These one-sided, rash, brainwashed ideas foamed in my outraged mouth. I wouldn’t go. I was too imbalanced. The people marching for life were doing just that: telling the world about life, and why they thought it should be maintained. Freedom of speech, contrary to my hormonal impulses, is a very important ideal to me. My logic generally overrides my passions, but I wasn’t confident that I could control myself with all that crap racing through my threatened body. My lovely intelligent friend Michelle, who plans to study International Law at the American University of Paris (and is far less violent than yours truly), wanted me to go with her. We discussed it, and I decided that I would be willing to go if I brought my beautiful 35mm camera and assumed the role of objective photographer. I wanted to march with the Pro-lifers a little as well, maybe talk to some of them, try to hear them, especially their stories. I am very interested in the grief driven Pro-lifers that are trying to save other women from the horrible anguish of regret. So, I had a plan that I hoped would quench my desire to shed blood. I would take an objective, journalistic perspective. I was even a little excited.

In the train station before the march a man sat on the opposite platform playing a guitar. Five or six Pro-choicers came down the stairs next to us, chatting. The man on the other side swept his guitar up suddenly and stomped up the stairs, screaming after him “I wouldn’t be alive if my mother had had an abortion!” My friend and I laughed. It wasn’t really funny, but we laughed. She responded in a whisper “and look what a better place the world is now.” Bitterness inched in on my objective camera holding person. I was going into a war.

The Pro-life march and the Pro-choice march were scheduled to begin with rallies at different ends of the city, eventually passing on the Marina Green. The mayor was at the beginning Pro-choice rally. He was speaking. This was exciting. He was there because he knew that only 25% of the Pro-lifers were from San Francisco. The rest had come in buses from Orange County and Sacramento. My city, my body, I clenched my teeth and quieted my outrage. Their world, I rationalized. We found Newsome standing by the make-shift stage, with no body guards (what a good politician). I approached him. He was very casual, almost real. He liked my jacket.

We began to march. The chants were horrible. They were vocalizing the irrational, angry thoughts that I tried hard to suppress. “Pro-life, your name’s a lie. You don’t care if women die!” The liberals screamed. Our march was more of a parade, with costumes and colorful angry signs. Some signs were moving, like “LEGAL ABORTION SAVED MY LIFE” and “MIDWIFE/CATHOLIC FOR CHOICE.” The moving signs were the ones that seemed to address the concerns of the Pro-life argument. Angry but pointed signs, held by high school girls in leg warmers read “GET YOUR CONSERVATIVE SHIT OFF MY CLIT!”. Older, angrier liberal extremists held signs reading “MORON WITH A WAR ON” and ” WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES DYING IN IRAQ?”. The whole vibe was rambunctious and slightly out of hand. Anger washed through us. As we marched the issue hung heavy over me. I could not be elated. I could not be blindly angry. So much focus on whether we should be able to kill helpless infants to save them and us from a life of misery clung to me, and I nursed It, thoroughly depressed.

We met the Pro-life march at the Marina, where the choice march lined up on the sidewalk. I was so excited. I had never met more than one Pro-lifer at a time, let alone five thousand. They came slowly. The first thing that I noticed was their signs. The Operation Rescue, with their dead fetus signs, were asked to stay home and so the entire five-thousand-strong march was littered with the same sign that had been handed out among them. As the point of this particular Walk For Life was “to offer women other choices besides abortion”, the signs read: “WOMEN DESERVE BETTER THAN ABORTION.” This struck me as not an adequate use of the brilliant argument that can be given for LIFE. What did that mean? Adoption was an alternative, but then the women have to give birth to a child and then live the rest of their lives knowing that there is a piece of themselves out there. That didn’t seem better for women than abortion. They could keep it, but in the case of rape or an unfeasible financial situation, the stress does not seem better either. I came to the conclusion that this slogan was created to intrigue the notorious feminists of San Francisco. It’s too bad that this slogan didn’t actually present any realistic alternative to the horrible concept of abortion. The slogan does strike a chord, however: women do deserve better than abortion. I think that both sides would be overjoyed at a better solution. The convincing signs were ones that brought awareness to the life at risk, not the woman. A few signs, accompanied by photos of living fetuses read: “IT IS A POVERTY TO KILL A CHILD SO THAT YOU MAY LIVE YOUR LIFE THE WAY YOU LIKE” and “IS THIS A CHOICE OR A HUMAN?”. Other signs were darkly religious and inhumanely one – sided. “FREE WILL IS FROM GOD/PRO-CHOICE IS FROM THE DEVIL” read one sign, in the hands of an deranged looking old man. I wanted to leap on him and scream “What is the difference between free will and choice?”. Instead, I took his picture.

