ex cathedra

Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

Word become flesh, dwelling among us.

Puer natus est nobis
et filius datus est nobis
cujus imperium super humerum ejus
et vocabitur nomen ejus
magni consilii angelus.

A child is born for us
and a son is given to us
whose rule is upon his shoulder
and his name shall be called
angel of great counsel.

Isaiah 9.6

Acceptance, or not

2009-12-23T23:49:00.001-08:00

A note from a friend reminded me that, back in 2007, for some reason, my mother decided that I was not homosexual.

I was incredulous. I have changed my mind, my attitudes and my behavior about a lot of things, but one thing that seems bedrock true of me is that where sex is concerned, men are concerned.
She refused to give reasons or discuss her pronouncement and I was left to wonder, "What the hell is she thinking?"

Well, it appears that things are back to how they used to be. When I was at home last month, she prefaced a comment about something else with the phrase, "As you know, I am not thrilled about your lifestyle.."

Unless she means impecunity, about which I am also not thrilled, I guess, with The Boyo so clearly in the picture, she's remembered how things are.

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Shrinking

2009-12-23T09:28:00.000-08:00

One of my regular reads is Shrinkwrapped, a shrink back East who sees the world in much the same way that I do.

He notes a phenomenon which I have used in arguing about the governmental take-over of healthcare.

Progressives imagine that government workers, free from the evil profit motive, are able to perform their selfless functions for the good of their subjects, unworried by the need to save money to line the pockets of their masters. Why so few Progressives are able to generalize from their experiences at the DMV remains a mystery for another time...

Government health care? Your life will be in the hands of the very same folks who run the DMV.

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Taste

2009-12-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

I am finishing up the bottle of Connemara Peated Single Malt Irish Whiskey I got as a gift from Himself on his return from Ireland and Scotland in the summer.

Rich, very peaty spirit, strong but smooth on the tongue, lively and dense in the nose.

In many ways, I have lived my life backwards. An old friend mine once told me that I was born an old man, but would spend my life getting younger and younger. Sometimes I think he was right.

One of the ways I feel younger is that I seek refuge less and less in great ideas and grand schemes and pay more and more grateful and focussed attention to the particular, the temporal, the ordinary, the material: a shot of whiskey, the brief smell of the Pacific in the afternoon wind, my lover's left shoulder.

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Query

2009-12-21T19:20:00.000-08:00

Is there much of anything in the progressive agenda which is not about the extension of state power over more and more of life?

Case in point: San Francisco.

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Jewish superiority

2009-12-21T09:02:00.001-08:00

Jews are good at lots of things. But I don't know if there is any competition for the self-hatred prize. Jewish self-hatred is unique.

A stunning example:

Israeli sociologist condemns Israeli soldiers for NOT raping Palestinian women during battles. A sign that the Israelis are so racist that they think Palestinian women are not good enough to rape...

No, I am not kidding.

HT to Pajamas Media.

On the other hand.

I am interested in how groups survive and how they dissolve or are conquered or replaced.

Part of what has kept Jews a surviving and separate group is their own internal religious laws and the hatred of their neighbors. Halakha and anti-Semitism. In a place like America, most Jews gave up observance, and the benevolent attitudes of this country have produced a massive amount of intermarriage with Gentiles and consequent weakening of Jewish identity.

I watched a documentary called A Life Apart, about Hasidic Jews in America. I used to live in Brooklyn, right on the line between a Puerto Rican and Hasidic neighborhood, so a lot of the images were familiar. I thought the documentary was pretty respectful of the Hasidim, but a few contrary voices were included, of course. What struck me was that the items that outsiders found unappealing were probably crucial to the continuance and cohesion of this religious group: an unapologetic sense of specialness and superiority. It's not fun to be on the receiving end of this kind of smug attitude*, but that's too bad, I suppose. A small value compared to the continuance of a people who were almost wiped out the last century.

Some folks wanted the Hasids to get off their high horse and mix with everyone else. Well, what appears to be egalitarianism (and is) is also a crypto-superiority, the way in which general culture asserts its own specialness precisely by denying it.

One of my big and sad impressions about the West is that we have lost our instinct, our unapologetic sense of our right to be who we are. We do not assert ourselves without explanation. This indicates a deeper loss of will and self-regard. It will be an irony of history that a culture which became obsessed with teaching its children individual self-esteem lost all sense of value as a group.

What groups in history have long survived and thrived without the assumption that they are special and superior?

