Cold, Gloomy Monday and Lou Reed Dancing

 Laundry finished a bit before 11.

Listening to the Sonic Bloom, a radio show that got me through prison.

I have a new post for Pretrial Detention ready to go for next month.

I read A Modernist’s Modernist: On the Brilliance—and Influence—of Katherine Mansfield. It is Mansfield's centenary of her death, and much is coming forth about her. I have a post coming out on the 25th, but nothing in this article left me feeling I should incorporate it into that post. I read Mansfield in prison, I did like her short stories, and I suggest them to anyone who would be interested.

Ted Goia scared me this morning with his 14 Warning Signs That You Are Living in a Society Without a Counterculture

First, here’s a quick definition. These are the key indicators that you might be living in a society without a counterculture:

• A sense of sameness pervades the creative world

• The dominant themes feel static and repetitive, not dynamic and impactful

• Imitation of the conventional is rewarded

• Movies, music, and other creative pursuits are increasingly evaluated on financial and corporate metrics, with all other considerations having little influence

• Alternative voices exist—in fact, they are everywhere—but are rarely heard, and their cultural impact is negligible

• Every year the same stories are retold, and this sameness is considered a plus

• Creative work is increasingly embedded in genres that feel rigid, not flexible

• Even avant-garde work often feels like a rehash of 50-60 years ago

• Etc. etc. etc.

Those were provocation, what really scared me were the tweets included in the post. Especially, the last tweet, which twisted my insides.

Okay, back from taking a nap. Last was really lousy.

Since being up for round two, I read a review of a Gore Vidal biography In a biography of his life, Gore Vidal is a more sympathetic figure than in his own memoir. I never knew of this biography, even though it was published in 1999. Shows you how little I know.

 I also read:

• An Unlikely Meditation on Modern Happiness from Hedgehog Review with its subtitle of "Rereading Kierkegaard’s 'Fear and Trembling'.” I have never read "Fear and Trembling." I plan on a separate post for that one.
• Debunking Common Myths About Writing 
• What’s Wrong with Adjectives and Adverbs? 
• From Dorothy Parker's Ashes, Maurice
• Whatever Happened to the ‘Zeitenwende’? (I never thought I'd agree with William Kristol)
  

I finally got to the interview of Rawi Hage, a Lebanese writer living in Canada, on The Walrus. How photography intersected with his writing piqued my curiosity:

RAWI HAGE: Oh, well, good question. Um, I think globally, I never thought in a local way. Uh, I think probably I’m a transnational writer somehow more and more. I see things are much more interconnected, but at this, this book, I think it’s has a cosmopolitan feel because it of photography, the medium, the medium is so universal and at same time it’s so versatile and so adaptable to many cultures. Uh, I think every culture imposed its own aesthetics it’s own agenda on it. It’s a very rich, medium, the very rich history. And I think it’s one of those things that was used and abused. I mean, if I looked at the spectrum goes from wedding photography all the way to surveillance. So it’s a rich medium to write about

JESSICA JOHNSON: People who know you know that you were a photographer before you went into writing, but not everyone may know that. Can you talk a bit about how you made that transition? Because they’re, in some ways related art forms, but another way is completely different.

RAWI HAGE: Yeah. I think for a long time, the intersection between photography and the written word was very constrained. I, when I left, uh, Lebanon, I end up in New York for a few years. I worked as, uh, my first job was to clean the dark room. Then slowly I start printing. And the first time I, I saw photographs image surface in the, in the liquid and the developer, I was, uh, I was blown away and I, and I decided to become a photographer. Then I moved here and I studied, I studied commercial photography. Then I, then I went to, uh, Concordia. I did a bachelor degree in photography, but I think at, at certain level, as much as I love photography, I thought it’s a medium that has its limitation. And I fundamentally, I think I wanted to tell the story of war that I experienced and somehow photography always felt short. I, I think I wanted to be more lyrical about it. I wanted to, you know, more longer interactive and I start driving short stories. And I also, I felt at certain point I, I couldn’t make it as a photographer. I couldn’t Pierce into the art scene. And I, as a commercial photographer photographer, I was a disaster. So I, um, consciously was subconsciously changed medium.

Here may be a fault of Midwesterners and Midwestern writers, we forget how big, how interconnected is the world. The Hage interview reminded of this. I do not know what I can do about it other than make another confession of my limitations.

Which reminded me I needed to have a conversation with my niece.

I reached the woman doing my novel and asked for the MS's return, and she is to check her calendar.

Mario Vargas Llosa has a new book: The Call of the Tribe. The Peruvian Nobel Prize winner, who I got to read in prison, and found I really liked. This is a collection of essays on the thinker who influenced Llosa, and The Scotsman has a review by Alan Massie, Book review: The Call of the Tribe: Essays, by Mario Vargas Llosa.

Through the Indiana Daily Student, I came upon People find second chances through city partnership with Centerstone, and pass it along as a sign we can do better for our less fortunate fellows:

In 2017, the city’s parks and recreation department began a partnership with Centerstone, a mental health and rehabilitation facility, to provide supportive employment for those in need while also cleaning up parks. Two years later, the program expanded to include the public works department, which focuses on keeping downtown areas clean. 

Adam Wason, director of public works, said participants work around six to seven hours a day painting curbs, picking up litter and removing weeds. He said the program is flexible, letting participants work around therapy schedules, and pays the living wage calculated for Bloomington, which is $15.29 an hour for 2023.

When I was a kid, there were these pamphlets put out by some evangelical Protestant group proving that Russia, Moscow, was the antichrist. They'd be shocked to know the Russian Orthodox Church thinks we represent the antichrist. Although the Orthodox do not have crusades, Putin may be on one. Just what will not bring peace is the Russians thinking they are defending the godly. Where am I getting all this? Apocalypse Delayed: Patriarch Kirill on Restraining the Antichrist in Ukraine.

Reading and thinking of doing a separate post for them:  

• Literary Style in Storytelling
• What is a Plot? 

I had a chat with my great-nephew and niece about photography. No communications with CC.

 

Podcasts do not hold much interest for me, I fear them as time wasters. I like listening to music while I work (I have problems with silence; I think when I am dead there will be more than enough silence), and when I am on the computer, I am working. I will pass along this page of podcasts from London magazine.

 

Very short conversation with CC, I could hear her shivering over the phone. I told her not to come up tomorrow. We are supposed to be having a lot of snow, no need for her to be out. She seems so frail nowadays.

 

I had a longish conversation with Paul S. Work to do tomorrow.

Upbeat, dancing Lou Reed, because I need an upbeat Lou Reed today.

 And here I close out at 8:35

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