Scott Bates’s humorous fable “The Contented Weed” offers a serene way to handle everything that life throws at us.
Tag Archives: Jean Paul Sartre
A Serene Way to Deal with Chaos
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Contented Weed", existentialism, Freedom, Scott Bates Comments closed
Fathers & Sons: He Goes His Way, I Mine
Wednesday The talk with my son that I described in Monday’s post reminded me of talks with my own father where I was sure he was wrong. I’ve since concluded that I was not as right as I thought I was and that our disagreements came down to our different life arcs. Our arguments came […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, Blaise Pascal, Rasselas, Samuel Beckett, Samuel Johnson, Ulysses, Westword Ho! Comments closed
When It Comes to Culture, Bet on France
In the wake of the ISIS attacks, France has something to fall back on: its proud literary tradition.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Albert Camus, Guillaume Apollinaire, ISIS, John Oliver, Marcel Proust, Paris terror attacks, Victor Hugo Comments closed
Two Parables Involving Falling Leaves
Scott Bates and Lucille Clifton find poetic lessons in falling leaves.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Existentialist Leaf", "lesson of the falling leaves", Albert Camus, Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom, existentialism, Freedom, Jean Anouilh, Lucille Clifton, Samuel Beckett, Scott Bates Comments closed
Soccer Highs and Lows and a Tennis Epic
John Isner Sports Saturday – “It’s incredible! You could not write a script like this!” So proclaimed the announcer in the U. S. – Algeria World Cup match when Landon Donovan netted a stoppage time goal to avoid elimination and send the Americans forward to the next round. In other words, a sports announcer’s ultimate […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bernard Malamud, Bruce Cohen, France, Iowa Baseball Confederacy, Isner-Malmut match, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Nausea, Soccer, Sports, Sports film, tennis, the Natural, Voyage to the End of the Night, W. P. Kinsella, Wimbledon, World Cup Comments closed
Up in the Air, Then Back to Earth
George Clooney, Up in the Air The wonderful opportunity I had last week to deliver a series of lectures in Ljubljana (Slovenia) has me thinking about why it seems to be more satisfying to teach elsewhere than at home. In Slovenia, everything was fresh and exciting. In America, I feel inundated by worries and obligations. What […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Brief Vacation, Flies, Up in the Air, Up in the Air (film), Vacation, Work Comments closed
Aspiring to Be a Dwarf
Continuing the Lord of the Rings discussion, here’s an interesting insight passed on to me by my friend Rachel Kranz about my last entry. I was interpreting my adolescent fondness for Gimli the dwarf as an indication that I felt myself a dwarf, hunkered down and plodding. Rachel says that she was stunned by this self-description […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, Flies, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Lucille Clifton Comments closed
