Back In Seattle Again
Back in Seattle again… Warm weather and lots of green. Sometimes I remember why I love this place. Everything is alive. I had a very successful east coast trip and now it’s time to dig my heels in again. We at the Pike Market Performers’ Guild need to really get on the ball about this years’ Busker Festival - time’s a-wastin’ and there’s never enough hours in the day when you start to fall behind. We need to get those artwork entries and those applications out. Damn… It’s already May!
We may have another stage this year. I would like that. One of the restaurants at the Market is talking about having a beer garden on festival day and that would mean setting up a stage right there. It would have to have sound reinforcement, of course. The amazing thing is that we have become such a welcomed addition to the city that local businesses fell like taking advantage and joining in. Good news all around.
And speaking of good news, the Great Mystery Project is nearing completion and may actually be able to declare itself by name before too long. It involves recording studios and old friends, new music and ancient ritual rhythms. I will say no more. It will not be ready for Folklife but soon after. Once again I am going cross eyed at the computer getting all these parts together. Good thing I already wear glasses.
And while we’re on the subject, Jerry Falwell just died. What can I say? I listened to Ron Reagan on KIRO today, a local talk radio station. He was so vague and kid glove about everything. “You should be nice to people right after they’ve died,” he kept saying. And I kept wondering why. They weren’t nice to Sadam Hussein after he died. I mean – he’s dead, he’s not going to be bothered by what you say. So let’s be real: Falwell gave us the Moral Majority, those shiny white shock troops for Jesus who laid out such a great and detailed plan for the future of these late great United States. He helped elect some of our most virulent politicians. He helped to make women’s clinics the dangerous places that they are today. He blamed women, gays, and liberals for the attacks of 9-1. He was not a constructive personality in the world and he had a lot of political power to do things with. Maybe we’re better off without him and we should say so.
Reagan talked to a local Seattle area Falwell supporter, a “Reverend SoAndSo” from Renton. The reverend liked to talk about how Jerry was so adamant about getting America back to its faith based roots. Back to the Christian principles that America was founded on, he said. Wow – I don’t remember learning about that in school. In fact, I remember learning that one of the things that set this country apart from so many others is that we do not have a religious involvement in our governmental affairs. Separation of church and state and all that stuff. I think I remember it right. But Reagan never challenged him on any of it. He was too busy being nice.
(While you’re being nice and playing your violins they are reorganizing their power base. The engines of the coup are never idle. Death creates a vacuum and if you don’t shine the light it will be filled by invisible minions. The kind that bite you in the neck while you’re bending down to kiss your children.)
Oh well, time goes on and the calendars just keep changing. These eternal deities just don’t last. Remember the story about Galileo? That’s one of my favorites. Galileo suggested that the earth was not the center of the universe. That really pissed off the church who had him arrested and put in confinement. He was finally pardoned sometime in the late 20th century. No sense in rushing into things. It was a very threatening thing to say because this planet earth is where we humans live. And if the earth is not the center of the universe then we humans are not the center either and that might mean that we are not made in the image of god. I mean, if everything revolves around the deity then it only makes sense that everything would also revolve around the deity’s mirror, right? Humans, who are that mirror, would be right in the center of it, with all the universe revolving around our collective head. But if that’s not the case then it might mean that we are not made in the image of god after all but are only some overly imaginative primate species with a need to be needed. And that would mean that god was most likely made in the image of humans. And that’s depressing if you’re a big wig in one of god’s many earthly empires.
The empires are shrinking, and that’s the good news.
We may have another stage this year. I would like that. One of the restaurants at the Market is talking about having a beer garden on festival day and that would mean setting up a stage right there. It would have to have sound reinforcement, of course. The amazing thing is that we have become such a welcomed addition to the city that local businesses fell like taking advantage and joining in. Good news all around.
And speaking of good news, the Great Mystery Project is nearing completion and may actually be able to declare itself by name before too long. It involves recording studios and old friends, new music and ancient ritual rhythms. I will say no more. It will not be ready for Folklife but soon after. Once again I am going cross eyed at the computer getting all these parts together. Good thing I already wear glasses.
And while we’re on the subject, Jerry Falwell just died. What can I say? I listened to Ron Reagan on KIRO today, a local talk radio station. He was so vague and kid glove about everything. “You should be nice to people right after they’ve died,” he kept saying. And I kept wondering why. They weren’t nice to Sadam Hussein after he died. I mean – he’s dead, he’s not going to be bothered by what you say. So let’s be real: Falwell gave us the Moral Majority, those shiny white shock troops for Jesus who laid out such a great and detailed plan for the future of these late great United States. He helped elect some of our most virulent politicians. He helped to make women’s clinics the dangerous places that they are today. He blamed women, gays, and liberals for the attacks of 9-1. He was not a constructive personality in the world and he had a lot of political power to do things with. Maybe we’re better off without him and we should say so.
Reagan talked to a local Seattle area Falwell supporter, a “Reverend SoAndSo” from Renton. The reverend liked to talk about how Jerry was so adamant about getting America back to its faith based roots. Back to the Christian principles that America was founded on, he said. Wow – I don’t remember learning about that in school. In fact, I remember learning that one of the things that set this country apart from so many others is that we do not have a religious involvement in our governmental affairs. Separation of church and state and all that stuff. I think I remember it right. But Reagan never challenged him on any of it. He was too busy being nice.
(While you’re being nice and playing your violins they are reorganizing their power base. The engines of the coup are never idle. Death creates a vacuum and if you don’t shine the light it will be filled by invisible minions. The kind that bite you in the neck while you’re bending down to kiss your children.)
Oh well, time goes on and the calendars just keep changing. These eternal deities just don’t last. Remember the story about Galileo? That’s one of my favorites. Galileo suggested that the earth was not the center of the universe. That really pissed off the church who had him arrested and put in confinement. He was finally pardoned sometime in the late 20th century. No sense in rushing into things. It was a very threatening thing to say because this planet earth is where we humans live. And if the earth is not the center of the universe then we humans are not the center either and that might mean that we are not made in the image of god. I mean, if everything revolves around the deity then it only makes sense that everything would also revolve around the deity’s mirror, right? Humans, who are that mirror, would be right in the center of it, with all the universe revolving around our collective head. But if that’s not the case then it might mean that we are not made in the image of god after all but are only some overly imaginative primate species with a need to be needed. And that would mean that god was most likely made in the image of humans. And that’s depressing if you’re a big wig in one of god’s many earthly empires.
The empires are shrinking, and that’s the good news.
posted by Jim Page at 10:17 PM
3 Comments:
God didn't make people in his own image - people made God in their own image.
Exactly.
So do you know MJ Bishop?
Dave
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