Tag Archives: genius

Avant-garde

Avant-garde: (n) new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts or the people introducing them.dictionary with letter A

The word is much more fun to pronounce than it is to live.

First of all, you cannot proclaim yourself avant-garde. It’s similar to tacking the qualification of “genius” onto your resume.

If you are actually avant-garde and filled with ingenious concepts which will push human life forward, the title must be bestowed upon you as you humbly bow your head and deny it.

For some reason, in our society we cannot tell the difference between innovators and well-funded assholes. It may be a little confusing.

But innovators can always be identified as those individuals who seek the common good without trying to empty the common pot. They are interested in an idea going forward instead of having themselves pushed forward because of their ideas.

Much to my amazement, many things that I believe, hold dear and wish to elevate are considered avant-garde, when in my thinking, they’re just practical.

Cases in point:

  1. I don’t think we can continue to promote a culture where men and women are at war with each other.
  2. It’s ridiculous to approach any group of people as an entity instead of allowing each individual to manifest his or her own personal entity.
  3. Killing is bad–whether brought about by war, abortion or capital punishment.
  4. Being grown-up is developing a sense of humor, not a bad attitude.
  5. Music is emotional. That’s it. You can put it into categories, but if it doesn’t touch the human heart, it’s mechanical clatter.
  6. God does not need us to believe in Him. God needs us to believe in each other and in so doing, establish our belief in something beyond ourselves.
  7. The only way to prevent the end of the world is to do something in the present world.
  8. Earth requires that we be conservative when it’s necessary to conserve, and liberal when it’s required to be generous.
  9. Judging people by color is totally against our instincts–since we begin life with a box of 64 Crayolas.
  10. I don’t know enough to be smart. I won’t be smart until I know enough. I must be satisfied with not ever being smart.

There are some of my avant-garde views. Perhaps you share in some of my convictions, and perhaps not.

But the beauty of an ongoing discussion is that while we’re still having it … life jumps in with the final word.

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Amsterdam

dictionary with letter A

Amsterdam: (n): the capital and largest city of the Netherlands.

There are two things that tickle me about myself:

  • My sporadic moments of inspirational genius
  • And the remainder of my life, where I nearly drown in a pool of my own stupidity

So when I looked at the dictionary and saw that my word for the day was “Amsterdam”, I reached into the recesses of my experience to find what I knew about this city in Holland.

First of all, I am not certain whether you should refer to it as the Netherlands or Holland. If I were a native, I would certainly prefer Holland, instead of being called “the land of nothing.”

I guess what tickled me the most was that I have this strange collage of data-bits in my brain, ranging from Hans Christian Anderson, a little boy with his finger in the dyke, wooden shoes, tulips, rampant marijuana smoking and legal prostitution.

Trying to figure out how I would unite all of these ideas into a common theme for my essay this morning just produced a giggle-fest somewhere down deep in my soul.

I suppose I could be cute and say that Hans Christian Anderson was on his way to take a tulip to his favorite prostitute, sporting freshly-carved wooden shoes, when he came upon the boy who was in charge of protecting the dyke, who instead had become quite stoned, toking his bong, causing water to begin to flood into the community, so Hans, with great regret in his heart, stuck his tulip into the hole, realizing that he had lost his rendezvous with a lover, but saved a people.

Honestly, ladies and gentlemen … that’s the best I can do.

 

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Ajar

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Ajar: (adj and adv) a door or other opening left slightly open

“Keep the door ajar.”

We all know what that means.

It’s our way of communicating that what is happening, beyond that which is inside the enclosure, is not private, segregated or secret.

It is also what we were told to do as teenagers when we were in a room with our girlfriend or boyfriend. It was a reminder that at any time, our seclusion could be interrupted by the inclusion of others.

I made a decision a long time ago to keep my life ajar. To think that any of us can get by with hiding our mistakes or foibles is a ridiculous notion. In an age of super-information available at super-speed, it is doubtful that privacy can be attained, so the only thing open to us is to select speed of revelation.

I’ve been silly about it in the past.

  • At one time I was embarrassed that I didn’t go to college, but began a family immediately due to my rising hormones, which preceded declining grades.
  • I used to be afraid to admit to others how unknown my efforts were and attempted to name-drop to procure respect, which only, in the long run, drew further attention to those mightier than me, whose names I was invoking.
  • I used to avoid questions by changing the subject or offering answers I thought were cleverly ambiguous, but actually just sounded evasive and stupid.

You can feel free to attempt to delude the public, keeping your door tightly shut, in hopes of avoiding interference from strangers. But as the Good Book says, there is nothing “whispered in the ear which is not eventually shouted from the housetops.” (By the way, a statement spoken by a fellow who didn’t even have to deal with the Internet—or the NSA.)

So I can sum up my philosophy about “keeping my life ajar” in three quick statements:

  1. If I’m ashamed of it, change it enough to where the shame is gone.
  2. If I’m the first one to bring it up, nobody can act like they “got me.”
  3. Honesty is the best way to keep people off your back, because they relax and then you can actually be more like yourself.

Keep the door ajar. Pretty good philosophy.

Keep your life ajar. Genius.

Acoustic

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acoustic: (adj.) of music or musical instruments not having electrical amplification: e.g. acoustic guitar

  • It has to be fun.
  • It has to be humble.
  • And it has to be willing to learn.

