafts for the translation workshop, and maybe three weeks before my project on Redon is due. Then there's final exams in US history to grade and then finally my final for philosophy is scheduled for December 11th. Now if only I can get through these damned 39 quizzes to set the rest of the term in motion. Ah, December! when life comes due.

Bullet-Point Friday

• The first definition of "bullet" listed in the OED is "a small round ball." I think first of a child's ball: small, probably red, and rolling across a street in front of an oncoming car.
• When I was living in Shimonoseki, I often traveled by Shinkansen, Japan's bullet-train. Speeding down to Fukuoka (sometimes purposely mispronounced "Fuck you, okay.") for a day of gaijin (that word still grates on my sensibilities) shopping was a luxury I grew accustomed to, especially during my last semester in Japan: time was running out; time was of the essence. And I could turn a 90-minute one-way trip into a 20-minute breeze just by paying more than three-times the cost of regular trainfare.
• I made up for the cost and convenience by factoring in Shinkansen tickets when traveling home to the US or back to Japan to serve out my two-year contract: if I could get cheaper airfare from out of Kansai--even with the Shinkansen fare--I would go that route. Direct flights from Osaka were always more acceptable than stopovers on that half-assed Korean peninsula. Plus a trip to Osaka probably meant a trip to nearby Kyoto as well. If time wasn't an issue but money was, then I could take advantage of several other transportation alternatives: the overnight ferry or the long-distance bus service.
• My preference was the overnight ferry: not only was the cost bizarrely low compared to just about everything else in Japan--$5.00 for a can of Coke!--but the ferry also included an onsen, or traditional Japanese public bath.
• The time I've spent wet and naked in the company of foreign nationals cannot be measured. (I'm just saying....)
  
• Over the 1998 Christmas vacation, I spent probably no less than four hours a day at the onsen where I was staying in balmy Okinawa.
• Perhaps it's been a way of recovering from the years of Texas summers and droughts I've suffered through. Perhaps I'm more fish than human. Perhaps I didn't have a clue what else to write on a Bullet-Point Friday.
  

Bullet-Point Friday

• It’s like, you know, flamenco piano: when you hear the first measures of just such a beast you recognize the form (flamenco) but don’t recognize the medium (piano) because your ears are not trained to interpret that form through that medium. After a few moments, a new synapse fires, and you are better prepared to hear flamenco piano again: a new possibility has been created in your world.
• It’s like, you know, when human beings rely too heavily on infrastructure designed to keep them safe (i.e., guardrails, stop signs, traffic lights) that they behave irresponsibly because someone else is policing their reckless behavior; they have a false sense of security because they’ve relinquished responsibility for their own actions. (It’s also like, you know, when parents expect legislation to supplement their demonstrably poor parenting skills: they want society to be policed instead of being responsible for the raising of their own children. I mean, think of the children!) Remove the guardrails and pedestrian accidents fall 60% because pedestrian and driver behave more responsibly when they must think for themselves. If I choose to jaywalk, then I’ll be sure to look both ways—twice, even—before jumping out in traffic.
• It’s like, you know, trying to get through a lecture on Berkeley’s immaterialist idealism when your students would much rather hypothesize about “crazy people” or “people on LSD” or “the blind”: if someone falls in the woods and no one is around to perceive it, did the person really exist in the first place? (Thankfully, for Berkeley, God is omniscient and omnipresent: He’s always watching/perceiving! And even if you don’t believe in God, He still believes in you.) I sometimes wish my students would stop invading my sensory world so their drug-induced craziness would simply stop existing, even if only for me.
• It’s like, you know, hotdog!
• It’s like, you know, accepting the alternate relationship with truth that wanders to supplement one’s acceptance of truth that remains coordinated on a grid. To start walking with the right foot (techne, the logos of techne, the word: “technology”) is quite alright as long as the next step is with the left foot (organic, systemic (uncoordinatable) episteme, the organicity of the epistemic); otherwise, you spin around in circles going nowhere. And no guardrail is going to protect you from doing that!
  
• It’s like, you know, attempting to speak language as such without using any of the words from the language of humankind. Or perhaps like, you know, speaking a word to(ward) an other all the while speaking a word as (an)other. This too shall not pass.
• It’s like, you know, Liberace’s famous question: “Would you rather have roses on your piano or tulips on your organ?” Vote now!

What there is to learn

If nirvana is reached only after the extinguishing of desire, which, of course, includes the desire not to desire, because desire causes suffering, which defines the life of samsara, yet Buddhist monks can march toward a greater freedom from suffering within samsara on the way toward nirvana, can we not too desire their success? I can only pray that when Rangoon is painted red it won't be with their blood.