As they marched past us, my objectivity faded. I couldn’t walk with them. They had nothing in common with me. There were so many young girls and boys there. Pregnant women waddled, toting three other children behind them. The striking thing was that most of the Pro-Lifers were male. I must’ve seen ten priests or more. This frustrated me the most. What did they know of childbirth? How would this have anything to do with them? Many people blessed us as they walked past, praying for our souls, and crossing themselves. One woman, upon being provoked, screamed angrily at the crowd of Pro-lifers “I love you!” This enraged me. I began to spit and scream with the others. Everyone was so passionately angry. I wanted to cry. An old women woman next to brandished a bent coat hanger and screamed “HIPPOCRITS!”, not providing any explanation. Women began to push their way through the police barrier. The cops intervened, as their job obligated them to. They were surprisingly gentle, considering the animosity that they received. A woman screeched at the uniformed cops as they hustled her back into the licensed area for the Pro-life march “We pay your wages! Get outta my way! We pay your wages, you pigs!”. The cops kept poker faces. I wondered which ones agreed with which side. Hard core kids with dry platinum hair and ripped fishnets pathetically stalked the passive police from their licensed ground, spitting and provoking. “You make me sick! Fucking Pigs! You disgust me!” It was unnecessary and stupid. The girls were ridiculous and unrighteously cocky. The pro-lifers looked at us, the younger of them confused at these unwarranted attacks, the older either amused or quietly dismissive.

At this point I had to leave. My soul hurt and I was hungry. Michelle and I slumped onto picnic chairs on Fisherman’s Wharf. We devoured a clam chowder bread bowl between us. “Fuck” I mumbled, and she nodded her head at the remains of the sourdough on our plate.

Ashtanga is extremely fast paced. There are six series, only one of which I know. It is a breath by breath change, involving lots of pushups and the primary series is all forward bends. The practice is based around a sun salutation, which is more widely known. A sun salutation is a short movement sequence in honor of the sun. It is a vinyasa in Ashtanga and you do one in between each pose.

Ashtanga is not for everyone. It is very athletic and not very therapeutic if there is already something wrong with you. However, it is one of the most preventative yogas. It is referred to as the ultimate health maintenance system. For a month I have practiced Ashtanga with people that have aged, and this is inspiring. They look incredible. It gives one drive, organization, energy and emotional resilience. I am happier than I have ever been after being immersed in this. I do not need to sleep more than 4 hours. My body is resilient. One of my teachers rolled his ankle the other day and because of all the ankle exercises, it just popped right back into place. Crazy stuff. I highly recommend it.

Tripod
Tried to
Untie
My
Top

Big
Bang
Bashed
Braced
Burglar

Sultry
Sanguine
Smiled
Sickly at
Slivers of
Smashed
Sloth

Laughable
Leerer
Lurks
Under
Little
Lies

Pink
Pad for
Pulverized
Pleasantries and
Pleasing Ms. Puny

Rich
Redness
Ruined
Relations
Of Nations

Sandra leered over her pretend prescription glasses, which she wore to intimidate students that she, knew were as smart as her. What rubbish, she thought. Perhaps, though, she should encourage such fanciful nonsense in the spirit of encouraging other humans to fail… hence, bolstering her in the knowledge that no mind which slipped through her fingers would ever reach further than the lowly intellectual depths which Sandra had nuzzled into. "Very nice, Nancy," she said, giving the girl a wink. "I think you’ll go very far."

