Over the telephone I tried to play my mother something I was working on a long time, something I was proud of, excited to share it but she couldn’t get past the wonky sound of the piano, which is true. No tuning since prior to Covid. I’m used to it, unbothered but perhaps I’m a frog slowly being boiled or else she is hyper critical? Who can prove who is the correct arbiter of reality? Nobody. .Reading accounts of the end days of Nazi Germany, research for the story about improvisation for my thesis. Might sound like a stretch, but for a certain improviser, everything is a legit ingredient for composition. Mendelson Joe referred to North America as spoiled brat-land, I’m often reminded of that stance when this book supplies omnipresent violence, sadism and psychopathy, the ambience of 1945. From one view, seventy-five years ago is still warm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We read about serial killers who kidnap the innocent and mutilate them. Paul Bernardo and Lawrence Bittaker are common citizens in that 1945 Europe world. It wouldn’t be believable except for so many accounts of the same thing. And the denials after the fall of Germany, equally astonishing. So many say they had no idea of the madness despite oodles of proof they behaved passively witnessing everyday murder and rape or assisted. I never thought it unique to Germans, it’s unique to humankind whether Germany, Botswana or Dayton, Ohio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
People have the same instincts telling the truth or living with delusion. There is a moment where Goebbels realizes he can’t create any convincing propaganda about how right and good and safe they are, because there is too much suffering and destruction permeating day to day existence. It’s my favourite part of the book because it’s my favourite part of consciousness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a propaganda minister alive and well inside myself and everyone I know, happy to perpetuate delusions du jour, defeated only a little when one can’t take it anymore. The 20th century philosopher Ringo Starr put it this way, “gotta pay your dues if you want to sing the blues and you know it don’t come easy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"