===================================================================== Stuck In Traffic "Current Events, Cultural Phenomena, True Stories" Issue #16 - July 1996 Contents: Olympic Spirit: Then And Now An examination of the symbolism shown in the modern Olympic games shows that the modern day Olympics, as they are presented, have not remained true to the original spirit of the ancient Olympic games. The Zero of Consciousness Subliminal poetry from Seth Fehrs about the most dangerous man in America. The Death of Cool An urgent bulletin from the front lines of the Culture War on how to avoid the "coolness booby trap." "Lead Us Not Into Penn Station" A review of the latest CD from Professor and Mary Ann Tabula Rasa Reflections on the value of a PC, made after accidently destroying the disk drive on my PC. ==================================== Current Events Olympic Spirit: Then and Now As the Centennial Olympic Games open in Atlanta, it's fitting to think about what makes the Olympic Games special. Amid all the hype, the sponsorships, the news headlines, and the pageantry, it's easy to forget why we're holding them in the first place. The Olympics, after all, are far more than just an opportunity to sell T-shirts and baseball caps by the millions. The history of the Olympics can be traced all the way back to the days of ancient Greece, then known as the center of the civilized Western world. So we only know about them through legend and myth. But the ideas behind the Olympics are clear. Every four years, nations set aside their differences and people traveled to Greece to participate in games of sport. Soldiers set down their swords and spears and left the battlefield and headed for Greece when the time came. People who were enemies one day suddenly became comrades and competitors in the Olympic Games. Whether this is literally true or not is irrelevant. That is the myth that has survived, that is the archetype in our consciousness. The Modern Olympic Games, are quite different and they've lost some of that spirit from the Ancient Games. For one thing, nations don't stop their antagonism toward each other for the Olympics. These modern times move far to quickly for that. The wars continue, the battles rage on. Two countries may be at war with each other while individuals from the two countries are peaceably running marathon races against each other at the Olympic Games. But worse than that even, governments and political activists all stripes too often try to use the Olympics to further their political goals or make a political statement. The politically disenfranchised have on more than one occasion taken Olympic athletes as hostages, interrupting the games, terrorizing the world, and worst of all denying innocent people the opportunity to live their dream of Olympic competition. Who can forget the hostage standoff at the Munich games? But it's not just the politically disenfranchised that have ruined the Olympics in the past. Governments themselves have done so as well. On more than one occasion, a government has "boycotted" the Olympics by forbidding athletes from within its jurisdiction from participating in the Olympic events. The arrogance of such boycotts are stunning, as if the boycotting nation were saying, "You can't possibly hold the Olympic games without us, so we'll just take our ball and go home." The United States has done this in the past, and the former Soviet Union even went so far as to start their own pseudo-Olympic games, called the "Good Will Games," in a bald attempt at coopting the Olympics and controlling who gets to attend. The Olympic Organizing Committee does its best to prevent the Olympics from becoming a showcase for political statements, but the media coverage is just too irresistible for politicos who want to get their message out fast. Every nation on earth has reporters covering the Olympics. There is probably a higher concentration of media at the Olympics than any other event on earth. And where there are cameras, you'll find political activists trying to get their message out. But it's not just the media concentration that threatens to turn the Olympics into media showcases for politics. Part of the problem lies in the nature of the modern Olympics themselves. The modern Olympics have been portrayed in the last few decades not as human contests as much as national contests. The image portrayed by the Olympic organizers is not one of athletes coming together, but of nation-states coming together by sending teams to the Olympics that represent their country. It is a subtle but important difference. By treating the athletes not as individuals, but as "teams" representing a nation, the nations take center stage. For example, the opening ceremonies always have all the athletes marching into an arena, segregated by nation, each marching in under their country's flag. And it is exciting to see all the flags flying. The pageantry is nice and it makes for good TV. But the athletes tend to get lost in all the hoopla. It's not just that the national symbols overshadow the individual