Invader

All these pictures of Invader were taken in Paris during May 2007:

Art is not an antidote; it is an invasion.

Off this summer to catch up on my New Yorkers, to read dozens of books, and to attempt to compose a novel.

Maybe later............

sycophant

Cloud portraits over Walnut Creek~

I spent this weekend reading: I can't wait until I can leave for a while.

“Once, when someone asked him about his method of composition, Chekov picked up an ashtray. ‘This is my method of composition,’ he said, ‘Tomorrow I will write a story called ‘The Ashtray’.” –Francine Prose Reading Like a Writer.


“It seems to me that the writer should not try to solve such questions as those of God, pessimism, etc. His business is but to describe those who have been speaking or thinking about God and pessimism, how and under what circumstances. The artist should not be the judge of his characters and their conversations, but only an unbiased observer.” –Anton Chekov

punctilious compunctious

Wow! Reading the emotional tumult of my last post simultaneously horrifies and amuses me. Then I realize that I must rise above myself to my true desired intellectual aspirations.

This past week I've been reading a strange collection of essays published in 1921, from a now near-forgotten writer. Reading these essays, I realize how my criticisms of this country have been aired 80 years ago.

“Our morality system has become a mechanical device for protecting us against ourselves; it is the handiwork of terror.”
“More and more our civilization is becoming a not a civilization of free men but of moral cowards.” - Harold Stearns “An Question of Morals” America and the Young Intellectuals

A New Yorker tidbit I ran into:

“Intelligence allied to honesty allied to wit is a powerful charm.” - Adam Gopnick- on Kingsley Amis, New Yorker 4-23-2007

This is a combination I aspire to, along with a dose of deep emotion thrown in. My sympathy always tied to my sardonic humor.