Rule Breaking 101 . .
It's Tews' day … with cold Northerlies across TulseyTown after a tornadic night in Okieland …
We have sufficient visual capacity not to be fooled by transparent glass or plastic walls, but we are extremely prone to the belief that nothing exists in this world save that which we ourselves see. How obtuse! The natural environment in which we live contains an infinitude of objects that our eyes cannot see. – Masahiro Mori
Camille Paglia turns 77 today, as does Emmy-Lou Harris. Ms. Paglia was born in 1947, Endicott, New York , while Emmy-Lou was welcomed to 1947 Birmingham, Alabama.
Marianne Williamson may be the most patriarchally marginalized voice in America, and, perhaps, among the most worthy of attention.
The Real Crisis in Humanities Isn't Happening at College.
They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
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The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.
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The mind of which we are unaware is aware of us. – R.D. Lang
No more foolin' around . . .
It's a Moon Day behind clouds in Okieland … serious weather is in the forecasts for this afternoon …
A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery. – Nelson Algren
It's April Fool's day … And no foolin' April is National Poetry Month …
Why poems are meant to be heard, not confined to life only on the page ... Garrison Keillor recites (from accurate memory) Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabell Lee."
If you're still not sure why Donald Trump is unfit to be president, attorney Joyce Vance just explained in a recent post, “We need to talk about this,” on her Civil Discourse site.
The strategy that matters most for the Kremlin is not the military strategy, but rather the spread of disinformation that causes the West to back away and allow Russia to win. – from the Institute for the Study of War, cited by Heather Cox Richardson, in her blog “Letters from an American” on this past Friday.
Missed this one: Last Thursday was the birthday of Nelson Algren. The novelist was born 115 years ago on 3/28 in 1909 Detroit, Michigan.
Science once again affirms ( from the “well, duh!” archives ) men and women are different.
"When we get more houses than we can live in, more cars than we can ride in, more food than we can eat ourselves, the only way of getting richer is by cutting off those who don't have enough."
– Nelson Algren, A Walk on the Wild Side, 1956 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.
Holy scapegoats . . .
It's Sol's day with storms forecasted tonight and tomorrow here in Okieland …
It's also Easter Sunday in many parts of the world.
Today, Oklahoma! opened on Broadway in 1943 and began a run of 2,200 performances along with several hit revivals.
It's the 428th birthday of philosopher René Descartes, born in 1596 La Haye en Touraine, France. His declaration “I think, therefore I am,” famous though it was, is challenged today by a more quantum-physics-grounded one: “I am, therefore I think.”
Two composers of note share birthdays today. Johann Sebastian Bach was born today in 1685, Eisenach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxon Duchies [Germany] and Joseph Haydn was born in 1732, Rohrau, Austria,
Regardless of the presence or absence of religiousity in our lives, today provides us with a worthy reflection. The “Easter celebration” is a season unto itself, a season of the scapegoat. The scapegoat is an ego defense of displacement, in which uncomfortable feelings such as anger, frustration, envy, guilt, shame, and insecurity are displaced or redirected onto another, often more vulnerable, person or group. Who are your scapegoats?
We avoid awareness of our own scapegoating. Surely, we only have legitimate enemies. Really? Do you hold grievances? Who do you turn “who” into “what?” People of color. A religion. People who profess faith. The poor beggar on the street corner pushing a stolen grocery cart. LGBTQi people. Artists. Scientists. Deep thinkers. Shallow thinkers. Men because they deserve it. Women, just because. The entire universe swarms with scapegoats of our making. The persecutor is always someone else.
Can you conceive of the non-violent community quietly emerging notwithstanding the violence and insanity that seems to be the dominant characteristic of our present world? – after René Girard.
My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed.
I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world. – Adrianne Rich
The only thing we need to be saved from is our own insanity. – Marianne Williamson
In dreams we are forever alone walking the ghost
road beyond our lives. Of late I see waking
as another chance at spring.
– Jim Harrison, in “Songs of Unreason,” Copper Canyon Press (2011),