Ungrokability
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley: The Mysterious Rose Garden (1894)
"I have no great need to resolve any of the greater or lesser mysteries in life."
My greatest humiliation I experienced when finally pursuing higher education occurred quite innocently, in a beginning Calculus class. Why the university imagined that anyone pursuing a business degree might need calculus was not for me to question, for I quite literally knew nothing about higher education. I was fortunate to have been deemed Not College Material by my high school guidance counsellor, so for seven years, I’d never questioned whether or not I should pursue a degree. That decision was thankfully made for me when that kindly counsellor convinced me that I was not suitable. I set about planning my life around that possibility until seven years after high school graduation, when my first career stalled out, and I grew weary of working casual labour jobs. I decided that I might prefer to wear a tie to work instead.
I just enrolled in the closest state university, which accepted me sight unseen.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 01/08/2026
Kogout, N: Happy New Year (1918)
Publisher: Lit. Izd. Otdela Politupravleniia Revvoensoveta Respubliki
NYC Public Library Collection: Harold M. Fleming papers
Russian Revolutionary Era Propaganda Posters
This writing week began with the most innane act a government can ever engage in, the violation of a neighboring country's territorial integrity. Make no mistake, this was nothing other than a forcible rape of decency; however the perpetrators might argue their innocence. I figure the act will just render them that much easier to impeach when that time comes, and it's definitely coming. I was wrestling with saying "No!" and making it stick before acknowledging that Flurries of useful information fall in even the otherwise most innane social media scrolling. I noticed how what was once news has turned into Speculation, then realized that I scroll my social media searching for Validation. Why have I been searching so for validation? I concluded that I have been actively Procrastinating, if that concept isn't too contradictory. I set about unprocrastinating, by which I mean that I started doing something I'd been actively avoiding. That felt better. I ended this writing week marveling at how social media encourages people to Make rather than take Sides. Thank you for following along!
MakingSides
Dorothy Dehner: Family Group (1954)
© Dorothy Dehner Foundation for the Visual Arts
"…they create the losers they compete with…"
If it takes two to tango, it also takes two to tangle. Two opposing sides seem capable only of erecting impassable barriers. Of course, they’re also capable of creating cooperation, but our social media environment seems powered by opposition more than by cooperation. This situation seems tragic, since opposition often leaves little room for thriving. One struggles instead under a steady diet of squabbling and worse. Many take these conflicts seriously, as if they had more substance than any argument could ever properly contain. It might not matter who’s to blame for this continuing and even escalating situation, who’s wrong and who’s right. I’m more interested in understanding what’s left once we’ve divided ourselves by MakingSides.
We were not necessarily born with dichotomous brains.
Procrastinating
Allart van Everdingen: Reynard disguises as monk and distracts cock
Series/Book Title: Reynard the Fox [Reinecke Fuchs] (17th century)
"Progress is Procrastinating, finally turning outwards."
Once I admitted to having been seeking Validation when scrolling, I began wondering how it came to be that I needed to seek so much validation. Yes, the damned pandemic had robbed me of some sources of external validation, but it had not stranded me in the middle of some interaction desert. I had long employed social media for much, perhaps the bulk, of my interactions, since my work had taken me far from home and I hadn’t reported to an office in many years. I started working virtually before the internet, before I even acquired a cell phone; hell, before there were even cell phones for me to acquire, so I was well accustomed to being alone much of the time before that damned pandemic visited. What about that event left me suddenly so apparently needy that I sought so damned much social media-sourced validation? This seemed a perfect question until I eventually managed to track down a parallel thread to my story. Something else had emerged around about when that damned pandemic appeared. I had begun writing these series.
As those who have been following my stories already know, I hold myself responsible for writing and posting a fresh story each morning.
Validation
Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: The Lutenist (1661)
A young man is singing and playing the lute on an open veranda. Where the woman’s thoughts have wandered is a mystery. The music and the theme of the paramours Pyramus and Thisbe in the painting in the background suggest that harmonious love is the subject. Yet the work may also be a warning against impulsive lust. Both interpretations are equally valid.
— — —
"I doubt that heaven awaits those who get saved from pursuing their purpose."
