{"id":168803,"date":"2020-09-21T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=168803"},"modified":"2020-09-15T10:32:20","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T09:32:20","slug":"somethings-happening-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/09\/somethings-happening-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Something\u2019s Happening Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies: Critical and Lyrical Essays<\/em><\/strong>, by Edward Curtin, Atlanta-GA, Clarity Press 2020, 349 pp.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThere\u2019s something happening here<\/em>
\nWhat it is ain\u2019t exactly clear.\u201d<\/em>
\n–Buffalo Springfield, \u201cFor What It\u2019s Worth<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Happily receiving my review copy of Edward Curtin\u2019s new book, the first thing I noticed, naturally enough, was the cover.\u00a0 It comprises a pleasant picture of a Western US scene: the kind of road I traveled in my 20s and 30s; a long, deserted road heading straight towards distant snow-crested mountains.\u00a0 All fine and good\u2026except that the road is upside down\u2014at the top of the cover–, and the mountains and blue sky seem to be falling into some \u201cundiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns\u201d!<\/p>\n

Having read some of Curtin\u2019s essays and poems online during the past 4 years, I was psychologically prepared to buckle my seatbelt, enjoy the unfolding, if unique, scenery, and learn and re-learn hard truths about the U.S. and our world in 2020.\u00a0 And, of course, I took to heart the sub-title, too: \u201cCritical & Lyrical Essays\u201d; i.e., hard, political-techno-academic truths\u2014mostly\u2014and, lest we forget, \u201clyrical\u201d essays and asides of assurance that the artistic spirit yet survives, and may yet surmount.<\/p>\n

Among the 47 essays here, one could start almost anywhere, with any arbitrary two of them, to get a sense of what Ed is attempting.\u00a0 Like many of the heroes he cites in his book, Ed does not shirk the responsibility of controversy that honest investigation and commentary will evoke: political, economic, even theological controversy\u2026.\u00a0 A few essay titles reveal his rambunctious, no-B.S. spirit:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cInside America\u2019s Doll House: A Vast Tapestry of Lies.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhat Are We Working for: \u2018At Eternity\u2019s Gate\u2019?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe Message from Dallas: JFK and the Unspeakable\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhy I Don\u2019t Speak of 9\/11 Anymore\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cLooking Through the Screen at the World\u2019s Suffering\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>\u201cThe Government that Killed Him Honors MLK with a National Holiday\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSpeeding into the Void of Cyberspace as Designed\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAnswering the Mysterious Call of An Artist\u2019s Spiritual Vocation\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHappenings in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHillary Clinton: The Heartless Queen\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Quite an assortment!\u00a0 And that\u2019s about 1\/5 of the stew\u2019s titular ingredients.\u00a0 It all comes together with some very fine writing:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system that knows and controls so much decides human truth and what is good and evil\u2026.\u00a0 No wonder all the media [are] screaming about our extinction, doomsday and the apocalypse\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSystemic structures of capitalist exploitation\u2026 reject millennia of human experience and the testimony of the world\u2019s great art and spiritual experience.\u00a0 It is the triumph of technical reason over the revelation of hope\u2026[hope] rooted in love, sexuality and the human body, not abstractions.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much of what Ed does is about framing: How did we get into such entanglements and such bewildering enjambments?\u00a0 It\u2019s not just a matter of what<\/em>, of course, but how <\/em>our intertwined realities have been connected and defined.<\/p>\n

Ed tackles horrific, defining events in his own life, and in the life of the nation and the world: the assassinations of John F. Kennedy (1963), Malcolm X (1965), and Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy (1968); the Vietnam War\u2014it\u2019s impact on him as a Jesuit School graduate, a Marine corps gung-ho<\/em> guy, transformed, by the realization of horrors we have wrought, into a conscientious objector; and, of course, the televised, unbelievable spectacle of September 11, 2001 (\u201c9\/11\u201d).<\/p>\n

He can render the focused, close-up view of this world, as well as the wide-angle shot: he was born in the same year Hiroshima and Nagasaki exploded in an inferno of blinding light over a defeated nation, begging for peace, enough-ness<\/em>; i.e., Japan, caught in the vice of another nation, the U.S.A., whose power-elite needed to send a message to its prescribed future enemy\u2014the U.S.S.R.\u2014that\u2026we can do it again, and again, and again\u2026. <\/em><\/p>\n

Traveling with Ed along these highways and byways, we soon feel like we\u2019re in the company of a friend whose judgment and honesty we can trust.\u00a0 We won\u2019t always agree completely\u2026but, why should we?\u00a0 Dialoguing, even dialectical dialoguing, is how we learn.<\/p>\n

Throughout \u201cSeeking\u2026,\u201d Ed introduces us to characters who have helped him shape his perceptions and perspectives.\u00a0 (Some I\u2019ve met personally; others I know through their shining work and examples.)\u00a0 People like Father Daniel Berrigan, a \u201cCriminal for Peace,\u201d (and, not incidentally, an important 20th<\/sup>-Century poet).\u00a0 Fr Berrigan \u201chad been arrested for the first time at a Pentagon demonstration\u201d in 1967.\u00a0 A few days later, he and others \u201chad upped the ante\u2026by pouring blood on draft files in Baltimore.\u201d<\/p>\n

