Archive for May 2011
More Blurred Thoughts on bin Laden, May 5th, New York’s Day
May 5, 2011
I spoke to my mother in Florida today, May 5th, who asked me if we were all super-happy now, we New Yorkers. (My mom watches a lot of TV.)
New Yorkers are never super happy. (We don’t all wear black just because it doesn’t show dirt.)
But some of us do seem to be happier than usual; according to the media, many of us are absolutely euphoric about the killing of bin Laden; for the last few days I’ve been wondering why I’m not one of this group.
(Please don’t misunderstand me. I am glad the U.S. has accomplished its mission. Still, I don’t find that bin Laden’s death brings the satisfaction that the media has been touting.)
One reason, previously mentioned, is a general pacifism. I could manage violence in self-defense, and certainly in defense of others, but I feel uncomfortable with an “eye for an eye” ideal of justice, even in the case of horrific villains. It seems to me that one must be careful not to lower one’s self to activities that are in any way similar to those that one deplores.
But one reason for my sense of anti-climax may be the way the 9/11 attack was originally handled. At the start, President Bush characterized the attack as an act of war rather than as a crime. (I remember that moment in his speech with great intensity, sitting on my coach, in the haze of smoke and dust that overtook downtown Manhattan, weeping. Afterwards, cooking impossible, we went to eat in an Indian restaurant I’d never been to before or since. Like many Indian restaurants in New York, it was actually a Bangladeshi restaurant, and I wondered what the waiters were thinking, serving those small metal dishes of currified sauces, war in Asia in the making. It was a surreal time in the City.)
If an action is characterized as an act of war, if it is used as the justification for war (two wars), it’s a bit difficult to turn it back into a crime again, something solved by a successful manhunt.
Would that it could be so.
Still thinking about bin Laden (though I’d just as soon not)
May 4, 2011
My brain is still reeling over the death of bin Laden, still caught in a very strong mix of feelings, all much much more somber than jubilant. Robert Klitzman, the brother of a victim of the 9/11 attacks, writes an op-ed piece, “My Sister, My Grief,” in today’s New York Times that encapsulates some of these mixed feelings–a kind of relief that the U.S. has finally accomplished its specific mission, a re-awakened grief for the specific deaths and losses of 9/11 as well as for the decade of deaths and war, a worry about reaction chains of violence (both past ones, such as the war in Iraq, and future ones) and, underneath all of that, concern about the hatred and history and misunderstanding, manipulation, greed, prejudice, and genuine disagreements, that continue to divide and menace the world and that are a lot more powerful than a single man.
I’ve been thinking a lot too about the specifics of Obama’s mission. Even as a pacifist, a long-term vegetarian, someone who just abhors the idea of killing, I realize that any capture of bin Laden, attempted trial, would have been a nightmare, likely leading to hostage taking around the world.
All these concerns make me very glad not to be involved in politics, not to be one of the people making these types of decisions. Last night just thinking about it, I wanted to get back to something simple, down to earth.
What I came up with was bread. Rolls just out of the oven, still on a rather corroded baking sheet. That’s what those lumps up there are supposed to be.
Thinking About Different Things…errr…the Same Things
May 3, 2011
Reporters, yesterday, described “relief” as the primary emotion experienced by those interviewed at the World Trade Center site about the capture and killing of bin Laden. I live right next to the World Trade Center site, and a part of me does feel a kind of relief over these events. There’s another part of me, however, that can only put the words “relief” and “the face of terrorism” into a single sentence if I also add in the phrase “just not think about it.” Example: ‘the only way I can feel relief in the face of terrorism is to just not think about it.”
The fact is that if you live down here, and pass the site every day, you really do have to make an effort to banish past and possibly future events from your mind and to just go on with your daily activities.
In my case, these activities have lately involved goofing around on the iPad or iPhone, especially with the great painting app “Brushes”, and more recently with the photo app, “Photogene.” Above is a painting of lilacs that I made with the Brushes App using a real photograph as a visual model. I then deleted the photograph (it had been a separate “layer” in the painting), and saved my own painting as a photo. That’s what’s above.