Before I conclude that scrolling through my social media feeds amounts to an unconditional waste of my time, I might be wise to consider my underlying purpose for being there in the first place. I did not end up there because I held a deep desire to waste my precious time. Nor was I necessarily an unwilling victim, or even a victim at all. I realize that I was pursuing something important there, and that I might have even found it, however overshadowed in foreboding or misgivings, by which that result might have been accompanied. Remember, this behavior pattern emerged during the darker and most isolated periods of my existence. I’d never, before that damned pandemic, spent so much time in agonizing isolation. I strongly prefer introversion, so pandemic isolation might have brought the best of times to my experience, but it didn’t. It brought existential dread instead, with no obvious outlet. I could still get out, but only if dressed like a bandit and maintaining strict distancing. I’d never seen the faces of more than half the people I interacted with every week. I felt terribly isolated!
I began convening my weekly Zoom Chat then, a practice I continue every Friday morning even unto these days.
Speculation
Unknown Artist: Color Reconstruction: Ahuramazda in the Winged Disk
21st century reconstruction of 5th century BCE original)
Gallery Text
Carved from brownish limestone, the Persepolis sculptures were painted and sometimes further enhanced with gold overlays as well as blue inlays imitating the semiprecious stone lapis lazuli. The color reconstruction you see here, made of plaster with acrylic paint, is based on close examination and scientific analysis of the original relief fragment (1943.1062) displayed immediately outside this gallery [in gallery 3460].
The incised star patterns are revealed by “raking” light, which illuminates the surface from a low angle. Traces of bright red cinnabar (mercury sulfide), green malachite a copper carbonate), and Egyptian Blue (the oldest synthetic pigment) are visible with the naked eye. Similar depictions, notably on glazed brick reliefs, provide further clues, but the reconstruction remains partial and speculative. As proposed, the coloration of the winged disk recalls inlaid gold jewelry. This may well have been the intended effect, heightening the splendor of what is most likely a representation of the god Ahuramazda.
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Museum Collection
Object Number
1943.1062.X
— — —
"I work much harder now, trying to become informed."
The few decades between when broadcast television supplanted radio as this country’s primary news source and the proliferation of first cable, then social media-based outlets replacing broadcast TV, the content of what passed for news changed. More properly, the content of what passed for news transformed into what Walter Cronkite could not have claimed represented anything even remotely resembling “the way it is,” if, indeed, it ever had. I fear expectations failed to shift in unison with that change; however, so many people continue to believe that what passes itself off as news today resembles what used to pass muster as news. It doesn’t. A slow erosion of reportage was replaced with what I might most generously label Speculation. Explanations of what just happened were supplanted by descriptions of what might occur and what might have occurred: reportage became Speculation.
When Faux (Fox) News branded itself as “news”, new ground was broken.
Flurries
Claude Monet: Sandvika, Norway (1895)
ABOUT THIS ARTWORK
Claude Monet’s trip to Norway in 1895 was perhaps the most physically taxing of all his many painting campaigns. Touring the country with his stepson Jacques Hoschedé, who lived in Christiania (now Oslo), he was awestruck but initially frustrated in his search for good motifs amid the snow. Nevertheless, he painted 29 Norwegian scenes during a two-month stay. These included at least six views of Sandvika, a village near Christiania whose iron bridge may have reminded Monet of the Japanese bridge at his home in Giverny.
— — —
"Then I feel glad for my little social media addiction."
It’s not that scrolling only produces distraction. It also produces fantastic information, sometimes far superior to anything accessible before the unfortunate downfall of journalism and the rise of so many blogging platforms. Though blogs gained their initial popularity as a conduit for various nefarious conspiracy theorists, they have since attracted plenty of more credible contributors, some of whom the algorythm even allows me to access. Just when I’ve about convinced myself that scrolling cannot be justified, something actually happens out there in what still passes as the real world. Suddenly, all the foreground filled with idle speculation masquerading as news disappears, replaced by some actual reports from actual fields. For a change, and if only for a little while, mainstream breaking news matches the streaming contributors, and my scrolling manages to bring some events into actual focus. It was always tough to access adequate information surrounding any breaking news. In the old days, I’d frantically switch between the three available broadcast channels, trying to glean additional incremental bits of actual information. Now, of course, I just continue scrolling through what my algorythm serves.
