Sunday, March 28, 2010

391


On the jukebox in the background, Waylon Jennings explains how being crazy kept him from going insane. (Tom Clark, from Wyobooming, 1979, Part 2)

3 comments:

  1. Dear ACravan,

    Why do you use the word "visual" twice in the last sentence in the fourth paragraph? Don't you know any other words or own a thesaurus? Don't you proofread?

    Also, don't you think the acidic warm/cool color scheme of the photo adds to the air of surreality? Or didn't you notice that?

    What time may I draw your bath?

    Yours,

    ACravan's Batman

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  2. Cher Monsieur Cravan,

    Your generous indulgence of the obstreporous editorial interjections of your batman are of a piece with your several kindnesses toward Eduardo (who indeed reminds me a friend from a previous life), Eddie, Eddie Jr. & c. Indeed you give the impression of being a pleasant fellow altogether.

    I am not sure that Mr. Jennings' explanation does not perhaps reflect the wisdom of the old adage Crazy like a fox. One begins to see this when one reverses the wording to read "Being insane kept him from going crazy". (It is odd how word order affects our understandings of things, n'est ce pas?)

    At any rate, in light of the curious glow of warm familiarity in which I find myself bathed after having perused your blog in its entirety (warm glows being particularly hard to come by in the unheated collapsing manse of a senior citizen during a week of renewed cold wet weather), I have taken the liberty of putting up a link to it on my own site, just under the link to Other Stuff Annexe, another place which at times feels almost like a home from a previous life. I hope this step will not seem overbold; if so, do inform me.

    (I might add, speaking of curious feelings of familiarity from the deep past, that in February 1967, during one of those bad weather North Atlantic steamship crossing in which one is confined to one's cabin through the entire voyage, the single book I had along with me was the works of Arthur Cravan, which thus became imprinted upon my consciousness in a way of which I was not fully aware until discovering your stealthy crumb-trail this morning. For which subtle lure, many thanks!)

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  3. Tom,

    I am cheered and honored by the link. Thank you more than I can say.

    Beyond The Pale is about the best new thing in my life in ages. Apart from other things I could say (there are many), it helps me think clearly and makes me feel connected with people I know I'd like and find it interesting to spend time with. Caroline mentioned that it reminded her a bit of the feeling we sometimes have gotten in Quaker Meeting and I think there is definitely something of the richness of the Friends' "living silence" in the pages of BTP. Actually, a lot more of it than you find in Quaker Meetings at the moment, I think.

    It's been especially nice this week after all the ratcheting up of US political tensions that still has us rattled and having withdrawn from the news for a while.

    I started this blog in a moment of sort of pregnant curiosity and I'm enjoying it a lot. Occasionally, I hit a "techno-stutter", but I think it's a pretty good format and I'm very glad you say you enjoy it.

    The ACravan name came fortuitously and semi-accidentally when I was trying to find an available user name. Cravan's been on my mind for years (once he gets there, he never leaves)and now we're kind of a team, along with the batman.

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