That Snakey Feeling
When I was an adolescent, we lived next to this old granny lady/ I think her husband might have died in the course of our knowing her, I am not sure. At some point, she lived alone in a giant old house, on a big lot, (similar to what's next-door even I as post). I rmember being in our back yard, and spotting a garter snake in her yard, while she was also out. And I pointed it out, to her. She yapped some mild invectives, took a shovel, and plunged it down on the snake, severing its head.
I was reminded of this, after being reminded of this:
I later discovered that this subsurface-psychopathic, anti-snake attitude was shared by virtually everyone in my city. In a city where, also, two other characteristics prevail: passive-aggressiveness towards each other, and, a general unfamiliarity with the concept of respect. Imagine a time, if you will, when Europeans, and other immigrants, filtered into this land, clustering together, driving all sots of wildlife further and further out, into the margins. The day would come when not too many buffalo or injuns were left, and so people just relaxed, and continued on their assault in a more leisurely, if not zombielike, fashion, chomping down on snakes whenever they spotted snakes. Because they are just like mouses in our houses, which, I think they did a whole thing about in the Old Testament.
The citizens just carried on the deterministic habits of their dying-off progenitors who, aside from shooting eagles, and badgers, and bears, and did I mention horses and cows, they were also shooting each other. I've read news stories from the 1880's, and there was a lot of very active aggression going on here, like a wild west town, sometimes ending in famous shootings. And some of them had the same last name as the granny lady who lived next-door to me. But, I did get the impression that most of these people seemed to be idiots, or else they were very angry. Imagine: ships, and wheels, and steam locomotives, and carriages, and guns, and printing presses, all brought them to this place - and they were angry? How does that happen? We now have the internet, thank god.
A few years later, in my life, I met an older boy who played with me in the dirt, and was probably gay, who grew up to be the CGGOTC - one of the psychopaths I have written about in the past. People who try to take over the entire neighbourhood with leaf-blowers and blame. One day, I me a hedgehog, near our fence. And I left things out for him, etc. And, before I knew it, crazy gay guy was telling me he needed to poison all the hedgehogs, because, I don't know - they eat your grain? He's the same guy who lusted after my black walnut tree, which he has probably stolen, by now.
This guy was Italian, unrelated to Nancy Pelosi. But, not everyone in this conspiracy against the pro little critters was Italian. I would say that, despite the depiction in the historical video above, most of the snake-whacking bastards were Irish. They brought with them, to your country, not just the will to rush to California to search for whiskey, but a sincere ethic of self-righteousness -preservation, which a lot of people misinterpreted as a desire to fight a lot. No, they were inspired by higher laws, like the myth of Saint Patrick, who was said to have forced all the snakes off the Isle of Eire. So, yes, the devout Irish brought with them, not just the need to vanquish wildlife, but the compulsion, during the civil war, to try to exterminate themselves. By fighting against themselves. Eventually, they became cops and gangsters, and settled on pretending that snakes were Yankees, or Confederates, and took to whacking snacks. Just as the English had been whacking the snakes, before them, pretending they were Irish.
Question, not, the good things we have done. For, out of the ruckus, has come survival of the species, at the very least. And then they invented credit cards.
Now, getting back to being slightly serious: The prevalence of snake-attacking in this city and, pretty much throughout the country, revealed to me that, once a habit gets started, and it doesn't come back soon to hurt you in some way, everyone will adopt it, and the habit becomes just another assumption. Of COURSE we are supposed to kill snakes. Why even mention it? There will be two guys out in a yard, and a snake will walk by, and one of the guys will crush the snake with his heal, and neither of them will even break their conversation, about spark plugs, even for one bat of an eye. Well, let me tell you, two guys: There is far more divinity in the being of a snake than there could ever be in one of your chilike, vain machines.
But, yes. So, to kill a snake, is just part of the psychological lexicon, which forms the culture of a city. TO kill a snake is not very different from the very words you spew. To kill a snake is like zoning laws and buildings, just sitting there, frequented, but no longer seen. You've got kill the snakes. You've got make eye contact only at this or that time. You've got imitate and scare neighbours with your chain saws. You've got get to work by 9:am. You've got only drink on the weekends. You've got sports. You've got guns. You've got fireworks all though June and July. You've got euthanise your pet when you are done with it. You've got fishing in streams and dumping motor oil in streams. These are all the habits that people practice, like wheels in the demented clock of civilisation, which are so important, yet so assumed, and so unfelt. These are the machineries of privilege.
I wonder what it would be like if a handful of people openly appreciated snakes, and swayed others into a new habit of just letting them be. What the hell harm is a garter snake under your front porch steps? They can keep the population of mice down. And, there's often not much else to eat, other than a few bugs, and so their populations don't often explore. Sometimes there is a population explosion, like under some old panel of wood on the grass, but that's not coming to get you. I doubt if garter snakes can even pierce the skin.
Slightly later, in my life, I collected a few organic things in sealed jars of alcohol, as I expected I would grow up to be some kind of scientist. I recall a crayfish, and a mouse, and a grater snake spine. I don't remember where I got them. I once tried to raise garter snakes in a terrarium, in early HS years, but they got infested by lice or something. I stupidly sprayed Raid in there, and sent the snakes into convulsions. I threw them back into, "the wild," hoping they would recover. I don't think so. But, this bears out the same point: Whether we deliberately try to conquer other life, or we accidentally exterminated it, we will always be idiots, at heart. While this is a terrible thing, it isn't like animals can't be idiots, too. The main thing is that we are now top dog, with all the control, and all the machines, and all the abstractions, which tend to make us do things without knowing exactly what we are doing. In a very ambitious way. Almost as if our lives depended on it. Wen really we just have idle hands. Most of the time. And bad habits.
