"Bread and circuses" (or bread and games) (from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metaphor for handouts and petty amusements that politicians use to gain popular support, instead of gaining it through sound policy. The phrase is invoked not only to criticize politicians, but also to criticize their supporters for giving up their civic duty.
In modern usage, the phrase has become an adjective to deride an infantilized populace so defined by entertainment, instant self gratification, and personal pleasures that they no longer value civic virtues and the public life (not necessarily accomplished through deliberate pacification by politicians but through the popular culture itself). To many social conservatives, it connotes the wanton decadence and hedonism that defined Rome prior to its decline and that may similarly contribute to the decline of modern society. His phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman poet Juvenal (circa 100 AD ). In context, the Latin phrase panis et circenses (bread and circuses) is given as the only remaining cares of a Roman populace which has given up its birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of his contemporary Romans.[1]: Roman politicians devised a plan in 140 B.C. to win the votes of the poor; By giving out cheap food and entertainment, politicians decided that this policy of "bread and circuses" would be the most effective way to rise to power.
It is hard NOT to write satire. ~Juvenal , Roman satirist, writing about the Rome of his time.
In Juvenal's time (55-127 A.D.), the Roman Republic was but a distant memory as the power of the emperors grew stronger and stronger. The once proud Senate that had witnessed the splendid orations of Cato and Cicero—dominated and weakened year
after year by the succession of dictators—atrophied into a figurehead of an institution. However, Juvenal felt that the populace took the duties of citizenship far more seriously during the days of the Republic than in the virtual dictatorships of the Caesars. He lamented that "the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddle no more and longs eagerly for just two things — bread and circuses."
As we approach Corporate America’s most solemn feast day of spectacle and consumption, namely Stupor Bowel Stunday (sic) where the Corporate Gladiators do battle to the tune of 2.6 million dollars per 30 second commercial behavioral suggestions I marvel at the sheer madness in the Arena of Distraction. What New Years Eve is for alcoholics, this “big game” is for compulsive gamblers. The Action on the field of play pales in comparison to the paychecks, mortgages, and shirts that will be squandered. How many squares to you control in the pool of Gridville ? Make sure you remember the true meaning of the Games in these times. Check Po of the Month for a related Po. It's a Holiday tradition !!!
That time of year when the beginning has started to lurch forward head long into the Terrible Now. Tentative January steps slip on the thin icy roads of conjecture and house arrest. Tough sledding for the citizen-voids choosing between comfort foods, delusion and various trance inducing electronic recreation. Spring (which you must believe in) is six weeks away and while February is a quick study in numerical duration, that is pale shelter (remember that one ?) to the reality of routine, duration and endurance. My suggestion? Ride it out. Best you can. Work on something. Dream. Conspire. Plan some sort of course of action. Be prepared to implement. If the moment of opportunity ever decides to show up ? Have your bags either packed or emptied for ease of transport. Remember. Time here is short. Even when it all seems so endless. Every interminable sentence might just end way to the early and in the immediate release of a a big black quick final period. Even if it's all in a purely grammatical context. Or was that the rules of composition ? Hell. What do I know anyway. Just making this random shit up as I go along. Don't you ? What are we listening to ? Dave Newman live at the Village Vanguard in Dec 1988. CD called Fire ! {See new Po of the month for frame of reference). What are we watching ? Great Expectations. The 1946 Universal Pictures B&W adaptation of Dickens’s work. Masterpiece. Killer. Such story telling. The writing is astounding enough. But the screenplay and visual images ? Check it out sometime. Features John Mills. All I can say here is….. You go Pip !!!!!! What are we reading ? Introductions from the 75+ new students from the area colleges up here. As for the inmates ? Send their credentials to the House of Corrections.
Vanishing Breed
1987-1997 Re-Mastered Cassette Collection
of Works rescued
from the Obsolete Technology of Rubber Eden 2009
1. Dreams of War 2. Vanishing Breed 3. Time Fries 4. List at the End of January 5.Rubber Eden
6. Where is Lucky Ward? 7. Drowning a Fin 8. Pliers 9. Screwing Me through Schenectady
10. What are We working on Now? 11. Jupiter 12. Knocking Yourself Out 13. What Dexter Knew
14. Maul Set 15. In October When the Price was Right 16. The Dybbuk Dreams 17. Chinese Proverb
18. Long Island Sound 19. Good Story 20. Book Scout 21. Radio Baghdad
These selections are representations of four independent cassette projects produced and released over a ten year period. They represent the spoken word genre in the Spirit and influence of Ken Nordine, Vivian Stanshill, Tom waits and even some Chris Morris lurking in there somewhere. I would like to thank Dan Berggren for his encouragement, support over the years in my audio related creative endeavors. Jim Briggs for the superb job of bring new life to these sonic landscapes. And of course all the talented musicians who I had the good fortune and honor to work with in collaboration. I dedicate this collection to future generations whom I hope will rediscover how to stare with their ears (As Nordine coined it) and allow the imagination to peer into the subconscious history of Rubber Eden some day. I am confident there is always someone out there who will not allow this sort of storytelling to become a vanishing breed that dwindles to extinction. To keep alive the art of listening, to travel beyond merely hearing.
