Life, Hope, Action

The old man asked the younger what was troubling him. 'I am bad' answered the young man. 'Why are you bad'? 'Because yesterday I stole bread.' 'Ah, but today, what did you do today?'

The amazing thing to me about the human experience is that we are not static beings. What we did yesterday may have bearing over what is done today, but there are new beginnings, new starts, turning of corners, breaks from the past, we constantly are learning anew and have the capacity to learn from our mistakes and make better choices. Even if we are not this wise, we simply may forget how we did bad and remember the good is truly good indeed.

Life and Action, friend, these are what we are caught up in; the same life of the star, the tree, the animal. And Action. We can accelerate, decelerate, cruise at constant speed, develop momentum or remain still....for a bit.

So if you steal bread one day, remember one day did not make you a Thief. The fact you lived another with the potential to do better shows you are a living, acting being who can always improve, if you want.

And if someone describes you in the static terms of what you did One Day, it is they who are ignorant, making you more stupid if you fall into the trap of listening to them. This goes of course if they describe you as Thief as well as Saint, lest ye get a big head.

Good days, bad days, you are a Living, Moving Creature with what in my eyes is limitless potential.

In religious terms, the Buddhist strives for Nirvana by breaking through the Karma of many lives, the Christian strives for the perfecting of the Saints, the Muslim is encouraged to make his pilgrimage to Mecca, and so forth.

In philosophic terms, a man can take the great Seneca the Stoic's advice and be happy in that he improves. A little. Each day.

Whether you are religious or philosophic, you probably have some element in you that knows you have the capacity to change what is bad into that which is Good.

I challenge you to find creative ways to make Lemonade out of Lemons and not listen so much to the extreme critics who would either damn you or praise you to the skies.

For the truth is, we are in a place, in my view where the rubber meets the road, where we have the capacity to make of ourselves what we will.

And as long as we are here, and have the chance for change, we also, with an eye to the future have that ultimate promise.

It's a little thing called...

Hope.

Poetry Break - 'I Grasped a Stone' - an original poem

I grasped a stone

And felt it to be Real

Then I realized

I was chasing the Wind



I observed a Tree

It's branches outstretched

When I discovered

It was observing me



I looked to the Star

and immensity of Space

And I found

I was as vast Inside



I looked to the Globe

And it's vast curved Round

And found my eye

Itself was that World



Something Solid, something hollow

Became One in an instant

Just for a moment

I grasped the Whole



The running brook

Was the leaping doe

The cloud filled sky

The plain dotted by towns



Illusion, I found, was difference

Nature's accidents encoded in Man

Made me seem other

Than you or the sky



But Discovery wrought some miracle

Awakened me to another Dream

Asleep, yet aware of sleeping

I broke through to the Day



And rested on that lonely shore

Where only the bravest souls meet

And found Solace in Knowing

Is it's own Reward

Still Life With Woodpecker - Tom Robbins

I've read this a few times over the years. The first novel I've read which includes meta narrative and being set in a pack of Camels. The question: how do you make love stay? Much mythology about redheads (I am one) including that they are addicted to sex, sugar, and controlled by the moon. Hey, I can't argue other than to say why stop there? My obsessions continue much further than those three! A deposed princess is courted by a terrorist who never seems to blow up anything. He just likes attending terrorist conventions. Add to this themes of Love, Loss, Isolation but all dealt with in a mad, diabolical fashion, and you get the general drift of Mr. Tom Robbins.

The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie

The Enchantress of Florence by Sir Salman Rushdie. Lush, expansive meditation on the relationship between East and West unfolds through three books which comprise one great big beautiful novel.

Slice of my Life - 14, 20, 45 - My Magic Numbers This Year!

My son Dylan Thomas turned 14 this past March. His birthday always marks the coming of Spring, and his personality definitely fits the season. Rising from the ashes of Winter with new hope, he displays the perfect combination of real world pragmatism and lofty idealism.