An \u201cinspirational college teacher\u201d of Ed\u2019s, and a friend of Dan\u2019s, had arranged a 3-day meeting\/counselling\/guidance between Ed and Dan: \u201cwalking and talking, talking and walking, we whirled around the Cornell campus where Dan was a chaplain.\u201d\u00a0 One can imagine the impact of that meeting with the infamous \u201cpeacenik,\u201d that war-resister, on the young, stretching-his-wings, Curtin: \u201cI, a 23-year old Marine intent on declaring myself a conscientious objector before my reserve unit was activated and sent to Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other hitchhikers and welcome guests come along for the ride, spicing the conversation, always taking meditative turns.\u00a0 Albert Camus takes Sartre\u2019s \u201cNo Exit\u201d Existentialism out of the Inferno into more lyrical realms where we can wander and wonder about the meaning of life, the passing immediacy, and transcendence beyond time.<\/p>\n

What a confusing, awful, and exhilarating time to be alive!<\/p>\n

What and whom can we trust?<\/p>\n

Mighty questions for this Pandemic Age, as well\u2026.<\/p>\n

As noted, Ed Curtin is an important guide as we travel this upside-down highway.\u00a0 Orwell is another frequent guest in the caravan.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t he warn us decades ago, turning the last 2 digits of the year when he wrote his masterpiece, 1948, turning those digits around to derive the title, \u201c1984\u201d?\u00a0 And haven\u2019t we been living in this masticated world of mass-illusions and delusions since the age of mass-communications\u2014the \u201cyellow journalism\u201d of Hearst\u2019s newspapers that propagated our Spanish-American (imperialist) war of the 1890s; and the beginning and popularity of \u201cmotion pictures\u201d in the 1920s; the magic of radio and F.D.R.\u2019s \u201cfireside chats\u201d in the 1930s; the wonder of television\u2014a \u201cguest invited into our homes\u201d in the 50s–; popular music, fueling the positive and negative energies of youth\u2026. And now what?\u00a0 We hardly talk to one another.\u00a0 We do not dialogue and converse.\u00a0 Our smart-phones and computers know us better than our families and friends!<\/p>\n

\u201cAll real living is meeting,\u201d Martin Buber taught us.\u00a0 And, with Ed, we meet, and learn from, hawk-eyed journalists like Lisa Pease in the chapter entitled, \u201cThe Assassination of RFK: A Lie Too Big to Fail.\u201d\u00a0 Ed notes: \u201cLisa Pease correctly says that \u2018the CIA takeover of America in the 1960s is the story of our times.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 And lets Ms. Pease conclude: \u201cShould America ever become a dictatorship, the epitaph of our democracy must include the role the mainstream media, by bowing to the National Security state, played in killing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This book is a keepsake\u2014not just for one\u2019s \u201cFavorites\u201d file (O the times!\u00a0 O the technophilia!) but, for engraving in the mind and heart.\u00a0 (Yes!\u00a0 The two together, as Curtin notes herein, inseparable in our deepest understanding\/knowledge\/pathos of life!)<\/p>\n

Ed travels this inverted road with us.\u00a0 He shows us how to connect the dots, to make sense of the Void (within and without).\u00a0 How to get beyond the mass-media and social-media deceptions; our defined and confined world and vision.\u00a0 Even, how to make space for the spiritual, mystical and inexplicable.\u00a0 How to find clarity and meaning, sometimes even beauty, a \u201cLa Grande Jatte\u201d amidst the pointillistic dots; as Frost put it about poetry: \u201ca momentary stay against confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Dr. <\/em>Gary Steven Corseri <\/em>is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.<\/a> Gary is the grandson of Ukrainian-Jewish and Sicilian-Catholic immigrants.\u00a0 He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and his dramas have been produced on <\/em>PBS-Atlanta and in universities, high schools and Little Theaters.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels, 1 full collection and 1 prize-winning chapbook of poems.\u00a0 His poems, articles, fiction, dramas have appeared in hundreds of global publications & websites, including: <\/em>Countercurrents, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine, Miami Herald, The New York Times,\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Transcend Media Service<\/a>.\u00a0 He has taught at universities in the U.S. and Japan, and in US prisons and public schools.\u00a0 He has worked as a grape-picker in Australia, a gas-station attendant, and an editor. Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Edward Curtin is a widely published author and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. His new book is <\/em>Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies \u2013 https:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/product\/seeking-truth-in-a-country-of-lies\/<\/a>\u00a0 His website is http:\/\/edwardcurtin.com\/<\/a>. email: edcurtinjr@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies: Critical and Lyrical Essays, by Edward Curtin, Atlanta-GA, Clarity Press 2020 – Ed shows us how to connect the dots, to make sense of the Void. How to get beyond the mass-media and social-media deceptions; our defined and confined world and vision. Even, how to make space for the spiritual, mystical and inexplicable. How to find clarity and meaning, sometimes even beauty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":168804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[642,870],"class_list":["post-168803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-literature","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}