athletes, the Olympic games almost invariably turn into competitions between the national teams. We count the medals that each nation wins and compare how many medals "we" have won against the number of medals "they" have won. "They" almost invariably being the nation that we're currently at war with or antagonistic with. The Japanese may be whipping our butts in foreign trade and education, but we can beat the hell out of them in basketball and we've got the medals to prove it. Remember how the everyone in the United States was suddenly a hockey fan when it looked like we were going to beat the Evil Empire in this particular sport? All this is a very sad commentary on the modern Olympics, and we in the United States, of all peoples, should know better. The worst struggles in our nation's history, the issues that have caused us the most angst, have always centered around the unwise segregation of people for arbitrary and inconsequential traits. The American Revolution was born largely out of the belief that "all men are created equal" and that one's background, the accident of ones birth, confers no special privilege on a person. No one has the right to rule you just because they have "royal blood." And of course the whole issue of slavery has been fundamental in forming our national character. Almost from the very founding of this nation, we have been striving to rid ourselves of an institutionalized discrimination based on the accident of one's race. And even though we perhaps haven't quite reached the point where we are a "color blind nation," we've made tremendous strides in the right direction. If we can accept that fact that men and women should be judged not by the color of the skin, but by the character of their souls and the merit of their accomplishments, is it such a stretch to accept that the participants of the Olympic games should judged by their speed, grace, and strength instead of the accident of which flag they happened to be born under? Why is this so difficult for us to do? Part of the reason is that the Olympics appear to be _designed_ to glorify the nation-states instead of the individual athletes. That's why the athletes are segregated by race during the opening ceremonies. That's why the athletes wear their national flags on their uniforms. That's why the winner's national anthem is played when the medals are awarded. That's why the winners' national flags are hung from the rafters during the awards ceremonies, always with the gold medal winner's flag in a dominant position over the second and third place winners' flags. That's why the medal winnings are always reported by nation. The symbolism of these arrangements is unmistakable. A more proper way to hold the Olympics, one that would be true to the original Olympic spirit, would be to ban all mentions of nationality from the games. The one exception might be for cases where identifying nationality would help in the logistics of running the events. There's no reason why the opening ceremonies have to segregate all the athletes by nation. They can march in together, without national flags. If you want the visual pageantry of flags, let them carry the Olympic flag and streamers of the Olympic colors. When medals are awarded at the conclusion of an event, it would be more fitting to announce the winner's name than to play his or her national anthem. And I think it would be fitting to let the winner address the crowd for a minute or two. I would much rather listen to an athlete say "Hi" to the folks back home than to listen to another a national anthem. A responsible news organization would not report the tallies of medal winnings by country, even if other organizations stooped so low as to do so. A news organization should simply report the names of the winners. It's perhaps reasonable to report where the athlete is from, since spectators do tend to be curious about where the winners are from. But it should only be done in the context of painting a picture of the individual athlete, helping the spectator get to know a little more about the personal side of the athlete. The focus of the Olympics should always be on the individual athletes because they are the real marvel. They are the reason we do this. They are what's impressive. It's the dedication a person has to have to excel in a sport so well that they qualify for the Olympic games that impresses. Not that they are from a particular country. The Olympics, as the ancients' intended them to be, are symbolic reminders of the ability of each and every one of us to transform ourselves through sheer force of will. They show us that we can become "super human," or as you prefer, they give us a glimpse of God. It's a shame that the modern Olympics games have coopted the spirit of the ancient Olympic games and turned them into to a glorification of The State. ==================================== "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problems, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -Robert Heinlein ==================================== Cultural Phenomena