This May will mark 20 years for me and my bride. She has proven to me over the years what real love is...and devotion. We have been on many an adventure together, and I look forward to many many more to come!

I turn forty five in September, and am thankful my hair pattern isn't the same as this guy's!

Music I Listen to While Reading

Van Morrison 'The Philosopher's Stone'

The cover art announces the production of this compilation. Bare, unadorned standing stones on an Irish plain, the production of this two disc set is equally spare yet hopeful. There is no horn section. No saxes. Just vocals, some guitars, drums, piano and the Hammond of course.

Disc one to me is highlighted by Wonderful Remark, Not Supposed to Break Down, Madame Joy and Contemplation Rose. At turns joyful and melancholic, Van covers all the familiar territory he has so skillfully traversed throughout his career. With able lyric writing, exemplary song stylings and proficient musicianship, the disc screams (whispers understatedly) genius.

Disc two opens with the absolute raucous Street Only Knew Your Name, a tore down Gospel if I've ever heard one, and I venerate the late Mahalia Jackson. Real Real Gone sans horns and Bright Side of the Road prove to be pared down gems as well.

Throughout discs one and two, one is treated to some of the finest music from one of our finest singer songwriters. Van proves his stuff stands on it's own without glossy production and studio gimmicks.

A genius such as Van Morrison deserves to be heard the way he prefers, and he proves he not only can put out some of the best songs of the twentieth and twenty first centuries, but has an excellent listener's ear as well.

Whether an introduction to the Man, or an addition to his previous works, Philosopher's Stone proves to be one of the most amazing compilations in popular music history, in my humble view.





Lisa Gerrard's 'The Silver Tree'
I have been a Lisa Gerrard fan since her Dead Can Dance days. What I have appreciated most about her is the way she uses her voice as an instrument. Atop spare, sweeping electronic orchestration, Lisa's distinct and obviously strictly trained voice and breathing truly take on a dimension of their own. And that is where this music takes you. To another dimension. In the opening track, InExile, Lisa attains what I've never heard from her before. A dusky, sonorous timbre that will set the tone for the rest of the album. On the way home listening to this in the car c.d. player, 'cinematic' came to mind. I even checked the insert when I got home, thinking 'The Silver Tree' may have been a movie I missed.

This is not a lively c.d. It is slow and unfolding, spiraling in places. Perfect music to listen to intently as there is more to this than meets the ear at first.

Espresso Book - Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q946sfGLxm4

Print on demand. Nice video, but I think I'll still spring for the 'real deal.'

Summer Rereads

Ernest Hemingway the Complete Short Stories - Highlights for me are 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' and 'Up in Michigan' - Hemingway at his best in these somewhat early works.

Henry Miller, like Hemingway, could catch the sounds and smells and gritty details of everyday life, but still find life to be beautiful. This particular work captures Miller touring Greece with commentary on the ancients and moderns alike.

Yet another chestnut by Miller.

Maxfield Parrish

The Light. Maxfield Parrish brought worlds from just out of sight, from around the corner, from inside and beneath, to Light. Mythological and certainly having hints of spirituality running throughout his work, Parrish made the unreal real...

Poetry Break - 'Into This Fire' - an original poem

Into this fire

I’ve been before

A blue cold burning

That consumes what’s hot



This great fall

Just can’t find gravity

Nothing to attach to, the

Most eccentric Star in its path



Water won’t quench

This thirst blazing my throat

Gall won’t heal these wounds

The quiet scars of the wounded man



Neither animal, nor angel,

Mere human, now human,

I unite to you in your pain

And feel what you’ve felt



No other way to connect

But through this pain I’ve not felt

Now feel, a sponge now for suffering

A crucible for angst…



But what winds whisper

Through my airy rooms,

Offer healing to the ragged wounds

Tropic airs in arid plumes



Fog the windows and this tomb...