Introducing Mr. Cedric & The Terrible Now (2009)
In a conversation with a friend recently discussing the impending publication of this latest collection of my work the subject of the title surfaced. When I remarked I intended to employ the title The Terrible Now, the reaction was rather mixed. The central question that seemed to go begging was, What's so Terrible about Now ? I realized that a good point (or least a valid question) had been raised.
Despite the overwhelming negative denotation and connotations associated with the word Terrible, I believe in the using the term in conjunction with Now creates alternative possibilities to understand what I wish to convey by The Terrible Now.
In deed if you look up the word terrible in the dictionary, the news is not good. Synonyms such as fearful, frightful, appalling, dire, horrifying and dreadful are predominate in the definition. The word terrible is derived from the Greek terrin- to tremble or Latin terribillis-frightful. And over a period of time the severity of the definition has grown in intensity. In 1526 the term was seen as a weakened sense of very bad. By 1833 the negative sense had increased to be defined as extremely and in 1930 extremely badly is added (however awkwardly) I believe we get the point.
But there is a usage of this extreme description of the definition I find most interesting.
It can be found listed fourth on the possible ways to interpret meaning and is as follows formidably great....as in a terrible potential. It is from this point I will try and explain something of what I believe The Terrible Now is all about.
As you read these words here at this very moment you are indeed experiencing the Terrible Now. However transitory, elusive and even illusionary, I defy you to hold on to this second that just passed and this new one that is now gone. Now I don't want to digress into Sophistry here (but really you have to admire the Sophist, those ancient Greek philosophers who pissed everybody off so long ago with their exanimation/discourse of life's most basic mysteries and contradictions to earn a dismissive general definition in contemporary dictionaries of even seriously considering their arguments) but from my point of view this is where we all are. Perpetually cast adrift in the Terrible Now.
Consider what you know of the relationship in your life between reality, time and identity. All we perceive of our existence is in the past. That past is gone. Long gone. Never to return. Those who insist in living there, never grow, thrive or see the world other than through the perspective of what has vanished/disappeared. Many live for today, failing to remember the mistakes of the past and (as they say) are doomed to repeat those failures. While existing only in the present invites all sorts of Carpe Diem romanticism, indulgence and general hell raising (which is good time, but) you fail to prepare yourself to the reality of just what the hell you're going to do if tomorrow shows up. This of course brings us to the concept of the future, that I would congratulate you for just entering this very moment. Beyond that however, there are of course absolutely no assurances of next year, next month, or even tomorrow at suppertime.
Are you beginning to see the dimension of the tightrope I've drawn out here for all us to have to balance upon ?
Of course, the key to comprehending any of this (if you really want to, gives me a headache) is awareness. The majority of the population never considers in the slightest the condition of living life with this concept even in the back of their mind.
Modern life now is very shallow. Distractions and deceptions abound. We are not encouraged to think, consider or ponder. We are inundated with a media assault on our senses 24/7 to consume. Obey. Conform. Reflection and individuality exist only as pre-packaged options readymade to define, adorn, and suffocate.
And that is pretty terrible.
Add to all this how we have weakened our world. The complex, fragile systems we have become increasing more dependent upon to provide sanity and comfort. The general lack of concern for how much is discarded, never considered and taken for granted.
If there is a Terrible Now? This is where all these things are manufactured and reside.
The good news is you don't have to live there. Certainly there are preexisting conditions no one on earth ever escapes. We are born, flourish briefly and we wither. (Some much more quickly than others).
So what do we do with our Terrible Now ?
I believe the only solution for myself is to write. To create. To try and live as fully in the moment as the situation allows. The expressions in this collection are captured moments recorded to some end. To remember. Question. Observe. And at least as some sort of proof of what I thought and did in my Terrible Now.
For you see I don't believe the Now has to be so Terrible.
How could it be ?
It is in effect really all we have.
All we will ever have.