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*Mostly pro-Jew that I am, I would still say that Jews have to realize that this necessarily either creates or increases dislike of them by non-Jews. It seems an inescapeable problem: give up your sense of chosenness and you disappear; keep it, and you'll be disliked.

Well, that was quick

2009-12-19T08:56:00.000-08:00

The next time I hear someone invoke "human rights", I may be tempted to smack them.

The evils and tyrannies of the various Human Rights Commissions in Canada have certainly attracted my attention but, due to heroes like Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, are on the wane. Now in formerly Great Britain, a secular court has, in effect, taken on itself to define who is a Jew and who is not.

All in the name of anti-racism.

Can you imagine them trying to meddle in the affairs of a mosque?

Cowards all.

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On the other hand

2009-12-18T17:28:00.001-08:00

I have drafted a longish unconnected set of curmudgeonly observations on how men walk and talk, on some puzzling and/or unfortunate aspects of Black culture these days, on the nature of gay vs. LGBT identity, on the current unfortunate president of our unfortunate Republic, on how a spiritual guru can turn into yet another bitter queen.

These gems of insight you will be spared. At least for now, and all at once.

Despite yet another bit of auto-related bad luck, I have had some very very nice times with Himself and I am far more aware of how lucky and blessed I am to know him than of how irritated I can be at the world.

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Movement

2009-12-18T10:51:00.000-08:00

Something about this picture exhibits for me the angle and flow of the male body, a kind of untiringly happy roller coaster for the eye. Even at rest, eppur si muove!

In banter with My Guy about his angles and flows, I refer to it as his "architecture."

Psalm 8:5. Frank Lloyd Wright, eat your heart out.

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PS. A note on ink. This fella's shoulder tattoo serves the architectural flow. It matches and emphasizes his shoulder, but its shape then moves you along into the rest of the body. Lots of people seem to think of their bodies as billboards and their tattoos are just sorta stuck on like post-it notes, without any thought to the structure of the whole. The most beautiful tattoos, to me, are the ones that work with the form of the body and become part of its dynamism, balance and play of angles.

I tried to achieve that with my own and have had some success, I think. When I was in NY, I came home from the gym and had a tank top on. A distant relative by marriage, who is an Emmy winner in design, noted the tat as well as its placement and pronounced it perfect for me, warning me not to add anything else or it would harm the balance. Hmmmmmm....

Gratitude

2009-12-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

Amen.

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Animal spirits

2009-12-16T10:42:00.001-08:00

A friend has a new dog, a young male half-wolf he rescued from the pound. Handsome young fella that puppy is, but very mellow, even rather cautious. First time he brought him over to my house to visit, the dog-wolf very slowly and methodically set about smelling his way around. We followed.

But when he got to my bedroom, it was as if someone turned on an instant high-energy switch. Jumping, running around in circles, bouncing off the bed and onto the floor repeatedly, barking, howling, rolling, and when I started in to play with him, that only ramped him up more. We had quite the time and I was covered in gray wolf hair.

Now every time he comes over, he bounds up the stairs and heads straight down the hall to my sleeping chamber.

Can't figure out what it is about that room...

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Malesoul 34

2009-12-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

This and that on an Advent Sunday

2009-12-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

My cybersphere wanderings take me to strange places. The power of the hyperlink. You will doubtless share the thrill of the following, to which I will not link:

Many readers will rejoice - fittingly on this Gaudete Sunday - to learn that last Thursday, 10 December 2009, the Cause of Beatification of the Servant of God Zita, last Empress of Austria and wife of Blessed Emperor Charles, was solemnly opened by His Excellency Msgr. Yves Le Saux, Bishop of Le Mans, France.

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Winter here in SF coincides with a very noticeable rainy season, providing the wonderful paradox of colder weather and greener flora. Although really pretty mild for North America, the days can be chilly and wet and dark. And there has been a chunk of that recently. Has an effect on the mood, mine anyway. Easier to veer off into the land of funk.

And The Boyo has had a bad cold the last week or so. He is normally a very resilient fella about the downs of life, but colds seem to take major wind out of his sails. His frequency shifts and there's something like a grey mist or distracted static between him and the rest of the world, including me. Although he does his best, his sunny zing and connectedness diminish, which disorients me. At least that's how it feels. Not appealing, especially in conjunction with the uninspiring weather. I realize both when he and I are physically distant thru travelling or when we are somewhat unhooked like this, how much I depend on him and his abundant vitality to stoke the part of me that is happy and hopeful. I look forward to the return of my regular guy.
I'm sure he does, too.