The primary problem with any addictive substance lies in its beneficial qualities.
No-ing
Rembrandt van Rijn: Self-portrait ( c. 1628)
Gallery Notes: Even as an inexperienced young artist, Rembrandt did not shy away from experimenting. Here the light glances along his right cheek, while the rest of his face is veiled in shadow. It takes a while to realize that the artist is gazing intently out at us. Using the butt end of his brush, Rembrandt made scratches in the still wet paint to accentuate the curls of his tousled hair.
"…I'd take my marbles home while mumbling"Good riddance!" under my breath."
It might be that I scroll to try to identify shifting power. In times as volatile as these, advantage seems to be continually shifting. Any news cycle, any odd minute, might hold evidence of where power might be shifting next. Our incumbent, widely acknowledged idiot that he has proudly proven to be, shifts focus more frequently than he farts, so he creates much churn in the channels, and so sparks my near constant interest. Scrolling sometimes seems like reading a truly terrible novel I can’t bear to set down for a minute, completely beyond my volition. I might need permission to stop, though from whom such permission might come seems like another fundamentally unanswerable question. This brings an old understanding into suddenly sharper focus.
In my youth, I believed that power came from granted permission, that somebody powerful could bestow the authority for something to happen, and that it consequently did.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 01/01/2026
Sebald Beham: Little Buffoon with Scroll (1542)
This writing week was the first full writing week of posting my new Unscrolling series. Over its course, I felt myself starting to grasp whatever might have moved me to choose to expound on this topic at this time. Long-time readers might remember that a year ago, I was starting my series on what I labeled NextWorld, the world likely to emerge from our incumbent taking the oath for an office he never intended to fulfill. I started that series ignorant of its purpose but found the experience eventually morphing into being suitably satisfying, nonetheless. Each series starts off like this, in near-total ignorance, before starting to trend toward a deeper understanding, usually in the first full week of the investigation.
I began this writing week acknowledging the garish colors that social media almost exclusively trades in, and what that means for credibility.
StockholmSyndrome
Jesse Torrey: Kidnapping,
American slave trade: or, An account of the manner in which the slave dealers
take free people from some of the United States of America, and carry them away
(1822) Reprinted by C. Clement and published by J. M. Cobbett
"We all seem to be coping near the edge of our native abilities now."
This being January 1st, New Year’s morning 2026, I am reminded that none of us inhabit our present or proceed into our future completely willingly. Each of us might have preferred to slow down the inexorable progression of time at times, if not halt it altogether. Especially during good times, which we learn from personal experience, always prove to be fleeting. No, time moves in only one direction, and it drags us along as if kidnapping us. We come to inhabit a once-upon-a-time future we wouldn’t have chosen, thereby challenging our always emerging, though never quite mature enough coping mechanisms, sometimes to our detriment. For my generation, the so-called Baby Boomers, the emergence of computing and its many associated industries has proven to be the most disconcerting. We realize, as I suppose only someone who remembers before times could, just how far from our imagined future our actual future has fallen. Computing didn’t turn out the way we’d dreamed it.
No future ever arrives as previously imagined, though, so my generation’s no different than any prior.
TheAlgorythm
John Singer Sargent: Sketch of Sir Edward John Poynter (Aug 5 1913)
"…cursing TheAlgorythm every inch of the way to nowhere again. And again."
If a common villain emerges from everyone’s scrolling stories, it’s undoubtedly TheAlgorythm. This mysterious presence is said to make the decisions about what any odd accessor might see in their social media feed. It doesn’t matter which individual feed gets mentioned, its underlying algorythm gets blamed for choosing what’s presented for our obsessive/compulsive perusal. This seems perfectly justified if only because TheAlgorythm works in such mysterious ways. It’s said to do this or that, indifferent to any user’s underlying needs. It feeds upon what it needs first, last, and, reportedly, always. It seems to operate well beyond reason, far beyond any logical justification. Not randomly, though its operation might sometimes easily be mistaken for random generation. It appears to operate more randomly than random could, and probably does. It’s a black box with whatever anyone might imagine operating inside.
