Gone with the Wind

couldn't quite make up my mind how to read andrei codrescu's 'war questions & answers in montreal' . delighted by 'two desert monks encounter the christ of happiness, christina'

How come Issue02 renders so much better than the latest one, issue #3 ?

anyway, Tony Tost's words on 'wartime questions & answers' are more or less in line with the aftertaste i got from my bite.

But moments like this, and the brief but vibrant poem called "opera later," are rare; more common is "wartime questions & answers in montreal," where Codrescu presents himself as the nicotine-stained drinking buddy of The Truth, offering little else than the rightness of his personal opinions.

it might be a good idea to branch off my conservative religious sermon to raph's private virgule . I'll sleep on that possibility.

my shadow twin-brother godzilla send me a sign quite divine. i shall propogate his good deed and word here. its title is 'Attach of the Crab Monsters'

Attack of the Crab Monsters
- Lawrence Raab

Even from the beach I could sense it --
lack of welcome, lack of abiding life,
like something in the air, a certain
lack of sound. Yesterday
there was a mountain out there.
Now it's gone. And look

at this radio, each tube neatly
sliced in half. Blow the place up!
That was my advice.
But after the storm and the earthquake,
after the tactic of the exploding plane
and the strategy of the sinking boat, it looked

like fate and I wanted to say, "Don't you see?
so that if you are a famous biochmist!
Lost with all hands is an old story."
sure, we're on the edge
of an important breakthrough, everyone
hearing voices, every falling

into caves, and you're out
wandering through the jungle
in the middle of the night in your negligee.
Yes, we're way out there
on the edge of science, while the rest
of the island continues to disappear until

nothing's left except this
cliff in the middle of the ocean,
and you, in your bathing suit,
crouched behind the scuba tanks.
I'd like to  tell you
not to be afrad, but I've lost

my voice. I'm not used to all these
legs, these claws, these feelers.
It's the old story, predicatble
as fallout--the rearrangement of molecules.
And everyone is surprised
and no one understands

why each man tries to kill
the thing he loves, when the change
comes over him. So now you know
what I never found the time to say.
Sweetheart, put down your flamethrower
You know I always loved you.

Ma Jian, aspires to be the Colin Wilson of China, his story 'Stick out your furry tongue or fuck-all" was published in early 1987 in a double issue of People's Literature, one of China's most prestigious literary journals. In late February, the story and its publishers were denounced for Bourgelib. Liu Xinwu, the newly-appointed editor-in-chief of People's Literature, was suspended from his job and forced to make a self-criticism. The People's Daily criticism was couched in the following terms:

"Stick Out Your Furry Tongue, or Fuck-all" uses the first person narrator to scavenge strange news and odd occurrences in Tibet. The narrator purposefully employs the most lurid language to distort the reality of life in the Tibetan region. He defames the image of our Tibetan compatriots, at the same time revealing his own complexes: an infatuation with sexual desire and a passion for money. This story is a piece of vulgar filth masquerading as 'experimental' fiction... [ The editor of People's Literature] have realized that to publish such a work is a serious breach of Party and State policies on national minorities and religion, as well as the fact that it has seriously offended the feelings of Tibetan compatriots and harmed the fraternal unity of the minorities. It represents an abandonment of the socialist direction in the arts, and has had a most negative effect, with repercussions that will be hard to eliminate. In reality, it is the result of Bourgelib and other erroneous ideologies being allowed to spread unchecked..."

--Anonymous poster:
So professor, what do you think of "the initiation" and its controversial all that...?

--Scholar:
> religion should not be used glorify torture and suffering
>

> in any case, I am not a religious person, only one who wants
> to know the mythology and history behind religion

--Poster:
I bet the writer Ma Jian who wrote 'sticking out your furry tongue or fuck-all' is not a religious person. This is one of my difficulty. I find that whoever truly practice religion, the practice day in and day out cultivate humility which can not be substitute by any other creative human endeavour which tends to glorify anything that they do. Woudln't you agree with that to some extend?

i am not raised in religious household at all. but i find that some of the most enduring human relationships are built upon religion practices. For un-religious crowd, the glorification about religion are mostly their own making for their own gratification of control upon other fellow human beings. And of course, there are individuals come to the shelter of religion for their own shortcomings or inherit positions sitting on top of religious order, which may bring the temple down with their ill-fated personality but religion lives even if temples are tramped...

Besides who suffered more, Michael Jackson or Sangsang Tashi? somehow, i don't believe Sangsang's ending in the fiction is worse than Michael Jackson or any other Pop stars on our reality shows...

then there is the other side of argument that Western world always pointed their fingers at Chinese society or Singapore for that matter: the freedom of 'glorification', a.k.a. mass media broadcasting.

"Ma Jian's story was published in early 1987 in a double issue of People's Literature, one of China's most prestigious literary journals. In late February, the story and its publishers were denounced for Bourgelib. Liu Xinwu, the newly-appointed editor-in-chief of People's Literature, was suspended from his job and forced to make a self-criticism..."

Do you think Dalai Lama would protest Chinese governement's suppression of freedom of speech in this case?

What about the glorification on human rights? To which end, human rights shall be humbled so that unamed rights will lead us all to unforseen divine ends?