“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
You Can Listen Here Pascal, the French philosopher and Enlightenment writer had suffered poor health beginning at 18; the poor man died at 39. Sickness separates us one from another more than just about anything else. The healthy do reside in a separate land. Thus, I do not understand why Pascal’s ill health did not provoke a yearning for exploration in him as opposed to the desire for stillness voiced in Pensees: “All of humanity’s […]
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You Can Listen Here It would not be polite to ask those older than me whether they too dream of the dead. Most of them, I suspect, are wary of any such experience and would see the question as intrusive, and of course, at a certain age, we all grow much closer to being the one dreamed of. That thought alone comes too close to the skin to be comfortable. Hamlet and His Father’s […]
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You Can Listen Here We did not move or speak for minutes after the last shot closed. The credits rolled by. We looked at them, dazed, I think, by the ferocity of what we had just encountered. Why do we feel this way? Movies are an intravenous art: find a vein, the vein that matches your curiosity or an aroused interest. Slide the figurative needle into it and tape it down – you have […]
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You Can Listen Here My first attempt at a Thanksgiving list, a sluicing, mutable thing pouring through me on drives and walks, fell apart when I thought of the poor souls who might read it who had not been as lucky as I have been. How to make a list that doesn’t read like some kind of triumphal bray? So, instead, I give thanks for this roll-call of items that has given me pleasure […]
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