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The Right One Is Living Truth

July 5, 2009 by fredericerk

The greatest journey begins with a smile

The greatest journey begins with a smile (Artwork by Y. Gilbert)

— Watson! Wake up! The hunt is on. I have seen her.

With these words, Sherlock Holmes, my dear friend, left my sleeping room. Her? Lady Frances Carfax? No, another woman, certainly, or Holmes would not have been so upset, as he has outmost care not to entertain romantic illusions with women.

Who indeed is the Right One? The woman who could transform the day of Sherlock Holmes, push the heir of Caesar to building waterways for the city of Arles, or climb the most dangerous summit in the world, not to claim her, but just for the sake of her.

Like the White Wale, Moby Dick, the Right One is pursuing Man from the origins of times. Perhaps it was for Her that men began to walk, to conquer and went to war. There are some men who are spared the deep anguish of those two eyes peering into your heart, so kind they are, and yet like Heaven you would need to build how many towers of Babel to conquer?

Salvador de Madariaga wrote about Hernan Cortès a marvelous line. The Conquest, and how the Conqueror was conquered by his conquest. To me the Right One is indeed a land to be discovered, and not conquered, as the power of Man is not in the conquest, but in the building of a new generation by securing and restoring peace. As the Lord King Arthur when he is riding to the final battle, he is bringing the trees of his kingdom to bloom with his royal blood.

The story of the Right One is about a Land of Marvels, which cannot be approached without entering traitorous channels and fighting stubborn winds. Those defenses have not been brought upon by hostility or devious schemes. Those defenses are but the reflections of Man own demons. The greatest challenge to Man is to conquer himself, so that he can be conquered in peace.

Even to the most stubborn man, the most cynical one, there will be a moment of grace when the Right One is entering their life. Like a comet of fire and ice who is crossing Heaven, it will bring the stern alarum of men to fidget and die. Such is the power of the Right One.

Albert Camus wrote that his secret was in a valley, under dead flowers and that this secret was the essence of his soul. My secret is somewhere in the world, working too much, and the most insignificant detail of her life would become a charming tale to my ears. As if my world had been shaken loose, all pieces of my everyday life are like a puzzle, and she has become the key to that harmony. The Right One is the Great Undoer and yet as the waters of the Nile, she is the one bringing life and hope.

Man has conquered the poles, but there is one pole of inaccessibility, which is forever a legend to men. To some, it has been like the climbing of Everest on a good day, something of a combination of luck and daring, and most dangerous if those men don’t understand that the real danger is upon them now. Because in receiving lies more danger than in giving away. So that there are really two Paths open to Men in Love.

The second approach is like climbing the North Face. And the Right One is the ultimate reward. And yet, once conquered, with a landscape of rocks and clouds, what is left of the magic moment of the climbing? Only the real lover understands that the Right One has multiple faces, of Anger and of Sorrow, of Pleasure and of Contempt. It is the climbing which transforms both the climber and the mountain, giving value and purpose to both of them.

The Right One is spanning multiple dimensions, of time and space. My heart is beating a little more, and my running is more difficult, as my soul has grown out. My eyes have the penetrating gaze of the Beholder, as if I had to observe twice, or examine with more attention a world, which has remained so much the same, and yet which is transformed now that I know the Right One is there.

To R.E. Howard the Right One was eternal and yet singular, as if the hunt had been on for ages, as if all my ancestors had fought and looked for that ultimate moment of reconciliation with the soul mate. Yes, of reconciliation, because the Right One is not conquered, it is loved for the sake of her. Men betray themselves with the vanity of possession and the cruel illusion of sexuality, but this is because they are afraid to admit that they are expanding their ego in the void.

The Right One is and remains a totemic figure, combining the tenderness of the Mother, the complicity of the Sister and the loveliness of a Spring morning, as Sun is illuminating dew in the glen of a forest. To Dante it was the haunting figure of a young woman of Florence to whom he dedicated his life, as she died at 22. The Right One is devastating as you know intimately that she is here to reveal the man you truly are beyond the veil of appearances.

Old or young, rich or poor, crippled, coward or hero, the Right One will reveal the true man who is hiding beneath the appearances you have so carefully erected.Burn what you have adored, and Adore what you have burned. And the marvelous thing is that the Right One is innocent. Unlike a Pagan God who requires sacrifices, the Right One is for everyone without any distinction, of race, religion, fortune or education.

Let us learn about the true happiness of two poor people, man and woman, but whose love has built the most marvelous palace to shelter them. In that night of rain and of thunder, they will remain entwined and even if gurgling water will reach their feet, they will rejoice and share the smile of complicity.

Why poor? Alas, Reader, because in terms of love, there can be only poor people. Do you really believe that the rich ones will care about incandescent gold, when the loved one is at stake? Gold will become dull, and cold. Love is the great principle upon which the world has been built, and the very principle which is violated.