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I have a free two-week Netflix account. Been looking at indy films, mostly gay-themed. The majority of them I turn off within ten minutes. Either my old eyes have seen and heard this before, or the plot is too silly or, most often, the characters are so unlikeable. And there is a kind of self-regarding claustrophobic quality there as well.

One film I rather liked was "Defying Gravity". It's about a frat boy's coming to terms with his homosexuality. But the context is not "I like dick", but "I love Johnny." Who, happily, loved him back. The parallel between the male-male relationship and the best friend's male-female relationship set the story in a more human frame. Not about group politics, but about the individual heart. And especially given the interpersonal focus, it made the kindness and acceptance of some of the surrounding characters quite believable.

The moral crisis was about honesty and courage rather than the usual "fucking with someone who is already committed". The minor racial theme was handled in a surprisingly non-predictable way.

Two films I watched included gay characters who seemed to care nothing for the effects of their adultery on people they professed to love. In one, Mulligans, a guy sleeps with his best friend's father (!) and in another, Leaving Metropolis, with his married boss. Marriages self-destruct in the wake. Dramatic, of course, but not edifying.

In The Flesh, shot in Atlanta, of all places, about 15 years ago, is a riff on the intergenerational theme combined with the cop who falls for the male prostitute. Wooden acting, but with several redeeming features, including a lead dyad who are both men, not queens.
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I re-watched "Trembling before G-d", about orthodox Jews who are homosexual. A pickle. And a kosher dill at that. My Unitarian friend, Rev. L, once told me that the only two real religions in the West are Judaism and Catholicism, since once you are in them, you can never really get out.
I sympathize. Observant Jews who are homo have it worse, I think, since the drive to marry and have children is at the religious, not just cultural, heart of rabbinic Judaism (as it is with Mormonism, for example, and there perhaps even moreso.) Catholicism is full of unmarried types who are, in fact, the great icons of the faith. Including Jesus, of course.

Jesus and Buddha have much in common with each other in this respect, as do Moses and Mohammed. Two celibate idealists vs two married lawgivers.

Though I am mostly a pro-Jewish guy, one scene with a bunch of very orthodox men in NY protesting angrily against gays led me to muse that if you gave these fellas guns and they adopted a world-embracing imperialist vision, they'd be Taliban.

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Looking forward to my Santa Lucia dinner with Himself tomorrow. He first invited me for dinner at his house two years ago on her feast day. I was already pretty well entranced with him by that time, but I recall how excited I was, and how handsome he looked. He still doesn't always get it, but sometimes I look at him and think that there is no better view on the planet. He'll just have to deal.
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Memory and desire

2009-12-12T13:26:00.000-08:00

I lost my virginity thirty-five years ago today.

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Irksome

2009-12-09T20:43:00.000-08:00

Just saw another, yet another, commercial where the father is a blithering idiot and his wife is superior and contemptuous. They are ubiquitous. (And it's only white fathers that get this treatment, by the way.)

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Random thoughts on sex

2009-12-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

As a species, we are capable of desire for many members of our race. We are also capable of having that desire channeled so that it focuses on just one person. That is mysterious.

One man in good shape is not radically different from another man in good shape. Height, color, size, etc. can all vary, but they are actually more alike than different, at least from my perspective and experience.

But there is that mysterious connection which takes place where only one man will do. If it a matter of fetish --hair color, skin color, certain kind of build, penis size-- it is pretty understandable. But it happens all the time where the reason is, well, the man himself, who he is. Just as compelling, not so easy to define. But only he will do.

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I wonder if the category "gay" is any longer really about sexual orientation, sexual object choice, or if it is about gender variance. If it were about sexual orientation, then something like a gay, lesbian and bisexual demographic would make sense. But with the canonical addition now of transgender, the common denominator is not same-sex erotic desire but deviance from gender norms.

Unfortunately, that makes sense of a lot of gay culture.

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Not only do males and females generally experience sexual contact differently, but each individual experiences it differently, often based on their character typology. For some types,
the sexual experience is about physical pleasure, for others about physical closeness. For some, the body's experience is all there is, for others the body is not distinct from the soul.