So if you find yourself right at this moment in your Terrible Now ?
Going through hard times and wonder how, why or even if you can make it ?
Deal and Endure.
And if your life is swinging really sweetly as you read this ?
Relish and Celebrate.
But don't get used to any of it.
Now is nothing but over.
Over and over again.
And if you find yourself with the gift of this moment bestowed upon you ?
That's not so Terrible....
Is it Now ?
Vincent Quatroche 7/2009
Mr.Cedric pictured above in rare photograph
Cedric (pictured above in a rare photograph) first appeared during the Summer of 2007 as a default spell-checker identity replacement for the name Quatroche was who invited to be featured at the Brownstone Poets Reading Society in Brooklyn NY. There are conflicting reports over just who showed up that July Saturday afternoon. Increasing the confusion over indentify or separation between Quatroche and Cedric has grown and persisted. At least some facts are known to be verifiable. In a purely Doppelganger sense, that either Dostoyevsky or Conrad would concur with, it is clear that at least somebody resembling Quatroche has been teaching students at area colleges and correctional facilities in Western New York for the last fifteen years. Those assignments (by virtue of the name on the paycheck) had been in the past attributed solely to Quatroche, but being a pure Gemini has it occupation hazards. According to an agreement in which the details were not made public, Cedric has given permission to allow Vincent Quatroche’s name to appear on the front cover of this fifth collection of Poetry, Prose and Short Stories entitled The Terrible Now in exchange for the inclusion of Cedric’s photo here. This tenuous compromise may be short lived however as both claim to be have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for Poetry by the Fox Chase Review in 2008.
Cyberstein
Bored and cold in 1816, which was known as “The Year without a Summer”, Percy & Mary Shelly were on chilly holiday with their good friend the poet Byron. Remanded to the indoors, huddling around the fire, they challenged each other to write the scariest ghost story to pass the time. Mary Shelly composed based impart upon the Prometheus legend where in the hero steals Zeus’s fire from the center of the Sun. Now this is a big deal. The acquisition of fire allowed for the development of weapons and tools. Elevated and separated the human from the animals and maybe just a step closer to the gods. Well naturally Zeus gets pretty pissed. Punishes Prometheus by chaining him to a rock in the Caucasus. Every night he is visited by an eagle that ate his liver. (which of course grew back every day) Meanwhile Mary Shelly’s take on all this turned out to be in the form of a strange tale about science run amuck with a mad doctor experimenting with the re-animation of dead bodies invested with life into a flesh and body living, breathing fiend. Sacred the living shit out of everybody in the movies as Boris Karloff lurched across the screen as a menacing nightmare fiend. And now some 200 years later all our advanced technology has generated a contemporary edition. Here comes CyberStein. In the late 1920’s the first modern economic re-adjustment occurred with the crash of stock market based upon wild financial speculation that investors erected a mile house deck of cards made of stock ticker tape and when the inevitable happened with a house of cards at least they had a deck of cards to pick up. But now we have CyberStein. And we aren’t leaving so much as “nano” crumbs to find our way back. This time the collapse will be complete sending society back to the 19th century or maybe the time of the “new” Greek Legends. All depends on how big CyberStein is this time and how far we fall with him. So take your pick just what system we have stolen our fire to create: Infer-structure de Jour: satellites, weapon systems, power plants, global sanity. So go ahead you tell me about science fiction or Greek mythology or why all this matters and where CyberStein will show up next in a maybe not so “mini-ice-age” to eat all our livers which I guess will, presumably, grow back during the day.
Vincent Quatroche’s 2005 collection of Poetry/Prose and Short Stories takes another look at both the ramifications and implications of the Prometheus legend and an emerging contemporary mutation of Mary Shelly’ dark vision of a menacing creation brought to life by science and technology. Primarily metaphorical in content and form, Quatroche’s voice evokes the individual fragmentize and offers narratives reflection upon the emergence of a new experimental byproduct of our technological age; Cyberstein; an entity neither dead nor alive in a human sense of the reality, but a lurking like “a ghost in the machine” force to reckoned with transforming the human beings experience in life with society, personal life, relationships and perhaps ultimately with fate itself. One thing is fairly certain there is no humanity to be found in Cyberstein. No remorse to be expected from this force. We are witnessing the birth of Prometheus’ fire gone mad.
