There is a major battle playing out at the moment in the USA and the wider world too. Folks driven by "incorrect beliefs" & bat-shit insane conspiracy theories vs. Folks sticking to things they can touch, see & measure. Seems the world is falling apart; truly something is dying. We are watching the death throes. There will be a hard reckoning, and then, folks will rise up, pick up the pieces, and create something new.
You may ask what about Spirit & Mystery? Ask away. Some things are unanswerable...
I am reading "The King in Yellow," by Robert Chambers, from the Pushkin press. Yes. It's fabulous. Weird, oddball, strange, interlocking tales of conspiracy & madness in it's many forms. Think unreliable narrators left & right. 4 stories, linked by the King in Yellow. Actually I read this book once, and immediately went back to the beginning, and started reading again. Yes. It speaks of today. It is some kind of map & Holy Grail of madness.
I have been listening obsessively to the Japanese instrumental band Mono. Beauty & fire. Harmony & distortion. Powerful and floaty. Hymn to the Immortal Wind (2009), is probably my favorite at the moment, but everything I have heard by them is quite exceptional, inspirational & magnificent.
Also, still deep into the Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street band catalog too. Songwriting at it's finest. Great r&r. Bruce's character is a bit gnarly & daunting; a conflicted-perfectionist, an inspired & inspiring artist making amazingly beautiful, overwhelmly great records. His obsessions have become my obsessions too. Maybe there is something about a guilt-ridden Catholic boy, wanting to create something great & beautiful, & trying to find his way in a very weird and fucked up world that totally resonates with me?
Reflections on our Orange-Wanna-Be-King. He is the madman who broke the Republican Party. He now is trying to break the USA & the rest of world too. Instead, he, himself, is breaking apart at the seams. And the folks who have followed him are breaking apart too. It is all very ugly, and perilous. But glonzo can only so far. Material Reality will have it's sweet revenge.
Turns out tax cuts, hate, transparent lies, AI-slop, & gutter-racism are bankrupt, pernicious ideas & phenonmena that have hard limits. No way to run a country. How does any of this shit work for the people?! Well, it really doesn't.
Anyway, for some insight on madness, the downfall, and glonzo on steroids, check out the the Yellow King. Surprisingly, despite all the hurly-burly, feeling pretty optimistic & hopeful this morning. Maybe a form of my own particular madness? Who knows?! Maybe it's just the coffee?! Yes. The coffee is good, indeed.