You may object that my conception of the Right One is the one of a Dreamer. What is a Dream if it is not continuity of our Life? It is because we are dreaming that we are alive. And no, I am not a Dreamer. The Right One is not a Dream, but a Reality, which is escaping the narrow Diktat of statistics. There is no technology to chart that Land of Her.

The Path to Her are changing, and yet you cannot get lost as long as your heart is walking in harmony with Hers. Words are not exchanged, but engraved. To reach for Her is marvelously simple, as is Pre-Socratic mathematics when Philosophers challenged the world with a simple wood stick, or the observation of a shadow moving in the depth of a well. There is no strategy, as you cannot win, or lose. There can be only a marvelous recapitulation in the sense of the Holy Scriptures.

Simplicity is the Art of Understanding. Simplicity is the language of the Right One. Details are not necessary, even if simplicity has its own challenges. When you see a child running, it sounds so simple, so natural. And yet the neuronal network would highlight Times Square for a thousand years. Like the hand of Hokusai, that simple line of China ink on paper must represent a whole world.

Life eventually becomes a line connecting the multiple levels of Nature, from the Origins to the Future, a prefiguration of Cosmos. From the spiral of DNA to cognitive recapitulation, the circle has been drawn as Soul Mates unite.

I love you. This sounds so simple to say, but to the Right One it is more than a simple line of text from a dilettante, it is an act of faith. Let us change that Cogito Ergo Sum which is so dreary into a I Love So I am. Beyond words, I Love You has all the marvelous simplicity of a gift freely given to the Right One.

So Who is the Right One? She is the One who is bringing flowers to bloom as she is walking the green meadow of your heart. Both inspiring and unchallenging, She is pregnant with the totemic duality of the Eternal and Unique. To reach for Her is to engage yourself in a Journey with your Fathers and Mothers proudly singing the Fairness and Fundamental Goodness of the World.

She has the equivocal beauty of Botticelli’s Primavera, She is truly part of the cycle, of Cosmos, between the cold of a deep sleep, to the Renaissance of hope and fruitful delivery of Summer, lest time is come for sleep again in the glory of Automn.

The Right One is Living Truth.

And as Richard Llewellyn wrote so magnificently, the Right One is both salvation and fulfillment in a time of goodness:

But you have gone now, all of you, that were so beautiful when you were quick with life. Yet not gone, for you are still a living truth inside my mind. How Green is my Valley, then, and the Valley of them that have gone.

FREDERIC W. ERK

Posted in Essays, Myths | Tagged , | 1 Comment »

The Secret Life of Perpetual Movement

July 4, 2009 by fredericerk

Salvador Dali used to clean his bathroom with obsessive attention, meaning that he spent half the time breaking bottles of expensive perfume of his wife Gala, and half the time getting mad, which eventually led to breaking the remaining bottles.

It may sound arrogant, and it certainly is because there is no expensive Chanel bottles to break in my bathroom, yet I have this obsessive streak of character when the going gets tough, meaning I will spend hours on my knees carefully cleaning the floor of my home, from 17th century fireplace to the more recent royal oak of my library.

There is nothing like kneeling when your mind is suffering. Perhaps it is the genuflection with its therapeutic Christian symbolism. Perhaps it is what the Shakespearian characters would call the Right Altitude. But being on your knees introduces a wonderful change of perspective, so that Babushkas of Moscow subway can rejoice, they are indeed closer to Heaven than we are.

And yet even if generations of Samurai have advertised the genuflection as a ritual of survival, their sturdy legs and shorter stature have certainly contributed to supporting that ordeal. But Europeans are a proud people, marching to the sound of the gun, as true heir of the Greeks, who marched to battle in close formation, and full battle gear. This prevented the rational Greek to seek salvation in a hasty retreat. So that the eternal question remains unanswered. Are human wars a consequence of battle dress, as two hosts of naked men fighting to death would be a pleasant sight of shaking parts?

To any person deeply depressed I can also recommend going to the local supermarket. Of course the Euro-skeptical would argue, not without reason, that with the Euro, the buying power of Europeans has gone down the drain, but this journey is really worth taking for anyone interested in human nature.

As I was driving to that dreaded place on a Saturday late afternoon, I pondered essential issues of a man, like “What does it mean, the Right One?” or “Why on earth have American Cowboys that obsession to kill everybody, burn everything, and then cry and rebuild?” As I reflected upon those essential questions, I marveled at my ability to avoid the ballistic missiles of motorcycles, familial vans, and scooters.

So that slowly an idea emerged from that opera of fury and fastidiousness, and this idea is that perpetual movement is ruling the world of today. The question is not to know where we are going, but never to stop. Of course, there is no need to be a genius to understand that a youth spending his afternoon turning around a piazza, or a familial van shuttling from home to town, back and forth in repetition of a day at work, while the motorcyclists are a wonderful display by themselves. Clockwork precision, and same trajectory, so that there is no need for a watch.

