Campaign
Is this a sign from God? tags : poindexter , president
Authors First
In general I am all for things that empower and enrich creativity in an uplifting way. One creative-enriching thing in particular has caught my attention and regard. Not only does this entity foster remarkable creativity, but it also serves to give broader freedom to the disenfranchised and has the capacity to bring more positive attention to the marginalized other. I’ll spit it out: Deconstruction. Deconstruction is perhaps one of the sharpest scalpels in the intellectual medical kit. And yet its span is even broader than that. Such a scalpel finds its place in virtually every kit. Because deconstruction is a foundational textual tool it works its magic on any and every thing that is. And yet, I can’t but help think that some areas ought not to be...
Memory
I think it happened on a Tuesday. Alan had been out for most of the day wandering around town in search of a job, and I had been trying to read. My attempt was not wholly successful, because the phone kept ringing, or I would get up to check my email. I was in an expectant mood, and concentration is hard to come at such times. Lunchtime passed and I went back to the couch and tried to fix my eyes to the book, ignoring the digestive murmur of my just satisfied stomach. A particular character in the book had been getting on my nerves for some time. He seemed so sure of himself, and yet from the perspective of everyone else he was obviously wrong about many things. He regularly would say and do things that were just plain embarrassing to encounter. Books have...
The Cat
I started War and Peace the other day. Admitting this is paramount to a confession that I’ve given up trying to write a novel in one month. I am NOT giving up on the novel, I’m just extending the time frame, indefinitely. Something interesting happened yesterday, I think. The problem is that I don’t actually remember exactly what it was. I’ve been wrinkling my forehead in an effort to recall the elusive moments, hoping that something good would be remembered so I could blog about it. I’m stuck. I’ve seen a wild cat downtown several times in the last two weeks. It doesn’t look like one of those wiry alley cats one occasionally spots in the city. It is white with large grey patches, and by all appearances manages to eat...
Exellence in All Things
In some earlier posts ( one, two ) I mentioned the possibly profane status of the term encore. Here, I will examine something related, a nuance of this idea: the remarkable interaction of contentment and ambition. This is a paradox post.Ambition is something that our world thrives on. Ambition is encouraged and rewarded in the work place, the classroom and the home; most people smile at the man or woman who seems ambitious. And yet naturally something so sought after can easily dovetail into the negative. Ambition in excess, stretched to the breaking point, evolves quickly into jealousy, greed, and power-mongering. The desire for success becomes too pragmatic and discards ethical means to success as cumbersome and old-fashioned. Seeking after excellence is a...