Falling Down
Sometimes, the avalanche of news just gets to you. There was at one point a long list of topics I wanted to write about. But ideas just sort of drifted outside of my grasp, as I was thinking about more mundane matters like conference proposals and the like. By the time the Virginia Tech shooting happened, I hadn’t read much of anything on the web in a week. Now it’s been two. Silence begets silence.
I finally revisited my feed reader to find Shannon’s fitting tribute to Kurt Vonnegut. His novels had a huge impact on me growing up; there’s a lot to say there, particularly the nature of Breakfast of Champions as a curious multimodal artifact. Not as rich of a discussion as say, Songs of Innocence and Experience, but perhaps its just as important as a contemporary bit of DIY philosophy. I won’t soon forget Vonnegut’s pencil sketches of wide open beavers.
My 84 year old mother fell down the same day as the news broke about Vonnegut. She’s fine now. I’m building a new and improved office, hoping that it will stimulate writing. A new shiny desk, and about half as many books stacked around (trying to focus on pressing historical matters, rather than historical matters best left alone for now). Once a drift starts, it seems hard to reel back in. The battle to remain standing continues.
