Waving his phone und schreiend.

 Waving his phone und schreiend. 

Waving his phone with one hand (like a preacher waving a Bible, angry, accusing) -  waving his phone with one hand, clinging to the rail with the other, stomping, stumping, stumbling, down he came, down, down the stairs, sputtering fractured German (who is fluent in English and French), schreiend, »Ich glaub’s nicht« - Uncle Albert.  He stopped to catch his breath.* “I don’t believe it,” he said.

     “What?” I said.

     “Utilitarianism!” he said, “utilitarian ethics.”

     I came to the foot of the stairs. “Do you need help?”

     He waved me away. “Bankrupt,” he said. “What’s the word?”

     “Bankrott?” I said. “What about John Rawls?”

     “Notwithstanding,” Uncle Albert said. “How do you say that?”

     I wasn’t sure, but “trotzdem,” I said.

Why German? who is fluent in English and French. He has taken it up, I believe, as a way to mock how serious he has become about nearly everything because he can’t seem in current circumstances to mock himself. Few of us can. We’re all too serious these days, about nearly everything.

“Seriously, it’s for the greater good
for the greater number, preserving my
body and my head.” - Jeremy Bentham

Maybe the utilitarians among us, most of all. But they’ve always been too serious, especially about themselves. It comes from not believing in God. (Those that don’t believe in God almost always end up believing too much in themselves. Granted, that’s only my opinion though Uncle Albert would likely agree.)

     The bankruptcy currently before him, as I understand it: Some OpEdwin or Edwina in The Times was arguing he or she would vote for Joe Biden regardless. It went like this, according to Uncle A: 1. Joe Biden feels this woman up. 2. I believe her, this woman, Tara Reade: he did “penetrate her digitally” somewhere in the corridors of power. 3. Still, I will vote for him. So should you. For strictly utilitarian reasons.

“Who wrote this?” I said.

     Uncle Albert didn’t know. “Judy of Punch-and,” he said. But he doesn’t know any of the current crop of “opinionates,” as he calls them, anyone younger than David Brooks. “They all act as if you should know who they are; then as if you should trust them because . . . you know who they are. They went to Yale, dammit.”^†

     And given who they are, given the (lonely) aerie on some high rise in New York they look down at the world from, they must know what’s best, the greatest good for the greatest number. They must know because they know.

“Voting for Biden isn’t obviously in the interests of the greater good?” I say.

     “Yeah,” he says, “but . . . .” Then,

     “If you don’t want to have a serious discussion, why don’t you go find something for lunch?”

05.09.20

_______________

 * Diagram the previous sentence, while he does so. Win a John Stuart Mill action figure.

 ^† Uncle Albert also went to Yale, by the by. Bentham did not but might have.

Meeting halfway.

 Meeting halfway. 

This was yesterday afternoon.

     Uncle Albert comes stumping down the stairs. Dangerously because he is talking at the same time; he is stumping down, and he is talking - in German.

     “Der Ratzinger spricht, der hat gesprochen, der geht weiter.” Then, arriving safely: “Forgive mein schreckliches Deutsch. The Cardinal speaks, the Pope has spoken. Like the finger the old man moves on - aber nicht aus. He retires, but he will not go away.”

     “What?” I said.

     “Belshazzar’s feast via Edward Fitzgerald.”

     “It’s the Edmund Fitzgerald,” I said.

Johnny Nash and Gordon Lightfoot meet halfway, 1974.

Uncle Albert waved his hand. “I was reading the National Catholic Reporter online,” he said.

     “I see,” I said. I didn’t.

     “Ratzinger is afraid that the new Pope - the Argentine - is going off in all the wrong directions and taking Holy Mother Church, taking . . . what’s the German for Faith, with a capital-F?”

     “Der Glaube,” I said, “with a capital-G. Of course, all nouns are capitalized.”

     “I know that. Der? Not die?”

     “Yes, der.”

     “Der Glaube. The new guy is misleading die Glaubvoll, perverting the Whole verdammte Shooting Match.”

     “Francis.”

     “Yes, still the new guy.”

     “I see,” I said. I didn’t. Or I did but only in part (not face-to-face). I saw but not what it had to do with anything.

“Humanism,” Uncle Albert said. “A humanist ideology threatens him, then it threatens it all. All.”

     “You should sit down,” I said. Uncle Albert sat down.

     “‘A crisis of Christian existence,’” he said. “And the papa emeritus should know even if he retired because he could no longer see clearly.”

     “The rain wasn’t gone,” I said.

     “What year are you stuck in?” Uncle Albert asked.

     “No, I see,” I said. And I did though what it had to do with anything I did not see.

     “But you don’t care,” Uncle Albert said.

     “I’m afraid not much,” I said.

