I think my defenses are down in the wee hours. I'm able to write without hesitance or doubt or distraction. I'm just more comfortable. I need a routine where I sit down at certain time every night and blog (or at least write) like a peanut-butter Mofo. But right now I have to borrow computer time from people who can afford internet access. But I have some ideas for getting around that . . . we'll see.

Anyway, I've discovered that certain songs or albums provide amazing inspiration for writing. The song "Shimmer" by Fuel is perfect, and so is Brandtson's whole "Fallen Star Collection" album.

My most recent job interview sucked. Maybe I'm not good at selling myself. Maybe I shouldn't inform potential employers up front of all the time-off I will need because I have a life I care about outside of my job (i.e. Cornerstone Fest, Speech and Debate trips, eventual honeymoon). Maybe I just need the perfect job. No . . . I need ANY job.

So here I am, back in IL for Thanksgiving, wondering why my parents are not disgusted with me; bewildered at how their son can't seem to get anywhere. The truth is: I love my life in Arkansas! I have friends around me who I care about and can share so much with. I'm in a church that I value like none I've been to in a long time. I'm investing my time into activities I actually care about and are fun for me. . . . But none of this is enough to support me financially. I'm not allowed to live this way. Do I have to go out and find a daily grind job that means nothing to me in order to survive? I'm hoping the answer is "no" because I've gotten nothing. Not even a factory job offer! Was my education worthless? . . . I've been looking, dammit! If it is because I'm not willing to sacrifice, for money, the things I love and make me happy, then I don't feel guilty at all! Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm a loser who can't get anywhere with all thats been given to him. Maybe I'm just no good at selling myself. Maybe it's just Arkansas. I don't know.


I'm gonna go raid the fridge for turkey. I hope there's some dark meat left.

"Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forhead."
- Gene Fowler


I'm reading a book called "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orlando. I want to share some of it with you . . .

"Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward. Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next. Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself."

There is so much in this book I want to quote to anyone who will listen. Lets see, what else should I give you all right now? Hmm.... Ah! Yes!

"Yet the even the notion that you have a say in this process conflicts with the prevailing view of artmaking today -- namely, that art rests fundamentally upon talent, and that talent is a gift randomly built into some people and not into others." Yeah, I've struggled with this a lot. "In common parlance, either you have it or you don't -- great art is produced of genius, good art a product of near-genius (which Nabokov likened to Near-Beer), and so on down the line to pulp romances and paint-by-the-numbers. This view is inherently fatalistic -- even if it's true, it's fatalistic -- and offers no useful encouragement to those who would make art. Personally, we'll side with Conrad's view of fatalism: namely, that it is a species of fear -- the fear that your fate is in your own hands, but that your hands are weak."

And how about this...

"Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about the gap that inevitably exists between what you intended to do, and what you did. In fact, if artmaking did not tell you (the maker) so enormously much about yourself, then making art that matters to you would be impossible."

and...

"One of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential. ... The point is that you learn how to make your work by making your work, and a great many of the pieces you make along the way will never stand out as finished art. The best you can do is make art you care about -- and lots of it!"

And yes, I am going overboard with the quoting. I promise I won't do this all the time. So you can move on to surfing more interesting things, or you can stick with me through this last and longest quote, which challenges much of what I've believed cognitively yet affirms much of what I've known instinctually.

The authors demonstrate that artmaking has been around longer than the art establishment, and then explain,
"What this suggests, among other things, is that the current view equating art with "self-expression" reveals more a contemporary bias in our thinking than an underlying trait of the medium. Even the separation of art from craft is largely a post-Renaissance concept, and more recent still is the notion that art transcends what you do, and represents what you are. In the past few centuries Western art has moved from unsigned tableaus of orthodox religious scenes to one-person displays of personal cosmologies. 'Artist' has gradually become a form of identity which (as every artist knows) often carries as many drawbacks as benefits. Consider that if artist equals self, then when (inevitably) you make flawed art, you are a flawed person, and when (worse yet) you make no art, you are no person at all! It seems far healthier to sidestep that vicious spiral by accepting many paths to successful art making -- from reclusive to flamboyant, intuitive to intellectual, folk art to fine art. One of those paths is yours."

What is wrong with Arkansas?!?! Today is November 4th and the temperature was up to 83 de-freaking-grees outside!! As if the ignorant hillbilly clone culture were not enough to indicate the need for this state to be destroyed.
Yeah, ok. Maybe I indulge too much in hyperbole. After all, Poynter's Palace is in Little Rock and they produced some killer Living Sacrifice albums, among others.

I must apologize for the roadkill that the Aardvark of Freedom has become. I truly wasn't sure what would come of it all, and now only Ben (The Blind Seeker) and I are the only regularly posting members. That's us English majors for you.

This weekend the JBU speech and debate team goes to it's first tournament of the year, and I will be returning to action as a coach for the speech and interp. events. That's almost 30 performers to coach and keep track-of! . . . I'm screwed. When I competed I was one of about 8-10 people, and I only had to focus on my own peices. Now I have to worry about everybody and there are three-times as many people! . . . Yeah, ok. You got me again. I'm so pumped, I can't wait! Let's kick some butt!!

Is there anyone out there who will pay me to create D&D campaigns?