Month: February 2011
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On the business of busyness, part 1
New Yorkers are busy. I know this because they tell me. Daily. Hourly. Over email. Via text. Subliminally. They tell me they’re a little busy at the moment, quite busy all day, too busy this year, stupid busy, insanely busy, really really fucking busy. That they’re overwhelmed, overworked, have too much going on, way too…
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Chuck Close on resilience
In the 3rd segment of “Seeing and Perceiving,” an episode that aired recently on the radio program To the Best of Our Knowledge, the painter Chuck Close discusses his life in painting. In the interview, Close speaks candidly and Stoically about the spinal artery collapse that, in 1988, left him almost completely paralyzed. Since then,…
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On English Breakfast tea
The manly virtue of English Breakfast: black powder deep within the barrel of a gun, tobacco leaves lying in a pouch.
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On forgiveness
The way of resentment His mother’s voice, the sound of it, he could hardly bear without holding a cup of chamomile tea in both his hands. His mother seemed unconcerned with much save the coupons she had clipped out of the Sunday paper. Some she would use to reline the pantry wall with green beans…
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Not a madman but Gilbert and Sullivan
It’s warm in bed, and the floorboards are cold. The radiator is clicking in the darkness. Morning is here but in name only or, rather, only if one follows clock time. But should one? No, that question’s too far along and–too intellectual, too third-personal. Come back to me, this place, this moment of hesitation. Don’t…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 