Perpetual movement, what an incredible achievement, so much more impressive than the Einstein relativity theory, there is no need for explanation, or reason, the movement finds justification in its own movement. And politicians, engineers, scientists have perfectly understood that perpetual movement is ruling the world. Just listen to what they promise, what our inventions represent, or what our scientific breakthrough contribute to. With every new generation of iPod we are closer to the umbilical connection. With politicians we are entering the marvelous world of the perpetual change while nothing really is ever changing, hence the beauty of the game.

The true beauty of perpetual movement is that it keeps reinventing itself. Just ask your mother about the latest scientific breakthrough. She will listen in silence, and flatly nail the coffin of progress with a scornful “I already knew that as I was ten.”

The greatest purpose of any artist, beyond the securing of a sponsorship and above-average sexual services, has the beauty of the belly dancer approaching the farting finale. Yes, artists know how to point out that marvelous great wave of change like Hokusai represented it, always on the verge of engulfing us, but lo! we are still waiting. The world of Kubrick was about a bone pirouette in space, becoming a waltz of space shuttles. No, our story is about a bone pirouette, but which keeps on coming back at us.

Like the circle figure of the Yin and the Yang, in perpetual motion of completion, our society has designed a marvelous symphony of endless pirouettes. Rock is not so much music but rediscovering the art of smashing things. Classic music will always lead to invading a poorer neighboring country. And pop has the dramatic promise of a woman bringing you to the shore of a river, while you slowly realise she is a travesty.

Like a military parade, caddies are loaded and unloaded with their lot of happy or crying children, single parents with the eyes of a killer, while couples keep on grazing shoulders as if they were afraid to fall. As Hell is nothing but repetition, going to the supermarket is a wonderful reminder of how little money you have, of how hateful toys really are, and how depressing it is to see old women taking on vigilantes for a free knife offered for every part of cheese.

The supermarket is the true symbol of our society, all ages and social conditions shown in various positions with a caddie, some walking briskly as they have little money, others strolling the alleys for dog food as if it was a Cartier jewelry. It is also a huge victory of Homo Sapiens as the combined calculation power and projection statistics in terms of economics would humble a super computer. You want to introduce real changes in society, begin with the supermarket!

Perpetual movement has its own right, and even more so in that arena of consumption. Some families face the crisis with the stoic attitude of a Spartan. The darker the skies, the better we will fight on. As in Berlin in 1945, there should be slogans like “We will never surrender!” And considering the number of people with military dresses, from women with a rather ridiculous battle dress of black boots and short skirts, to men with heavy boots and green camouflage trousers, this is a reminder that we are fighting in Afghanistan.

The origins of perpetual movement can be found in our spiritual belief of God regularly cleansing Earth, and yet every new mankind keeps on walking in circles from Paradise to Hell. Certainly we are missing the perspective of a new life in a colony of Space, as we are the heir of conquerors and walkers. They used to keep on walking whatever happened, there was always another dawn, another mountain, another new frontier. J.R.R Tolkien told us about the sad story of the proud people of Numenor which could not conquer Death, and whose life span did not stop getting shorter, generation after generation.

Now that it is so trendy to be concerned with Planet Earth getting hot, we keep on inventing sophisticated ways of moving in circles, but there is no alternative really. Replace the European circle of stars with the symbol of recycling and you will have the same end result. From a people of inventors, of discoverers, we have become a people of recyclers. Diplomas are printed on recycled paper and will self-destruct like a parody of James Bond. But we shall be cautious, because generation after generation is digging more and more deeply, as perpetual movement is about Death too.

Death is not the final point, but the great Journey which shall begin anew. Our cells are constituted of atomic elements and matter, which have been forged in the deepest recesses of stars long extinguished. Because even stars contribute to the eternal movement, so that our life is but a spark compared to the recycling power of the universe.

As I drove home, I could not help but thinking about that Cathedral of Sainte Sophie, recycled in the Mosque of Istanbul with the adjunction of additional minarets. And how the stones of the Mosque are the stones with which the Romans built their monuments, before Emperor Constantine destroyed those monuments to use the stones for his new capital city. So that the very bones of that holy place are made of stones, assembled for Pagan rites, then Christian, and eventually Muslim. Architects have indeed a talent for recycling, as if a house could be anything else but walls, floor and windows. No, no, let us speculate: it is not a house, but a cavern. Hmm.

FREDERIC W. ERK

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The Crusade of Peter the Weaver (Part I)

July 4, 2009 by fredericerk

That evening, Peter the Weaver came directly to his desolate home. And his wife was surprised and happy to see him coming home earlier than usual. But she found him so brooding and dark that she dared not ask why, lest she received a reprimand.

The youngest child of Peter ran to him, and put his arms around his legs. The father put him on his lap, and let out a long painful cry, and said:

— My poor dear wife, we must decide, we are too sorry with all this story. I feel I am getting mad. I cannot help, but the more I try, the more I feel sorry.

