Budweiser and Lincoln

As a prize, with new every case of Budweiser, or 'America', they are now including the heartbroken screams of your ancestors.

You have to be very quiet, but if you listen closely when you open the box you can hear it, just barely emanating from the mystic chords of memory, not yet touched by the better angels of our nature.

In The Carolinas - Wallace Stevens

"The lilacs wither in the Carolinas.
Already the butterflies flutter above the cabins.
Already the new-born children interpret love
In the voices of mothers.

Timeless mother,
How is it that your aspic nipples
For once vent honey?

The pine-tree sweetens my body
The white iris beautifies me."

In order to understand any Wallace Stevens poem you must first assume a mind that already sees itself as extended into the landscape, with only the vaguest of borders between what is, at any one time, the self or something else.  

More than anything, this particular poem is about time, and how life enacts a process that is both full of change and also repeating, answering to what is present and what is not present, the past and the future.  "Already," "Already," "Timeless," "For once."

Like in so many of Stevens' shorter poems, he creates a portrait of a place, that could be the mind or could be a territory, making the wandering myths that he creates one with the the body and the land.  Processes and flows.

I have no idea what he means by 'aspic nipples', though.

Being A Good Person

Whenever I see a cat now I say 'hello cat'.  And that is why I'm a good person.

The Utopian Implications of 'The Andy Griffith Show'

Andy is able to be such a good and effective sheriff because he's always looking for consensual resolutions to the problems he has to address.

He's been put into a position of coercion and authority by the hierarchical state system, but constantly avoids using the tools of violence, whenever possible.

I'm not saying he doesn't sometimes yeild to the logic and temptations of his office, the whole pickle contest fiasco will speak to that, but he's by nature a man who dislikes telling people what to do, and that's what makes him great.

I don't know what role he would have in an anarchist society, but such decent men are surely part of the solution to capitalism and patriarchy on the way to a verticalist world.

Andy is a friend, equally, to men like Floyd the barber, and Otis the town drunk, there's no distinction of status between any member of the community of Mayberry in his mind, and that's why Andy's Mayberry is the future of mankind.

'God's Not Dead" and 'Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'

Someone write me up a fanfiction for the movie 'God's Not Dead' where Kevin Sorbo is Hercules in disguise among mortals.

Thousands of years after the end of classical Greek Culture and the decline of its various religious traditions, the battle of Corinth, Antony's defeat at Actium, the destruction of the Serapeum, he wanders alone, in a Christian universe devoid of living divinity.

The motivation for his actions could be fleshed out in a way that was much more convincing than anything shown on screen in the film. By getting his students to deny the Christian God he hopes to prepare the way for the return of his father and the others, who disappeared with the destruction of their temples.

He doesn't know where they went or why he's been left, with only a shadow of his former strength, but he has dreams where they've returned, after the death of God, and they once more inhabit the rocks, fields, the air, and the spaces in between.

You could include very heavy handed references to Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' as well as that episode of Xena where she saves Santa Clause. This thing is writing itself in my head right now.

John Lennon and Shakespeare

When John Lennon says 'lend me your ears', is he specifically referencing Mark Antony's eulogy for Ceaser, and does that mean Paul's dead?

Socrates

How did Socrates keep getting invited to all these parties?

"Look Socrates, I made a cake for us to eat, together."

"Ah, yes Geena, and chocolate too, my favorite.  You are such an excellent cook.  Tell me, since you are so skilled in these matters, whereas I am just a humble novice, what do you consider to be the proper aim of cooking?  Is it to please the taste or nourish the body?"

Five minutes later and Geena is sobbing quietly in the corner, while Socrates is eating the entire cake by himself with the biggest smile you've ever seen.  He was the worst party guest.