Composure in the Face of Diversity

Originally Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2014

And now for a little composure in the face of diversity.  Is that right?  It sounds correct. . . almost.  I think it was Charlie Koch who said that.  Whatever.  One of this blogs contrarian friends referred to her as "Nubian."  Indeed.  I shot this in a different manner than I have been shooting, and I like its murky impressionism.  But I needn't talk of how much I like my own photography.  It isn't becoming. 

Two articles in the New York Times Book Review today dealt with icons of the beat/hippy movement--Tom Wolfe and Tom Robbins.  Curiously, they worked on the same college newspaper together, Wolfe being Robbins editor.  I like two of Robbins early works and parts of some of Wolfe's writing, but in each case, I think there are better practitioners of what they do--Thompson and Pynchon, for instance.  What one can say about both of them, though, is that they found their voices.  In each case, it is distinct.  For me, however, Wolfe was wound a bit too tight and Robbins was too goofy.  If they had teamed up to write somehow, they may have been like Lennon and McCartney each mitigating the far borders of the other, Robbins' rhythms and Wolfe's structure.  That would have been the thing.  Now, though, they are both in their eighties and unlikely to collaborate again.  Like so many before them, what they have written will stand for them when they go. 

As will this for me.  Shit. 

After Monday's high, Tuesday was a letdown.  Nothing expected ever comes to the hoped for fruition.  I was like a normal kid who got into his friend's Ritalin on Monday and who couldn't find his friend again on Tuesday.  I don't need constant stimulation, but once I get it. . . well. . . I like attention.  I don't have an addictive personality except for that.  And so the day wore wearily on and the night came upon me with a thud, then early to bed, I slept awhile and then woke up.  I will struggle to get through the day. 

I must go somewhere and talk to strangers today so that I can have something to write about.  That was the key to both Wolfe's and Robbins' writing.  Especially Wolfe.  When you yourself are boring, go steal the voices of others.  It works.