Lunatic Fringe

Mitch is 30 today, Bob Dylan is 70. In light of that fact, I've compiled my definitive list of favorite Bob Dylan songs, strictly in alphabetical order, as there isn't enough in a lifetime to figure it out any other way. Enjoy. 1. 4th Time Around 2. Abandoned Love 3. Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream 4. Born in Time 5. Brownsville Girl 6. Buckets of Rain 7. Changing of the Guards 8. Chimes of Freedom 9. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right 10. Every Grain of Sand 11. Forever Young 12. Girl From the North Country 13. I Shall be Free 14. I Want You 15. If Not for You 16. If you see her, say hello 17. It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry 18. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue 19. It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) 20. Just Like A Woman 21. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door 22. Lay, Lady, Lay 23. Like A Rolling Stone 24. Love Minus Zero/No Limit 25. Meet Me in the Morning 26. Mississippi 27. Most of the Time 28. Mr Tambourine Man 29. My Back Pages 30. One of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) 31. O...

The world lights up. The monster’s machine apparitioned, materialized, and became very real just above the trees in the near-morning, nearby sky. The dog was gone now, and too soon was everything else going to be. There was no panic, simply dread, a simple dread that would never be recorded, as there are no annals in oblivion. And Melpomene is here, beautiful as ever. Years now since I’d seen her in the day time, her countenance equal parts diffident and indifferent. She names a place we can go, a one I’ve never heard of. It can’t be our secret, as I’ve never breathed it. I ponder getting there--contemplate what just may have been her revelation of an afterlife. Could it be a place she knows, a place she’s been? How could it be that she’s been there? I abhor unanswered questions, how loathsome then, and unfitting an end, this is to be. Struck to the quick by the sheer audacity of this moment to have chosen now to come into being, I double back for a second, last, long, look at Melpomen...

In hardship lies opportunity. Perhaps the purpose of the challenges we face in life is to see how far you can go before you break. Once the dust has settled and you have risen, look around. You'll realize you've been blessed with experience, perspective, and over the course of the journey to where you are from where you once were, a lot more room to do all the things you wanted to do when you were timid.

Checked out KOL Sunday night with some good company. The weather threatened for most of the day, though in the end it was much to-do about nothing, as it turned out to be quite a nice night to be outdoors. Caught a few songs from the opening act, The Whigs, a southern rock outfit from Athens, Georgia. I enjoyed their sound, but nothing jumped out at me to wow me. The set change was quick and punctual, and then the Kings came out. Lead singer Caleb Followill clearly did not appear to be entirely pleased with his vocals throughout the concert, and eventually said as much at a point or two throughout the set. I was impressed with the sound the guys put out, the rhythm section has a good rapport (surprise, surprise), and lead guitarist Matthew has some interesting takes on sonic production while playing, which I appreciated. I felt like there was decidedly an energy lacking, which was covered up (attempted) by the blinding light show they had going on behind them. All in all, the Kings hav...

Perhaps life is the dichotic exercise of actively seeking the points of being where the body breaks, but the spirit endures. This must be undertaken vigorously, honestly, and never just once: for the only thing on this earth we are meant to do but once is to live.

I could stop right here, and remain broken. There’s a familiar feeling, this pain, just like so many broken times before. But this is not the end, just as those other broken times were not the end. To endure is an impish smile in the face of an indifferent maker. Persevere now, let the barbs and arrows of an injurious world create a tapestry upon your back. Laugh as the hooks sink deep, gloat as they tear your flesh, and as the blows subside, remain. Deal in survival in the low places where all else peddle pain. I will weep, and I will wail, and then I will howl, and then I will continue. This is not what breaks me, this is simply sustenance. From the pain I grow, from this moment on I now go. (I haven't written in months, boy does it show)

All their lives dogs are digging holes, monuments to their vitality, visual reminders of where they’ve been. And still it’s remarkable that we don’t truly see the greatest hole they’ve left us with until after they’ve gone - the one in our hearts.

"Gather sunshine, and let the ills of the world spoil with the first frost of confusion, this is the harvest of the wisdom of old age." Increasingly in the day to day of things I find myself looking upon something that reminds me of a face, or a thing I find familiar from places I cannot go. My heart leaps, just as quickly my thoughts betray me like a soft whisper-- "Once upon a time." And just like that it's once again at my fingers- if the past could be something tangible- and the embraces of those that once loved me envelop me in the indelible hold of something that once was. I posit vehemently here that we are never really alone if we were ever truly loved. And still these bursts - these disquieting storms of emotion, and creation - come to me. Like the steam hisses hot, the twitches remind me: That I am alive, and not forever of this mortal coil. Not a thing at all here is given-- And yet at the same time anything at all is possible. Looking up at these cel...

I met an old friend the other day, asked me why I walked slower, explain about talking lower. I opined about a heavy heart, the sort one would drag around, whispered it’s hard to speak up when everything's looking is down. 'Cept I can still fake it, and make it if I gotta. Said I just plain don’t wanna. There’s no room for lies in a room full of sad eyes. See that’s all I see, and the same’s foryou, as you've been lookin’ at me. -- But let me tell you, like I told her – Some sunny day it’ll all come back - a bolt from the blue - a cold shot up my back. She inquired after the hows, and a date as to when it'll be? And I replied honest and slow, lord I don’t know. Just the same she'd be welcome to wait, along side me. -- In the mean time I can still hop to music, and saunter on a sunny day -- it’s all just a matter of keepin’ the beat, and swingin’ away.