How the Wisdom of Freud can Transform Your World

During the Enlightenment, philosophically and spiritually, authority and the divine rights of Monarchy were overthrown and democracy ennobled the citizen, who now became free. A new Virtue, Liberty, was innaugurated and the enlightened man sought it and preferred death to the loss of it. Whether your leanings are to the crown or to liberty, you now live in a world where your inaliable rights as a human being have been fought for, won, and continue to be ensured.

After the horrors of World War I, however, the shift for many western intellectuals was from the objective to the subjective. Certain towering individuals began to realize the Great War being waged was not necessarily between despots and deprived populaces, but was being waged internally....psychologically.

This is the birth of the modern era.

Auguste' Comte, the social philosopher declared 'man poses endless need and endleess danger'. Man. As in you. Me.

Freud, this article's hero, discovered a dark, uncharted territory, the unconscious, and set about mapping out it's nebulous landscape.

The Shadow.

Freud found that we all, living under largely Victorian values, hid the worst elements of ourselves from ourselves. We repressed. Sexual desires, aggression, unseemly aspects of ourselves that were very real were simply denied, pushed below the surface and ignored. One of the principles Freud discovered about this new unconscious however, was that the psychic energy that had been repressed was not destroyed. It simply remained latent and was residing, festering, growing ever more powerful and remaining within us. The resultant 'person', the negative unconscious 'person' that contained all the traits we abhorred Freud termed the Shadow.

The Shadow made manifest.

Freud began to notice ways the Shadow would seep out from the unconscious and make itself manifest in the world. One way this was done was through Projection. Freud found we would Project our repressed unseemly and unwanted attributes onto others. The faults, sins, and deplorable aspects of our neighbors were in fact aspects of ourselves. We saw ourselves in our neighbors. Freud found that we had found the enemy, and the enemy was us.

'Progress is the harmonious balance of opposites'

Although this maxim was spoken later by another psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung, Freud found that the only way to progress as a responsible human being was to make the unconscious, on one pole, conscious, residing on the opposite pole, and then begin to develop methods of dealing with our problems. What was dark and latent had to be brought to the light and made manifest, so it could be resolved.

We are rascally and righteous and need to be whole.

Freud then set about, through psychoanalysis, to allow troubled souls to realize they were rascally and righteous. Freud found that people needed to accept all of themselves, negative as well as positive, in order to become whole and truly healthy. The implications were staggering. Now, rather than finding threat in the surrounding environment, in our neighbor, or those residing in other states, we first needed to look to ourselves and solve those problems raging within us before blaming the world for our ills.

Self responsibility.

If we now matured in realizing we were our own cause for much of our suffering, we could take responibility for our problems rather than blaming others and truly begin to progress as human beings.

This has not been an exhaustive study into the theories of psychoanalysis or Freud's work. I have not even mentioned the Id, the Ego, and the Superego, the tripartite makeup of our selves, according to Freud.

I have just attempted to honor Freud's wisdom and pass it along.

It is an old wisdom couched in modernist terms.

The worlds great spiritual traditions have always recognized the internal struggle that truly trumps any external obstacles we may encounter.

Freud just modernized, perhaps secularized this wisdom and provided a way for even the unbelieving to become redeemed.

Arete'

What the greeks called excellence. But for how long did I confuse excellence with perfection? How long did I, unbeknownst to me, attempt to make the gods jealous by leaving nothing undone, being lock-stepped in days where every task had to be completed without error, on time, and without fail? If something was crooked, it was made straight, if someone was out of line, they were reprimanded, if I didn't get it all done, I chastised myself severely before falling asleep.

It's a continuum. The natural flow of time is not measured laconically in twenty four hour days, but flows from one day into the next one, and then to the next one, in curvaceous perfectiion.

Leave something left for the next time. Perfection is left to the gods.

The concept of the good measure in all things really results in a mediocrity. You can be a little above average, but you still tend to the middlin'.

A potter shapes his bowl on the wheel and sees before putting it into the kiln that it is perfectly smooth and without defect.

