I’m on vacation this week. Woot!
I’m actually off from college and from work. At the same time. Go figure.
So I’m sitting in Panera’s working on my book. What book? Oh, that’s right, it’s been forever since I’ve actually posted anything… so let fill you in.
Last Spring, I decided that the full-time job and the full course load that I was taking wasn’t enough so I decided I was going to add a bit more pressure to the mental masochism Continue reading Back At It…
So, it’s Friday! Can I get a collective
Awesome. And why am I so fired up about the weekend. I mean, is it because I’m going to be on call for work? Is it the looming final project that includes re-writing four poems (and I’ve already expressed my thoughts on that), or could it be that as of Sunday, I will be done with the summer semester and finally be able to take a proper break? Continue reading Into the Breach…
Tunes fly through the head. Words fly from the fingers. Birds lost to the moment of inspiration, loosed on the world like so much flak, clouding the web, destroying what was once a beautiful garden, now just a trash dump with diamonds in the rough.
***
I’ve heard so many people tell me they have published something with the whispered tag of “self” added almost silent. As if self was something to be ashamed of. Maybe in this day and age, it should be. Self once stood for independence, for liberty, for strength, for courage… no more. Now it seems to be a right that people club others with over the head like so many baby seals.
I’m not saying I’m that great a writer, I’m not even going to remotely compare myself with the likes of Tennyson, Twain, Chopin, O’Connor or O’Brien…
I am even sort of impressed by a person’s ability to finish a novel because it is something that I struggle with.
***
Buy me. Drink me. Eat me. As the amateur draws his catgut across the strings and causes the white rabbit to drop his watch and run from the wailing screech that bleeds his ears. “The audacity!” the creator bemoans, “You’re just jealous,” he shrills, drowning out his horrid playing in one breath.
***
Like so many others in this world, my time is important. So is my money. Why would I ever want to waste either? And yet, with Amazon and iTunes (and a plethora of others that would elongate this list to an unmanageable tangle of gnarls) leading the cause of the indie artist and making publishing it as simple as pushing a button, we have delved down a rabbit hole that may not have a cure, or at least one that in so many ways is a great thing, it has been abused and there are no police to moderate it.
***
“Back beast! Back I say!” The artist swings his keyboard in defense of his creation. “Trolls! All of you!” The fury at which he hits his delete key makes Hillary jealous. “He is not a monster! He is alive I tell you. Alive!!!”
***
And much like Dr. Frankenstein, we are so concerned with producing the next great piece of art, did we ever stop and ask ourselves whether we should?
***
Yes, yes. I know.
It’s “Franc-En-Shteen”
My Fall 2016 class Midterms are done.
Done!
Now, I just have to wait to find out what my grades are.
Epiphanetic Flashes. That’s what I call those brief sparks of illumination that pop up periodically in my life when the world becomes crystal clear. It’s like someone popping a flash bulb in a dark room and for that split second everything comes to light. The haunting memory of that moment lingers in my brain, rattling around while I try to dissect every piece and extract from it any and all meaning.
I had one of those flashes last night. I was angry about something. Frustrated really. One of the many songs on my Pandora station was playing while I wiled away trying to come up with anything I could use to answer a reading response for another class. I stared at the words I had written and realized the dross I had regurgitated onto the screen. It was as my finger hovered over the delete key, the last twenty minutes of work highlighted, that this flash cracked through my skull. Continue reading Epiphanetic Flashes…
Thoughts from the Front 