Nothing has less in common than all of the girls that have loved me,just like in the right frame of mind, all sunny days are the same. The sensation of some girls is best described as a fog you have to walk out of. It’s a beguiling sort of demise. A perfumed haze, naked, and wicked, and as helpless as it is assured. Ephemeral in her wants, perpetual in her haunts. It passes quickly, washes over you like a tidal wave, and just as violently, she retreats. Defenses are dares. Try to retreat and still you remain a sojourner, breathless like the night, words take form on her lips like clouds blocking out the midday sun, your world becomes as barren as the moon. And always that fog, she hems you in until even her weaknesses she can turn against you. The lighthouse in the storm becomes just another snare, and the wind and the water and the waves join in chorus against you. Her smile is the shore they long to break you upon. It takes years, if you are so bold as to throw yourself to the tempes...

People will always disagree with you, don't let it break you. People will incessantly doubt you, don't be one of them yourself. Be always positive about who you are, and where you stand. Be tirelessly for the things around you, and those who stand with you. And when it comes time to be counted, endeavor always to be remembered as one who rallied friends and foes alike with the strength, and passion, of your conviction. And may you forever be a beacon of positive light, a buoy against the storms of adversity. For your passion carries infinitely more weight than the minor drag of those would rather drown you in a sea of differences than allow you to live happily on a different shore.

The following, unlike most everything else you will ever be told, is completely true. Really, if you sit and think about anything for long enough, expand on any one single concept, focus in on any given idea--you will eventually realize that whatever it is you had in mind is absolutely trivial, completely pointless, and horrifyingly absurd. Devoid of all meaning Do not do this. This is the opposite of living. This is inaction. Life is in action. Go now, you, the living. Live.

How Facebook Can Ruin Your Friendship Via the Wall Street Journal This article resonates along a nerve I've noticed struck in increasingly more and more people, one of those people most importantly, being me. This brings us to our first dilemma: Amidst all this heightened chatter, we're not saying much that's interesting, folks. Rather, we're breaking a cardinal rule of companionship: Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Friends. "It's called narcissism," says Matt Brown, a 36-year-old business-development manager for a chain of hair salons and spas in Seattle. He's particularly annoyed by a friend who works at an auto dealership who tweets every time he sells a car, a married couple who bicker on Facebook's public walls and another couple so "mooshy-gooshy" they sit in the same room of their house posting love messages to each other for all to see. "Why is your life so frickin' important and entertaining that we need to know?" Mr. Brown...

We discussed the idea of September for the first time today, right now it’s only August, the days of which are in the terminal stages of some sort of disease the doctors as yet don’t understand. I slept through today’s round of treatment, if you can call surrender that. I’ve been alive, truly, for ten years now, and I don’t mind making myself patently aware of that fact. It’s funny how, for all it’s boldness, youth doesn’t fight back. In fact it’s quite an elusive fighter, having found itself in a war it never wanted to wage, and has no designs on winning. There are no fortresses of redoubt, no bastions of youth, simply a lifetime of fighting along diminished and increasingly timid frontlines, vast armies put asunder by the mechanized legions of time, pressed relentlessly onward by the hordes of death and non-existence. I vowed to fight, ten years ago. An impassioned plea the first time I felt it necessary to comment on these dying days. My mind is still for it, even as the gray of bat...

If thou art a writer, write as if thy time were short, for it is indeed short at the longest. Improve each occasion when thy soul is reached. Drain the cup of inspiration to its last dregs. -Henry David Thoreau We should also strive to live life in this way. Interestingly enough Hemingway's advice was to always leave a bit of inspiration in the well for the next day, so it may replenish of itself, he may have said that in A Moveable Feast , I should look into that.

I come from a sleepy little town, full of small ideas and big frowns. I once was a good writer, on this place called earth. I’m just a tree falling in the forest now. I’m surrounded by new growth and illiterates. I hope she carves me up good this time. I always wanted to be a guitar.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. Sound familiar? Perhaps an excerpt from George Orwell's 1984? Maybe a billing posted in Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia? Nope. This is from the Whitehouse's website, encouraging you, the average American citizen, to inform on your fellow Americans for intellectual thought-crimes against Obama's great plan, and the current regime. I wonder what the reward is for thwarting these would-be "email terrorists?" Favored citizen status? Maybe first in line for big brother's healthcare? Who knows. But as our secon...

I find it ironic that what is left in this world that can be considered "magic" is quite actually hard work. And now it turns out the coin toss, long held to be a 50/50 proposition quite actually isn't. Via The Big Money This is adapted from David E. Adler's book Snap Judgment, published this month by FT Press. Coin tosses are a classic metaphor in economics for randomness. For instance, in his book about market efficiency, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, economist Burton Malkiel compares the price movements of the stock market to the random outcome of a flipped coin: "[S]ometimes one gets positive price changes for several days in a row; but sometimes when you are flipping a coin you also get a long string of ‘heads' in a row." According to Malkiel, mathematicians' terms for the sequences of numbers produced by any random process—in this case a coin flip—is known as a random walk. To him, this is exactly what stock price movements look like; hence t...

'Time leans on us all, old friend.'I remember saying to him, as he leaned in against me instinctively, reflexively. As if I could protect him against the attack of years. I wonder if he knows this, and I thought some more in the silence that followed what I had said. 'They'll find me too, and then I'll follow you.' The best I could say to the truth of what he may have been thinking. I guess I just hope I was listening too. And still the thoughts of a young man persist. I imagine they'll carry me to a certain point some time from now. And then one fine day...They'll act on strict orders, and leave me as I found them: Confused. And indifferent, if I'm lucky. I too can remember being innocent. But that was only because of a dearth of instinct, and a lack of desires. I don't have these problems anymore.