“Would you like something to drink?” I asked.

     He nodded.

     I waited.

     “Just some orange juice,” he said.

     “I’ll go see if we have any.”

Later, I looked it up. The answer was: Somewhere between 1972 and 1976.

05.05.20

Confucius at Reed College

 Confucius attends a German class at Reed College* 

Heine himself lectured and read at Reed in 1998.

Confucius accompanies his nephew (75 times removed) to a German class at Reed College. The class under Herr Gruber is reading and discussing Heine’s Ich wollte, meine Lieder, “I wish my songs.”

     Herr Gruber reads the poem.

                    Ich wollte, meine Lieder

                    Das wären Blümelein:

                    Icht schickte sie zu riechen

                    Der Herzallerliebster mein.

                    Ich wollte, meine Lieder

                    Das wären Küsse fein:

                    Ich schickt’ sie heimlich alle

                    Nach Liebchen’s Wängelein.

                    Ich wollte, meine Lieder

                    Das wären Erbsen klein:

                    Ich kocht’ eine Erbsensuppe,

                    Die sollte köstlich sein.**

The discussion takes place in German, which, though he has learned to get around in English, Confucius knows not at all.

     Afterward, he asks his grand, grand, grand etc. nephew, “Who this Heine was, a philosopher?”

     “No,” the nephew responds, “just a poet.”

 05.04.20

_______________

 *  “Confucius in America, 1968” begins here.

** A very free translation by my friend Rick Dietrich:

I wish my songs were scent,

sent to tickle my sweet love’s nose.

I wish my songs were breeze,

blown to nibble my sweet love’s cheeks.

I wish my songs were peas.

I’d cook them into a scrumptious soup.

 

Confucius at Mount Rushmore

 Confucius at Mount Rushmore  

Falsified “photograph” of Confucius
& unidentified park ranger at
Mount Rushmore, summer 1968.

“Such big heads,” Confucius said.

     “And almost as large in life,” the ranger answered. “Washington - he’s the one on the left - understood humility, at least, that it was important to pretend to have it. But only Lincoln, the last, with the beard, truly practiced it.”

     “He was the great man, then.”

     “Yes. But the only one that didn’t die in bed.”

     “Where did he die, then?”

     “At the theater.”

     Confucius nodded as if, yes, that was significant, and he knew what it meant.

05.02.20

_______________

 * This is the fourth in the series, “Confucius in America, 1968,” which begins here.

TED

 Technology, Ego, Design. 

Fast Forward. (Fifty years later. Palm Springs, CA). Confucius attends a TED talk by one-time follower Ts’ze-Kung,* which follows (to a T) the outline the company gives its speakers.

“I say this in all modesty. What I discovered then is that I am really good at this. And you could be too if you were as amazing as I am. Thank you.” [Applause.]

Confucius in Palm Springs, 2018

05.01.20

_______________

 * The Analects, 5,12 (unexpurgated and unabridged Underground Press edition) - “Ts’ze-kung said, ‘What I do not wish others to do to me, I also do not wish to do to them.’ The Master said, ‘Ts’ze, you’re not there yet.” Walking away, Ts’ze muttered, “Nor are you, wise word.” The Master said, “What did you say, Ts’ze-Kung? I didn’t hear you.” “Nothing,” Ts’ze replied.

COW

“All is vanity and a passing of wind.”**

 COW.* 

Berkeley, CA. Invited to participate in a low-level panel at the Conference on Oriental Wisdom (COW), Confucius brings with him to the (also low-level) reception following a pamphlet copy of the book of Ecclesiastes in which he has highlighted several random passages. He leaves it on the buffet table beside some bean dip.

04.29.20

_______________

 * Confucius in America, Episode 2. Continued from here, where there are also links to more Confucion.
** Hebrew רוח ורעת

Confucius in America, 1968

 Confucius in America, 1968. 

The people of Ch’î sent Lû an all-girl band. Chî Hwan took charge of it, and for three days normal court business was suspended. Confucius left after the first.*

NOLA, spring 1968.†
Wearing Wallabees.

New Orleans. He is listening to the girl on the streetcar, long brown hair, long flowered dress, smelling of gardenias, tuberose, and sweat: She is singing to herself the names of the streets: “Urania’s called Felicity, Polymnia’s in church. Euterpe is on keyboards, Terpsichore’s on dance. Melpomene cries out, Thalia laughs; Erato writes it down. Clio then Calliope . . . .” He can’t hear the end. She has pulled the cord and is walking to the door. Her feet are bare.  

04.27.20

_______________

 * The quotation is from The Analects 18, 4.

 † The last we saw him was playing parabolic golf with Old Tom Morris at Prestwick. See here.  A brief catalog of his adventures in Europe and the Middle East before then begins here.