Another day in the reign of Trump. That seems the language suited to our condition. I wonder how similar our situation to that of the French man/woman-on-the-street under the reign of Louis the XIV? Louis XIV was concerned above all with the enhancement of his glory. He was called the Sun King (le…
Yesterday morning I joined my son and the grand kids for a walk to the park and some fishing. Fishing is a grand adventure for a kid. Fishing can be one of life’s most important lessons. One never knows what one will catch, if anything. There are many factors involved in catching a fish. …
This morning I do not want to write more about the coronavirus. I prefer a session with a philosophy book, America by Jean Baudrillard. The pandemic leaves one emotionally drained, by the disruption in daily life, — more so after hearing recent developments in the South and West. What to write is not entirely…
Waking this morning, my first thought was the fragment of a dream. I was the subject of the dream. I saw myself, standing in a room, with an axe in my hand, chopping through a wooden floor. Then I was awake and the dream evaporated. A wise person once said to me that that…
After a session of wrestling with ideas, words, with the recalcitrant “world”, — my spirit seems to seize, overcome with the weary business of it all. Perhaps this is the hazard of a love of philosophy? David Hume once said. Since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose,…
Who doesn’t own an iphone? I have an older 6s model with a cracked screen. It’s a marvelous device, magical, concealing state-of-the-art circuits, layer upon layer, thousands of semi conductor elements, applied quantum mechanics delivering convenience and entertainment. You know what I am attempting to say. Few of us have consciously opted out of…
And that smile everyone gives you as they pass, that friendly contraction of the jaws triggered by human warmth. It is the eternal smile of communication, the smile through which the child becomes aware of the presence of the others. It is the equivalent of the primal scream of man alone in the world….
NEW YORK The beauty of the Black and Puerto Rican women of New York. Apart from the sexual stimulation produced by the crowding together of so many races, it must be said that black, the pigmentation of the dark races, is like a natural make-up that is set off by the artificial kind to…
These lines, quoted from America, by Jean Baudrillard, published 1986, translated by Chris Turner: NEW YORK More sirens here, day and night. The cars are faster, the advertisements more aggressive. This is wall-to-wall prostitution. And total electric light too. And the game – all games – gets more intense. It’s always like this when…
It is Sunday morning, the 21st day of June. Father’s Day. I know little about the role and responsibility of being a Father. Plainly fatherhood is more than a biological or a social role. I’ve known many males, with children, who qualify for the label, since language is a social construct. When the topic…
