Albatross Neck Tie

"Woman, Old Man, and Flower" (Max Ernst; 1923)

I’ve always pretty much hated ties.  Maybe it stems from my being born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, threatening to choke the life from me before I was even able to begin it, I don’t know. 

But they’ve always struck me as a kind of symbolic leash of conformity.  Of course a certain conformity is a prerequisite to maintaining civilized society itself, but becomes rather problematic when that society is clearly stunted, one diseased with the germs of greed and the violence and oppression needed to maintain that greed.

The ideology when pervades and controls western society today, particularly of the rotting American variant of it, hangs on us like an albatross around our neck. One we seem to refuse to remove because we can barely even muster the societal courage to identify its presence in the first place.  It’s always easier on the surface to blame everyone and everything else for what we’re experiencing, rather than look ourselves in the collective mirror and take accountability for who and how it got there in the first place.  

(Artwork by Wendy Wagener-Harris)

The very adage about having an albatross around one’s neck refers to living with a “heavy, persistent burden, often stemming from guilt, shame, or a past mistake, that hinders progress and causes distress.”  It comes from the classic poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ in which a sailor is cursed to wear the dead bird he killed. It’s punishment for his thoughtless and impulsive shooting of the bird that had been serving as a life saving guide in getting the ship through the treacherous ice.

I’m hard pressed to think of a better metaphor for our present age of life and death in America than that.  We have an out of control fascistic mob looking to kill off the very things in this society, including actual human beings, that are arguably those most responsible for creating and guiding us forward through the treacherous impediments blocking our way to a better, more life affirming and sustainable society and world. 

The permanent war our society has been inflicting on the rest of the world is now thoroughly coming home to roost.  And unfortunately we’re not going to get through this without going through it, without truly reckoning with what we have done as the most militarized state in the world.  To see in true unpleasant clarity what this warfare society we have created actually is, and how we're now inflicting it upon ourselves because there's nowhere left for it go. 

For until we come to grips with the dead albatross of the victims of our inhumanity around our neck, the one this warfare state of ours has killed millions of times over through the countless invasions, wars, and seditious foreign interventions and manipulations we’ve engaged in for ages now, we’ll be fated to the same dreadful effects. 

As John Lennon said..

War Is Over - if we want it

Maybe we’ll finally want it enough now that we’ve got our own homegrown fascists bringing it to our own homes and communities. And we'll finally figure out we can't rid ourselves of it unless and until we also rid ourselves of those among us inflicting it upon so many others around the world as well.

Albatross Neck Tie (IAH Ep.72)

LISTEN HERE "Albatross Neck Tie" on YouTube

(ABOUT THE PROGRAM ART: One of my all time favorite artists since my student days has been Max Ernst, the German painter/sculptor whose post-pre-and again post war surrealism was always light years ahead of its time. Hadn't thought much about him for years, but then came across his work again recently and felt a bit inspired to use it. Only to then coincidentally hear a recording of his voice for the first time ever, which was featured in the recently released DEVO documentary. It's insights on freedom, and the inevitability of how when forced to live in revolting times one cannot help but create revolutionary work, couldn't be more appropriate for the inspiration as to why the IAH program exists.)