The Bath of Fire                                     by Steve Kostecke                                                    I had a brief flash of sober enlightenment. Came and went in a fraction of a second--then back to the usual stupor. But in that millisec, I caught a glimpse of something I haven't been able to deny. Might even be some truth to it. Goes something like this-- Cultures and societies have their rituals, rites of passage (yes: I'm going there). America is no exception. ("American culture" is NOT an oxymoron--it's the culture that's feeding on as many others as it can shove into its mouth.) Anyone or group that dares to even think about challenging an established structure within it can be guaranteed to go through a ritual and/or rite. Which is: he or she--make it they--must have the full weight of that structure come crushing down on top of them. Plus, as by-product, they must be victim to as much vehement vituperation as possible from their peers. The former has the intent of keeping its tight control; the latter of ensuring that no one dares "rise above". This confrontation and attempted suppression has occurred continuously throughout history. It's a recurrent theme. These tensions and antagonisms build till they finally come to a breaking point. This breaking point involves a "bath of fire": the searing attack and abuse from the controllers and peers. Those that walk through it--the ones that challenge--either burn up or come out hardened like tempered metal. This "fire" has often led to violence / imprisonment / exile / whatnot. These have usually worked well for the powers-that-be. But in this day and age of the ensuing Pax Americana (Consume, slave!), it doesn't necessarily build up to this stage. It remains at a lower level, one of psychological-warfare: the level of personal destruction. No punch thrown, no sword thrust, no bullet shot--in the literal sense. But each of these methods is utilized to the max in the figurative sense. Those that dare to challenge must be stamped out at any cost. Destroyed, denigrated, humiliated, publicly and privately ruined. But the situation eventually arises that, while those in control are in mid-stomp, those that are not in control "pull the rug out" and something that once appeared oh-so-powerful falls flat on its back. After which it gets back up, wipes itself off, and realizes that the rules have now changed. (The peers rant on the sidelines, left in confusion about which stance to take now--and doubly mad because of this confusion.) Those in control are the ones that make the rules--and they are the ones that are able to get away breaking them,--their main stratagem is to make those not in control play according to their rules. It becomes an amusing game to them: like watching a rat in a maze. The rat suddenly stops when a surprise dead-end is slipped down in front of it--then, magically, a seemingly free passage opens up from behind (chortle). When the "power above" grows tired or irritated--or if that rat unintentionally gets too close to the way out (oops!)--the maze board gets violently thrust over and the rat falls out. Bye bye rat. Who really cares about that rat anyway? The amazing thing is how many of these rats are actually waiting in line to make their try: each eager to "play by the rules" which they ingenuously perceive as "fair". Those that challenge an established structure should NEVER play by the rules. In the process of this challenge--and "daring" not to play accordingly--the challengers are portrayed and maligned as "radicals" or "saboteurs". This radical and/or saboteur image--once successfully through the "fire"--grows weaker with time, and what was once thought revolutionary eventually becomes taken from granted. It's all an absurd game of relative perspectives. The human brain is absolutely malleable. Those that talk--talk. Those that take action: they have to be tested, attacked, and either consumed in the flames sprayed at them--or walk through the flames toughened like steel. Bathed in fire. This is (as is my point) an ancient rite of passage--inevitable--necessary. But it does give way to what the ritual suggests: a "passage". Without the action and challenge, this does not exist. No "fire": no passage. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX                                                       Book-As-Product                                                           by Steve Kostecke It is now conglomerately official: that rectangular object of three dimensions which some call a book, the sole purpose of its existence is profit. Not that this has never not been the case, but in the not-too-distant past many publishers (before becoming managers of a sector of the corporate arm of an internationally capitalistic beast) allowed themselves to publish a small number of books each year they deemed to be of literary, social, historical or other worth, and let them be underwritten by the bigger-selling titles of that house. These acts were committed under the by-gone cultural aegis of book-as-possible-literary-art-or was it just culture-as-includer-of-art before its final blood-letting in the 90s into culture-as-pop, culture-as-no-longer-capable-of-art. Whichever is or was the case, the days of a book's perception as a vehicular transmitter of human soul are gone. According to the laws of conglomeratization, that rectangular object of three dimensions is not to be seen as something of art or human soul or any of that other bleeding-heart liberal crap: that thing called a book solely exists for the purposes of making profit, exactly as each and every other product produced under the sledgehammer of the 12%-growth-per-annum scorched-earth après-moi-le-deluge phreneticism of corporate America or conglomerate World. No longer may a book be underwritten by another: each book-as-product must attain a minimum profit margin, else there be something inherently wrong with the manager and staff of whichever imprint we may be talking about. (Perhaps said imprint may need a touch of "revitalization".) In this mad dash for $$ and shareholder approval, the meaningfulness of literary-art has been intentionally stamped out to the point that if a corporate publisher happens to produce a rectangular three-dimensional product which is applauded or awarded (in a Pulitzer way) as containing art or human soul or any of that other bleeding-heart liberal crap, what a glorious side-effect this is. It statistically always increases profit even more.