Camera Obscura

As you may know, I am a fan of the Saturday edition of The New York Times. Saturday's read is so much more manageable than Sunday's mammoth wordspray.

Picture this.

On page A3, a thoroughly wrenching story of holocaust, Khmer Rouge edition.

It tells the story of Mr. Nhem En, who was forced to photograh the inmates of Tuol Sleng prison.

Just before they died (at least 14,000 were murdered). Only six or so are known to have survived.

The story is almost impossible to fathom, to assimilate, to process.

Try, if you can.

What can we say about the context of evil, its placement, its milieu, its backdrop?

The story is surrounded by these sizable advertisements:

Tiffany & Co.: diamond engagement rings in patinum. $4,220 to $1,000,000.

Saks Fifth Avenue: Ermenegildo Zegna shoes. No price.

The Balvenie scotch whisky. No price.

Tourneau watches: Bedat & Co., $2,950.

Rothmans Union Square clothier: no prices.

Incidentally, some of Mr. Nhem En's portraits have found their way to art galleries in the United States.

Why do we hear so little about this?

Is it not palatable enough for the palaver of television news?

In the eyes of news executives (remember, news is typically entertainment these days, even if macabre entertainment), does this horror involve the "wrong" people? Is the story, from the 1970s too "old"? It doesn't have "legs"?

Subprime Beyond the Pale

I look at all these hundreds of homes burning out in California, and wonder, along with pondering the subprime crisis:

Do all things ultimately just balance out -- however painfully and tragically it appears to us?

(I myself am subpar, below prime, beyond the pale.)

The Dreams

The

unbearable

lightness

of dusk.

Albatross as Anchor -- Or Not

The following is from today's San Francisco Chronicle, quoting the manager of the red-hot Colorado Rockies:



Perspective: [Rockies Manager Clint] Hurdle has a rough and gruff exterior that shrouds a more thoughtful side. He showed it when discussing a reporter's description of a late-season loss to Arizona as 'crushing.'

'It was just kind of funny at the time because that day I had gotten a call from a mother at Children's Hospital (who) wanted me to come by and see her son before he was going to pass that night,' Hurdle said. 'That was debilitating. Crushing was when a doctor told me my little girl was born with a birth defect. Baseball is a game, and I've learned that, and I've embraced that, and I've tried to share that with my players.


'Let's keep it a game, and let's not wear it like an anchor around our necks afterward.'

Apologia Pro Vita Sua

The masthead of this weblog reads:

"The dead weight

of shallow

abundance."

Sometimes I feel

like I'm sleepwalking with the dead

weight of the abundance

of my solipsistic shallowness.

The Albatross of Grief

Today I saw, and briefly wore around my neck, the albatross of grief. However, it is feathered and lifted by comradeship, camaraderie, and caritas.

A Sporting Chance

If "the love of money is the root of all evil"

(cited in one of the readings in our Episcopal church yesterday, from Paul's Letter to Timothy)

(incidentally, ever notice how it's usually misquoted as "money is the root of all evil"?),

then expectation is the root of all albatross dreams.

And sports is one of the most egregious generators of expectation.

With my team (San Francisco Giants) safely eliminated from major league baseball postseason play, I am delightfully free from the multiple albatrosses of tension, hope, expectation, success, failure, winning, and losing.

But who am I kidding?

I'd wear those albatrosses in a heartbeat, given the chance.

Crazy, huh?