On Behalf of Poesy

This is a post about rhetoric, not politics.

First, read the text in the image. Even if you've already read it, read it again. I'm going to talk about it a lot, and you need to be familiar with it. My prose can be a bit impenetrable even if you know exactly what I'm talking about, so rolling in blind or on memory won't help.

As I said, this is about rhetoric, not politics. I have no real political statement to make for or against the protesters in Wall Street. I'm still reserving judgment as I learn more and more, but the way the rhetoric in that image was assembled set me off, and so, a blog post is born.

Here we go!

The text defines an unnamed, ambiguous third party negatively (not as in a value, but by establishing what they aren't) and it does so by positively building an arguably unassailable ideal shared across political affiliations; it's moving parts are sacrifice, patience, thriftiness, and hard work.

As this is going on, the writer is also doing the inverse, establishing themselves negatively by building an image of what they are not, which implicitly builds up what that initial unnamed ambiguous third party is. This is done by tagging their (the writer's) lack of common luxury items, and further reinforcing the austere virtues established earlier.

If this were a poem, in what would be called the volta, the writer then implicitly names the unnamed ambiguous third party as the Wall Street protesters and, in that same moment, definitively states their actions and motivations (blaming Wall Street directly for specific misfortune in their own lives), a thing the protesters are still yet to do, I might add, and in doing so builds a straw man to knock down with the conclusion.

The conclusion builds with a promise that those same initial virtuous behaviors will continue into the foreseeable future, (which ironically implies not that the protesters will continue in their path but instead fall apart and possibly become virtuous, because of where the emphasis falls), and it concludes with naked emotionalism, a direct and pointed claim that the writer, because of force of will and determination, is not part of a statistical reality, which destabilizes the strength of the statistic not with similar reason, something that would normally be called for, but by declaring it (by way of implicit analogous syllogism) an idea rather than mathematics. This allows the statistic to be refuted with a bold declaration.

Invoking that piece is lose/lose. If the protesters are pedantic gas bags, this is no better, which surrenders any sort of moral or intellectual high ground and leaves everyone throwing rocks in knee deep mud.

If the protesters are actually finding some coherency and traction with a reasonable, rational message, then this image still debases their opposite number, but instead of leveling the playing field, it gives the advantage to the protesters.

Hold the high ground, kids. If you're cold and calculating it makes for good strategy. If you're more moralistic, it's just the right thing to do.

A Mad Scientist Swings for the Fences with Creative Non-Fiction

So, I have this friend.

Our friendship is a black hole. First and foremost, it frequently sucks. Second and more importantly, it exists entirely in a vacuum and despite only being just shy of three years old, it's super-dense. Finally, for both of us, survival is dictated on surfing frequently shifting, but slow moving, tidal currents that require an inexorable grip and an iron stomach. 

It's likely that the few people that even know about it, on both sides, think it's a bad idea. It's just as likely that everyone trying to observe this black hole through the vacuum from a distance is receiving the same icy stare for their comments. 

Anyway, Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, it all flies back and forth with a predictable regularity based more on circumstances than a calendar, although there are seasonal shifts that can serve as correlative predictors of content shifts. It'd been awhile since I received any poetry, although I knew some was coming my way, and then it did, and this was my rapid-fire response, hastily written at work in between shouting at doctors to deliver content they'd promised. It's arguably the most personal thing I've ever shared on here, but I'm fairly proud of how the prose all fell together, and, based on a rare response to things like this, they liked it a lot, so I'm sharing it.

Really, all of that was just so I can say that, if my friend is reading this, they can still claim ownership, and that while I'm sharing it, this is still theirs. I'm saying this for two reasons: First, I'm thoughtful. Second, I respect the vacuum if, for any reason, because it can freeze me solid and make my eyeballs explode and I need functioning, un-exploded eyeballs to keep up with every one of my interests, both professional and personal.

Suddenly flush faced and shaky handed, the ubiquitous click reports like a starter pistol, the adrenaline kicks perceptibly from the third eye and 982 days of memories rumble and roar as they spin up, kick-starting wetware programming to whir and warm. Context is irrelevant, the rush never fades, and the weight of the once requested and hence-unrequited vaults that which lit the initial spark into the forefront once again, and the ingestion of brand new of the old familiar surges as the jaws of the soul action like a ball python. 

There's no music but the feet move, there's no dance partner but lingering empty air, hot nostrils, like a bull's, like a wolf's, imagine sweet tea and whiskey and pecans and old pages, only measured in the parts per million. Timé yanks the agapic harness, the phileo-whip is cracked and order is restored.

