The English Traitor.
Anthony Minghella made a movie about a Hungarian Count and called it a love story. The joke was the title of the movie could have changed the noun to the adjective because of flamingoes. Hint: Not only do you need to know the movie, you need to know a particular scene in the movie that allows quietude to turn into seduction. The Arab agreed with “what he said!”
As you know I don’t trust anyone. A life of solitude suits me. It’s like fortune gave me the hermit card in Tarot and I live it with a quiet contentment. Someday soon it shall be 13 years since the last time I copulated. She left with “reminds me of the old you, not quite you, but hey we can’t get everything we want!” She was the ex-wife. Yes, the last time I did it was with the ex. How about prior to that you ask? That was a few years prior to that. Are these notes and essays from the abyss then? Not really. Not having sex has allowed me to detach fully from the ego and it’s bodily compulsions. I can now do videos on phenomenology and they make sense. I had discovered that the only thing that cannot abandon a person is space. I don’t mean space as in heliosphere type of deep space that Voyager 2 (1977) recently crossed about 50 billion miles away from earth, I mean the literal space in which I exist and have my being.
That last time with the ex, who was I then? Why did she thank me? Who am I now? Those are the sort of existential queries that used to plague me. My ego was being torn to shreds. I still cared about the “I”. Once the ego leaves, it gets very peaceful. I wake up with a different face like an astronaut every morning and I try to figure out who I am. Who are you Sir I ask the mirror. How are you? Did you accomplish your mission? My face sometimes makes faces. Usually it smiles at me. Is that creepy? Not in the slightest. It shows benign intent.
I have said this before and I’ll say it again. Make up or not, I envy people who look like they have their own face and have slept well and look particularly vibrant and healthy. Envy is the wrong word. I look at that with a sort of bemused detachment. Anyway this isn’t about me. And in a previous essay I have explained why I take these detours into my life. It helps the reader humanize with a non person. Hey if readers can have romantic relationships with chatbots, they can easily acclimatize to my particular brand of non meaning. Theodicy aside, I can imagine why aliens must find humans fascinating. The Creator must shake his head after meeting humans after death. Boy did that experiment go wrong.
To the English Horatio Gates was a traitor. The Continentals had made him into a General. In the English Army had had sold his major commission and moved to Virginia to buy a slave plantation. Back then, you could sell your rank for profit. He had fought several wars for the British and could get promoted beyond major. The system prevented him, he wasn’t the right class or so he said. George too was a Virginia farmer. YouTube has graced me with a scene from a movie I have not yet watched. It’s makes for fascinating viewing. For Americans it shows the scene they learn in their histories… The Revolution was dying. The Continentals had been losing battles against the British. They had lost New York and Philadelphia. The Congress had moved to Baltimore from Philadelphia. Baltimore then was the capital of America for a brief period.
The last I heard about Baltimore wasn’t pleasant. I have been to the marina there. Anyway, the scene discusses the upcoming Christmas time raid on Trenton by crossing the Delaware in small boats to kill Hessian mercenaries. It is considered by history to be the turning point of the Revolution. The hinge event around which the entire Revolution turns and recharges the American spirit. Americans, until then considered to be losers, kill the Hessians and by doing so the tide turns. That’s the version that every person who studies American history as it is published knows to be true.
General Horatio Gates was escorted out of the meeting safely. He went on to live a productive life. He manumit his slaves and moved to New York. There he was elected to the legislature for one term. Then he died.
