dirty laundry

The story goes that after Faulkner was told that he had won the Nobel Prize for literature, he went on a crazy two-month bender (he was a lifelong alcoholic) and did not write this speech until the plane flight over. It is now widely regarded as the best Nobel acceptance speech ever presented.

An excerpt: 

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.

If there’s such a thing as “high television,” it’s probably things like the British import Downton Abbey, which is beautifully acted, gorgeously shot, snappily written, and romantic and exciting and soapy, and I almost didn’t watch it, because when people say Masterpiece Theater, I hear the word “should.” You should watch this. You should read this. You should, not because you’ll like it, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Those who are quick to squeal “ad hominem” are often guilty of several other logical fallacies, including one of the worst of all: the fallacious belief that introducing an impressive-sounding Latin term somehow gives one the decisive edge in an argument.

deja-vu:

I don’t want decorative pockets. I want functional pockets in which I can safely deposit a cell phone and a wallet. That’s all I’m asking, because now, it’s ridiculous. When you are a woman and you go out barhopping or to a restaurant, you have something that you must hold in your hand at all times. “This is good practice for child-rearing,” your friends say, optimistically, “because you have to remember something that you have brought with you and not abandon it in the cloakroom, a careless action that generally results in The Importance of Being Earnest.”

But this has to have geopolitical implications. Philosophically, your outlook shifts. You can’t just up and go places. You are holding a bag. You can’t gladiate! You’re holding a bag! Run for president? You can’t run anywhere, you’re holding a bag!

Maybe that’s a bit far. But, still, enough is enough.

I want pockets. And I want them now.

I hear you loud and clear.  I’ve been on the pocket quest for years.

Amen to this. Pockets on dresses and skirts = almost insta-buy