I had started this blog with just my name, but it is not about me as a person, my writing here is meant to be me as a thinking, observing participant in our world. Collective failure was going to be my first entry, which seemed like a terribly depressing notion. I’d pondered, “will I simply be…
moving rocks and what is not a metaphor
If my dog could explain to you my job, he would probably say I have been assigned to move rocks. Not because my dog is well-versed in metaphors, but because one of our daily rituals is to go to a nearby stream where he can play in the water and I’ve taken to moving rocks….
Bookstores have a self-help aisle, where is the help others aisle?
via Bookstores have a self-help aisle, where is the help others aisle?
you are your circumstances and other ineloquent, obvious points
Know-Thy-Self. Seems that enlightenment is defined by a person’s ability to simplify their sense of self and meditate upon it. Or that pop culture offers quizzes, personality tests, astrology, self-diagnosis to then self-help. All has contributed to a reinforced obsession with the self – a hunk of marble for us to chisel and polish. Our…
Gentrification and anxiety
Gentrification and anxiety. The effects of gentrification are an interesting lens through which to view mental health. And before I get too far into the esoteric or perhaps abstract; I think a critical piece is that gentrification is not a general term. It is not used for when a lively immigrant community moves in, paints…
the revoke award show
Originally posted on collective failure:
When a person wins an award it is all celebration, publicity, and inscriptions in the record-books. Now we face the flood of “revelations” that many recipients of such awards do not deserve the honor. So a small article is typed out to state that the award, distinction, title or honor has…
eulogy for “losing your virginity”
via eulogy for “losing your virginity”
my 2018 list
AMELIE’S 2018 TOP LIST: Best Music album: Whack World by Tierra Whack. Toys with our newly born short attention-span. A non-male perspective that is not discussing sex, sexual appeal, money or anger. Released with an parallel choreographed video series that illuminates the logic of putting out an album in which every song is exactly 1…
extraordinary time alone
I truly enjoy a well constructed how-to list, so at the end of this year I offer one on the subject I know best. How to spend an extra-ordinary amount of time alone. Know thyself. My oldest tattoo is from almost twenty years ago so when people ask about or admire it, I have to…
not the mums
I live in a fast gentrifying neighborhood in Philadelphia. This form of gentrification is occurring as the small slice of white, middle class blocks keep expanding Northward. So it is not necessarily just young hipsters and it is not a first sighting of white folks. The attitude I most attribute to gentrification is the suburban…
to hell in a handbasket
What does success look like as we flail towards hell in a handbasket? I interpret that phrase to mean a lack of accountability, a lull into complacency, passivity – a space between being trapped and self-imposed constraints. In looking up the phrase a painting from 1515 is referenced, “Hieronymous Bosch painting “The Haywain” (c. 1515) (in the Prado,…
perhaps the only story I need to tell
He gets back in the silver sedan, carrying away my whole sense of self. I think about going home, and instead have another beer at the cafe before closing time. I turn to go home, stop at the bodega for another beer, and walk past my house to sit by the river. I am still…
