I composed an email in reply to a friend. The exchange between us had to do with the contentious pro-choice vs the pro-life viewpoints. Pragmatically the subject has to do with a woman’s rights of privacy and health care choice. To engage with another male friend about the subject causes an unsettled feeling. …
Learning from artists — How can we make thingsbeautiful, attractive, and desirable for us when they are not?And I rather think that in themselves they never are. … from artists whoare really continually tryingto bring off such inventions and feats. Moving awayfrom things untilthere is a good deal that one no longer seesand there…
America, the land of hopes and dreams… or so it is said in the Springsteen lyric. Time enough for you and I to look around, to consider what your eyes see… I remember the road trip out west with a friend, when we visited Los Angles, Beverly Hills. I still remember what I saw….
One thing is needful— To “give style” to one’s character– a great and rare art. It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye….
On this day in 1865, a contingent of Federal troops lead by Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Texas to proclaim, to enforce the end of enslavement of black Americans. Today is Juneteenth, a national day of remembrance. I offer for your pondering along with me, these magnificent words from Nietzsche. The photos were…
We are staying at the Louisville Ky downtown Marriott Courtyard. On the seventh floor, across from our window is the Yum KFC center, the home of the Louisville Cardinals. The Ohio River can be seen behind the Yum Center. The sky is obscured by dome of gray haze. Sunlight waxes and wanes through the…
Thursday at 7AM the morning sun burned a pallid orange. Wildfire smoke in the high atmosphere filters the sunlight. For us here in the Fox Valley it is an early sign of much more that is coming. In terms of climate the midwest is not far from Quebec where the fires burn. Imagine the…
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do…
Slept in today in the aftermath of a full weekend. Sunday afternoon I had a rare opportunity to attend a live performance of show tunes, by the Fox Valley Festival Chorus. As you’d imagine the work of Stephen Sondheim was a feature of the concert. These lines from perhaps the best known of Sondheim’s…
What does your conscience say? — “You shall become the person you are.” –excerpt The Gay Science, Book 3, Section 270 by Friedrich Nietzsche My mind is numb, as if tantalized by just a taste of what is badly needed. Like the promise of rain, in the midst of a drought. Dry ground, dormant grass…