He makes his mark in the clay before baking it, adding his originality to the work that results in an imperfection so that no one gets jealous.

This then is true excellence.

A truer representation of things how they are naturally.

Mystery

There is the manifest, that which is detected through the senses, and is judged by Immanuel Kant to be synthetic, aposteriori and empirical. And then there is the hidden. The unintelligible realm. That which can only be hinted at, intuited. Western philosophers treat of two subjects. The seen (or felt or heard or smelled or tasted) and the unseen, or that nebulous realm that can only be represented symbolically by such things as numbers. But my, what a business goes on inside the veil, or beneath it all, or behind the curtain, or any number of things! We always love a good mystery, don't we? And in the realm of the fantastic, it's always the goblins, fairies, undines, sylphs, gnomes and dragons that are lurking just around the corner, only hinted at and never fully realized that can provide the most horror, amazement, or longing. Once a thing is made manifest, conscious and is concrete, we can begin to deal with it and even change it. But beware the hidden! These are the hobgoblins that never come to the light, that are always lurking in the shadows, and never change! Uncharted territory, still, and indeed.

She

Rolling hills, flowing valleys, delicate fibonacci-swirled rosepetals, the flowers of Georgia O Keefe, the wind softly bending ears of corn, deep caverns, recesses cool in the earth, the arch of tree limbs in the forest, meeting each other in trigonometric curves, deep pools of water, the ocean, the Moon, the planet Venus, lush forest trees covering over their saplings, the understory of the woods, the curves of flowing rivers, the quiet monotanous swelling of wave upon wave, the whisper, all of these hints that Nature has that feminine principle, flirtatious hints that a mystery is afoot. No wonder they call her Mother Nature.

Existentialism: Fail

In 1983, when I was graduating from high school, I discovered the existentialists. I read Camus, Sartre, Kierkegard, with much fascination. These authors developed a world view I could relate to, living under Ronald Reagan as President and the threat of Russian missiles being everpresent.

The world seemed cold (cold war) and didn't seem to be intelligible. I, being an optimist at bottom really, never sunk into nihilism, but I certainly did feel alienated.

Looking back, I shouldn't have wasted my time. Not having discovered depth psychology yet, I had no real portrait of the human soul painted in my mind yet. I did not understand I had an Ego, complexes and a personal and collective unconscious that was influencing me without my knowing.

The problem with existentialism, in hindsight, is that it does a brilliant job of portraying the alienation a modern individual can feel in the modern Cosmos, but stops there.

The Ego I learned does in fact become inflated and alienated from the rest of the self, casting one in an internal universe that seems now vast, stark, and mostly empty. Being Demiurgic, the Ego usurps other archetypal patterns such as the Child, the Mother, the Father and demands that it now alone is to be served.

Dreams being ignorred, along with other synchronicities that offer themselves up as doorways from the Self to Matter and the World, it becomes easy for an individual to feel isolated and 'against the world.'

Folks who are in this predicament are easy prey for the charms of existentialism.

But one must persevere and move on...beyond alienation.

The task becomes realizing the other elements of the self and beginning to integrate them into one's Self. To make the unconscious conscious and thus allow for the possibility of wholeness.

Hard work to be sure. Definitely it is easier to die in isolation.

But once one recognizes the other facets dwelling within, he begins to be moved by the energies of the archetypes again and begins to develop libido (life force) again and can begin to take the slow, painful, but now conscious steps out of the void and into the Cosmos charged with Life and Meaning.

Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age by A.C. Grayling

Or Grayling contra Comte-Sponville.

Years ago, Andre' Comte-Sponville wrote a little book entitled 'A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues' in which he enumerated the clasical and developing Virtues and supplied explanations and examinations of each. His book, though thorough and technically proficient left me with somwhat a cold feeling. Something was lacking, though at the time, I couldn't quite put my finger on what that something was.

