Again I ask...

What is the purpose (power) of art:

http://www.prisonartsstl.org/

and

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=137

137: The Book That Changed Your Life Stories of people who believe a book changed their life. It's a romantic notion, and one reason we believe it is because we want to believe our lives can be changed by something so simple as an idea — or a set of ideas contained in a book. Explore if you would like--this is the soundtrack for the dancing mind... Have a great night, AK

A Few Words

Reading Michael Ondaatje and his memoir last night, Running in the Family--I was struck by the fact that too often times we run away from our future instead of journeying into them. Ondaatje starts his memoir by musing:
"What began it all was a bright bone of a dream I could hardly hold onto.

Drought since December.

All across the city men roll carts with ice clothed in sawdust. Later on, during a fever, the drought still continuing, his nightmare is that thorn trees in the garden send their hard roots underground towards the house climbing through the windows so they can drink sweat off his body and steal the last of the saliva off his tongue.

He snaps on the electricy just before daybreak. For twenty five years he has not lived in this country, though up to the age of 11 he slpt in rooms like this--with no curtains, just delicate bars across the windows so no one could break in. And the floors of red cement polished smooth, cool against bare feet.

Dawn through the garden. Clarity to leaves, fruit, the dark yellow of the King Coconut. The delicate light is allowed only a brief moment of the day. In ten minutes the garden will ie in a blaze of heat, frantic with noise, and butterflies.

Half a page--and the morning is already ancient. "

Good luck

A Thinking Man...

Fydor ends chapter four with the question, "Can a thinking man have any self-respect whatever?" However, he starts chapter five by continuing to rift on that notion, or answering this question, but stating: "No, a man can't have a trace of self-respect, can he..." Does that lack of self-respect simply stem from the fact that the thinking man, the true man of knowledge, realizes that he will never possess the correct in answer in full? Is this thus that ultimate act of humility? Is is the Dancing Mind fully at work? 

Or perhaps better and simpler question is:

Who is more beneficial to 'our' society--a person of thought or a person of action?

Have fun rattling your swords (your pen--ha,ha,ha) at that one.

Great class today--minus Jim's drooling.