In ourselves human existence is nothing but shouts, a cruel spasm, a giggling fit where agreement is born from a consciousness which is at last shared between the impenetrability of ourselves and that of others. — excerpt Literature and Evil, Genet, by Georges Bataille, p. 170 …all our yesterdays have lighted fools…
A strange phrase of only three words that leaves the mind grasping for nothing in particular. Of course it feels uncomfortable, I prefer the defined, something to take in hand. When there’s nothing — I am constrained to become quiet, to cease movement, that quest to outrun time, to make something of myself. What…
Yesterday I raked leaves, a task to be done over and over. Tedium. Leaves do not fall all at once, raking is not a task “one and done.” The work is recurrent. When one session is finished it is replaced by another. Raking, I heard many voices, the sound of approaching running feet. Upon…
I’ve not concealed my love for Rock N Roll, that music of the people, admittedly a cultural feature of my generation. Nietzsche said that life would hardly be worth living without music. “Without music, life would be a mistake.. I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance.” This song fills…
It is time for some wild dancing, some ecstasy is it not? We approach election day for the mid-terms, a great deal is at stake and it will be impossible to know the stakes until the results are in. Our prime directive is “survival” is it not? Therefore I offer this tune by…
Saturday 11:35 AM is quite late for me to be writing here at Starbucks. But who cares? I will not care as long as I come up with some good words. I awakened at 6AM in order to be present on the sidelines to observe and cheer a grandson play his final soccer game…
I awakened a few minutes ahead of the alarm. Sometimes that happens. That part of me which eludes words, wanted to be conscious, awake/alive… Thus began my day. On my way to Starbucks, I could sense that Friday will be warm, a return of comfortable weather, prior to the certain advent of frost, and…
It [laughter] burns as it comes into contact with death; from the symbols of the emptiness of death it draws a heightened consciousness of being. …It brings us out, for a time, from the impasse in which life is enclosed by those whose only concern is to preserve it. …those arts which sustain anguish…
Often I have something in mind to write about. I read. Thoughts conveyed by others often imperfectly understood, capture my imagination. I feel a compulsion to write something, because instinct says an insight important for the future is worthy of exploration. We are “in this thing called life,” together are we not? It is…
I remember writing about this tune in the past. The musical score and lyric of certain songs strike me as iconic, as emblematic of a time, a quest for what it means to be human in a certain “world.” The lyric lines, the blend of the voices convey the friction and effort of discovering…