I am surrounded by light catching objects catching retinae
Telling neurons
Nothing
Someone died a minute ago
In fact, he
Was cut clean down the center with a butter knife,
So that the nerves could scream a while
His idea of truth could linger
But in those minutes he wondered
Died of blood loss.
And he was right to wonder
Should have guessed
He had all there is
And then it ended
A postmodern cop-out
Leaves us embracing
A truth with no conclusion
Where things appear to us and then do not and
How can I sympathize
With what is not here
With ideas and experience
Outside my consciousness
Objections are based on imagination and logic games and
All I know are bright colors
The trembling behind each eyebrow before sleep
The swelling of my own lungs

The realism that Hemingway achieves with his stream-of-consciousness is evident through his stories of everyday life, including the awful parts. He writes of a man dying and thinking about how much he doesn’t love his wife. He writes about a boy who breaks up with his fiancé for no real reason at all, just because he’s not having fun anymore. The lack of melodrama and plot twists feeds each of these stories as a taste of other human’s realities. They are amazing works of art.

There is a theme of “the soldier” throughout the stories. Hemingway was in the Spanish war, and one wonders to what degree these are autobiographical. The war stories, except for a few, are focused on the side effects of war. Now I Lay Me, for example, is a story about a soldier that cannot sleep. It discusses all the things he thinks about instead of sleeping. There is calmness and a reality to avoiding the drama of war that Hemingway achieves. It draws the reader in, placing them next to the insomniac, and thinking of all the fish that they, too, could catch.

Hemingway’s understanding of the female, as he explores it, is that of a boy. His observations are minimal, but very telling of the way that females act around men. This deliberates how concise he can be, as well. For example, in his Up in Michigan, the female protagonist eagerly awaits her crush to return. When they arrive, “Liz hadn’t known just what would happen when Jim got back, but she was sure it would be something. Nothing had happened. The men were just home, that was all. (Hemingway, p.83)” Hemingway was able to capture very true human traits in very few words.

The war stories that actually gave pictures of the war were focused on the death. He even wrote a story called A Natural History of The Dead, which scientifically explains what happens to a body on the battlefield. It’s disgusting. He describes “a half-pint of maggots working where their mouths have been (Hemingway, p.444).” The Quay at Smyrna is also terribly disturbing and confronts the reader with what happens to infants during war… dead infants. Confronting readers with imagery like this shows the truth of war. These are not battle plans, or body counts. This is what it was like for Hemingway to be in the war, on the fields. I think it is truly effective, however unpleasant to read.

Hemingway does a remarkable job of interesting the reader and writing about everyday things that are painful, rather than needing to create them. This man deserves the credit he’s been given.

Bibliography:
Hemingway, Ernest. The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
1927, New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons

Every religion has its own version of revelation. This event of understanding seems to be a commonly discussed phenomenon in most theologies. Christianity calls it "gettin’ the spirit," which is when a person starts speaking in gibberish, known as "tongues" while hearing a sermon. Hinduism describes revelation as Moksha, a communion with the underlying whole called Brahma. A metaphor used to describe Moksha is based on Brahma being an ocean and each of us water balloons. During Moksha, our balloon pops and our water mixes into Brahma, losing separation. Zen Buddhists call it Satori: the point of revelation. This is the first step on their path to transcendence. The southern Native Americans use Paodi and Haijiwaska, both hallucinogens, to induce realization.

Revelation is woefully difficult to explain with words. Emerson attempts to describe the Over-soul as "the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is related; the eternal One." A revelation is the understanding of the Over-soul.

Life before revelation is filled with hints of the Over-soul. When humans look at a flower, before the flower is registered it is felt. The shape, color and smell intoxicate. When humans are touched, there is a part of a second before the brain registers that they

have been touched, and all that is present is the sensation of touch. When humans hear music, before the words are clear, they get a tickle on their spine, this pleasure is the initial impact of the experience. This raw, unidentified sensation is mentally unfiltered experience. The lack of subjective filtering removes separation between the perceiver and the object. These experiences are little hints that point to an underlying truth.

There are several ways that revelation occurs. It can be induced, through logical conclusion or chemical enhancement of the earlier discussed raw sensation. It can also occur through shocking experiences.

Using logic to uncover a fundamental truth that voids logic is a difficult task. The process involves collecting the above-discussed hints and adding them together to form a landscape for exploration. Then the explorer struggles to define what they have discovered. It is discovered that the analytical mind cannot wrap itself around the conclusion that needs to be defined. That stage is a cessation of their logical approach. Laws of truth must be surrendered because it becomes clear that there are none.

