The officer, who had once begged us to show the world his dying city, now pleaded with us to go. He nudged us toward the thousands of battered cars preparing to leave Mariupol. The deaths came fast. On Feb. 27, we watched as a doctor tried to save a little girl hit by shrapnel….
Met up with two friends this morning. Walking along the riverfront, in the presence of waterbirds congregating on the far bank, commenting on the old buildings, built by several generations before the present, the buildings rehabilitated, upgraded not only for our end use purposes, but a reminder that we are not the first to…
All revolutions are aesthetic… Taste is power, and power is politics… So taste has enormous power to shape history. If it makes your scalp tingle, it’s art. “Bad taste is real taste, and good taste is just the residue of someone else’s privilege.” Jazz exemplifies the possibly doomed experiment of being totally free, with…
Someone who knows me well took me to task this week on account of my contempt for capitalism. His complaint paraphrased, – “Do you mean to say the guy operating the corner grocery down the street is an avaricious, exploiting….etc.” He and I were not in a situation to discuss the matter at length,…
Writing about the death of someone I did not know, I took a short walk in the snowfall to think. There’s a purity about snow. I remembered white symbolizes death in Japan. Purity is erasure, a blank slate. Death is erasure of the filigreed world, that Baroque montage of shape, color and sound, the…
Some additional thoughts on capitalism… I remember a time when capitalism did not seem so rapacious, as destructive in its general effect upon the social circle within my awareness. Perhaps as a young adult in my twenties, I was simply ignorant, blind to suffering of others, particularly citizens of color. Yes, I was ignorant…
Yesterday I noticed this sign while stopping at a Starbucks. I felt excited at the “sign” of sanity, a public display of reason in a time of covid. Why in the name of humanity should we sacrifice lives, and “sacrifice” is the only word to use. What of this childish desire to assert “freedom”…
We spent part of the afternoon at one of the national booksellers, perusing the shelves. Not that I “need” another book. A bookstore is always an agreeable place, and especially on a chill winter’s day. I spent some time examining the display of new fiction hardcover books. A thought came to mind. A…
I took a walk yesterday. A gray day, mid-January with a brisk breeze and thirty degrees. I walked 3rd Street in Geneva, the mind stimulated by visual and tactile sensation, — as I passed by restaurants “coming to life” in early afternoon. Reaching State Street, intending to purchase another cup of coffee from the…
The discussion touching on Platonic idealism was fascinating. Who is not captivated by an ideal, gleaming in transparent purity? I certainly am. Would I kill for an ideal? Or to put it more plainly would I commit murder to advance an ideal? I probably would, as many have. I am admittedly a standard issue…
