anoritheark

[anoritheark]

Parlaying on Something Super Good

I try to make send of the absurdity of what I see on my social media trough, a progression or regression of something only machines care about now. There is nothing really bad, nothing super terrible going on. It’s just the sounds in my head. It’s stupid to even think about. Reason will prevail. Once you climb the mount and see what’s out there, everything’s good, super good. I’m fine. I have…

[anoritheark]

The Pithy Wisdom of Evelyn Waugh

Having just read Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, I’m reminded of what excellent writing can be – not only vivid and humorous, but more importantly, deeply cutting. My wife knew what was wanted. She had neat, hygienic ways for that too, but there were both relief and triumph in her smile of welcome; later we parted and lay in twin beds a yard or two distant, smoking. Brideshead Revisited, BBC…

[anoritheark]

Crime in Mind

The music was muted, not the way he remembered it. It had been loud not so long ago. He wanted to get off the plane and go nowhere, stay where he was and face whatever he had to face. The consequences, that’s what they were called. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was in him as much as it was in anyone. Crime was an interesting word. He had never really thought about it. He had just thought…

[anoritheark]

Social Media: Et in Arcadia Ego

I am averse to most contemporary literature as I find it boring. Or trite. Or predictable. Or ridiculous. Or…what’s that word when people put on airs and pretend to be someone they’re not? Affected. No, pretentious. That’s it. I find contemporary work pretentious. And boring. I had read some of Evelyn Waugh in the past – Scoop, Handful of Dust and The Sword of Honor Trilogy – but skipped his…

[anoritheark]

Words Now More Than Ever

[anoritheark]

Negative Capability

At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and what Shakespeare possessed enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact or reason. (John Keats, 1817) Only recently did I learn of the term “negative capability” in Mathew Zapruder’s…

[anoritheark]

The Sacred Whore, Version 3,5

Shockingly, I met my goal of completing a draft of The Sacred Whore. I had two major problems in completing this latest draft. First and foremost, I had to move the primary point of view away from a male perspective, which meant not only minimizing the pimp Jefferson’s role and switching the king-pin to a queen-pin, but also expanding the voice of a number of the sex workers. The other challenge…

[anoritheark]

Scared of Writing

I waited outside of Mr. Carver’s class, thinking of how I could get an extension. The assignment – a 2,000-word creative self-reflection – was due that afternoon, and I hadn’t even started. I didn’t understand why I had to do it, because I had graduated long ago and was in fact now teaching at this school. I gave up waiting and beetled off to my classroom. The Dean of Students behind me, a row…

[anoritheark]

No One Cares How You Scroll

No one cares who you like. No one cares who you follow. No one cares what you post or what you share. No one cares about your story. No one cares about your memes. No one cares what you comment or what you click. No one cares because they don’t know how to care. No one cares because you don’t know how to care. Thanks for reading! Be sure to like and share.

[anoritheark]

Not Enough Is The Right Amount

[anoritheark]

Waiting Game

Not knowing and waiting, that’s where the promise lives. Knowing – no matter what – especially if it’s not true. That faith – and lie – is better than any proof. It’s all we need to get to the end.

[anoritheark]

The Thing of the Expression.

You go down the pipeline thinking you know something you don’t and it isn’t a bad thing but it’s an obvious thing and that’s still okay but then you remember it really isn’t because that’s sliding to nowhere, not knowing who you are and thinking that’s okay when it isn’t. Then you’re left asking who are all these people are and how did they get into your living room.

[anoritheark]

A Tale of Two Books: The Alchemist & The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist are two of the most popular books in history, each selling over 150 million copies. Both are simple yet convoluted tales set in fantastical places. However only one of these books is worth the read, multiple reads in fact, while the other comes across like an inspirational poster on a middle school teacher’s wall. The…

[anoritheark]

17 Slices of Cheese

The deli counter was in the back corner of Gristedes, a New York supermarket I had mistakenly pronounced as Gris-TEA-dees to my sister — and not Gris-TAY-dees. She had mocked me for that. “Ham and cheese sandwich please.” The woman didn’t look up from her phone.” American, Swiss, Provolone, Cheddar, Swiss, Colby, Pepper Jack?” “Cheddar, Medium, thanks.” “Roll or hero?” She continued to…

[anoritheark]

To Kiss Others

“I’m going to kiss others.” And then her lips were on mine, and I was closing the blinds, people trying to peek in, her naked body there, all of it over too quickly. I didn’t remember much, but she was pregnant and we were married. And then the accident, she paralyzed from the waist down. We didn’t make it. I was back in her neighborhood years later, at a fundraiser. I stayed at the periphery,…

[anoritheark]

Time for the Witches

[anoritheark]

The Kittle Fash of Stevenson’s "Kidnapped"

I read RL Stevenson's "Kidnapped" and recommend that you do not do the same.

Like Moby Dick, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped is one of those books I had never read and thought everybody else had. Like Moby Dick, I found the book exhausting and dense and eventually learned that few have actually read it. The problem with the book is three-fold, the biggest challenge being the archaic language, with words like slockens (moisten), gliff (look), clour (hit), kittle…