The Zero Of Consciousness by Seth Fehrs Wiped, in the blink of an eye. Live and learn, RIP, stuck in traffic and dead at the age of, I would guess, about 21 or 22. So when can we expect to see the outside looking in? Or come oozing out the sides... To relieve the pain, share with the world his experiences with dying on the six o'clock news. He was one of the few hedonists (no greasy kid stuff) with the respect and honor of today's net generation, but city buses show little mercy. Curiosity got the best of me expecting the worst. Low-intensity events just happen, in the most common ordinary ways, by the most ordinary folks-- a cartoonish image of the latest issue that seems to find peace and security for the flower children of yesteryear. The most dangerous man in America never meant to hurt anyone. About the author: By day, Seth Fehrs (fehrs002@mc.duke.edu) works for Duke Medical Center as a programmer. By night, he works on the Executive Committee for the NC Libertarian Party and is running a laid-back campaign for NC Secretary of Labor. His stance on the issues is that NC doesn't need a Secretary of Labor. If elected, he will fire his staff and donate his salary to charity. Seth also writes subliminal poetry that he finds hidden in other people's zines--the above was found in the last issue of Stuck In Traffic. ==================================== True Story The Death of Cool There are few things that sadden me more than the death of a good word. Ideas, concepts, new ways of looking at the world coalesce from our synapses. The billions of overlapping associations in our head find a seed crystal and then slowly clump together in the precipitate of a new idea and when that seed crystal grows large enough it emerges into our consciousness and we give it a name. As David Byrne said, we give names to things because, "It makes the conversation easy." But there are word scavengers in the world that attack language; they parasitically attach themselves to new concepts, weighing them down. Like a virus, they inject themselves into a concept, mutate it, and enter our brains unnoticed. The Culture War is not a frontal assault, it's an indirect attack on the frontal lobes. It's guerilla war. It's guerilla theater. Take, for example, the word "cool." Cool used to have a distinct meaning and a well understood connotation, though these were rarely made explicit. At its root, "cool" means "expressive of a personality." Cool is something that enables a one-on-one interaction. Cool is an opportunity for connection. It's an opportunity for a degree of two way communication, even if the parties involved are separated by time, or space, or culture. It's an opportunity for insight into the originator. Cool requires participation from the receiver as well as the originator. If I say, "That's a cool leather jacket you got there." I'm acknowledging that it is expressive of your personality. I can relate to you through this leather jacket and therefore the jacket has coolness. An object or an idea is cool if it gives you insight into the originator's soul. And by extension, a "cool" person is someone who has mastered the art of expressing themselves through the things they say, through the things they do, and through the material things they own. But mastering this first requires that you know who you are inside. So a typically uncool person, isn't uncool because of the particular things they say or do or have. A uncool person is not so because he or she dresses funny. An uncool person isn't so because they are timid. An uncool person isn't so because he or she doesn't hang out with the "right crowd." An uncool person is so because they aren't in touch with themselves enough to find their personality in order to express it. Coolness requires a person. Coolness requires a personality. At least that was so before the word cool was destroyed. Cool is essentially an adjective that means "this gives you access to a person's soul, or personality." It didn't take very long for the scavengers to latch on to cool as a way of getting inside out heads. Pretty soon, the scavengers began to use the word cool to describe all kinds soulless ideas. Attaching the word cool to all sorts of things unassociated with a personality was their means of laying a booby trap for those of us striving to communicate with each other. It was a way for the scavengers to get in our heads and we willingly let them do it because we thought it was an avenue for communication. Cool has become little more than a marketing gimmick used by companies to grab out attention, drop our defenses, and let them into our heads. It's become the modern day equivalent "New and Improved." There are ways to spot this abuse of the term cool, and if you keep them in mind, you can avoid falling into the coolness booby trap. First, nothing can be cool with out a personality at the other end. Cool without soul is not cool at all. Cool is associated with a person, either directly or indirectly with things associated with a person. Cool is not a group effort. Cool is not corporate. This