Chemical enhancement is another way that people push themselves to connect with fundamental truth. It is a form of disarming the analytical mind in order to digest

such a large concept as a truth that cannot be analyzed. Generally, hallucinogens are chosen for this. The problem with this mode is that the mind has not bypassed logic of its own volition. It has been forced to bypass logic through hormonal release in the brain.

This makes the state of transcendent bliss impermanent and harder to maintain since it was originally reached through drugs.

Shocking experiences such as severe pain or nearly dying can cause revelation. During this experience, the victim sees the self from outside the body, witnessing the event objectively. It’s called an out-of-body-experience. Seeing an event that, subjectively, is traumatizing, from a detached perspective, causes revelation.

The process of revelation has many stages. I will describe several. It begins with a sense of unity or interconnectedness, as if everything is a part of everything and there is no separation between a nose in China and a table in Britain.

This leads to disorientation. Disorientation is the state reached once it is realized that a nose is the ceiling is the air, which is the entire continent of Africa. There are no bearings any more because everything is everything. That means that every distinction made in order to affirm existence of the individual in relation to the existence of others does not exist, and therefore there is no other or individual.

Once there is no otherness, an assumption on which conventional human priorities, rules, and morals is based: meaning, ceases to exist. Meaning, an entirely subjective concept, is obliterated along with subjectivity. Subjectivity cannot exist without the individual because subjectivity means based on individual perception.

Once meaning, individuality and subjectivity are gone, which is entirely disorienting, fear seizes. The loss of individuality means the loss of entitihood, which is the basis of society’s consensual reality. Sartre described this state of terror as "Sartre’s Nausea." It is revulsion at the insignificance everything regarded as significant and makes a person

physically nauseous with adrenalin when they look at the floor and fundamentally understand that there is no difference between it and their mind.

Existentialism was developed to aid the acceptance of revelation. This is the biggest challenge, but can be achieved. Once the revelation is accepted, universal perspective is all that’s left. The understanding that nothing means anything particular because everything is the same makes existence easier because there is no investment in events. Everything simply occurs. Once this perspective is achieved, a fundamental peace is reached, often referred to as enlightenment or bliss.

A revelation is humbling and incommunicable. "We are nothing, but the light is all," states Emerson in his Over-soul essay. An underlying reassurance of meaninglessness takes the place of comfort in meaning. If nothing means anything, there is no need to take any action. Maintaining investments in material and circumstantial things is a necessary conviction for existence on the practical plain. Keeping investments in perspective based on the lesson of revelation will maintain bliss through the practical plane.

A revelation is an event in which the individual transcends individuality. It is a phenomenon discussed throughout spiritual disciplines. Such a moment can be caused in many ways. The process of revelation is often rocky and has many stages. The last stage, if reached, is fundamental peace. After a revelation, a fundamental understanding of emptiness accompanies the individual through reality. Revelation is the moment when attachment to the finite ends and acceptance of the infinite begins. Maintaining that acceptance is the challenge.

Her thin arms reach to me sometimes
I always think she wants to take me
But all she ever wants is another cup of tea

I make soothing tea for her
My step mother taught me the recipe to help with colds,
But I use it for everything
I think it’s the cayenne pepper
That gives it enough spice

I look at her when she sleeps
Which is seldom
Her eyelashes curl upwards
She looks very calm when she is asleep

I have an eyelash curler
Sometimes, when I don’t pay attention
I pinch my eyelash in the clamps
And my eyes water
Which makes it hard to put mascara on

She’s the only person that I let smoke in my room
I assume that she needs it
When all the happiness that she witnesses
Is in spite of her
And she sees a lot of happiness here
I have a lot of it
So I let her smoke
Because I’m not concerned about her health

I heard a little while ago
That cigarette filters have shards of fiberglass
That shoot into your throat and make it easier to absorb nicotine

I told death this
She shook her head and laughed.
It was not a happy laugh
She continued to smile at me, hazy
It must be strange
I wonder if
She fears herself

I wonder about her past
And her feelings
About what she’s seen and how she can just sit there
In my comfy chair
That’s probably why she can just sit there, though
Why do anything else
When everything ends in you

We got drunk once.
Well, I was drunk
She was “relaxed”
She told me there was a pincushion inside her diaphram
When I asked what the hell she was talking about
She shook her head
And gave me that smile again