Enter A.C. Grayling with this other little book. Certainly not a manual on Virtue, but rather laconic observations on some small little things and some great big things that can inform one's attempt at life. For as Grayling informs us, breathing is not tantamount to living in all cases. Life is an Art and not all are Artists or Artisans.

With subjects ranging from Hope to Death to Blasphemy to Prudence, some highlighted as Virtues, others simply as signs that can point to a richer, fuller life, Mr. Grayling allows us a glimpse and more into from what I see is a fairly complete representation of the Human Soul. More, Grayling comes through in these pages as someone who has lived these experiences, developed ideas from contemplating the subjects, and as a result is one who displays much Wisdom.

This perhaps for me is where Comte-Sponville was finally lacking. Although his treatise was written stringently and intelligently, it lacked Soul.

In 'Courage', Grayling contrasts the subject with Rashness - bold action with lack of Fear or Forethought, and highlights the advantages of not only this Ancient Virtue, but goes further in providing day to day examples of what Courage means in our ordinary lives. This moving from the Lofty, Ethereal Archetypal Virtues to the everyday and ordinary is a mark of Genius on Grayling's part, in my humble view.

Well written and truly a miscellany, the book can be picked up and opened at will, where whatever subject one chances upon is guaranteed to be thought provoking and Lively (even bordering on the emotional.) This again is a signature of Grayling in that he is not afraid to inject his subjects with subjectivity and psychological insight, of which the author obviously has both in reasoned yet ample amounts.

Not a Humanist yet? Let Grayling convince you.

My Visit to Harvard Book Store

A few years ago, okay around seven, I was working for Borders Books as inventory manager and was told I had to go out of town to get trained. 'Where'? asked I. 'Cambridge/Boston. 'Okay!'


Now I'm from the midwest but still have been fortunate to do a lot of travelling, mostly out West. The furtherst East I had been was futher South....through Savannah, Ga. on the way to Florida.

So when the plane landed at Logan, I immedieately knew I was not in Evansville, Indiana anymore.

I rode the hired van from the airport to my hotel...the Royal Sonesta sitting on the banks of the Charleston River in Cambridge overlooking the yacht club and Boston skyline.

The hotel had original Jonathan Borofsky sillhouettes, Buckminster Fuller drawings and Marc Chagalls adorning the walls. There was a bar that was nice for a respite and plenty of shops to check out in the surrounding area.

The training was thorough, lasting 8-10 hours a day with homework, so I really didn't get out much until the second to last night I was there.

The training that day, having let out early suddenly left me with some FREE time! I decided I had two choices. One was to go into Boston and visit a nice Irish pub (I have Irish blood) or go further into Cambridge to Harvard Square.

Since Evansville not long after got a Ri/Ra's pub, I know for sure I made the correct decision in goint to Harvard Square.

On the way down the esplanade along the Charles River in the cab, I realized I didn't have my camera in hand. I told the extremely nice Indian driver my predicament and he said 'I will stop you at drugstore. You get disposable.'

Brilliance and Kindness in a very unique combination, I thought.

In Harvard I dashed about campus snapping pictures like a true madman set loose on the streets. I clicked buildings and housing and posters and so on.

I moved on to Harvard Square. Street performers, poetry readers, guitar playing Sirens sung to me as I snapped my photos as quickly and efficiently as possible (rage rage against the dying of the light)

Then behold....Harvard Book Store est. 1935.

The Holy of Holies.

I made my way into the store and perused the shelves. I read and sniffed and smelled the books. I chatted up the personnel (very personellable) and purchased a first edition first printing of Hamlet Poem Unlimited signed by the author on the title page, Harold Bloom.

All very heady stuff for a cornhead.

Hatch's Order of Magnitude

Interesting Book of Lists that catalogs just how good things can get and just how bad things can get.