is not to knock corporations. Corporations are eminently useful and beneficial in their own ways. But they are not cool. Second, cool is never self-descriptive. While it emanates from a person's soul, through their actions and thoughts and creations, it can only be applied by the observer. Anyone describing themselves as "cool" automatically isn't. Anyone describing something they've done or bought or created as "cool" automatically isn't. When a new product is introduced into the marketplace and labeled _by_it's_producers_ as being "Cool," it automatically isn't. While it is possible to avoid the coolness booby trap, I believe it is too late to save the word itself. And so I have vowed to wean myself off the word cool. It's going to be tough to do because the original concept is useful, even necessary. But we will have find another word to express the concept. When, just to name an example, Bill Gates uses the term "cool" to describe the products from Microsoft Corporation, it's time for the rest of us to find another word. ==================================== Cultural Phenomena "Lead Us Not Into Penn Station" Ken Rockwood and Danielle Brancaccio, collectively known as the musical duo Professor and Mary Ann, don't need gimmicks to sell their act despite the obvious homage to Gilligan's Island. They don't need elaborate orchestrations, mind numbing beats, or walls of amplifiers. All they need is an acoustic guitar and their uncanny knack for combining quirky, entertaining lyrics with intense, undiluted love. Building on this style that they introduced in their previous album, "Fairy Tale," Professor and Mary Ann's latest album, "Lead Us Not Into Penn Station," is an even stronger collection of songs, both musically and thematically. Of course everyone is doing the trendy coffeehouse "unplugged" scene these days, with varying degrees of success. No doubt even Metallica will give it a try someday soon. But Professor and Mary Ann are at home in it. Their songs are designed to be listened to, not just heard. And their music gains rather than suffers from the simplicity of its orchestration. And unlike the so many acoustic acts, they refuse to be ghettoized into an easily labeled genre. They are unique as well as plain and simple. Danielle Brancaccio has the sort of voice that makes voice teachers shake their heads, but it also makes men sit up and take notice. She has a breathy, waspy sound that can go from a sophisticated mood reminiscent of torch singers from yesteryear to a playful man's-best-friend easiness. Ken Rockwood knows how to write tunes that are fun without being too silly and emotional with out being embarrassing. Put the two together and you get songs that sticks in your head for days at a time. "Lead Us Not Into Penn Station," an obvious pun on the line from the Lord's Prayer, "lead us not into temptation," titles both the CD and a mini-story contained in the liner notes about urban decay and misery which serves as sort of an anti-theme that brings the collections of songs together. The CD opens with Danielle singing "Willow," a haunting, gothic inspired song in which she voices everyone's angst and incompleteness without love. And it's followed by "Flea Circus," sung by Rockwood, that sets a scene that makes modern city life look bewildering and scary. The stage is then set for the rest of the album, all about love and caring, about a woman and man finding solace and comfort in their relationship. These aren't drippy, greeting card songs, but they definitely affirm the value of romantic relationships. Quite a rare thing in music these days. The best of these songs are Danielle's "Make Me Your Baby" and Rockwood's "Stumbling Home" in which he manages to perfectly capture the contrast between a guy's romantic dreams and reality, "tonight I'm going to rest my head in your hands/ going to close my eyes and dream/ tonight everyone will understand/ exactly what I mean/ tonight I'm going to reap the harvest/ that took so long to grow/ But most likely tonight I'll just be stumbling home.." And true to their "Fairy Tale" tradition, the CD also features "House By The Water," a funny blues-inspired song about "marrying a millionaire's daughter" and "Luck," good old-fashioned beer-hall sing-along song with just the right hint of sad fatalism to balance the catchy refrain. But as fun as those songs are, the real value in "Lead Us Not Into Penn Station," the thing that sets this CD apart from all the rest is its unabashed sentimentality. Pretty strong stuff by today's standards. "Lead Us Not Into Penn Station" can found at Tower Records, J&R Music, Rebel Music, and Kim's Underground or it can be ordered by mail from Bar None Records. The price is $13.50 for CD. Send checks to Bar None Records. P.O.B. 1704, Hoboken, NJ 07030. ==================================== "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure, and the intelligent are full of doubt." --Bertrand Russell ==================================== True Story Tabula Rasa I should just say right up front that no one is to blame except