As well, age and experience bring changes. My affection for men in their 50's comes not only from my appreciation for how a man's life experience shows in his body, his face, his build, etc but from his sense of self. Honestly, I now see faces of men in their twenties, very handsome, unlined, with bright eyes, and they look somewhat like masks to me. But a craggy, lived-in face, with weathering and stubble...to me this is a wonder of nature. And being the type of guy I am, that is not an intellectual aesthetic appreciation; it makes me want to kiss that face.

Preferred pleasures can change, too. There are a couple of things that used to be almost absolute requirements for me that are now matters of indifference. And there are a few things that I now really love to experience that I don't recall being so interested in at one time.

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Infamy and destiny

2009-12-07T12:35:00.000-08:00

Today is December 7th.
Sixty-eight years ago,
the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,
brought America into war.
Four years later,
atomic bombs ended that conflict,
which killed so many.

Both my fathers were in that war
and survived to come home.
I had an uncle who did not.

My birthfather, Lee, who died when I
was an infant, was in the Army signal corps
in North Africa, Italy and Germany.

My recently deceased dad,
Jack, who raised me,
was a Naval bomber pilot
in the South Pacific.

I look a lot like Lee. No surprise.
But at Jack's funeral, two people who know nothing
of my history came to tell me
how much I looked like him.
Which I don't at all.
But I was his son, in reality if not in biology.
I am honored
to look like both my fathers.

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Conclave, convex, complex, Kyoto, Copenhagen

2009-12-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

After noting the similarity between the Copenhagen Global Warming gathering and the religious faith and fervor attending a Papal Conclave, Bruce Bawer notes

The plain fact is that after Communism disappeared in Europe, the Green movement arose to take its place as a counterforce to democratic capitalism — meaning that every crank and malcontent who previously would have been a Communist or fellow traveler now keeps busy ranting about the way in which capitalist societies, America above all, are brutally destroying the environment, greedily using up resources at rates a zillion times higher than people in developing countries. The global-warming cause is a subset of this — and to my mind it’s always seemed to be, for Europeans anyway, not only a means of elbowing the U.S. in the ribs, but also a convenient distraction, a way to avoid dealing with the continent’s real problem, namely Islamization, while still allowing oneself to posture as a serious, responsible-minded citizen.

Environmentalism is the last of the Seven Pillars of Progressivism. Each ism, underneath its intellectual skin, is centered on hatred of a certain kind of human being. Multiculturalism hates Whites. Feminism hates Men. Redistributionism hates The Rich (only of certain kinds however: not George Soros or Hollywood actors or Kennedys, etc.). Pacifism hates soldiers, policemen, hunters and armed men generally. Secularism hates Christianity (not Islam so much, because it is Brown and comes under the protections of Multiculturalism). Internationalism hates patriots of nation-states. That's why I think that GWB was the perfect ikon on what Progressives hate.

Environmentalism hates consumers. And these are centered in the West (leaving out India and China as polluters, since they are Brown/Yellow countries and therefore always innocent victims). And in America. So Bawer's reading is correct.

But environmentalism also hates the human race as a whole. We are a kind of virus infecting Gaia and her flora and fauna. When you watch the TV programs about what the earth would be like without us, After People, and such, you realized that you are watching a devotional and secular version of Left Behind. There is a kind of barely suppressed moral frisson in imaging the world a better place without any of us. "I am so virtuous that I would even be happy to disappear for the sake of the greater good." (In principle, of course.)

But in the interim, hating greedy Americans is cool, too. I know it makes ME feel just great.

Climategate certainly raises serious questions about the whole AGW movement, but archetypes in history show us that possession by the spirit trumps mere fact. How many apocalyptic groups --including Christianity itself--have remained intact when the predicted Final End failed to show?

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Type casting

2009-12-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

I'm the type of guy who likes typology. I like to use overarching maps of all kinds of things, including people. My favorites are the Jungian-based Meyers-Briggs and the strangely useful Enneagram. It's a kind of shorthand that outlines how a person is likely to perceive the world and themselves, to act and make judgements, etc. I find it useful especially where there are conflicts between people which can be traced to typological styles. It can defuse things if people get the idea that the differences are not aimed at each other but flow from a set of character structures that are almost innate.

The Boyo recently took a Meyer-Briggs test and discovered what I already knew, that he is an ESTJ. He is extraverted, interested in the world and people outside himself. He is sensate, focussed on concrete physical objects and situations in some detail. He is a thinker, preferring to use rationality to assess situations and evaluate them. He is a judger (a peculiar term in MB parlance) who prefers order and predicability. Guardian or Enforcer is a title that fits this type. Empath, for example, does not.