Poetry Break - 'Seaburnt and Windblown' - an original poem

I have seen a sea in rage,
Agonizing beneath the Sun,
Full of green brine and soils
Whipped up from distant lands
.. ..
This sea is calm for hours
Deep, grey slate surface with
Wings all through it’s middle
While at bottom, all is dark
.. ..
And then it roils from within
Storm rising from it’s depths
Disturbing everything in it’s path
Leaving no pebble unturned.
.. ..
This is not an open eyed sea
But one that appears with eyes
Closed tight, praying for slumber
Seeing something truly Real.
.. ..
One can look to the sea
And not take in it’s immensity
Yet form a perfect picture
In the mind’s eye…
.. ..
The form, the substance, the
Geometry and algorithmic
Curls can be seen to perfection
Unlike what lies before.
.. ..
This is the Real, I think
As I lie in a bed thousands
Of miles from the shore
Surfing the waves of my windblown sea…

In my first year of college, I was challenged by a certain English professor to take off my blinders. To see the world through as little filters as possible. At that time, I was made aware for the first time in my life, I was viewing Reality through filters. The histories, the religion, the ethics, the psychology, all inherited and all acting as filters.

Being stubborn, I clung to my inherited worldview. I was going to have to learn the hardway.And sure enough, not till I reached my late thirties, did I have enough catastrophic experiences to shake me out of my preferred perception.

Through experience, I learned that my way was one way of viewing the world, and was tenuous, shaky and in some facets, downright fairy tale and ephemeral in nature. I experienced the reality of day to day suffering that many on the planet have grown accustomed to and have learned to take for granted, as gratis.I think of the violent and brutal exposure to the realities of day to day life taught me to be first, compassionate, then tolerant, then more spiritual and less religious, and finally a little wiser, a little more courageous, and far more temperate.I had to learn the hardway. By experience. Perhaps you can learn from my example prudentially.

Be kind to others. Know that people around you are suffering. Show them compassion daily. Don't argue religion, this is what wars are made of. Same with politics. Your way is not the only way of doing things. There is a wealth of knowledge to be gained by other people from all walks of life. People, if not well read, then by and large are well experienced. We all have made mistakes. Be kind to yourself. Learn to forgive yourself! Give yourself a break! As a wise philosopher once said, 'we live forwards, but learn backwards'. We all are constanstly thrust into a future we do not remember, so we should at least remember the past and learn from it! This sounds arcane, but I've found it to be true to seek 'the harmonious balance of opposites.' What this means is, much of life is merciful and severe. You are taking the middle path by being moderate in your thought, desire and action. Be mild with others in your speech and in your actions toward them.

Be humble with self confidence. Treat others with dignity, and expect the same for yourself. We are all in the same boat in that man poses endless need and endless danger. Desires are the neverending hallmarks of our hearts and we can be so dangerous in obtaining them!Finally, to date, I would say the saying we've all heard a million times before is worth repeating here one more time.The best things in life are free.Sunsets, sunrises, waxing and waning moons, orion belt stars, milky ways, summer breezes and winter winds, the chirping of crickets, all this wealth continually surrounding us deserves our reverence and thankfulness, so that it will not all be taken for granted!Peace!

Wonderful Bestiary by Borges with Imaginary Creatures from literature ranging from the Bible to C.S. Lewis. Fabulous!

Arguably the World's Most Beautiful Bookstore

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/13/most-beautiful-books.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Poetry Break - 'The Haunted Beach' - an original poem

We went to the beach

The pictures came back

There were Spirits flying

All through the skies

There were undines in water

And gnomes in sand

There were sylphs in air

And Dragons in the sun

Where we swam sharks

Circled round menacing

Stingrays lay beneath us

As we lolled on the beach

That beach was haunted

And we brought home ghosts

Our house full of sea

And our heads full of sand

Ocean bright in landlocked land.

Poetry Break - 'The Monkey and his Tree' - an original poem

See the monkey climb the tree
Everything he needs is there
Protection from the limbs
Fruit for the taking

Perhaps it is the center of his world
Where friends and family gather
They talk amongst themselves in glee
Swinging from vine to vine

No poison in the river, a good year
And the plain is fertile yet
And plows don’t mow the field
And weapons are not yet made

No North, no South, East or West
Sun and moon streak through the sky
Meandering chaos in background stars
Twinlights light the ancient paths

Who will hang on this tree?
For knowledge, for redemption
To bring the Man to bended knee
For the sin of the Ancient Father?