And the errant lust for money.
As if money were alive.
Is the devil alive?
I was reminded of this, after being reminded of this:
Click to viewI later discovered that this subsurface-psychopathic, anti-snake attitude was shared by virtually everyone in my city. In a city where, also, two other characteristics prevail: passive-aggressiveness towards each other, and, a general unfamiliarity with the concept of respect. Imagine a time, if you will, when Europeans, and other immigrants, filtered into this land, clustering together, driving all sots of wildlife further and further out, into the margins. The day would come when not too many buffalo or injuns were left, and so people just relaxed, and continued on their assault in a more leisurely, if not zombielike, fashion, chomping down on snakes whenever they spotted snakes. Because they are just like mouses in our houses, which, I think they did a whole thing about in the Old Testament.
The citizens just carried on the deterministic habits of their dying-off progenitors who, aside from shooting eagles, and badgers, and bears, and did I mention horses and cows, they were also shooting each other. I've read news stories from the 1880's, and there was a lot of very active aggression going on here, like a wild west town, sometimes ending in famous shootings. And some of them had the same last name as the granny lady who lived next-door to me. But, I did get the impression that most of these people seemed to be idiots, or else they were very angry. Imagine: ships, and wheels, and steam locomotives, and carriages, and guns, and printing presses, all brought them to this place - and they were angry? How does that happen? We now have the internet, thank god.
A few years later, in my life, I met an older boy who played with me in the dirt, and was probably gay, who grew up to be the CGGOTC - one of the psychopaths I have written about in the past. People who try to take over the entire neighbourhood with leaf-blowers and blame. One day, I me a hedgehog, near our fence. And I left things out for him, etc. And, before I knew it, crazy gay guy was telling me he needed to poison all the hedgehogs, because, I don't know - they eat your grain? He's the same guy who lusted after my black walnut tree, which he has probably stolen, by now.
This guy was Italian, unrelated to Nancy Pelosi. But, not everyone in this conspiracy against the pro little critters was Italian. I would say that, despite the depiction in the historical video above, most of the snake-whacking bastards were Irish. They brought with them, to your country, not just the will to rush to California to search for whiskey, but a sincere ethic of self-righteousness -preservation, which a lot of people misinterpreted as a desire to fight a lot. No, they were inspired by higher laws, like the myth of Saint Patrick, who was said to have forced all the snakes off the Isle of Eire. So, yes, the devout Irish brought with them, not just the need to vanquish wildlife, but the compulsion, during the civil war, to try to exterminate themselves. By fighting against themselves. Eventually, they became cops and gangsters, and settled on pretending that snakes were Yankees, or Confederates, and took to whacking snacks. Just as the English had been whacking the snakes, before them, pretending they were Irish.
Question, not, the good things we have done. For, out of the ruckus, has come survival of the species, at the very least. And then they invented credit cards.
Now, getting back to being slightly serious: The prevalence of snake-attacking in this city and, pretty much throughout the country, revealed to me that, once a habit gets started, and it doesn't come back soon to hurt you in some way, everyone will adopt it, and the habit becomes just another assumption. Of COURSE we are supposed to kill snakes. Why even mention it? There will be two guys out in a yard, and a snake will walk by, and one of the guys will crush the snake with his heal, and neither of them will even break their conversation, about spark plugs, even for one bat of an eye. Well, let me tell you, two guys: There is far more divinity in the being of a snake than there could ever be in one of your chilike, vain machines.
But, yes. So, to kill a snake, is just part of the psychological lexicon, which forms the culture of a city. TO kill a snake is not very different from the very words you spew. To kill a snake is like zoning laws and buildings, just sitting there, frequented, but no longer seen. You've got kill the snakes. You've got make eye contact only at this or that time. You've got imitate and scare neighbours with your chain saws. You've got get to work by 9:am. You've got only drink on the weekends. You've got sports. You've got guns. You've got fireworks all though June and July. You've got euthanise your pet when you are done with it. You've got fishing in streams and dumping motor oil in streams. These are all the habits that people practice, like wheels in the demented clock of civilisation, which are so important, yet so assumed, and so unfelt. These are the machineries of privilege.
I wonder what it would be like if a handful of people openly appreciated snakes, and swayed others into a new habit of just letting them be. What the hell harm is a garter snake under your front porch steps? They can keep the population of mice down. And, there's often not much else to eat, other than a few bugs, and so their populations don't often explore. Sometimes there is a population explosion, like under some old panel of wood on the grass, but that's not coming to get you. I doubt if garter snakes can even pierce the skin.
Slightly later, in my life, I collected a few organic things in sealed jars of alcohol, as I expected I would grow up to be some kind of scientist. I recall a crayfish, and a mouse, and a grater snake spine. I don't remember where I got them. I once tried to raise garter snakes in a terrarium, in early HS years, but they got infested by lice or something. I stupidly sprayed Raid in there, and sent the snakes into convulsions. I threw them back into, "the wild," hoping they would recover. I don't think so. But, this bears out the same point: Whether we deliberately try to conquer other life, or we accidentally exterminated it, we will always be idiots, at heart. While this is a terrible thing, it isn't like animals can't be idiots, too. The main thing is that we are now top dog, with all the control, and all the machines, and all the abstractions, which tend to make us do things without knowing exactly what we are doing. In a very ambitious way. Almost as if our lives depended on it. Wen really we just have idle hands. Most of the time. And bad habits.
And the errant lust for money.
As if money were alive.
Is the devil alive?