It serves up a curious mix of frustration and satisfaction.
2ndOrderDistractions
Johann Georg Wille: The Distracted Observer (1766)
"What's my 5% solution? What's yours?"
Each era sets a tone, a rhythm for living in that time. Obama brought hope for a liberal democracy wounded by two terms of pseudo-conservative idiocy, for instance, and Biden’s time reinstituted a sense of decency, which, predictably, set the corrupt class absolutely crazy. This brings us to our current era, where our leader, above all else, specializes in distracting himself. I doubt that he’s completed as many thoughts as he’s completed sentences, by which I mean there’s absolutely no evidence that he’s ever successfully completed either. Predictably, his milieu proves to be communicable. It probably isn’t an accident that we’re suddenly suffering from severe bouts of distraction disorders. Sure, we started seriously distracting ourselves during the COVID years—remember who the incumbent was then?—but it took some practice and serious repetition before it turned into a discernible problem, just in time for old, reliable Mr. Distraction to take office again.
This theme provides personal insight into the self-esteem of our oh-so-fearful leader.
Antidotes
George Minne: Kneeling Youth with a Shell (1923)
Gallery Text
Minne was a leading figure in European turn-of-the-century symbolism, which posited explorations of interiority, spirituality, and the unconscious as antidotes to the materialism of an industrialized society. The figure of the kneeling youth was a recurrent motif in Minne’s oeuvre, and this one’s serpentine figure and downcast face evoke a state of contemplation and solitude, if not melancholy. The omission of naturalistic details, like musculature or individualized toes, abstracts the depiction of the youth’s body. This slim and angular figure exemplifies the artist’s sculptural style, which was celebrated for its synthesis of the elongated figure of the Gothic with the contemporary decorative style of Art Nouveau.
— — —
"Living inescapably involves getting used to noticing what's missing in our lives."
Most of us seem to more or less automatically revert to magical thinking when we encounter something we perceive to be a problem. We resolve the difficulty by a priori imagining the existence of a solution, even though full solutions appear to be rare in both the literature as well as in our lived experience. We might be able to ameliorate some of the worst effects this problem produces, but full remission only rarely, if ever, gets achieved. For instance, I have heart disease. Don’t fuss, the worst it has ever gotten for me was a few high blood pressure readings. No apparent damage. So, of course, I thought I’d dodged that bullet. My doctor advises that I have not dodged anything but some of the more troubling symptoms. He pointed out that my continuing prescriptions mean that my heart disease continues, too, albeit in some form of suspension, and will continue for the balance of my life. There is no cure.
Many of the “solutions” we experience seem to be of similar character.
Greyscale
Lucian and Mary Brown: Untitled [baby on scale] (1955)
"My life seems both harder and better when lived in Greyscale."
Our world was never given to present itself in oversimplified blacks and whites. Every dichotomy amounts to a lie, an oversimplification intended to amplify difference rather than similarity. Likewise, our world was never given to present itself in garish colors as if it were a Vincente Minnelli movie, another oversimplification intended to downplay difference and dazzle the eye—more entertainment than information.
Real life, if I even dare speak of reality in these times, lies somewhere between these two common extremes, in what I might refer to as the Greyscale, where shadow and light highlight both similarity and difference, and distracting dazzle seems more properly muted.
Kodachrome
A friend and reader sent me the article and I immediately switched my phone to B&W. Slip over here for more ...
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 12/25/2025
William Hogarth: The complicated R____n (1794)
This writing week tacitly included my annual Christmas poem-writing exercise, where I try to write a dozen or so (more or less) Christmas poems between Solstice and Christmas morning. This always adds a bit of stress to a season that already seems to bring stressors, but it enables me to avoid shopping. I also ended my Decency series, which I consider to have been a completely successful excursion into the source and character of a widely misunderstood choice freely open to each of us. I also began a fresh series—albeit on typically wobbly wheels—Unscrolling. I will probably find my balance before Epiphany, or at least, it usually happens that way.
