Frozen Toothpaste

Today’s Other People Words, like much this week, reminded me of “Be Your Own Protagonist.” The poem’s “Riveted” by Robyn Sarah.

It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.

Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.

It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious dénouement
to the unsurprising end — riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.

This is one of those things I’ve thought I probably should write for a long time but never got to actually doing. Until now.

Dispatches, for those who don’t know, is a semi-regular feature on this site. It consists, essentially, of a few sentences that laments that our (fictional) reporter hasn’t been in touch in a while and then there’s the (fictional) report that he’s filed.

I’ve naively told myself for sometime that anyone who came across it would understand that this is what it was, but looking at it as an outsider I see how it’s not terribly obvious. If someone followed along from the beginning, they probably could have guessed because, well, the first two installments were about pretty blatantly fictional fare: unicorns and the lost city of Atlantis. They were also pretty bad, but that’s another matter entirely.

The reality is that in this medium people haven’t been, and can’t be expected to have been, following along from the beginning. The internet’s great for jumping in midstream, and that has created a far bit of confusion.

The height of that came in a letter I got recently, from a (real) lawyer regarding this story (which has been changed as a result of that letter). Confusing readers who stumble along is unfortunate but tolerable, the specter (even absent an explicit threat) of legal action is another thing entirely.

So, to explain Dispatches let’s start with Steve Finch, our reporter. Mr. Finch — who does not, to my knowledge, exist — is a 30-something newspaper hack or “beat reporter.” He’s an old hand who write clean straightforward stories that tend not to venture to far from the events and opinion relevant to the story. But he does have a passion for odd and unconventional stories that no one else is covering.

His existence is essentially to make it easier for me to write something about “wouldn’t it be cool if…” or “wouldn’t it be weird if…” for this site without having to present them as so many excessive hypothetical. The idea of animal racism, for example, was something that popped into my head one day. But I wanted to present the idea without taking explicit ownership of it; Dispatches allows me to do just that.

I hope that this will clear up any present or future confusion, and wasn’t too much of a bore to those who already understood. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Last week, I counted Kosovo’s declaration of independence as a good thing. I still think that, on balance, it was. But I’m increasingly interested and perhaps troubled by how much I didn’t and don’t know about the whole thing.

And sadly, what commentary I’ve seen about it hasn’t really clarified the issue for me. Most visible opponents of Kosovo’s independence seem vaguely allied with Serbia or to have some related ax to grind. It’s often cited that those countries that have most prominently failed to recognize Kosovo’s independence have separatist movements of their own — Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia. I’m not swayed by this argument, because none of those have provoked — whether merited or not — outside intervention on behalf of one of the parties.

The basic argument here is made by Serbia’s foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, in a New York Times Op-Ed, in which he says:

Recognizing the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia legitimizes the doctrine of imposing solutions to ethnic conflicts. It legitimizes the act of unilateral secession by a provincial or other non-state actor. It transforms the right to self-determination into an avowed right to independence. It legitimizes the forced partition of internationally recognized, sovereign states.

Now aside from the need to discredit any commenter who has a horse in the race he’s covering, there is a legitimate point to be heard here. After all, Serbia had been willing to offer Kosovo nearly complete autonomy if it had remained a province of Belgrade. This, to one not schooled in Kosovo’s grievances, seems like an admirable solution.

And if you believe, as many seem to, that NATO intervention in the Kosovo issue was illegal and illegitimate, it stands to reason that this is indeed a great historical injustice. I have to plead ignorant on the question of whether or not the intervention was legitimate, my interest at the time that it occurred was minimal and my learning since — even after reading the Wikipedia article on the topic — has been limited. And, it seems, no news source I can get my hands on wants to tackle this difficult issue fraught with pitfalls.

The more interesting point, to me, is the question of Slobodan Milosevic. Even Mr. Jeremic admits that what he did was bad, but he makes the interesting claim that punishing the state for it is illegitimate.

A historical injustice is being imposed on a European country that has overcome more obstacles since we democratically overthrew Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 than most other nations have in a much longer time. Recognizing Kosovo means saying, in effect, that Serbian democracy must be punished because a tyrant — one who committed heinous deeds against the Kosovo Albanians in the 1990s — was left unpunished. Such misplaced revenge may make some feel better, but it will make the international system feel much worse.

Again, limited by own ignorance, I can’t really accede to or deny this version of history. And so here I am, unsure. I’m tempted to reach out and blame the news media — or the weak narratives of Wikipedia articles — for my inability to come to meaningful conclusion on the question of Kosovo and separatism. I’m sure that’s unfair.

