“To imagine a God who judges many of the forms of life He created to be sinful, then tortures us eternally for our brief participation in them, is hardly to imagine a solution to the problem of evil.” – Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought
Some of the stories and poems may be inappropriate for persons under 16
- A Dog by the Ears
- Abrumpo
- After the Dreaming
- Albuquerque, 1996
- All the Sobbing Cops
- apple strudel
- At Kahun, for the Health of the Mother and the Child
- burning man
- Candlelight and Flowers
- Casserole Man
- Christmas Pictures
- Dehiscence
- Descartes’ Dreams – Intro
- Desserts for the Reading of the KJV
- Dolomite
- Dropping back to Punt
- Eighth Dream – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
- eleanor in uncertain way, pulling
- Entomology
- Exit Interview
- Extinguisher (with Unpacking the Object)
- Fifteen Small Apocalypses
- Fifteenth Dream – The, uh, target
- First Dream – Puttin’ on the Ritz
- Fourteenth Dream – By the Waters of Babylon
- Fourth Dream – Motherless Child
- Franny & Toby
- Gnats
- Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Pickles and Fries
- Guys Come in Three Sizes
- High Street: Lawyers, Guns & Money in a Stoner’s New Mexico
- Howl
- Introduction
- Karen and the Dropout
- Kimberly!
- King of the Wire Rings
- latrodectus, loxosceles, lycosa tarentula
- Lawn
- Legal Advice
- Liberation
- Linear Perspective
- Lost Things and Missing Persons
- mama when she’s really pretty
- Metronome
- My Friend!
- Ninth Dream – Descartes’ Dreams
- Poems 2001-2010
- Rag Doll
- Road Rave
- Sandhills
- Saved
- Shelving
- Shod
- Sixteenth Dream – Scoring Six Hits
- Tahoe
- Taking Calls
- Tale of the Tribe
- Tenth Dream – The Vicissitudes of the Seasons
- The Comedian
- The Congenital Fiance
- the german for it, the french
- The Gordon Lish Notes
- The Hole of Sharon
- The Italian Story
- The Lock
- The Take-Out
- the talking french cat
- The Tellings
- The Tiny Toy Train
- The Usual Story
- The Well-Molded Military Brick
- The Year Our Children Left
- Third Dream – A Thousand Times No
- Three Very Short Fictions
- Tossing Baby to the Tiger
- Twelfth Dream – Fantod
- Vitrine
- Wednesday
- What Coy Said
- Who, what, etc.
- Yellowjacket
- Yttat
That’s a thought loop I tend to stay clear of.
Same here. And that god is not my god. Or more accurately, I am not his.
Today I am rereading Kant on the difference between the beautiful and the sublime. I have always been, in my art and my writing, less concerned with busy happiness and more in awe.
My lack of Kant is an embarrassing gap in my philosophical readings. The only work of his that I have read (rather than read about) is his “Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals” (trans. Abbott), which I read only once, and that was seven years ago this month. I’m assuming you may be reading “Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime,” but I’m only guessing. What can you tell me of Kant’s “difference between the beautiful and the sublime,” if you have a moment?
Awe is an appreciation of the world modern persons seem to have lost or perverted, and more’s the pity.
Yes, that is what I am reading. Years ago I read The Critique of Pure Reason, and then could hardly move. This one is reaffirming and much clearer.
The sublime is to the beautiful as the night is to the day. As melancholy is to gaiety. The sublime in art is less concerned with happiness and more in awe of the terrifying loneliness of existence.
Thank you. That is presented with precision and grace.
A great oak, a sacred grove, towering and powerful thought, as opposed to a flower bed, trimmed trees and pretty ideas.
This reminds me of something the late David Lynn Hall said to me once (and I don’t know but he may have got this from someone else) about what various philosophers read: “The Anglo-Americans read everyone, the French read only the French, and the Germans read the Mind of God.”
Mutt that I am I read what makes sense in the moment.