So the fearful wife answered:

— I believe you must go to see the priest. He will tell you how to get free of that burden.

Peter gravely put the child down, and went out somberly.

As he walked past the home of John the Logger, he saw the beautiful Gillette, his wife, at the window, laughing to the stupid things a dumb archer was telling her, so full he was of himself.

Peter just kept on walking, but his fists were like hammers, and his hat was low on his brow.

It was time to take on this situation, as it jeopardised not only his peace on earth, but also his salvation in Heaven.

In the silence of the confessional, he acknowledged his sin and told how the Devil had put him in his sorry state of desolation. So the Priest told him as penitence to employ the hours of temptation to pray the Lord.

But Peter the Weaver left his head hang.

— The Devil is pursuing me at all the hours of the day. And if I pray the whole day, my wife and children will die out of hunger.

So the Priest saw the danger of this predicament, and decided to appeal to a higher authority. He told Peter that about an eremite who was rumored to be inspired by God, and had the power to heal both illness of body and soul.

So Peter began his journey to meet the eremite. He walked for a long time under heavenly sky; over the lower plains, he went by mills, chapels and towers. In a little hamlet, a man told him about the pilgrim who had come back from Jerusalem. The man showed his where he could listen to the holy traveler. Peter went there.

Hence he learned that the holy man had preached in the church of the village, and that three women and five men had abandoned everything to follow him. Because they had understood that nothing was left for them in their homes, now that only the words of God mattered. Peter asked for the direction and soon he was walking briskly.

As he was crossing a field, he saw peasants gazing upwards, and lo! near the sun, indeed there were huge white clouds. And the peasants crossed themselves, as Peter knelt, crying:

— A cross in the sky! A cross!

As he lowered his gaze, he believed he could see the splendid face of Giselle laughing openly to his folly. He spat for her, and then contrite, crossed himself.

He reached a big village where the holy man had been staying for three days. So he learned that he could expect to listen to his preaching in the town’s church.

The holy man appeared on a donkey. He was holding a crucifix in his hand. His feet and his head were covered with dust, but he did not seem to care. His clothes were all scratched leaving his shoulder and knees for all to see.

As he lowered himself from his donkey, men flocked around him. A woman pulled some hair from his hair to make a relic out of them. The eremite didn’t care and entered the church.

He spoke. And his words were like purifying fire and incandescent gold to the crowd, and instead of burning, it elevated their souls to the wings of heavenly archangels, so they were carried across rivers and mountains to the Land of Eternal Glory where the Son of Man, in Jerusalem, Gate to Heaven.

From this very country the eremite was back to tell his brothers about what he had seen. How the Holy Sepulcher was subjected to all the miseries only profanatory mishandling and beastly destruction could provide. So, he said, are we going to let the Saviour suffer a second time? No, not until his voice and life would be gone. And as he talked he was lacerating his chest.

And Peter in the shadow of that church replied to himself:

— Yes… Leave everything… And go to Him and for Him, the One for whom it is right to leave everything.

The eremite with his outstretched arms called upon himself the help of the Saints and Angels, while the Mountain of Sion, the Calvary and the Olive Mount were crying out their misery. Peter the Weaver closed his eyes. And there they were, the Angels who commanded him to go. And Providence would care for them, open rivers and seas, while food would come from Heaven.

He came back to his village; his pale wife waited for him. His children were pale too from hunger, and as they ran to him, they believed he came back with a treasury. But so he announced:

— I have seen the priest and the eremite, and in Heaven I have seen the Cross. I know what I have to do. Perhaps Christ himself will lead me. But I have to abandon you. Because he is the One for whom it is right to abandon everything.

His wife cried out in anguish, and tried to close the door to him. He walked to the window and left his gaze wander to the house of Gillette, so inviting, so damned and so well known to him. And his wife then said:

— We will go together with the two older children. The newborn will remain here with grandmother.

The priest agreed upon the project. And soon the whole village was filled with the news of his departure. Many gifts were given and soon Peter could build a solid charriot. Food was stuffed into it. And the day of departure was eventually announced.

Jehanne took her new born and carried him to her mother. Peter was considering his home as Gillette walked by, and laughed:

— With all the devils you have

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Christ Stopped at Eboli

July 2, 2009 by fredericerk

Adapted from the autobiography of Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli (Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, 1979) is a masterpiece by Francesco Rosi. This is the story of Dottore Carlo Levi’s eviction to the poorest part of Italy as penitence to his political views against Mussolini. The arrival of Carlo Levi in a provincial town will reveal the exploitation of a rural population by the local bourgeoisie which is dedicated to fascist doctrine. It is also the tale of Italy as a land of two countries: Northern Italy and the government of Rome, and Southern Italy with men crossing the Atlantic to America.