myself. Last month I accidently wiped the disk drive on my computer. The details of how I did it are unimportant. I wasn't paying attention and I accidently formatted the wrong drive. It's conceivable that I would have been able to recover the drive even after having formatted it but I had spent twenty minutes installing stuff on top of the newly formatted drive before I realized what I had done. So there wasn't much sense in trying to recover anything. One of the key things lost in this disaster was the subscription list to the free e-mail edition of Stuck In Traffic. So if you used to receive Stuck In Traffic via e-mail and didn't get it this month, well, now you know why. Please send me a note and let me know you want back on the subscription list. It's amazing to me how anti-climatic this disaster was. It took along time for it all to sink in. What had I lost? What had I not lost? What could be recreated? What couldn't? Thankfully past issues of Stuck In Traffic are archived both on the net and on diskette. And my all my financial data from Quicken is backed up on diskette, so that's recoverable. And I have a printed copy of my address book so that's recoverable, although it is a pain in the neck to retype it all. But it's the little things that I can't recover that I miss the most. Things you don't normally think of as being worthy of backing up. For example, I lost two years of journal entries. Some of them I have printed out, but most of them weren't. What was in them? I don't know. Stray thoughts. Practice writing. Samples opening line from essays I intended to write someday. It's interesting that these things don't hold much interest or value when you write them. They only acquire value over time. I won't feel the pain of losing them until 20 or 30 years from now. I had three years of news articles that I had saved from online news services. Some of it were headline kinds of stories, some of them were seeds of ideas for stories. Again, not something that you use everyday. It's not of any value until you start looking back over time. Starting all over has been, well, not exactly a good or cathartic experience, but it has made me realize the value of having a computer, which had never quite sunk in before. Yes, computers can be wonderful, time saving devices, once you master them. Yes, they can balance a checkbook faster than you can. Yes, e-mail is wonderful. Yes, the world wide web is a fun place to play around. But computers also make terrific scrap books. They are good journals, They are good junk drawers. Maybe that's the best reason of all to have them around. ==================================== About Stuck In Traffic Stuck In Traffic is a monthly magazine dedicated to evaluating current events, examining cultural phenomena, and relating true stories. Why "Stuck In Traffic"? Because getting stuck in traffic is good for you. It's an opportunity to think, ponder, and reflect on all things, from the personal to the global. As Robert Pirsig wrote in _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, "Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce...." Submissions Submissions to Stuck In Traffic are always welcome. If you have something on your mind or a personal story you'd like to share, please do. You don't have to be a great writer to be published here, just sincere. Contact Information All queries, submissions, subscription requests, comments, and hate-mail about Stuck In Traffic should be sent to Calvin Stacy Powers preferably via E-mail (powers@interpath.com) or by mail (2012 Talloway Drive, Cary, NC USA 27511). Copyright Notice Stuck In Traffic is published and copyrighted by Calvin Stacy Powers who reserves all rights. Individual articles are copyrighted by their respective authors. Unsigned articles are authored by Calvin Stacy Powers. Permission is granted to redistribute and republish Stuck In Traffic for noncommercial purposes as long as it is redistributed as a whole, in its entirety, including this copyright notice. For permission to republish an individual article, contact the author. E-mail Subscriptions E-mail subscriptions to the ASCII text edition of Stuck In Traffic are free. Send your subscription request to either address listed above. Print Subscriptions Subscriptions to the printed edition of Stuck In Traffic are available for $10/year. Make checks payable to Calvin Stacy Powers and send to the address listed above. Individual issues are available for $2. Archives Postscript and ASCII text editions of Stuck In Traffic are archived on the internet by etext.org at the following URL: gopher://gopher.etext.org/11/Zines/StuckInTraffic Trades If you publish a 'zine and would like to trade issues or ad-space, send your zine or ad to either address above. Alliances Stuck in Traffic supports the Blue Ribbon Campaign for free speech online. See for more information. Stuck In Traffic also supports the Golden Key Campaign for electronic privacy and security. See for more information.Stuck In Traffic =====================================================================