The memories always remain and, as any burden is ignored and any pain is accepted, a sigh and a smirk roll on, the day better for the experience, because tomorrow is 983 and you never know what's next. 

The intro was longer than the piece. Like I said, they've been a dense few years.

Ritt Der Panzerwagen

When it comes to content I’ve posted here, this is a major break from form. This was originally written in private correspondence, but it was suggested I post it to both share it and knock the dust off the Skunk Works lab.

As such, here comes some heartfelt melodrama. I'm going to talk about bike racing, and as a neophyte I’m going to make some serious assumptions about motivations and intentions, turning my personal feelings into generalizations about the greater whole that makes up the sport. This is an exercise in passionate poetic prose more than serious commentary on the nature of athletic motivation. One further, it is intended for an audience with an awareness of bike racing but one that is largely ignorant of its idiosyncrasies.

Tony "Der Panzerwagen" Martin dethroned Fabian "Spartacus" Cancellara for the world time trial championship (racing the clock, in this case, on a fairly technical 30 mile course). The nicknames probably seem silly; I'm going to fix that right now.

See, Tony Martin did it in a massive gear, a 58x11 if he’s in his most robust option. Essentially, one turn of the pedals would push his bike forward about ten meters. For the uninitiated, this is somewhere between daunting and insane. It’s not completely out of line to say that to someone not used to a road bike set up, let alone one with extravagantly serious gearing like that, would have a frame of reference they could draw on that involves maybe a 36x14 on the tougher end, which, at least on Der Panzerwagen’s bicycle, would be a little under half as difficult to pedal with five meters of gain per rotation.

I repeat for emphasis, his big ring was a 58, (this is how many teeth are on the chain ring up front near the cranks). Der Panzerwagen's big ring was, no joke, the size of a dinner plate, which brings a completely new weight to the common French cycling term, "sur la plaque." He did this 30 mile course by himself, in the wind, in a tucked, aerodynamic position, in 53 minutes, 43 seconds, averaging roughly 33-35 mph, which means most of the time he was actually cruising at around 40 mph, probably peaking at around 45 mph. One further, his cadence was around 80-85 RPMs (common wisdom puts 90 at an ideal, and I personally run a little hot at around 100), which means the mechanical assistance he was receiving from the gears were to push him to go faster, not to make it any easier. This day was about two things, pain and speed.

This isn’t even the best example from the race, but check out the face he’s making:

So, why should you care?

Because Tony Martin loves someone very much. And everyone should care about that because it makes the universe better by nature of its mere existence.

See, it goes like this:

The drive is external.

That’s what nobody tells you. That’s the trick. Eventually it comes down to how willing you are to hurt yourself; how willing you are to burn. However, one cannot burn for themselves, alone. This isn’t masochism, there’s no fetish to redirect it, no synesthesia to mask it, this is, pure and simple, self-cannibalization for something outside, because that’s the only way it works.

To do this, you have to look outside for a reason why. Only then, are you willing to reach deep within yourself for fuel you were too scared to look for. To find the parts of your soul that have long since gone black and rotten, compressed by layered acreages of Mesolithic mindscape, of impossible pressure of regret plus time. And to fling them into the furnace by the handful, reliving them as they go by in a flash, the once-slow burning scorching you as it rips by as high octane pain, driving you harder, deeper.

The drive is external.

Those that have realized this understand it to the marked exclusion of all others. He relived that pain, mouth gaping, drooling, and those that understand, some that have never been there, but others that have, they wonder amongst themselves, awestruck and mouths agape, eyes meeting each other through corner glances; the question is asked with a tremorous fear of trembling sincerity the likes of which outsiders cannot understand:

“Is he coming back the same?”

“Is he coming back broken?”

“Is he coming back—at all?”

His body became a physio-emotional scramjet that burned a highly combustible mixture of pain and more pain, the physical enters and blossoms and feeds back out, but before completing the circulation something dark is mixed in and absolutized, aerosolized, and weaponized, before igniting and propelling; exciting, defying, denying, decrying, and flying.

At the most basic level he couldn't go for himself. There are too many safeguards, too many survival protocols.

To crack the psychic-shale and burn that which lurks below?

This is racing. This is especially racing the clock, because you can't even be directly sadistic. Your only opponent is the yawning, pitiless gap between tick and tock.

And nobody does it without a profound love in them for someone else. The person may not want them to do it, or maybe they don't care, but Tony Martin is exploding from within, his heart and mind erupting offerings for someone, somewhere.

And that's pretty fucking rad.