March 27: Faint and Dizzy, Will Smith, Slap

Santiago feels the strain of the battle . . . 

But the fish kept on circling slowly and the old man was wet with sweat and tired deep into his bones two hours later. But the circles were much shorter now and from the way the line slanted he could tell the fish had risen steadily while he swam.

For an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and the sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut over his eye and on his forehead. He was not afraid of the black spots. They were normal at the tension that he was pulling on the line. Twice, though, he had felt faint and dizzy and that had worried him.

"I could not fail myself and die on a fish like this," he said. "Now that I have him coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I'll say a hundred Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now."

Consider them said, he thought. I'll say them later.

Just then he felt a sudden banging and jerking on the line he held with his two hands. It was sharp and hard-feeling and heavy.

Okay, the fish is circling the boat.  Santiago is feeling faint and dizzy.  And Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the face for telling a joke at the Academy Awards.  

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this post.  It's late.  The Oscars just got over.  I'm sure that the whole world is going to be losing its collective mind for quite some time over what happened this evening.  

I watch the Oscars every year.  Even in the Out of Africa and Crash years, I enjoy myself.  There's something fascinating about seeing these celebrities patting themselves on the backs for three hours.  Or slapping each other in the face.  It's like going to the zoo.  Even when the monkeys are masturbating in front of you, it's still entertaining.  

Is assault ever an appropriate response to a situation?  No.  Do incredibly rich and famous people feel a little above the law?  Probably.  Is this whole situation going to ruin some careers?  Probably, for a while.  

Please keep this in mind, though:  there are thousands of people suffering and dying in Ukraine.  It's life-and-death there right now.  If you want to get outraged, do it over something important.  Something that deserves outrage.

That's the last thing Saint Marty will say about the slap seen 'round the world.

And a Lenten Poem . . . 

Planet of the Ape

by:  Martin Achatz

Caesar hated his home
In the ape house in Detroit,
Sat with his silver spine
To visitors, crushing his truck
Tire like machines in the Ford plant,
Over and over and over,
Planning his next rebellion.
A handful of feces flung
Through cage bars at the glass
Protecting kids and mothers
From his frustration, boredom,
Rwandan moons dying in his eyes.
Bananas, lettuce, apples, grapes
Smashed on keepers' heads,
Ground with the force
Of tropical rain, hard
Enough to splinter trees.
Caesar suffered indignities,
Vets observing him, his mate,
Lulu, in intimate moments, he,
Unable to scream, beat his chest
In wild pleasure, or lose himself
To that moment of brute release.
For decades, he stared, placid
As the Sphinx, day after day,
Waited for night to come,
When people went away, when
He closed his eyes, drifted back, back,
Back in blood, in DNA,
In ancestral memory,
To mountain and jungle,
To moon in a canopy
Green as Eden, to the beginning,
When he was named before names.
Thunder. Earthquake. Hurricane.
Eclipse in trees and rocks.
Avalanche of fist and tooth
And hunger.