Humanism on a Monday

 I spent most of the day working on "Best Intentions." it was not my plan.

The dental appointment was rescheduled because I seemed to have lost an hour, I left the room thinking it was 9:20. It was 10:20. There was an hour lost somewhere. It was lost in the words I put on the screen this morning. I went back to my writing.

I did not go to work. I figured the time. All I could do was get in 3 hours. I was on a roll. I liked what I had going.

It keeps growing. This I wrote in prison, years and years ago, and did several drafts there. This I started revising before I got the new laptop. Now I am revising my revisions - I do not like how it flows, the tone feels a little flat. I have no idea where it might go to be published, Nuts, that is what I am.

Meanwhile, "Colonel Tom" got its quickest rejection from trampset (2 days):

Samuel, thank you for sending us your work. We appreciate the chance to read it, but it's not right for us at this time.

Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep being awesome. And best of luck placing this elsewhere.

We kindly ask that you wait one month before submitting again.

Sincerely,

The Editors

I get this newsletter from The Woven Press forum. Usually, I do not do much with it. Until now, but there was a discussion of On the End of the Canon Wars by John Michael Colón. This is what I wrote there:

I like it as a call to action. It is not a prescription for a canon, but the need for one. Humanism has been attacked since the days of the Moral Majority. What has been the result? The denigration of people of certain types, the rise of the authoritarian. What is needed to cultivate the free individual? What book shows the best of humanity? Yes, there will be more men. That is history - the exclusion of women. Offer up names, and their justification. I will nominate Virginia Woolf, but I will also offer Machiavelli. Both need to be contended if we are to understand humanity - perhaps in opposition as much as in following. Yes, there were men mentioned, who would be the female equivalent to Aristotle? But what women have written against, or for, Aristotle? I long ago fell under James Joyce's influence. I think him a grand writer, capable of almost anything. However, Virginia Woolf impresses me as being as original and perhaps even deeper. Then, too, I started with The Common Reader. I think there is no time like the present to build up a new canon for the humanities that does educate us on being better humans.

I went to get some groceries. When I came back, I was too tired to work. This does not seem to bode well for work tomorrow. 

No musical soundtrack tonight.

sch