Financial Roundtable Funhouse

Just got through watching a dignified and astute Roundtable of Experts on Charlie Rose discussing the current financial crisis. At the end of the hour, the only thing that was coming to my mind was a clip from the old Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series on PBS, from an episode called "The Devil's Foot" (a particular favorite of my brother and I growing up.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjVJfVA5CHU&feature=related

The section of this clip from 2:09 to 2:39 was what I was thinking of. I think it accurately summarizes the overall take of the Roundtable of Experts on the colossal goatfuck in the desert (to borrow some of the Coen Bros' locution) that Wall St. has become.

Wedding Present

I attended a wedding yesterday, and whilst the ceremony and the reception were fine and dandy, the most meaningful moment for me personally occurred when a friend of mine who I have not seen in a while shared her experiences with me as a new mother.

She was quite open about sharing the full pallet of the emotions she had ran through over the past year and change, from joy to anxiety, excitement to exhaustion. I was quite touched by both her candor and the utter conviction in her aura when she stated that it was all worth it and she could no longer imagine herself as anything but a parent, despite her previous doubts about being a mother. As she said those words, I instantly felt some kind of connection to something beyond the tasteful courtyard we happened to be holding this conversation in, but I could not put my finger on it.

Later, after we had parted ways and I returned to sit down to a king's repast of the finest meats and cheeses, I found myself in a reverie of sorts between sips of champagne and bites of well-seasoned chicken. What had my friend's words triggered in me, I pondered.

After a time, it came to me. When my friend spoke, her words went beyond her relationship with her own sons, but pointed to something more universal, that being the love of mothers for their children. I imagined this universal aspect of what she was saying as a golden thread, binding one generation of humanity to the next throughout the ages. I also began to think of a book that I had come across recently, "The Seven Daughters of Eve", which uses DNA analysis to trace all modern Europeans to a mere seven ancestor-mothers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Daughters_of_Eve)

I reflected that my friend had opened my eyes to her portion of the golden thread that can be traced all the way back to those seven women, which is a mind blowing concept, when you think about it. And finally, I thought, why does our Judeo-Christian worldview focus so much on Eve's Original Sin instead of Eve's (the scientific Eve that is) Original Love for her children, a love that connects us all?

Then I think someone urged me to dance floor, and I moved with abandon to the beat, knowing that somehow I had walked away with the best present at the wedding though I was only a guest.

Late Night Reflections 1

I was driving east on 80, about midnight, moon three quarters full. Joe Frank show from the “Somehwere Out There Series” called “The Sacred”. At one point, Joe says that he often wonders if the true story of crucifixion is that we are all really the ones who are crucified, but that everyone’s crucifixion is only visible on their hearts, so no one can see anyone's personal measure of pain, not even their own.

At that point I was passing the Tiffany Co. on Parisppany Road, where the Super Bowl trophy is crafted each year. Then I reflected that Whippany was the source of the very first TV broadcast in the history of the world, in 1927. And I thought, who would ever know that such a innocuous, faceless stretch of suburbia gave rise to the two of the more important components of our culture’s great profane holiday?

Joe went on as I was pulling into my driveway, challenging God to turn all the furniture in the recording studio to dust, or to set his microphone on fire. Of course, none of this happened. I turned off the car, got out and looked to the night sky. For the first time in my life, after countless late night gazes and disappointments, I saw the Milky Way.

I can string together a series of coincidences/syncronicities like that and almost create a Frogger path to eternity with them. Perhaps if my father had been able to leap frog in this manner he would not have died in a state of such fear.