My - maybe too simple, but I like it that way - cover of Wolves by Phosphorescent is up for ears: LISTEN HERE
book
Every so often a book comes along to knock my knee caps off. This knocking off of my kneecaps is currently happening while I devour the final pages of "The Elegance of a Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery. It's not a plot driven book, there are no car chases, animal beheadings or sexual tomfoolery. Nope. In short, it's a simple book brimming with refreshing insights of two protagonists, both autodidacts - one a 12 year old girl (Paloma) from a wealthy family and the other a middle aged concierge (Madame Michel). Here are some (and there are hundreds more, so read it if you can) juicy blips and beeps from its pages: Eternity for all its invisibility, we gaze at it.
To rich people it must seem that the ordinary little people - perhaps because their lives are more rarified, deprived of the oxygen of money and savoir-faire- experience human emotions with with less intensity and greater indifference. Since we were concierges, it was a given that death, for us, must be a matter of course, whereas for our privileged neighbors it carried all the weight of injustice and drama.
What is the point of intelligence if it is not to serve others?
Life. Everyone's military service.
It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselves and realize that green beans and vitamin c, however much they nurture us, cannot save our lives, nor sustain our souls.
There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature... yes, that's it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for them teaches us how ridiculous we are - vile parasites squirming on the surface of the earth - and at the same time how deserving of life we can be, when we can honor this beauty that owes us nothing.
cars
This is me ranting: I have been in three near-miss collisions in the last week due to drivers who failed to see me - the lowly bicyclist and pedestrian - as good enough reason to follow some very basic traffic rules. Today, after squeezing my breaks with whitened knuckles, I screamed "fuck ass" at a white lady driving a navy honda when she nearly ran me over after running a stop sign. Coincidentally, exactly the same thing happened on Monday. A white woman in Japanese car ran a stop sign almost plowing me over. I called her "fuck ass".
Last Thursday night in Brooklyn, as I sauntered down Smith street, I stood at the corner waiting for a young dude driving a red sports car to turn left. I waited. He waited. We stared each other down like cats. His blinker blinked and blinked and blinked. I assumed he would turn and so I walked across the street. Instead of turning, he drove straight, at me, nearly smashing my toes. "Your blinker's on." I yelled throwing a hand in the air like the crazy Sicilian I am. The dude pulled over, open his door and said in a thick (redneck equivalent of a Brooklyn) accent "What? Are we playing a game of red light green light? You cross. I drive. What?" I rebutted, "No games. Your blinker is on dude." His eyes rolled to his still blinking blinker. "Oh I'm sorry." He said meekly. I walked away from the scene in a huff. "You better be sorry, fuck ass".