The subject is not new, and we can recall the Taviani brothers’ attempt to explain the hard life of Italian farmers in Padre Padrone, but Francesco Rosi is using a remarkable combination of effects to build a very realistic picture of social life, which goes beyond the portrait or the denunciation.

Building the Legend. Gian Maria Volonte as Carlo Levi

Building the Legend. Gian Maria Volonte as Carlo Levi

The colors are marvelous with tones of sepia, brown and blue, while women are dressed in black, as if life there was always a matter of death. Tradition is to leave the black ribbons of Death on the porticos of homes, until they disintegrate by themselves, so that Time is really here the great Un-doer from fast floods carrying away the main Piazza and its Cathedral to the slow demise of seasons.

Great attention is given to music and lyrics, so different from Northern frivolities, and already pregnant with Arabic consonance.

Gian Maria Volonte finds here the true romantic character he always longed for since the days of Uomini contro, another drama by Francesco Rosi. He is a delicate and sophisticated Dottore always reminding his patients that he has no practical experience of medicine. Carlo Levi is a man of few words, something so rare among intellectuals. He spends most of his day marching from the city to the cemetery, beyond which he cannot go by order of the government.

This walk in company of a dog he adopted is a marvelous way to show the life of women at work, as all men in working age have gone to America. Remain only some shepherds, two doctors with no patients, and the local city governor, a fascist.

Irene Papas is again stretching that invisible border of womanhood only Greek women can cross without turning native. She is a marvelous woman nursing her many children, as she has been through seventeen pregnancies. She will refuse to the end that Carlo Levi paint a portrait of her, as it would rob her soul, so she pretends.

Very interesting is also the complex relationship between Carlo Levi and the local Fascist authority impersonated by Don Luigi Magalone. Both are treading softly and taking care, and yet Carlo Levi slowly builds the momentum of Righteousness based on his approach to the local population, which Magalone despises.

Thus the discourse in glory of the soldiers at war in Ethiopia becomes a cruel statement of the discrepancy and hollowness of political words compared to the facts that Italy can only lose at war. The story of the destruction of the Melfi becomes an allegory of the upcoming fate of Fascist Italy.

Francesco Rosi also displays his contempt for the arch-enemies of fascism, which are anarchy and communism. As other political prisoners are located nearby, Carlo Levi will eventually meet them, and there is really no need for silence, as they have nothing to tell. They just nod, but Rosi is already portraying the future legacy of violence left by Mussolini, which leaves no room to humanism.

Perhaps it could be objected that the theatricality of the movie does in the end deserve the power of its purpose, and the mystical aura of Gian Maria Volonte becomes quite embarrassing, considering that Francesco Rosi wants to portray the sorry state of rural peasantry.

It is a movie you will never forget as some images are so powerful. The disheveled priest has extraordinary power. Celebration of Christmas becomes a humanistic appeal to peace, and also quite unexpectedly a manner to display his utter contempt for a people of goats and bandits, who have never been visited by the love of God.

FREDERIC W. ERK

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Liberty, Inequality, Fraternity

July 2, 2009 by fredericerk

With statistics, it is like being a child again, as you never know what will come out of that magician’s hat. The French people love statistics. In the land of Colbert there is a strong tradition for designing sophisticated plans for economy and education, the kind of which requires a master degree to understand, or perhaps it is just that – nothing to understand, a kind of national humor for good jokes.

Colbert was Minister to Louis XIV, which in itself is already something of a performance. Being a Minister in Finances to a King used to eating for hours, killing horses by riding them to exhaustion, and chasing girls in his Palace, while avoiding piss pots and other human waste – with a French acronym as Pot de Chambre. So that being Minister to that King would have been similar to lecturing the Borgia on ecology and greenhouse effect.

And yet Colbert did exceptionally well as he was perhaps the first to understand that France needed economic plans to develop and support its economy. Colbert really constructed the working basis for a modern France with a strong central power in Paris. Of course every time someone has reformed France and brought it to modernity, that effort has been spoiled with that tendency to invade other countries as if modernity and restructuring had that impact on national psychology.

As I was reading the latest polls in France about the widening gap between the super rich and the blissfully poor ones, I could not help but imagining that History of France has been a succession of highs and lows between glory and despair as a consequence of economics, national grandeur and demography.

The French people are indeed one of the most prolific in terms of birth rate. With almost three children for a woman, statistics are showing us a future France with a larger population than, say, Germany. The tragedy of all this is that every demographic explosion in history of France has been followed by dramatic events, either war or pestilence.

The Gaul invaded Italy and Greece as their strong numbers required some exercise of their limbs. They overwhelmed the Greeks and came back with funny stories. With the Romans they had a good time running after the Roman legionaries who fled in disarray the first time they saw those naked guys wielding swords larger than an average Roman.

