The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts ~ Bertrand Russell

Don't argue with happiness

Man is the artificer of his own happiness ~ Henry David Thoreau



I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy ~ J. D. Salinger


North Americans just cannot seem to get enough. Of anything. So many laughed at the face, their own face, as they saw themselves in Super Size Me. We tsk at the excesses of others who drink, drug and dance too much. And yet.

We can't seem to get enough happiness.

The backlash toward Jerome Weeks, from those angered by his Salon article on doctors' over-prescribing antidepressants, points to a similar sort of guilt-driven indignation, and inability to read a message clearly.

Weeks clearly notes that there are those who legitimately need medication, that he is not trying to undermine its importance in some people's lives. Yet a maelstrom of but-buts once again welled, from folks who would formulate their protests before hearing out, or fully reading, the argument.

Happiness has become the most recent in inexplicable commodifications of the human condition. And we're hooked. Funny thing is, no one's ever been able to define it, so how can it be boxed, sold and prescribed?

I saw a production of Tom Waits' Black Rider last night, and I'm now thinking of these Waits/William Burroughs words from 'Crossroads', about selling out something integral for some temporary kicks:

Now, George was a good straight boy to begin with, but there was bad blood
In him; someway he got into the magic bullets and that leads straight to
Devil's work, just like marijuana leads to heroin; you think you can take
Them bullets or leave 'em, do you?
Just save a few for your bad days

Well, now, we all have those bad days when you can't shoot for shit.

The more of them magics you use, the more bad days you have without them
So it comes down finally to all your days being bad without the bullets
It's magics or nothing
Time to stop chippying around and kidding yourself
Kid, you're hooked, heavy as lead

The inner sleuth

One spring, maybe a thousand years ago, a wallet that'd been stolen while I was on Christmas holiday, arrived in the mail. The postmark named a city in BC's interior I'd never been to, thousands of miles away from where the theft had occurred, and hundreds of miles from where I was then living. The wallet, mostly intact except for the missing $200, was accompanied by a note detailing the Good Samaritan's dog's retrieval from a rose bush. I knew who had stolen the wallet, though had no proof, but I had to see that person every day for the rest of the trip knowing he had gotten away with it. That someone had taken the time to package and send the found wallet to me, though, helped reaffirm my faith in the kindness of strangers.

And as I searched my wallet contents, wondering how it had finally gotten back to me, I considered how there's something sort of fun in the sleuth work, tracking down an individual based on the few clues available, as this article attests, about the kindhearted New Yorker who went to great lengths to return a lost camera.

Beah's latest battle raises many questions

Recent reports that some facts in Ishmael Beah's memoir, A Long Way Gone, are being challenged concerns writers and readers everywhere.

The complexities of the situation are well-delineated on Ben Peek's blog and over at Booklist Online.

The suggestion that Beah may have been exploited by his publisher; that the Australian media has a history of calling out book liars; the distinction between journalist and memoirist; the accusation of misquotation; the uncomfortable debate about degrees of tragedy... And many other prickly concerns.

I'll reserve any judgment for now while the story unfolds. From what I've researched, though, The Australian is a formidable opponent, so Beah's battle will likely not be a cakewalk.

Photo Samples

Here's a handful of photography samples. I'm looking forward to developing my skills, through practice and more formal learning. As I come across more of my favourites, I'll post them.

'to a movement of legs and hooves'

Thinking of Robert Creeley tonight led me to The Poetry Foundation.

It's been too long since I posted.


The Rescue
by Robert Creeley (1991)

The man sits in a timelessness
with the horse under him in time
to a movement of legs and hooves
upon a timeless sand.

Distance comes in from the foreground
present in the picture as time
he reads outward from
and comes from that beginning.

A wind blows in
and out and all about the man
as the horse ran
and runs to come in time.

A house is burning in the sand.
A man and horse are burning.
The wind is burning.
They are running to arrive.