Category Archives: Upon Reflection . . .

“This generation is never going to accomplish the things I know it to be capable of unless we stop thinking of each other in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’…Like it or not, we’re all in this together.” ~ Ted Chalfen, from his graduation speech

Ted Chalfen, Gay Colorado Teen, Thanks Graduating Class For Support In Speech

Most of the time, graduation speeches are pretty predictable. Generation of generation of young dreamers attempting to sound erudite, use their time at the microphone to plead for a cause or to chastise a neglectful element or to reflect on life. The latter always makes me smile because I can still remember how I thought I knew so much of life when I graduated from high school lo so many years ago. The speeches usually include some kind of inside joke that the parents won’t quite understand, or some sort of grand charge for the varied members of the graduating class. Sometimes the speaker reveals a genuine sense of comedic timing, but rarely.

I don’t know if there is some unwritten rule that graduation speeches should stay within the confines of being generic, but that usually seems to be the case. I remember who gave the speeches at my graduation, but I don’t remember a single word of what they said (high school, college or graduate school).  That being said, this particular speaker and his speech are worth listening to, if only because they reflect so well on his classmates, the school, the teachers, the administrators, and the parents.

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“Touch and go, bank and stall, keeping a steady hand | as we flew beyond the bounds of the artificial horizon.” ~ Sue Standing, from “Artificial Horizon”

The Japanese Lantern 1912 by Paul Burty Haviland

“The Japanese Lantern” (1912)
by Paul Burty Haviland

                   

Two for Tuesday: What is temporary

“No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.”

~ Wislawa Szymborska (trans. Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak), from “Nothing Twice”

                   

Untitled [I know now the beloved]

I know now the beloved
Has no fixed abode,
That each body
She inhabits
Is only a temporary
Home.
That she
Casts off forms
As eagerly
As lovers shed clothes.

I accept that he’s
Just passing through
That flower
Or that stone.

And yet, it makes
Me dizzy—
The way he hides
In the flow of it,
The way she shifts
In fluid motions,
Becoming other things.

I want to stop him—
If only briefly.
I want to lure her
To the surface
And catch her
In this net of words.

~ Gregory Orr

                   

PARIS - RETOUR DE LA JOCONDE AU MUSEE DU LOUVRE

Opening the Mona Lisa after WWII (photographer unknown)

Travel Elegy

Everything’s mine though just on loan,
nothing for the memory to hold,
though mine as long as I look.

Memories come to mind like excavated statues
that have misplaced their heads.

From the town of Samokov, only rain
and more rain.

Paris from Louvre to fingernail
grows web-eyed by the moment.

Boulevard Saint-MartinL some stairs
leading into a fadeout.

Only a bridge and a half
from Leningrad of the bridges.

Poor Uppsala, reduced to a splinter
of its mighty cathedral.

Sofia’s hapless dancer,
a form without a face.

Then separately, his face without eyes;
separately again, his eyes with no pupils,
and, finally, the pupils of a cat.

A Caucasian eagle soars
over the reproduction of a canyon,
the fool’s gold of the sun,
the phony stones.

Everything’s mine but just on loan,
nothing for the memory to hold,
though mine as long as I look.

Inexhaustible, unembracable,
but particular to the smallest fiber,
grain of sand, drop of water—
landscapes.

I won’t retain one blade of grass
as it’s truly seen.

Salutation and farewell
in a single glance.

For surplus and absence alike,
a single motion of the neck.

~ Wislawa Szymborska

                   

Music by Cat Power, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”

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“Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they’re about to jump on a surfboard.” ~ Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail

Mike Jeffries Abercrombie & Fitch CEO

                   

Friday leftovers . . .

This guy ↑, Michael Jeffries (CEO of Abercombrie & Fitch), needs to be bitch-slapped—pronto. Even though the above comments were made in a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries stands by them today.

Great. Let’s perpetuate the myth that to be popular you must be a certain size, look a certain way, wear certain clothes. I am so tired of this crap. So tired of a world that plants seeds of doubt in young girls and boys and then fosters those seeds with slanted, biased media infusions.

He looks like Gary Busey, for god’s sakes. On purpose—For example, ask him why he dyes his hair blond, “Dude, I’m not an old fart who wears his jeans up at his shoulders.” He’s 68. Another prime example of plastic surgery gone wrong on a man . . .

According to the Salon article,

His biggest obsession, though, is realizing his singular vision of idealized all-American youth. He wants desperately to look like his target customer (the casually flawless college kid), and in that pursuit he has aggressively transformed himself from a classically handsome man into a cartoonish physical specimen: dyed hair, perfectly white teeth, golden tan, bulging biceps, wrinkle-free face, and big, Angelina Jolie lips. But while he can’t turn back the clock, he can — and has — done the next best thing, creating a parallel universe of beauty and exclusivity where his attractions and obsessions have made him millions, shaped modern culture’s concepts of gender, masculinity and physical beauty, and made over himself and the world in his image, leaving them both just a little more bizarre than he found them.

Another source states that Jeffries “also has a discriminatory hiring policy, which has been challenged on several occasions. A company e-mail revealed the presence of a “measuring system” for employees: they were ordered to perform military-style exercises while at work so that they would stay “thin and beautiful.” If the employees failed to meet the standard, they would be “punished” with extra squats and pushups.PHOTO: Tourists outside Abercrombie & Fitch owned store

What is so perfidious about Jeffries’ marketing strategies is that not only does he perpetuate them within the company’s campus (headquarters), but he also attempts to carry these unrealistic standards from the boardroom into real life settings, like airplanes. A lawsuit was filed in 2010 by corporate jet pilot Michael Stephen Bustin, 55, who claims. “he was fired in December 2009 because of his age. In the case Jeffries, 68, is being accused of age discrimination” (ABCnews.com).

According to Bloomberg News, the toady CEO’s 47-page aircraft standards dictates the following:

  • Male flight crew members aboard the company’s Gulfstream G550 jet must wear A&F polo shirts, boxer briefs, flip-flops and a “spritz” of the A&F cologne
  • As passengers board the aircraft for return flights, the 1985 Phil Collins hit “Take Me Home” must be piped over the cabin PA
  • The executive’s three dogs – named as Ruby, Trouble and Sammy – had specific seats based on which was traveling
  • Staff must wear black gloves when handling silverware and white gloves for setting the table
  • Flight crew members are also banned from wearing coats unless the temperature falls below 50 degrees
  • Airline crew must not expose the toilet paper nor fold the end square
  • When [passengers] make a request, respond by saying ‘no problem.’ This should be used in place of phrases like, ‘Sure’ or, ‘Just a minute’

Oklahoma City Thunder cheerleader Kelsey Williams referred to as “chunky” by blogger

Someone needs to remind Jeffries that he isn’t Jay-Z or Beyonce. Personally, I still maintain that a good bitch-slap is called for . . .

Man, what kind of world do we live in, anyway? Apparently, one in which this woman → can be referred to as chunky, you know that completely tactless word used to slam a woman for not being . . . well, for not being A&F worthy, I suppose. Sheesh.

More later. Peace.

Music by Esthero, “Never Gonna Let You Go” (man, I love this song, and I’ve finally found the perfect copy to accompany it)

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