Thursday, February 14, 2013

Charles Bowden

Just finished reading three books by Charles Bowden.

Blood Orchid; Some Of The Dead Are Still Breathing, and Blues For Cannibals. This is in line with  my commitment to depth in 2013 and maybe for the rest of my life. I read one, liked it, and decided to dive in and get a solid feel for this man. This is something I used to avoid like the plague. I like to jump from book to book, author to author, to keep things fresh. I figured out it also keeps me superficial.

He is another random and glorious discovery for me. When I have time to kill (I hate that expression; it gives me goosebumps to say it) I navigate the TV on demand menu looking for something different. I work hard to avoid ruts and predictability; I want newness and exercise for my brain and emotions. However I must admit when The Sopranos was available it was a definite go to. And of course there is the endless cycle of Sex In The City reruns which I actually ENJOY watching with Carol.

Came across a documentary about a photographer, Eros Hoagland, covering his work in Mexico photographing drug traffic violence and casualties. Charles Bowden was interviewed in the documentary, he interested me and before you know it I had his books in my hands.

He is my kind of guy. Most people would characterize him as dark. Coincidentally this is a description I have heard applied to my writing and point of view on more than one occasion. I have never understood this because I am a huge fan of Tweety Bird.

But I digress.

The guy lives in the Southwest and loves it, which created an even stronger bond between us because I have a bone deep longing to experience Arizona and other arid climates. It is my deeply held belief that I could live there in mind blowing peace. Maybe one day................. His writing includes frequent references to the climate and the land and the culture, they are offered lovingly and they stir my soul.

He has a fatalistic (I consider realistic) opinion of where our society is headed, but he manages to convey a skewed sense of positiveness. He makes the point that our worship of technology and progress are actually accomplishing the opposite of what we intend. We are going nowhere but committed to doing it at warp speed. As our lives become increasingly more complex, more and more people get left behind. That is why you see this society of unemployed and underemployed and why you see vacant stares on so many faces that chill your bones.

The more "advanced" we get, the less human we become.

I wholeheartedly agree, even as I admit my opinion means nothing.

He references Indian culture a lot and has a lot of admiration for their principles and a lot of disgust for what we did to them. He made one analogy that I absolutely dug. Talking about how we harassed Indians onto reservations, introduced disease and whiskey into their lives and destroyed them through desperation. He compares that to our dope addicted, booze swilling, prescription drug solution society. A society that has come full circle and is now declining in desperation.

He describes the Southwest as a place where people go when they have nowhere else to go. Outsiders, non-believers, lost people looking for some truth. Some reality. His books are full of hard people, alcoholics, druggies, people broken by relationships and society and lies and disappointment and disease. But they are real people who refuse to swallow the cool aid our society so easily hands out.

This may all sound depressing, but I think it is more a dose of reality than anything else. As we continue to amuse ourselves with toys like iPhones, real, bone deep life passes us by as we look down at that little screen.

Here is a reference from Blood Orchid that thrilled me:

"This is a stretch of highway where the Navajos are said to believe that all the dead Indian drunks wait by the roadside as ghosts - as the wolves of the Dine - and at say two in the morning when you're tired and loaded, they reach out with their cool, bony hands and pull you off into the ditch to join them."

I choose to believe that is more than a myth. It satisfies my sense of karma.

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