I began this writing week considering the opposite of selfishness, selflessness, the very soul of decency as I’ve come to understand it. I then ended that series and opened the fresh Unscrolling series, where I will attempt to understand and curtail what might have become a dangerously self-destructive habit shared by many of us: mindless scrolling through our largely newsless newsfeeds. I stepped into what I labeled the First Infinity, the one that lies beyond what had become habitual, unseen, and in need of more experience. I then explored the remarkable absence of news in my so-called newsfeeds. Whatever happened to urgency and importance? I then peeked into the source of my current scrolling practice, the Covid shutdown, and noticed what sure seems like an addiction. I ended this writing week by characterizing scrolling as a way to employ randomness to address a hollowness. Perhaps the hollowness could be the underlying issue.
Weekly Writing Summary
Selfullness
“I’ll be studying and learning this lesson for the rest of a halfway Decent lifetime.”
This Decency Story finds me reminding myself of my duty to practice a Decent Selfullness.
Brian, a highly capable and kind leader, worked tirelessly, neglecting his own well-being. After accumulating excessive vacation time, he took a sabbatical, ultimately leaving his job. In his new role, he embraced a more balanced approach, prioritizing self-care and allowing others to lead, finding greater fulfillment in his work.
Paul Cézanne: Self-Portrait (1898)
——
DecencyUnscrolling
“…hello to a fresh strange bedfellow…”
This Decency Story contains the ending coda of my Decency series and the opening salvo in a fresh series: Unscrolling.
I conclude my Decency Series, reflecting on the importance of choosing decency freely and its potential to create good fortune. I then introduce a new series, Unscrolling, exploring the impact of social media and streaming services on information consumption and my own struggle with distractions. I aim to either embrace the streaming culture or become a social media hermit through this new series.
Unknown Artist: Scroll 2: Nezumi no soshi emaki (1600 - 1650) Nara [?], Japan
——
1stInfinity
“I wonder what I so passionately and, ultimately, passively sought there.”
This Unscrolling Story starts unfolding the space within which unscrolling takes place, exploring a 1stInfinity that appears after exiting the scrolling universe.
In this Unscrolling Story, I describe the overwhelming nature of infinite possibilities, comparing it to Giordano Bruno’s concept of infinite worlds. I argue that while scrolling offers a seemingly infinite stream of information, it ultimately leads to a loss of time, relationships, and genuine engagement. I'm choosing to limit my scrolling, embracing a new sense of freedom and the opportunity to engage meaningfully with the world around me.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: The Apotheosis of Aeneas ((c. 1765)
——
News
“Few of yesterday’s urgencies ever came to pass.”
his Unscrolling Story finds me searching for the News that’s lost in my newsfeed.
In this Unscrolling Story, I express disappointment with the current state of news media, finding it sensationalized and lacking in substance. I reminisce about the days of NPR, which I once found informative and reliable, but now perceive as lacking credibility. I feel overwhelmed by the constant barrage of information and am losing interest in staying informed.
Robert Dighton: Well Neighbour-- What’s the News?,from A Set of Heads (c. 1795)
——
ClosingIn
“One might never notice what’s not present in their life as a result of their scrolling addiction.”
This Unscrolling Story finds me ClosingIn on my scrolling addiction. Revisiting the source cures nothing, but it clarifies.
During the Covid shutdown, scrolling became a consuming activity, providing a sense of connection and community. Initially a harmless habit, it gradually escalated into an addiction, replacing hobbies and higher-order engagements with endless entertainment. The subtle nature of scrolling addiction makes it difficult to recognize its negative impact on one’s life.
Ann Nooney: Closing Time (1937-1742) Works Progress Administration (Sponsor)
——
Serendipity
“…we can curl up in wonder…”
This Decency Story finds me in steerage, wondering how my interests got Excluded when hospitality became an industry.
In this Unscrolling Story, I compare the aimless scrolling of social media to a desperate search for Serendipity, a random payoff in a world lacking hope and upward mobility. This lack of hope, exacerbated by economic inequality and political decisions, has led to a generation seeking satisfaction in fleeting, intangible experiences. I argue that this “scrolling epidemic” is a coping mechanism for a society deprived of meaningful opportunities.