But I do wish I had some answers instead of all these questions. Maybe the best non-resolution to the issue I’ve seen is offered by Al Eislele, who said, “The tortured history and complex nature of the Serb-Kosovo conflict leaves non-expert observers like me open to criticism.” Perhaps that, then, is the nature of foreign policy.

Powi

It happened yesterday for the first time. For the first time in months I recognized that winter was fading and spring was coming. It’s not coming quick or earlier than usual, but it’s coming and the first signs were there.

The mid-morning walk offered some clues. It’s been getting warmer out. Recently, a hat and gloves have feel extraneous rather than absolutely necessary. But more important was the light: the gray and bright fading in an out as clouds blew around overhead. And as much as I know that this is a local weather pattern and not anything that it’s wise to extrapolate from, I couldn’t help it.

But it was later, when the hot air in the kitchen was interrupted by the cool air from outside that I was sure. Sure because of that key sign. The air outside was cool; not cold, not biting, not frigid. It was cool. Surely, a meteorologist will tell you I’m unwisely extrapolating again. Maybe I am, but I know it’s coming.

There’s a certain anticipation which should accompany every season. A change in the weather, in places fortunate enough to get changes in the weather, is the surest sign that time is passing. A gentle reminder that days do unavoidably become weeks, months, seasons, years, decades, and lives.

The new season gently asks by it’s difference, if you’re ready, if you’re satisfied, if you’re sure. If, indeed, you’re willing to enter the next season and the next year the same way you’ve lived this season and year.

Some people think that these questions are best asked between December 30 and January 2, but I’m sure they’re not. The two days that we use to mark the passing of the old and the arrival of the new are just that: days. If you blink you can miss them, and blinking through the new year is an underrated thing.

Perhaps people use those days because it’s hard to miss all the pomp and circumstance with which we mark 12:00 am on January 1st. But the passing of winter into spring can be missed. Its rarely noted and almost never celebrated. And worse, we spend so much time indoors we can easily forget we live in a place where the temperature isn’t always 68°F. A place where seasons pass. Where winter gives way to spring.

protagonistthemovie.com

Having been rather satisfied with “Be Your Own Protagonist,” the movie Protagonist — which seems to be available from Netflix (whose Red Envelope Entertainment holds the rights) and nowhere else — almost necessarily piqued my interest. And though the summary sounded luke-warm, I decided that on the title alone I had to give it a shot.

I’m glad I did. Much as my favorite graffito recommends, the documentary paints its four personages as protagonists in epic Greek dramas. Jessica Yu’s film offers, in my mind, an easy comparison with onBeing. With the chief visual component of both being subjects telling their story to the camera, the comparison is easy and apt.

Protagonist, aside from being longer than the web-project that is onBeing, is much more explicit and methodical. It opens with a dramatic voice saying, in Greek, “Tell it still. There is pleasure in hardship heard about.” Throughout, as the stories told by the film’s subjects unfold, so to does a classic tragedy played by wooden puppets.

If one managed to miss the implication of that play, Ms. Yu clearly delineates each phase of her classic drama. Here, indeed, is my one displeasure with the film. The effort to tell these contemporary tales as Greek drama can sometimes fell clumsy and heavy-handed. An attempt to mold and bend them a little to make them conform to the external structure to which they don’t strictly comply.

But they fit relatively well, and usually effortlessly. And the stories, though none rare or unlikely enough to win their own full length documentary, are all dynamic and interesting. Mark Salzman’s discovery of and rabid fondness for kung-fu as a way to end his stint as a weak and bullied teenager. Hans-Joachim Klien’s embrace of radical violence after he saw police beat a woman. Mark Pierpont’s embrace of his Christian ministry after finding that through religion he could triumph over homosexuality. Joe Loya embrace of a life of crime after finding that retaliatory violence against his abusive father felt good.

These are all interesting story, and all told by people well aware of the grand arc of their lives. Though it’s possible they’ve retrofit their story’s into Yu’s desired arc, they feel so natural and straightforward in their telling that I find the possibility unlikely.

The stories, as your would rightly expect, all have clear resolutions. Clear moment’s when the men’s absolute embrace of a certain mode of living is recognized as unwise and then rejected. Well established end points that seem to say clearly that their stint as classical protagonists ended. Surely, every life traces such an arc. I feel comfortable seeing that as Yu’s message, and I’m chastened to not have thought of it first.