The Pow Wow

I'm resting up again today. Don't like the sudden change to cold weather. To me, if it's below 60, it's cold. If it's not windy, I don't mind 55 degrees too much, but when it's blowing (which it is much of the time here in November/December), I especially don't like it. Wind is my absolute #1 least favorite weather condition, and in Fall, Northridge is the Windy City. Anyhow, I went over to the Indian Pow Wow last night at CSUN. They didn't have it during the Covid years, so it was awesome to see it again. I walked over twice, at 5:30 and then again at 8 for the closing ceremony. I stayed about a half hour each time. It's awesome to watch the dancers, to see the headdresses and beautiful, handmade clothing. The moon was near full, with Jupiter following it around (it's been tagging along all week), and I watched the dancers' feet as they matched the beat of the drums, and I just thought: "what an amazing culture, and they lived this way for 8000 years."

For me, as a white man, and one who is proud of my culture also but feels that it is not sustainable in its current form, I have wondered how great it might have been (and still could be), if we as Americans could help to restore Native American culture and bring it more to the forefront, and try to live under Nature's rules, and the rule of The Great Spirit (God), instead of constantly trying to conquer Nature (paving everything over, developing every square inch of land, creating climate problems, frying people's brains with electronic devices), and denying the existence of God.

I'll bet if you went to the Pow Wow, you'd feel the same way too.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love American culture, as stated above. No one loves Americana more than me, but I think it peaked around 1920-1950, and by 2000 it went into a sharp decline. Of course, the half-century from 1950-2000 was amazing and in many ways beyond compare. We went to the Moon in 1969. But then, slowly but surely, the corporation mentality began taking over, and here we are today. No more explanation is necessary. But at the Pow Wow, I thought again: "Man, if we could just dial it back. Dial back the idea of "progress". It's a ridiculous notion, the idea that Man is "going somewhere" and "needs to progress". And furthermore, the idea that "progress" is defined as electronic technology.

The mountains don't progress. The ocean doesn't progress. The sky does not progress.

But Man thinks he does, or that he needs to. We had all the technology we needed, to make life easier, about 50 to 100 years ago. Since then, and especially now, it's just to stifle ourselves. There's really no such thing as progress, just as there's really no such thing as science. There is discovery, but mathematics exists without Man's investigation, just as a tree does indeed make a sound (or at least sound waves) when it falls in the forest, even if no one is around to hear it.

There's no progress because the Earth goes around the Sun, and that's it. So, what is the best way to live?

Go to the Pow Wow, and you might get an idea. Then combine it with the best of American culture, from the peak of Americana. It's a big, beautiful country, and continent, and there's plenty of room for everyone, but we can't afford to let things run rampant, as they are now, in the way of the corporate/silicon valley/news media mentality, with fake news and fake politics (Trump is right about those things), and we must dial things back so we don't drive America off a cliff.

Well, anyhow, I'll shut up. I did watch a documentary last night, called "Ten Seconds That Shook the World"(1963), about the bombing of Hiroshima. It was written by Alan Landsberg, who had an office on the MGM lot, during the time I worked there, and it was directed by the legendary David Wolper. The inimitable Richard Basehart narrated, and it was put together using actual and staged footage, from the island of Tinian, showing Captain Paul Tibbets briefing the crew of the Enola Gay and addressing the 509th bomb group. Pearl's husband Roy was on Tinian. If I am not mistaken, he was a communications specialist, and I thought of him as I watched. His daughter told me that the soldiers were all nervous that the bomb would go off on the island, or the plane would crash on takeoff, and that fear is reflected in the movie.

The bombing and the mushroom cloud are shown, and are as horrible as can be imagined. The landscape in the aftermath is something most folks have probably seen. Anyway, it's an important part of history. And as awful as Hiroshima was, and Nagasaki, the firebombing of Tokyo was just as bad, if not worse, and the British/American firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg created a literal hell on Earth, with flames that rose miles into the air. I am reading a book called "Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany". It is decidedly not for the squeamish. But it describes how Germany was destroyed, and what happened to the ordinary citizens, and you wonder why something like this had to happen, and how it came to happen; you wonder what led up to it?

And you analyse what you read, and then you read and read some more. 

I'm also reading Geddy Lee's book: "My Effin' Life". I've only just started. He has a chapter about the experience of his parents in a Nazi concentration camp. I haven't come to that part yet.

Well anyhow, that's all for the moment. I'm still working on figuring out my own effin' life.  ////