There are sixteen combos of these four items and plenty of descriptions of how each type typically (!) perceives, judges, behaves, etc. How folks act in relationships, at work, etc are included.

I am an INTP, opposite to The Boyo on three out of four items. This stuff is not exact science, so you can find MB websites tell you that the relational pairing an INTP and and ESTJ is both a disaster and that it is a good balance. The fact that we are both T's is a big help. And the other differences are, to me, mostly a source of interest, at least at this stage.

As an introvert, my internal world is more powerful for me than the outside. As an intuitive, I am more concerned with the possibilities of a situation than its concrete details. As a thinker, I, too prefer to use rationality to assess situations and evalute them. As a perceiver (again, this odd MB way of talking) I prefer to let things unfold without a plan. I'm an Architect or Investigator.

I use the typologies to alert me to differences that I might naturally have problems with; the type discourse allows me to see it as simply a normal alternative with its own pros and cons.

Not everyone responds like this.

Mr. ESTJ, for example, recently did something typical of his type and I sent him the following email note (in a form and manner typical of my type):

ESTJ Weaknesses

Tendency to believe that they are always right
Tendency to need to always be in charge
Not naturally in tune with what others are feeling
May inadvertantly hurt others with insensitive language

This was the reply I received:

Can you explain how these qualify as weaknesses?

Thank you.

In the end, ya gotta laugh! And we do. A lot. It's pretty typical of us types.

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All warm and toasty

2009-12-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

Mark Steyn. Hard to top his gift for words. On the antics of Western politicians responding to the "settled science" on anthropogenic global warming...

The science is so settled it’s now perfectly routine for leaders of the developed world to go around sounding like apocalyptic madmen of the kind that used to wander the streets wearing sandwich boards and handing out homemade pamphlets. Governments that are incapable of—to pluck at random—enforcing their southern border, reducing waiting times for routine operations to below two years, or doing something about the nightly ritual of car-torching “youths,” are nevertheless taken seriously when they claim to be able to change the very heavens—if only they can tax and regulate us enough.

The whole thing.

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The minarets of Switzerland

2009-12-03T07:23:00.000-08:00

I agree that the Swiss were right to ban the minarets.

Why? Because Islam is not a religion like Buddhism, Christianity or Judaism.

Islam is essentially, fundamentally, inherently and historically an expansionist theocracy.
A theocracy in the literal sense, where the divine law is the law of the land for all, believer and unbeliever alike. There is in Islam no separation or division between religion and the society, religion and the state.

Where Islam has not been an expansionist theocracy is when it is forced to act differently by outside stronger powers or when it has suffered from internal inertia, conflict or corruption.
But when it is true to itself, it is a theocracy on the march. And it is on the march.

Consequently, the notion that Islam is "just a religion" and therefore deserves the protection of the law is mistaken. Islam is a religion the way the World Church of the Creator is a religion. Its natural goal is to conquer and rule the society in which it finds itself.

So the minaret is not like a steeple. It is like a foreign flag. Good for the Swiss.

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Relief

2009-12-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

Took a contemporary shot of two men making love and morphed it into something that feels a bit more...timeless.

Cruising

2009-11-29T23:05:00.000-08:00

I like to look at men.
They are endlessly fascinating to me, at least visually.
Here in New York, a different demographic from
SF makes for some novelty for the eye,
a thing males especially like.

Now that I am officially not single, do I still look? Yup.
Active testosterone levels and all.

But it has a new kind of pleasure to it:
it's only looking.

When I was still in search mode, looking was the beginning of decisions.
Do I want to do more than look? Would he? What if? Etc. Etc.
It's exciting for a while, to be sure. But then it gets exhausting.
Especially if you are looking for Mr. Right.

But I think I've found him.
(I say "think" not because I am unsure, but out
of humility and a desire not to provoke the gods
or scare the poor fella any more than I already have.)

So now looking is not freighted, or should that be "fraught"?
with anything other than the pleasure
of the eye in the moment.
That's it.
No questions, no decisions, no etc., no what-ifs.

And I like that. It makes the little interactions of pre-flirting--
which is mostly what this consists of---simple and relaxed.

I was not born yesterday and my new relationship is not my first,
so I know that eros, including my own eros, is unpredictable.
My pleasure in mere looking is not an ethical achievement of mine,
just a happy fact.
Some day I may have the urge to do more than look.
(My ex opined recently that, given how I am with The Boyo,
--I believe "pathetic" was his term--
I'd probably start to run out of steam for him in about...ten years.)
But for now, sprung as I am over Himself, these momentary looks or turns
with other guys just make me want to get up close and personal with him.

