US Modernity: Trying grace god shed on thee...

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

 Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic" by Theodore Roosevelt

 ("Connoisseur" by Norman Rockwell, 1962)

RIP Butzi...

“A product that is coherent in form requires no embellishment. It is enhanced by the purity of its form. Good design should be honest.” - Ferdinand Alexander Porsche

What do tax pin up?

So let me get this straight man... you somehow fall into the accident of life and then you're mere existence is legally beholden to a system of taxation invented by others who somehow fell into the accident of life?

Why didn't you say so moonshine trousers?

("Syd Barrett visits his Accountant" by Dan Meth)

Creativity is the higher fire...

Don't make the mistake I've made, thinking that maintaining a certain amount of inner anger is a good kind of fire to store up as a propellent. It does fester and smolder and it can fuel some short outbursts, but anger is something you always want to work through. The right fire, the higher fire for your belly is creativity. You've got to burn through the anger to clear a space for creativity. So get on that. Try the heavy bag.

I don't know exactly how or when I got it into my head that anger is an essential component of the functional personality. Long time ago. It might have been this episode of Star Trek (incidentally written by Sean Penn's papa, Leo, who might have instilled an idea or two about anger in his son). Mind your sources.

(photo, Alex Kess)