Anthonie Willem Hendrik Nolthenius de Man: Wheel on a pole (1814)
——
A Less Than Perfect Christmas Poem
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, this season seems to be overflowing with expectations of great joy. I find those expectations more onerous than uplifting, for I do not know how to create joy. For me, joy just happens. It properly must be a surprise or it doesn't qualify as joy, so I cannot will it or otherwise engineer it into being. Merry and happy seem similar, both difficult to impossible to create and probably fruitless to insist upon. Insisting that another be happy seems like a reliable recipe for inflicting misery.
How about wishing someone a reflexive Christmas or a satisfying New Year? These adjectives could make reasonable targets without seeming so darned oppressive. Burdened with the command to be happy, I feel a little desperate, especially when I'm just not feeling it. My mom would advise turning that frown upside down, as if facial expression controlled mood. It was well-intended encouragement even if it never really worked.
I managed ten new Christmas poems this year. Here's one of them:
The Christmas Eve Trudge
I began writing these Christmas poems
more than twenty-five years ago
to avoid experiencing what I’d come to call
The Christmas Eve Trudge.
The Trudge resulted from unrequited searches
for that perfect present for that perfect person,
a common side-effect of seeking perfection
and one I almost universally experienced then.
I figured that if I stopped shopping
rather than stopping seeking perfection,
that I’d magically lessen the opportunity
to experience the resulting depression.
The incongruity of reliably experiencing
Such sadness while preparing to celebrate
the widely-advertised happiest day of the year
drove me to tears and worse.
It drove me into the irrationality
that encouraged me to write my poems instead,
in the delusional belief that I might thereby
avoid experiencing The Trudge.
My error might have been multifaceted, though.
It could have also resulted from my conviction
that Christmas should properly be, and was,
the happiest day of the year.
It wasn’t, or had never been in my experience.
It was rarely the saddest day of the year, either,
but never actually the happiest.
It was always a day of mixed emotions instead.
If, by chance, I received a delightful present,
my Christmas could, indeed, prove to be happy,
or, more properly, I might feel happy then.
But the chances of receiving such seem slim.
More likely, I’d receive what someone truly
believed would “make me happy,” but didn’t,
resulting in my reconsidering our relationship.
We clearly didn’t know each other all that well.
And this realization sobered me considerably.
It didn’t “make me” feel sad, just reflective.
I’d accept the present under the given conditions
and move on to life’s next little discouragement.
Happy New Year always promised recovery
from any Christmas disappointment,
so I survived, though I still feared The Trudge.
Writing poems instead of shopping did nothing …
To help me avoid The Trudge, though,
because it was also a feature of poem writing.
Attempting the perfect poem for the perfect person
also induces what pursuing perfection always does
… The Trudge. The problem was perfection
and always was.
Let me wish you a less than perfect Christmas
and Christmas poem, this and every future year!
12/22/2025
©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved
Serendipity
Anthonie Willem Hendrik Nolthenius de Man: Wheel on a pole (1814)
A wagon wheel on a tree trunk, with garments, a jug and a tub on it. On the right a chicken.
— — — —
"…an undifferentiated dopamine rush, and then another."
My scrolling most closely resembles stumbling. I move relatively directionless. If not necessarily so at first, eventually. I lose whatever thread of coherence with which I might have begun scrolling, then commence to seeking some Serendipity instead. I feel hopeful, as if I might surprise myself, though I sort through a raft of crap before, finally, eventually stumbling upon something vaguely satisfying. That seems to be the reward for the aimless wandering, a clear waste of precious time, paid off for with some Serendipity, a discovery I couldn’t have possibly held a specific intention to find. I receive a random payoff after taking an equally random walk. Once I’ve extracted the goody off that one, I’m likely to continue scrolling with the tacit intent of repeating that satisfying discovery with something different but identical, ad infinitum.
What happens when an economy, a society, quietly but inexorably leaches out the ability of its citizens to expect?
ClosingIn
Ann Nooney: Closing Time (1937-1742)
Works Progress Administration (Sponsor)
"One might never notice what's not present in their life as a result of their scrolling addiction."