I then pulled the painting/photo up on Photogene, which offers a bunch of cool filters to adjust it. Below is the same painting, filtered as a “comic.”
Not perhaps a great art, but a great way of occupying the mind.
P.S. – These pictures got cropped a bit weirdly in the upload to WordPress! One of the hazards of working digitally.
Further to Post re Pacifist New Yorker’s Reaction to Bin Laden’s Death
May 2, 2011Further to my prior post re Bin Laden’s death: by saying that I wish justice were not so frequently furthered by killing, I don’t mean to say that I don’t think there should have been a U.S. operation, or that Bin Laden should have been captured rather than killed. (Capture would have undoubtedly exposed the U.S. troops to worse dangers and created a violent and interminable drama.)
I just feel very somber about it all; that it’s a sad and somber moment, given the suffering and death that has been part of this whole history, given the sorrow of the last ten years, and given the fact that violence on such scale is rarely caused by a single person but a combination of forces. As a result, I hope that there’s a kind of temperance in the U.S. reaction, and not thoughtless and unseemly jingoism.
Thoughts on Bin Laden’s Death From a Downtown New Yorker (and Pacifist)
May 2, 2011
I must confess to feeling somewhat shaken over the news of Bin Laden’s death. My reaction–a kind of deep and trembly somberness–makes me realize, first, what a both intense and nervous pacifist I am. The death of even an enemy at another’s hands is not the kind of thing that brings me jubilance.
On the other hand, I’m a downtown New Yorker. I saw the second plane hit the Trade Towers, and, for months and years, have mourned the 9/11 attacks, not so much because of the immediate loss of a loved one, but because of the loss of–I don’t know what exactly–an old life in a different New York City? A time pre-ongoing wars? (Of course, there were the loved ones. No New Yorker can forget the photos and pleas that coated every lamppost and street corner, the terrible sorrow that filled all of our lives for some long time.)
There are also the countless deaths overseas, people killed because of the conflicts arising (rightly or wrongly) out of 9/11. Can the deaths of Iraqi civilians be blamed on Bin Laden? I don’t know (I have some doubts, certainly, about the handling of it all). Still, there is a sense that it is all knotted somehow together; collateral damage to the nth degree; violence that brought on more violence, and was intended to do so.
Being a downtown New Yorker post 9/11 also brings with it easily re-awakened fear. I woke up this morning to the sound of helicopters. The blades raise a resonate shuddering in the stomach.
Yes, I am glad that the U.S. has been able to accomplish what it intended, that it’s been able to feel and show that competence.
I also hope that this can be the justification for U.S. extrication of itself from foreign wars, and that Bin Laden’s death provides some kind of comfort, at least some lessening of bitterness, for families who have lost loved ones.
I just wish there were ways other than killing for all sides (ourselves and our opponents) to move towards an idea of justice. Maybe I was born on the wrong planet.
(P.S. whatever one’s feelings, however happy one may feel that Bin Laden has died, it seems too serious a matter for jumping up and down. It brings back images of people celebrating 9/11; it’s hard to believe that that kind of pay-back can do anything but promote more violence.)
IPad Art, Brushes App, Photogene, Lots of Options – Elephant/Pony Show
May 1, 2011
If you like to play at art-making, as I do, the iPad offers lots and lots of ways of wasting time.
There are many art apps. The one I know is the Brushes App (also used with great success by David Hockney.) My lack of knowledge of all the intricacies of the App also requires me to combine it with a great photo App called Photogene, which includes editing, framing, and filtering tools.
One of the big keys to using the Brushes App is the use of layers, which allows you to change backgrounds and foregrounds and details. The iPad Brushes App allows for at least six of these; they can be deleted, added, put in front or behind one another, allowing for a lot of change and adaptation.
Photogene has these wonderful filters which allow you to completely change the highlighting and coloring of a drawing.
At any rate, some variations below:
ManicDDaily 
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