Scivias

I remain
Together:t(w)o-gathered
A union w/o unity
Identity w/ difference
Singable yet always (yet) unsung remainder
Twinned coils twining through
Here & (t)here & no(w)here:now/here
Wo ist der Mensch?
W(h)er(e) ist der Mensch?
Here- her- he- ach
And a thou-
Sand hands to hold at night
And an eye
T(w)o-ward
Hath an ear
Near- 'ear 'ea- æ
Farawaywayawaywayaway
Let be--this subjunctive that terrorizes time
I'm set ... for now
Know- now- no-

Bullet-Point Friday

• Don't stress out about misplacing/losing my debit card. With lack of sleep and new drugs and several frustrating factors worming their way into my otherwise sedate and calm life, I'm bound to lose more than a little plastic card along the way, especially when my wallet has barely recovered from the move back into my Texan life. I've narrowed down possible places I could've left it: the ATM, doctor's office, the college, the university, Fadi's restaurant, my office, my classroom, the faculty office, the copy room, the car, Starbucks in the basement of the Bank of American bldg. downtown, my home, or (perhaps worst of all) my wallet.
• Don't cry out loud. Keep it inside; learn how to hide your feelings. (This Melissa Manchester moment was brought to you by the letter J and the number 3.)
• Drink strong coffee while having even stronger conversations with Jola and Stephen while enjoying the cool afternoon in San Francisco starting this afternoon until Sunday afternoon.
• Write that short bio my boss asked me for three weeks ago, and begin looking at the teaching schedule for the spring '08 term.
• Accept the vajra when it strikes as it is always already striking yet again.
  

Voices

Nothing abides. Nothing remains.

Today I found out that Ray Williams died. (We raise our voices.) He was the chair of the fine arts division at the community college I attended. (We learn to speak.) He listened, especially when I had something (important) to say. (We speak our minds.) He spoke to me as if I had something important to say. (He taught speech. And humanities.) Although we certainly were not close, he had a deep impact on my life. (I teach.) He was sensitive, and intelligent, and passionate. (I am still learning to listen when my students speak.) Rest in peace, Ray. (Your voice will be missed.)

Pieces of Me

If it’s not the hunger and lack of interest in any of the food I find on the streets here—I mean there’s only so many cheese pizzas, cheese sandwiches, tomato salads, falafel pitas, and gummy, cheesy pasta dishes with limp vegetables I can stomach—that will kill me, then it will be the utter inexplicability of my inability to sleep throughout the night. Last night I went to bed at a reasonable hour (11:30), but I was wide awake (again) by 12:45, and I couldn’t get back to sleep until almost 3:00. In the meantime—and I mean this in its meanest and most unreasonable sense—I began reading another life-changing essay by Derrida about Gadamer and the poetics of Paul Celan. And then I took out my iPod and listened to some tracks from my Lazy Sunday Afternoon playlist, just allowing my mind to drift and reflect in a letting-be (perhaps—as if—a move toward Gelassenheit). Perhaps it will be the anticipation of the arriving/letting-go that will finally do me in.

“There are pieces of me you’ve never seen. Maybe she’s just pieces of me you’ve never seen.” These lyrics by Tori Amos continually float through my head. Knowing that people—and ultimately all things, including the great to be (it)self—are ultimately unknowable, I know that I don’t even really know myself. So, how can anyone else know this me that I don’t even know, this no-ing, unknowable I that reverts to a me when faced with the face of the radically alter in its (own/un-owning/un-(kn)ownness) radical alterity? A good question to reflect upon and face at two-fucking-thirty AM. Kids: don’t try this at home without adult supervision. I am a trained professional, and it still hurts when I do it.

I like the subtle subversion of irreplaceability these lyrics hint at: as if to say, you don’t need to replace me with her because we are the same. Do you not see that which draws you to her is also present here in me? Do you not see that the continual/continuing race toward the (metaphysics of the) new is just as questionable as the issue of knowledge of self and other (it)self? We are ultimately reflections of one another, each other: “The killer in you is the killer in me.” (Lyrics by Smashing Pumpkins. Maybe I should just stop listening to music altogether.)

I like how da in German can mean both there as well as here. I like how nach can mean both to(ward) as well as after. This is a great language in which to lose oneself, especially when the first person-pronoun is never capitalized (except, of course, as the first word of a sentence) and the second-person polite Sie is always capital(ized). But true Gesprach takes place only between (ein(e)) ich und (ein(e)) du....

Speak my language.

Personal Daemons

I respectfully ask those of you who know me--or at least think you know me--to take the short quiz below to determine if my daemon is an accurate representation of my real self.

We have twelve days before my daemon is set in stone. Thank you for your help.

Podcast-aways

Here are my favorite podcast subscriptions. There's something for everyone. Well, maybe not you.

• Twelve Byzantine Rulers
  This history of the Byzantine Empire is a lecture series written and presented by Mr. Lars Brownworth who teaches history at The Stony Brook School in Long Island, New York. He has traveled extensively from the furthest reaches of the Byzantine Empire all the way to its heart at Constantinople. Join him for an engaging look at the history of the Byzantine Empire through the eyes of 12 of its greatest rulers.


• Alan Watts Podcast
  Alan Watts is one of the most widely read philosophers of the 20th century. In addition to his 28 books, Alan Watts delivered hundreds of public lectures and seminars the recordings of which have been preserved in the archives of the Electronic University, a non-profit organization dedicated to higher education.


• The Meditation Podcast
  A free monthly podcast of guided meditations with Jesse and Jeane Stern.


• PDX Ripped
  Pampelmoose.com's weekly podcast with Gang of Four's Dave Allen. Discover new music and catch interviews with up and coming new bands.


• Global Hit
  PRI's The World presents the Global Hit podcast, a daily spotlight on international musical artists or trends. Created by The World's Marco Werman, the Global Hit features interviews with musicians, critics and deejays around the globe.

Am I missing anything? I'm always open to suggestions on what to listen to.