This is a bitter tree with bitter fruit
That brings maggots to the belly
To be cursed and bear no meat
To be the sign of desolation

For now the monkey runs
From trunk to branch meandering
Happy and fat and ignorant most
Having his own reason and rhyme

And the tree cries out, who will hang on me?
For all this frivolity?

Poetry Break - 'These New Feet' - an original poem

These new feet, high arched and sprite
White as the bone beneath,
Having traversed streams and cobbled walks
Were made for old paths in high places

This cold heart, having eaten Fear
And pumped the blue blood of the Ancient
Into Red with the rising and falling of the lung
Now bursts into flame, a fire bringing Courage

This stale brain, grey and useless as polluted snow
Having been engendered by the twin serpents
Rising from the Ancient depths,
Now Mind, unlimited, united with All

I will do a new thing, I will do a new Thing
And the Ancient whispers in the Youth’s globed ear
I am shedding my skin, removing the Shroud,
And I’m putting old wine in new wineskins…

Yet the vessels hold, and they do not break
Cracks of Wisdom adorning the outer skins
Like a desert tracked with watery stream,
A coarse face with fine lines of laughter

Echo upon echo, wave upon Wave,
Ripples of Eternity in the span of one Moment
Strike me thus with the ancient Knowledge
That protects new feet from the old cobbled stone

Bible - Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall, painter - Informed by the Bible, Chagall found that in the Biblical Universe, men could float through the ether willy-nilly, defying gravity and the laws of physics. Chagall's use of color and whimsical flight of fancy motifs (men and women in loving embraces, floating over houses and livestock), animals floating through the air with smiles on their faces, and so on, are a reminder that religion need not be taken so literally and seriously all the time and that the line between the profane and the Divine is not that thick of a line afterall. Interestingly, Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, put together a wonderful book of Chagall's works in the eighties which included personal interviews with Chagall and his wife.

!Books!

A small glimpse into my obsession. I once rode skateboards. I used to play music. I collected matchbooks at one time. Now my passion has been refined and narrowed into a booklust that consumes the walls of my basement.

'The Mystery of Things' by A.C. Grayling

'The Mystery of Things', a collection of essays, or more tellingly, vignettes by A.C. Grayling is an important little book, to say the least. In an age of texting, gaming and CGI, what is Real is rapidly becoming cliche' as the synthetic moves in to become the order of the day. Grayling, however, is one of the last voices of the human, a mind able to unflinchingly tackle such diverse subjects as the City of Ur and the heroin addiction of William S. Burroughs. Thankfully not a specialist, Mr. A.C. Grayling divides the pages of this powerful little nugget of a book into the Arts, the Sciences, and History. A Purist you may ask? Perhaps. But no snobbery is to be found here, where the author assumes one is interested in, and has therefore heard of the various subject matters contained within these pages.

In the Arts section, one of the fascinating topics is collecting, and Grayling has certainly turned a master's eye to the collection of these writings. Standing alongside the somewhat luddite-ish complaint of modern architecture in 'The Cities of Modern Culture', one finds a nice retelling and critique of 'A Winter's Tale' by Shakespeare (within a stone's throw at least) and without feeling seasick from the sea change. As made manifest in the essay on Art and Nature, Grayling betrays a soul as sensitive and keen as a John Ruskin when extolling the golden age of European voyagers and their exploits where Captain Cooks were teamed with Naturalists and Artists who documented the New Worlds of the West Indies.

Do you, like me, feel we are missing something in our postmodern culture? A.C. Grayling expertly goes back and picks up the pieces, fitting them together in perhaps surprising ways, to form one Great Culture. Highly recommended...