In 1789 it was a rare combination of bad harvests, financial crisis and exploding demography, which pushed the French people to a costly Revolution. Twenty years later, trees of Liberty bloomed all over Europe, as a telltale sign that the Blue soldiers of the French Republic had left a trail of modernity, notwithstanding the fathering of many children. As Napoleon coldly stated, the true power of France is in its capacity to regenerate itself in bedrooms.

In spite of three Revolutions, with the remarkable communist attempt of 1870, which later inspired Lenin and Trotsky, France has remained at heart a country profoundly conservative, where the bourgeoisie is flattering itself with sending its children to private schools where they are lectured about taking on French populace. And yet, as statistics clearly show, it is the poor people who are having most of the children, so that inevitably, the bourgeoisie is facing another Revolution in this century.

Perhaps this Revolution will not be one with lots of guillotine gore, but certainly its premises are shown in the cultural gap between the bourgeoisie, either of the conservative Right, or the well-meaning Left Socialist Party, both of which are sailing to their final destination, as the new France is about solid results and social justice, something the bourgeoisie has not yet grasped, as it is talking itself to death with fake polls and analysis of French grandeur.

The future of France will be something good for Europe, as culturally speaking, France has been the only one to really take on issues like abortion, education and divorce. This future of France will be so different from anything other countries can provide. Germany is sleeping, and it is well so, because everyone knows that Germany cannot awake without invading Poland. Italy is pursuing an incredible feat of decadence for about twenty centuries, and yet that decadence has beautiful Art and Spirit, so we need it. Great Britain has a problem of arithmetics, as it should really try to row its island to the continental United States, so much has been lost of the British excellence due to Tony Blair populism and waste of talent.

So what is wrong with France? Why is it that on paper we seem to have so many things for us, while in reality we perform like our national football team, with eleven old men pushing a ball like handicapped goalkeepers?

What is wrong is that the most dangerous jobs, physically speaking, are the least well paid. Clearly this is very wrong. We know that the dream of a German is to drive a desk, but a Frenchman has more substantial expectations. We have strong genetics with manual work. Not meaning that we are from the Planet of the Apes, but that we have that feeling of transforming our environment. Agriculture, construction, research, literature, all this is manual work, yes, including Art. Of course this does not apply to our subsidized French artists, who are our French equivalent to the political commissaries of the former Soviet Union, Invalids.

The French is a people of explorers, of farmers, of wine makers, of painters, of lovers, we need that romantic drive to push us forward. Sadly the bourgeoisie has a historical mission to manage that French drive and channel its energy into the death rows of unemployment office and fake university diplomas. Instead of solid experience we are now a nation of invalids with papers instead of scars, and dirty hands. What is our National anthem about? Yes, it is about impure blood to be spilled on our fields.

How proud the intellectual establishment has become of its own rhetoric! We are a land of jokers and humorists, but is that the true France? Is everything so laughable when a country goes down the drain? I am not talking about immigrations. I am talking about values like decency or justice.

And yet, the story of France is but a story of inequalities. Vercingetorix was not only the proud leader of the Gaul united against Rome. It was the proud leader, the revolutionary one, whose power was seated among the poor Gaul, while its leaders and aristocracy was kissing the ass of Caesar. Who saved France from the English armies, and for the first time made France behave like a nation, instead of being used as livestock for the aristocrats? It was a virgin, with a host of adventurers and independent fighters, but most importantly with the heart of a Nation to support her.

So perhaps the true enemy of France is not globalisation or world market, since there is nothing to be afraid from there. The French know how to work and fight. The problem is with the inner enemy, the bourgeoisie and the fake aristocracy of intellectuals spawning from private schools and elite establishments. In 1940 France was defeated by Germany, not because it was weak, or badly prepared, it was defeated because the elite of France had dramatically failed, intellectually and spiritually.

The demons of Germany are arrogance and brutality, something Bismarck had warned the Germans about. The demons of France are empty talk and a fake grandeur built on nothing, on paper diplomas, on a so called French culture of writers, explorers, artists, who would spit at the face of our intellectuals of today for their cowardice and greed.

But first, let us make that big step forward. Let us recognise that any Nation needs men and women to take on the challenge of dangerous physical activities, and we need to pay them for their work, so that they can grow a family of proud and strong children with solid values. Otherwise we will continue to have our sons and daughters perverted in that degenerative succession of fake examinations, and employments.

As in an Army, there cannot be nine people supporting only one fighting soldier. It is normal that economic development require a more educated and skillful labour force, so that education has become so instrumental to a modern country. But education cannot supersede physical competence on the field. We need to socially acknowledge the value of physical work.

Currently the general trend is to relocate physical activities to foreign lands, like China, which has become the factory of the world. For instance, in France, logging work and the wood industry is enormously suffering from foreign competition, which is so weird considering that we have the wood, we have the knowledge and manpower, but the whole wood industry is down due to general indifference, lack of information and incredibly low wages.