Greetings from Gridville
Greetings from Gridville is chronicle of one consumer/citizen's account of life from a highly subjective basis. These perspectives are shaped and rendered in the "newspeak" of the individual. The ability of the connection or value of the poems and stories to the reader will be in direct relation to their economic status, position or role in society and perhaps most importantly the nature and disposition of current and/or past life experience. Collectively and increasingly the "hive" grows more complex, perplexing and fragmented. We live on the zenith of a cyber/fiber optic "house of cards." Each passing day we add to the precarious balance of this fragile edifice just by the mere act of living.
All essential systems of life sustaining distribution of goods and services in virtually every aspect of existence have grown more and more entangled, entwined and inbred. The example of an incredibly immense ball of twine thread throughout virtually all aspects of this edition of contemporary existence is as apropos as it is chilling. We don't understand it. We are addicted to it. And those who provide, maintain and oversee it doesn't care. Except when we fail to pay for it.
As of this writing there are two new fundamental commandments that consumer citizens must be aware of and abide by: Thou shall not run a foul the legal system and thou shall not have a catastrophic illness. Translation: don't go to jail or get sick in Gridville.
Now at this point, you might be asking yourself, why would I want to read anything written by someone with such a negative message coming from such a depressing place called Gridville ? And of course I see your point. And there's only one problem with using that rational as an "out" or point of dismissal; that is, we are all in the same boat. The good ship "I've got mine" as suddenly sprung a leak. There is no getting off the "grid." It's been tried. Many, many different ways. Alternative lifestyles, communities, communes, dogma, dope, booze and compulsive binge and purge shopping.
There is no escape. The exit doors have been bolted shut. And I'm afraid as Captain Beefheart once wailed, "There ain't no Santa Clause on the evening stage."
I have no way of knowing what the future holds for all the Gridvilles spread across the Rubber Eden. But I do sense a couple of things about our current situation. There is no way to return to what life was life in our country a mere hundred years ago. The future dawns every day and we are not leaving so much as breadcrumbs to ever find our way back to somewhat saner, simpler times. Yet each Attitude House of Gridville still contains humanity at its best and worst, humble and self-important. Just people. Fragile. Vibrant... Newly born or those near time to depart. As it has always been here in the Rubber Eden since before all the rubber and merely the Eden.
I think it's time to get to know your fellow citizens here in the Rubber Eden. The nature of their day to day dreams, joys, loves and fears. Greeting from Gridville contains the voices of husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, lost lovers and current mistresses. Turn off the "Reality TV" with its' debasing vanity iris and read the poetry, the stories, memories and secret hidden sub consciousness of the great collective "nobody" from "nowhere" who dares still to express "anything" to "anyone" just because they the desire to express and still can.
You might find more of yourself or someone you know in Gridville than you bargained for. Greetings from Gridville is an extended series of postcard like word-picture images in which enigmatic prose narratives appear on the reverse side in an archaic language scrawled in a difficult font sent from a country that either no longer exists or has declined to such a degree that not only do the citizens fail to recognize their national identity any longer; they seem to be embracing their cultural vacuity with open arms. Meanwhile the rest of the world regards their nation as a menace or some sort of surreal punch line to a bad cosmic joke delivered in the poorest of taste. In Gridville mind numbing complex systems struggle to regulate and maintain order in a cyber-optic spider web where lust and greed are lynchpins for celebrity obsessed, creature comfort driven, image conscious consumers. Dreams of power and nightmares of paranoia permeate the major urban population centers; while in the vast empty spaces of the heartland the core of the countries populace regard themselves as the "chosen elite" spiritual gatekeepers and moral jury masters of the collective soul. For those who come of age and fall in love in Gridville, the William Butler Yeats quote from the "Second Coming" can truly be appreciated, "...The ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
Vincent Quatroche's Greetings from Gridville is his third book of prose, poetry and stories. Pervious collections include Another Rubber Eden (1997) and Attitude House (2002). For ordering info visit the "Cold Millers" section on this website
Vincent Quatroche persists still in writing, publishing, recording and performing his rather askew worldview. The rational mind would think after thirty some odd years he might have gotten the message that not only does the literary world not even consider him a after thought and that perhaps if he insists upon annoying the general population of Gridville with his creative efforts that a knock at the door from the proper authorities wishing to interview him and ask a few questions regarding his personal political views and nationalistic loyalties is the best he might hope for. Vincent still resides on the outskirts of domestic strangulation in Western New York, with his wife and children, who with the passage of time have come to the ultimate realization that that their beloved father and husband is no doubt a couple of baloney slices short of a complete sandwich and who will not cease or desist insisting he hears the Sirens of Titan until it's time for that long dirt nap in the wooden kimono. At press time collaborating comments from his students at nearby correctional facilities and local colleges were unavailable for legal reasons.
