Posts of the Week
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William S Burroughs Kate Tuttle - 08:03am Aug 4, 1997 PST (#6 of 15)
I'm from Lawrence, Kansas, the town Burroughs moved to in the early 80s. I always heard he came for the methadone and stayed because he found friends. The gay community, arts community, and music scene adopted him as their own, and yet he also benefited from a natural Midwestern belief in leaving people alone when they want to be left alone. Everyone knew where he lived, but no-one disturbed him much. He was the sweetest, most polite person to run into in the grocery store, and he participated in town life, once even writing a letter to the editor of the local paper. He wrote to protest a proposed leash law for cats, and signed his letter "William S Burroughs, "Cat Fancy" subscriber." When I knocked on his door to ask that he sign a book for a friend of mine, he graciously led me inside, introduced me to his then four cats, and asked me about the person for whom he was signing. He could not have been nicer. Ginsburg, Terry Southern, Debbie Harry and other friends visited often from New York and other points hip. But he also had a wide circle of Lawrence friends, including his amaneunsis/lover James Grauerholz, and he lived not in exile but in community, right up to the end. I Died And Lived To Tell the Tale Martin Zook - 12:00pm Aug 8, 1997 PST (#17 of 17)
my experience was a glimpse of enlightenment, i now think. after surviving a head-on collison, i was tethered to the equipment in the critical care unit of fairfax hospital in virginia. the doctors were visiting with my parents, telling them they didn't give me better than 50-50. it was like those lazy weekends when you're single and you can surrender to sleep as many times as you want before getting up. each time as i neared consciousness i let go and fell into the most bottomless peace there is. each fall was longer than the one before, until i realized that there would be no regaining the edge of consciousness if i let go again. i started to let go, but thought better of it and scrambled up over the edge. there was a bird in a sapling outside my window (my room was underground and i could not see outside, but i sensed it through another sense more assuredly than if i "saw" it). i went out on the bird's song. as the song went out i felt the life in every leaf of the tree, it's branches, each blade of grass underneath,the life of all the organisms in the soil. as the song carried me out i felt the individual life of all that the expanding bird song covered until i felt the life in every living thing on earth. the song accelerated until that point. then it came to abrupt halt on an eternal plain. the distinction between all individual life melded into this eternity. after an instant of recognition, the plain slowly began to swirl (i believe in a counter clockwise motion) and formed a funnel which touched down into my chest. inside i felt an eternal power and peace surge through me. a little bit later, science said i was going to live. for 20 years i sought the meaning of this defining moment. i read the bible and dwelled on the occurance without understanding. i learned to swim as physical therapy and learned i could tap into that powerful sense of quiet peace that's in my middle and the middle of all of us. was foolish enough to post it here (my first post) and a compassionate soul responded and put me on to Spinoza, which led in turn to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. it was a humbling experience. and i certainly don't mean to flatter myself, but i think it was a moment of enlightenment, or at least the recognition of it. there was a sense of compassion at the moment the plain was reached. but not in the sentimental western sense. totally absent was any sense of self. myself. or any other self... Soft Money - who, what , when , how much? Tracey Henley - 07:29pm Aug 7, 1997 PST (#6 of 12)
You all are mistaken if you think our political system is supposed to recognize and reward our desires and wishes fairly. We are supposed to compete; that competition acts as one of many "checks and balances" against tyranny. Those who can compete the best, those with the most resources, the best organization, the most highly focused message, will win. You can replace private contributions with public funding of campaigns; you can force media outlets to provide prime time slots for publically funded campaign ads; you can limit and even eliminate the evil soft money (and I predict all of these things will happen in the next decade, thus depriving me of a job), but we will all of us still be here, signed on to Salon, bitching that those idiot pols STILL don't vote our way, who are still controlled by the "special interests"... I haven't even pointed out again that you can't eliminate my measly $42 per month PAC contribution to my favorite Member, because then you are limiting my political speech... I hate to give them credit because I hate what they stand for, but the Kristian Koalition was organized by pissed-off people at their kitchen tables...they were dedicated, they were focused, and in 1994 they brought us the Republican Congress. That's how you affect change. |
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