As a professional logger I am really distressed to see that knowledge and technique are so little acknowledged by a society, which is more and more sensitive to ecological issues. But what is really done to support the people working on French forests? Or give them the means to live decently from their work?

This is of course just an example, but the tremors of the financial crisis are worse than we think. The whole system is corrupted from the top by a complete lack of relation between work and value, or work and money. The capitalistic system has failed, because it is a system where money is the only purpose and value acknowledged by society. People joke about the failure of the Communist experience, but what is the difference? Empty shops with people waiting in line, or shops with pornographic display of goods, and people with no money to buy?

The terrible thing of today is not that we have our own Maddoff at large in France. No, the terrible thing is that they corrupt the mind of our youth, who has the choice between revolt and social assistance, and the ass-kissing of a generation of failed teachers and politicians. So that like a machinery of the devil, generations are spit out, in a vision of horror the like of nothing we have seen to date. Like the son of President Sarkozy, for instance.

Soviets used to shoot millionaires on the principle of it. Simply put, there is something wrong with millionaires. Billions of people are working hard to make it, and the world is advancing because of this. But there is something wrong, deeply wrong, with the way some people are getting fat and rich, while the world is going bad.

There was a song by the French soldiers of 1917. The author of the song was actively looked for, but never found. So it remained anonymous. But its message is the same as of today. While they were marching to death, men were sitting in cafe, strolling boulevards, and having good time. And they were getting rich with the spoils of war.

Adieu la vie, adieu l’amour,
Adieu toutes les femmes
C’est bien fini, c’est pour toujours
De cette guerre infâme
C’est à Craonne sur le plateau
Qu’on doit laisser sa peau
Car nous sommes tous des condamnés
Nous sommes les sacrifiés

We are the sacrificed ones, again.

Frederic W. Erk

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Lolita Reloaded

June 30, 2009 by fredericerk

Durex is exploring the six known dimensions, including the black holes of universe, where dreams falter and even hope fails. I said, six as I included the dimension of Manhood between the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat behind black rimmed glasses and the brow of a blue whale pointing the finger of God at you. That much traveled dimension has been rumored to host incredible species of indigenous oddities, like black snakes of Alabama, or white escargots de Bourgogne. Durex has sent the Enterprise investigating that dimension, with Captain Kirk on the verge of apoplectic implosion, and the black radio girl, already crying out:

— Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk!!!
— Yes?
— Captain! It is horrible! Nothing is going on!

Yes, how terrible, so much science, courage, money invested in a journey beyond space and time in a dimension where navigators are known to disappear for thousands of years. Some vessels are crushed between giant mammary glands. Other reports have stated giant pillars.

With horror stories of the like, Durex has sent the best scientists Earth could muster. There is the moronic American with a video camera at hand, ready to shoot. The French is wondering if the food will be good while the German has already packed for a sex tour in Thailand. The Italian is joking, but nervously fingering his crucifix. The Russian is the one singing Partisan songs, ready to take on those Fascists of the Sixth Dimension.

And as the vessel is going ever deeper and exploring ever further, there is that nexus of all things, called with dread the Nabokov pubic triangle, with two suns giving light to a strange cosmic anomaly, explorers have called the gravity well of two Slavic eyes.

The Nabokov Complex

The Nabokov Complex

And here is displayed the final drama of all erotic psyche. A Lolita considering that Mound Builders were like those who painfully built the Babel tower.  Always higher, and yet always farther from reaching Heaven, a proof of the futility of Man when it comes to imagining the true Mystery of what is going on in the mind of a Lolita.

To the whole crew of the Enterprise only remains the AntiMatter charge as last weapon. The Durex Condom. Name it, use it, and you are back from sixth dimension, with shaking hands, racing heart, and a big problem at hand. How to use it.

Written after crawling out of bed, before taking on another day in the happy shade of my trees.

Frederic W. Erk

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The Indian Runner

June 28, 2009 by fredericerk

It is middle afternoon of a hot Sunday. A normal person would be asleep under the cool shade of a tree. Or sipping ice-cold lemon drink with his wife and children. Talking with the gentle voice of a man at peace with the world and himself.

Un Dimanche à la Campagne by Bertrand Tavernier is an introduction to slow life and erotic dreams. For Mikhalkov in Utomlyonnye solntsem it is the last lovemaking with his beloved wife, an exercise of silence in the hot intimacy of a dressing room. It could be two lovers entwined in bed, while a window shutter is leaving in the scent of a hot afternoon when even birds are asleep in the trees.

For Sacha Guitry, Sunday was the day for lovemaking, and it was essential to recall that if you made love on Saturday, what would you do on a rainy Sunday, play cards? So that with lovemaking in spite of all British erotic literature about the sturdiness of country lads, and the French élan for les choses de la chair, lovemaking is an Art in anticipation and contentment.

When Anger is Boiling

When Anger is Boiling Up

This is why pornography is so wrong, because it is so sterile and fastidious. Watching pornography movies is like watching the French national team play football, or a German criminal investigation. Desperate Housewives is comic and lively compared to a porn movie.