Those are the three ingredients I think are necessary to make any adventure workable, enjoyable and realistic. Whenever any group of people takes themselves so seriously that they believe they’ve arrived at the apex of all understanding or the pinnacle of all talent, they are obnoxious and in some ways, dangerous.

This is true of musicians.

Music, which was meant to be a heartfelt explosion of joy, intimacy and emotion, has become, God forbid, a craft. And as craftsmen, we sit around and discuss the subtleties of the use of particular implementations which hold our delicate treasures together.

Thus the word acoustic.

So the rock band, which was once willing to admit “they only knew four chords and that’s why their music sounded the way it did,” pretentiously now does a documentary film, sharing their music acoustically instead of using electronic assistance. We’re supposed to stand back in awe of these cave men, who have discovered that there is some little world outside their enclosure, and mull over their genius simply because … “they’ve unplugged.”

I love music.

  • Music was God’s way of saying life should be tuneful.
  • Music was God’s apology for conversation.
  • And music is our way of expressing ourselves without insisting that the whole room listen to us pontificate.

So we should HUMBLY pursue it, realizing our limitations and ceasing to make excuses for our frequent bobbles.

But instead, we proclaim some people who compose to be “masters,” and everyone else mere “minstrels.”

So rather than enjoying the fact that other people have picked up our instrument and exceeded our efforts, we instead attempt to tear them down because they are not purists and don’t honor the traditions of syncopation or structure.

YUK.

I don’t care if you rock, jazz, square dance, hillbilly, rap or insist on Mozart. Be humble about it and have some fun. You’re not a better musician because you play an acoustic guitar instead of an electric one. It’s not a better auditorium because it’s acoustically adjusted to the high A-sharp on the first violin.

It’s supposed to be joyful. “A joyful noise”–remember that? So unless you plan on giggling and dancing, don’t come my way.

Acoustic set.

Somebody needs to take off the rubber nose and the big floppy shoes.

Abiogenesis

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abiogenesis: adv. technical term for spontaneous generation.

My dear God. IS there spontaneous generation?? I was completely unaware.

I looked up the definition for spontaneous generation, just in case. This demanded that I escape the Ab’s and jump all the way to the S’s. (Please know that I repented of this indiscretion.)

I giggled when I read the definition of spontaneous generation. It is the contention that life can be sprung from inanimate objects. The classic case of this, of course, is the idea once believed, that if you throw a bunch of trash out in your yard, the putrid materials will transform themselves into flies.

Of course, anybody who travels, speaks, thinks, writes or shares with the American people knows that it is often difficult to find life in the midst of those who HAVE a heartbeat.

I suppose there’s a certain charm to spontaneous generation. If you really think life can come from non-living pieces of this and that, you don’t necessarily have to believe you need to do anything with your own personal living and breathing protoplasm.

“God will take care of it. If He can make flies out of stinky, He can make geniuses out of public high schools…”

Actually, one of the more discouraging things to do is to sit on the bench at the mall and watch the mass of humanity pass by, pursuing the pleasant task of buying and owning, but still morose, self-absorbed and in many cases, nearly catatonic.

Maybe there is spontaneous generation. Maybe it happens when you keep a good sense of humor in the presence of very mediocre possibilities, knowing that life is fickle and unpredictable, and in no time at all, prospects could improve.

Spontaneous generation-–abiogenesis: some sort of idea that you can actually say “let there be light” and it will appear.

Who do you think you are? God?

 

Abilene

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abilene: 1 a city in east central Kansas; pop. 6,242. It was the first terminus of the Chisholm Trail.  2. a city in north central Texas, an agricultural and oil industry center; pop. 106,654

Darned tootin’ if Abilene doesn’t need a song.

Phoenix has one–Seattle, too. Los Angeles has several. New York, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans…all of them have got tuneful tributes.

It seems to be my duty to write Abilene a song. I guess I will start with the A, B, C formula. In other words, go through the alphabet and find words that rhyme wiht Abilene so as to find possibilities as to where this composition might go.

Let me see now… A, B, C.  Nothing there. D gives us Dean. I don’t know what we’ll do with that. E, F… then there’s G.  You get green and glean. Possible.

H, I, J, K… they’re all a wash. L. Lean. Of course, you’ve already got that in the name of the town–Abilene.

M. Mean. Not much use. N, O. Well, I guess n-o. No.

P for preen. How would you work that in?

Here’s one! Queen! Of course, I don’t know if they allow queens in Abilene.

R has nothing. S–Seen. Either the s-e-e-n or the s-c-e-n-e. So maybe I could make the scene in Abilene with my Queen named Jean. Hey, I forgot the J, for Jean. You see how it’s building??

Teen. That’s dangerous. Because my Queen, Jean, should not be a teen, or you’re in danger of statuatory rape.

U, V. Nothing there. Again.

W has ween. That’s frightening. Of course, X, Y and Z is just like the tail that never shakes off anything of value.

So what did we end up with?

Queen Jean who’s a teen from Abilene, who makes the scene and isn’t really mean, although she spends too much time in an attempt to preen. But her looks are never obscene.

Oh, there’s an O.

You see how it works? Genius HAS form and reason to it.

But even as I look at the results, I have to admit that the Abilene song may have just about as much promise as the city itself.

It’s not my fault. I tried.