Are there handsomer men than my guy? Better built?
More "soulful"? More fill-in-the-blanks.
Sure.
And if I stupidly thought I could do better
by looking for "more"
--a syndrome that afflicts too many gay men--
I could mess up something really, and I mean really,
wonderful.

Cause even if I found a man who was, on the surface,
"better"...there'd always be another one even better than him.
That wheel never stops turning. Ask Buddha.

But the truth is,
(thanks to Gus Kahn and Isham Jones)

Some others I've seen
would never be mean,
would never be cross,
or try to be boss,
but they wouldn't do,
cause nobody else
gave me that thrill;
with all your faults,
I love you still.
It had to be you,
wonderful you,
it had to be you.

This was not a rational, cost-benefit decision, anyway.
It was better than that. And God had a hand in it, too,
I suspect.

So I do look. Yes. Up and down.
With appreciation. But it's not much more than that.
It's a relief, a huge relief.
And I like it.

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Kulcha

2009-11-29T16:01:00.001-08:00

I have been to two, count'em, two museums (musea?) in two days.

At the Rubin in Manhattan, I saw CG Jung's Red Book,with lots of facsimiles and such. And lots of Jungian types holding forth. For Jungians, the recently revealed and published Red Book is a combo of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Kells.

And at The Brooklyn today, I wandered through two hours of human civilization: Islamic (mostly Iranian), Egyptian, Assyrian, European (15th through 19th centuries), American. Didn't have time for the African and Asian. And I entered a special collection named after a married couple who included their middle initials! And I skipped the Feminist Art section and the one called American Identities. Pomo BS, no doubt.

Three irked notes before an appreciation.

In the Islamic section, the historical timeline referred to "the prophet Muhammad" each time he was mentioned and reported the revelation of the Quran to him by the angel Gabriel not as a claim but as a simple fact. Can you imagine them with a Christian timeline saying, "33 AD, Jesus rose from the dead"? This subtle but constant asskissing of Islam angers me.

And in the entryway, a version of Napoleon Crossing the Alps with a black guy on the horse instead of the little Corsican emperor. We are told that the artist thus "confronts and critiques" the absence of the experience of black urban culture in Western history. What narcissistic adolescent crap.

And after spending a couple of hours with some of the stunning and powerful and beautiful artifacts of a whole variety of human civilizations over the last few thousand years, I got to see some of the "contemporary" pieces. Yikes. Sort of like sanctifying a nervous breakdown.

A couple of pieces in the Egyptian section, a relief that had been (beautifully) blackened by fire and a basalt bust...both of them were old when Christ was born. And here I was, standing in front of them. I wondered about the men who carved them. What they ate for dinner. Who they loved, who loved them, who they hated. Millennia apart and, in so many ways, just like me.

Beautiful and powerful objects, these. From worlds, though, that have passed away into museums. The magical, almost godlike capacity of humans...and the inexorable eradicating power of time. I left grateful, moved and melancholy. But mostly moved at what an amazing species we are.

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Nueva York

2009-11-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

New York, Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn,
are ancestral turf for me.
Very familiar.
I also did my university here, Columbia.

But NY does not feel like home.
It was once the center of the universe for me,
but has not felt that way for a long time.
It's where the family lives,
but I do not ever want to live here again.
Being closer to them would be great.
But not here.

Weather, for one. Too cold.
Real winter.
And brutally humid in summer.
No thanks.

We are all supposed to be thrilled with diversity.
But you know what I think of that scam.
As a white man, I am now a distinct minority
in a city where people like me were once the general rule.
Why should I be thrilled?
It's much easier to feel that you don't belong.
And I don't.

When I went to Holy Cross Cemetary in Brooklyn
back in the early 80's to visit the grave of my
father, grandfather and uncle,
I was made to know that I was not welcome
in that now very black part of the city.

And the size and speed of the place, especially after dark,
the rivers of people on the streets,
has a way of inducing a sense of loneliness in me.
Living here would certainly provoke depression.

One final complaint, since I'm in the mood.
An affectation of the local, often Jewish, philanthropic class.
Naming places after husband and wife
with their middle initials included:
The Robert S. and Sadie P. Rosenblaum Pavilion.

I want to go home.

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