It is sterile because the body of man and woman are displayed with a clinical approach to sexuality. It is sterile because the sexual act is performed without affection or even pleasure.

Fastidiousness of pornography originates from a mechanical repetition, something like a Charlie Chaplin version of Modern Times. We used to have factories with chain workers, now we have chain fuckers. It is fastidious because sexuality becomes a ritual of erections and grunts in sacrifice to a deity of Boredom and Vacuity.

As a young boy my first impression of pornography was explosive. Later as a soldier porn movies were part of guard duty, so that alternatively you checked out your gun, and then your zipper. I cannot see a French Colonel without thinking about that incredible scene which happened in Berlin back in 1994.

As we returned from shooting range in the middle of a winter night, we found out that one assault rifle was missing. Not that it was dangerous, since the French Republic is so sparse with bullets. Little ammunition made for short wars, or lengthy peace talks. But we had to endure the wrath of a French Colonel, while in the adjoining room a porn movie was playing out silently. I will always remember his gesticulating body with the woman displaying openly her charms to us. The combination of both would have brought a smile to the face of Mozart.

The fastidiousness and sterility of pornography are a consequence of a total misunderstanding of true sexual desire. Much has been said about the scandalous aspect of pornography, which is only partly true. Because pornography is not only about pneumatic sexual performance in acrobatic positions, the amiable consumption of billions of sperm, but dramatically so commonplace to about every activity of today.

Supermarkets stuffed with food. Poultry on show. Exotic fruits lasciviously awaiting you. Chocolate and pastries to make your cholesterol jump in anticipation. Wine and liquors to make even the most seasoned barfly fibrillate with joy. Women introducing you to rebates and new products. This is 19th century pornography and it takes the zeal of a monk, or the discipline of a poor man to remain stoic in spite of the temptation to seize those fruits of passion.

The true sin of pornography is about revealing so much that you feel satiated for weeks. Indirectly though relentlessly pornography is destroying sexual drive and genuine desire, and soon the sex junkie will walk the virtual alleys of licentious content with the sardonic smile of the veteran, or the blank indifference of the decadent.

Perhaps the worst kind of pornography is the licensed one, totally legal, and yet totally decadent. You name it, advertisement. It is full of German Audi cars with a message of “If you have the car, you will have the woman.” Grunts of pleasure are expected as if lettuce, tomatoes, dish washer and toilet paper had aphrodisiac properties. Every morning your letterbox will explode with giant images of fruits, cars, ham. This is one reason why older men check out the box in the morning.

There is the pornography of a popular television journalist reaching out for his audience. The intentional poor grammar and intonation of a Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. The knowing smile of a politician for his public. All this is about anticipated and auto-congratulatory content. Festival de Cannes. Pornography it truly is.

There is institutional pornography. Is it not pornography to show Saddam Hussein hanging, or U.S. President Bill Clinton explain that fellatio is not sexual intercourse within the context of American Law? What about the bombing of Bagdad or Palestine with white phosphorus artillery shells?

Since pornography is omnipotent, which is amusing, is there a way out of it? Not really. But perhaps in spite of it. There is a weapon of choice, which is humor. I mean, the real humor, not the grossly vulgar one of today, which is leading to despair. True humor is a way of survival and sanity, a sign of wits taking over.

Mankind has survived historical catastrophes with humor. And this is the reason why laughter is forbidden in totalitarian states. Pornography has a collateral damage, which is ridicule. Bankers display obscene profitability, while the economy is in deep crisis. Smile! Porn professionals are always so serious at work. Smile! Have you noticed how tennis players are serious, too? Smile! Sarkozy is promising economic growth, Smile again!

Of course there is another darker pornography. Like the deep shade of an ancient forest this pornography is displaying hellish content to an audience of social outcasts and parasites. Even laughter cannot prevail then, but the righteous anger of the father and mother. The terrible thing is that commercial advertisement is playing with the thin red line of Darkness. Gradually news and society evolve toward normalization of human criminal behaviour, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Is that the New Frontier of tomorrow? Maddoff negotiating centuries in jail, but where are the billions he stole? How come death penalty is not applied for economic crimes?

So that you would object to my comparing Heart of Darkness to that seemingly innocuous lascivious game of showing a woman trading sexual service for a ride in an expensive sedan, but is it not already spawning the decadence of our daily lives? Perhaps I should consider that obscene spilling of flesh, food, and motorised fleets as a sign of a lively society. And walk on in spite of it.

As long as I can genuinely laugh about it, yes.

A little boy is telling us a story of his parents going to their bedroom once in a month. Then it is an eruption of grunts and heaves. While in fact parents are checking their respective bills.

A wise American once said that he did not know what pornography was, but he recognised it when he saw it. I completely agree with that statement.

Frederic W. Erk

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