Scrolling started in earnest during the Covid shutdown. It didn’t start immediately, but it seemingly inexorably grew to consume an inordinate amount of a typical day. What can I say? The library suddenly felt risky. The television doesn’t work in our house until after sundown. The Muse was working remotely—first in the basement, then, after we relocated back home, in her back-of-the-second-floor office. There was little else to do, or so it seemed, and the illusion of connection fed what would become a full-blown addiction. I’d finish my work before seven a.m., then look at the day stretching out before me before immersing myself into the only activity left that would have me.
That world delivered convincing cues that I was doing something.
News
Robert Dighton: Well Neighbour-- What's the News?,
from A Set of Heads (c. 1795)
"Few of yesterday's urgencies ever came to pass."
I no longer understand what constitutes news, if, indeed, I ever did know. It apparently had something to do with urgency and importance, neither of which criteria much of what passes as news satisfies today. The “all the news that’s fit to print” NYTimes fills its pages with little urgency and seemingly less importance daily. I still subscribe, if only to maintain access to an outlet that doesn’t just pretend to be in the news business, unlike most of the offerings piggybacking on social media’s coverage. Every little blemish seems to qualify as News to many of those. I long ago refused to engage on Twitter, now ‘X’, not only because I never figured out how to use it, but also because it seemed an unseemly outlet for sharing anything serious. News, I still firmly believe, must be serious business or it’s not a business at all.
Fox (Faux) News created an infotainment product, if not an infotaintment one.
1stInfinity
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: The Apotheosis of Aeneas ((c. 1765)
Gallery Notes: This bozzetto, or preparatory sketch, was part of Tiepolo’s designs for the fresco ceiling of the Guard Room in the Royal Palace in Madrid, which was executed by his large workshop. The artist excelled at manipulating perspective and color to create dramatic compositions in which space seemingly recedes toward infinity. Here he combines two events derived from Virgil’s Aeneid. The first is the promised deification of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who is depicted in red rising to the Temple of Immortality, accompanied by winged personifications of Victory and Justice. The second is the appearance of his mother, Venus, who is clad in white at the upper right of the painting. Along with the Graces, she presents Aeneas with arms forged by her lover Vulcan, who supervises their making below. Tiepolo gradually lessened his use of earthly reds from the bottom to the top of the composition, which exaggerates its dramatic effects.
— — —
"I wonder what I so passionately and, ultimately, passively sought there."
In the 16th Century, Giordano Bruno argued for the existence of infinite worlds within infinite worlds. He was burned at the stake for his trouble, yet we recreate his speculation each time we try replacing one habit with another. Scrolling, for instance, seamlessly immerses us in an infinity, one in which space and time lose meaning. This easily becomes all-consuming, so high a priority that we can neglect everything else without remorse, without even noticing. The time when I first chose to limit my entry into the scrolling infinity, the first thing that occurred to me was a sense of nearly limitless time. My most prominent limit had essentially evaporated, leaving me with a fresh sense of infinity. Unlike the infinity I inhabited when scrolling, which had gone beyond my conscious awareness, this 1stInfinity overfilled my consciousness. I felt a real sense of excess. I couldn’t yet grasp what to do with it.
I suspect that this sense will diminish over time, as fresh infinities cast shadows over this latest, freshly discovered one.
DecencyUnscrolling
Unknown Artist: Scroll 2: Nezumi no soshi emaki (1600 - 1650) Nara [?], Japan
"…hello to a fresh strange bedfellow…"
As I neared the end of my Decency Series, I, as usual, began fretting about what might follow. By the eightieth installment of any series, my sense of its content has become a permanent resident. I no longer fret about what to write next because the flow has become inexorable. One installment follows another without requiring overmuch conjuring. But I end each series on the upcoming equinox or solstice, so when the winter solstice started casting shadows, I began my usual fussing again. I had finally become accustomed to where I was going just in time to reach my agreed-upon dead end. What comes next?
Whatever comes next will later seem a prescient choice, but in those moments before I decide, it looks as if I should be hiding from rather than warmly embracing my future.
Good For A Goose
Decency (90)
Decency Unscrolling (1)
Exiled (90)
Fambly (93)
FollowingChapters (93)
Grace (92)
Humor (2)
iAlogue (1)
Letters to the Editor (1)
NextWorld (91)
Personal (18)
Steam Festival (4)
Unscrolling (20)
Vaporized (6)
Work (16)
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