"That shiny-shoed shite," a developer from the South who would be known as a "carpet bagger" here, is buying up all the property about The Lobster Pot in order to build a hotel. The Lobster Pot already has a bad rap. The older generation of village boys hang out here. These are a never-ending cycle of hard Irish Catholic thugs who have claimed the streets and pubs of Strangford throughout generations. They will all do what their fathers have done for generations, whether it be brick laying or fishing. The village is their only home. The occasional socialist mills about in there as well, playing pool in the room above, drunk as the Irish are said to be… night after night. This is known as the more corporate establishment in the square. There is a nice restaurant adjoining it, and swanky red chairs at the bar. I have never had their lobster.

The Cuan is a chippy (French-fry fast food place) and a pub. The heating is too intense and makes the drinking atmosphere uncomfortable. Their chips are revolting. They have a lovely dish called chilly chips that resembles diarrhea… the Irish kind. The owners are a nice couple that both take yoga lessons from my aunt and have very funny pictures on their business cards. Their pub food is delicious and the waitresses are friendly. Mostly families and married couples in their thirties frequent this place, while all the kids crowd the chippy next door. The heat is really too much in the winter, though.

The Hole in The Wall is the pub where any logical young adult goes. It is just a pub, nothing else. It is not a family establishment. There are round tables and mirrors on the walls. The bartender is a hard Northern Irish woman whose son went to school with my cousin. She always looks at me suspiciously because I’m not from Strangford.

The Irish have surprising taste in alcohol. It’s depressing, actually. My family thinks Budweiser is a special American Import Beer. In the pubs they all drink Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort, to my great dismay. They even drink a lot of Mexican beer, and some have a taste for TEQUILA! That is one alcohol that I never suspected to come across in Ireland, seeing as my cousins didn’t know what corn chips were when they came over here. Odd, the whole thing. There are the Irish that like their Guinness. There are the Irish that like their Jameson… but they are few and hard to come by.

Strangford is very sweet. It is not quite chintzy enough to be a Hallmark Irish town, but it’s small enough that if Hallmark made Northern Irish cards, it would be on there. Each night people make their rounds to all three pubs, or some are part of one pub and will not touch the others. Either way, everyone is very set in how they go about their night. It’s lovely, really. The Irish are some of the more fascinating people. I will never understand the Southern Comfort, though. Ich.

"I’m not a thinker. Every woman is different. Basically, they seem to be a combination of the best and the worst – both magic and terrible. I’m glad that they exist, however. (Bukowski, Women, p.188)

Charles Bukowski’s novel Women is a sick, sick story of hopeless sexual compulsion. His honesty addicts you and his characters repulse you.

It is 300 pages of the alcoholic womanizing poet Henry Chinaski. He devours disturbed woman after disturbed woman, hating himself, but justifying his actions with philosophical arguments. I suppose it is essentially a study of the female sex through a scumbag’s eyes. He does everything from sleep with his dead friend’s wife, to pick up a whore in an airport while waiting for a woman that he’d never even met. He declares it as research: heartless, objective research; but doesn’t stand very firm in this conviction.

The sex scenes, which pretty much make up the book, are enough to make one either vomit or never want to engage in sexual activity again. Chinaski is over 50 and his women are mostly younger than 25. Ick. "I tinkered with lives and souls as if they were my play things (…) A murderer was more straightforward and honest than I was. Or a rapist (236)." he admits in a crisis.

From the above review, no one would want to put themselves through this, but I loved it. I was addicted. Couldn’t get enough. It was disturbing, really. I felt nauseous every time I picked it up, but there is a raw honesty to his writing that drew me in. His philosophical musings are not only funny but also remarkably poignant and applicable. When speaking of casual sex, he says: "People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lack the ability to feel or to love. So they became swingers. The dead fucking the dead (250)."

This piece made me feel free. Chinaski’s careless, hopeless, sadistic but anguished behavior confirms that there is no behavior code and his women’s reactions confirm that there is no end to human tolerance. This is comforting, in a strange way. There is always further to fall. Even an old, reclusive, ugly jerk can have women on their knees.

Bibliography:

Bukowski, Charles. "Women". Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press. 1998.