Blogcritics Comments on Just One Kind Favor

Comment by Jules

Sun, 21 May 2006 16:57:03 EDT

"How many writers stop to simply express gratitude or awe? As writers we still mostly hold to the old complaint, the old pain. Why write anyway?" As Neil Simon Woody Allen agreed: It's the journey, not the destination. ]]>

Comment by John Spivey

Sun, 21 May 2006 15:56:35 EDT

Richard--I think civilization has worked to gradually erode our natural connection to life, but indeed, the Industrial Revolution did a body slam. People were virtually torn away from their agrarian lives and locked into dark factories. That certainly does a number on the human spirit. The First World War was the war that never needed to be, and from it sprang the rest of the carnage of the century. You asked in your last article, "What is normal?" I'm afraid that normal involves a lot of abuse and a lot of self-medication. Our history will overwhelm us if we don't stop and really understand it. We keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. Pretty insane. Ruvy--Thank you. Mark--I hope I live up to your praise. Jules--I have wondered how Thoreau or Emerson would fare today. With regard to your review on The Waking Life, my book winds its way through various levels of dream imagery. I think I will soon post an article on the nature of the symbolic life as opposed to the strictly linear. Life is what's at hand. My window where I write looks out to the driveway and frontyard. Two towhees having been doing their silly little, fluffing, fanning mating dance. What if all the writers on BC forgot all their normal writerly opinions and watched a bird for awhile and let the mind stop, then sat to describe its plumage, its song, its mating dance. Post that together. Let the real start from this point. How many writers stop to simply express gratitude or awe? As writers we still mostly hold to the old complaint, the old pain. Why write anyway? ]]>

Comment by mschannon

Sun, 21 May 2006 15:00:08 EDT

Jules, You're right...it's a combination of web, book readings, book clubs, articles, reviews, signings, interviews...a full marketing plan across all media. In Decaf Veritas ]]>

Comment by Jules

Sun, 21 May 2006 13:37:10 EDT

Pardon me...a minor edit: Sometimes books need to start small to get seen, known, and circulated. I realize you've already published. ]]>

Comment by Jules

Sun, 21 May 2006 13:34:32 EDT

I haven't been this spurred to thought by a (you'll forgive me) stranger's writing since I last read Thoreau...if anyone can call Thoreau a stranger. Alas, I'm a struggling writer myself, but this caught my eye since I'm writing a short film about a book editor weary of reading bad books. Just a little advice: don't lean on the web. Feel free to mix your medias, even if it means making friends with weirdos. Sometimes books need to start small to get published. As a short play or story. It's yours...try something different. ]]>

Comment by mschannon

Sun, 21 May 2006 12:01:26 EDT

Disgusted, why don't you do us all a favor and find some other place to spew your pathetic little rants. Or at least learn to be clever or funny--the they'd be tolerable. Richard & Ruvy, I agree completely that we haven't learned how to adjust to the Industrial Revolution and WW1. If you read histories of Europe, particularly England, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the culture changes were as traumatic as one could imagine. I would suggest that we are also still slaves to the Enlightment theories that posit that human beings are rational animals, that emotion is antithetical to rational thought, and that we are capable of conscious decision making. Those beliefs have led to fixed mind set that, even in the face of experience to the contrary, results in bad decisions, misperceptions, anxiety, and worse. Modern science is shattering all those Enlightenment myths just as Einstein shattered the logical but flawed Newtonian model. It's going to take generations before we understand how human beings truly take in and process information, make decisions and form emotions and behavior--and throw off that old model. ]]>

Comment by Ruvy from Jerusalem

Sun, 21 May 2006 08:34:06 EDT

John, I too enjoyed reading your piece. There are several paths to inner peace, and they are most varied in their nature. Good jop! But what caught my attention was this: "I put forward a theory a while ago, that we as a society are still feeling the after shocks of the Industrial Revolution and World War one. Until all of us who are the abused children of abused children of the victims of those two events in history can break the cycle of violence there will be no peace." This is something I will have to read and examine. My father was caught between the guns of the Russians and the Germans in the Great War and had to learn at a very young age (six) how to survive. ]]>

Comment by Richard Marcus

Sun, 21 May 2006 07:53:35 EDT

John Nice reply to disgusted, who needs to get his head out of his rectum so that his mouth will be less filled with his own excrement.(pardon me if that was sexist for not believing a woman can be as foul as a man, I do apologise disgusted if you are a woman) I know exactly how you feel John in regards to your father; could I have prevented the abuse he heaped upon me if I had known the secret to "fixing his entranceway"? Only if I could have prevented World War One, which means the rise of European nationalism and the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. My father's father served with the British troops on The Somme as a medic, he lost a lung to gas, and suffered from untreated Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome for the rest of his life. He never held a job from 1929 until the day he died sometime in the late seventies. My father was beaten and emotionally repressed and crushed by his parents, especially his father, my father in turn took it out on me. With everybody else "out to get him" he needed a victim to have power over. I put forward a theorm a while ago, that we as a society are still feeling the after shocks of the Industrial Revolution and World War one. Until all of us who are the abused children of abused children of the victims of those two events in history can break the cycle of violence there will be no peace. Instead of looking behind with regret at not being able to fix the problems that came for those before, becasue they are irreperable no matter how much we wish otherwise, we need to focus on the future and ensure that those coming after us have a better chance to succed then we did. There is enough trauma in the world now without anyone receiving it from those that are supposed to be protecting them. I add my voice to Mark's and Chantel's encouraging people to purchase John's book. It will help make the process above easier Richard ]]>

Comment by John Spivey

Sat, 20 May 2006 16:40:29 EDT

disgusted- Whoring connotes a compromise of one's integrity and being in the pursuit of money or experience. If you believe I'm a whore I can't change that perception. As in the old Joni Mitchell song, I'm standing on the corner playing my clarinet for free, a tin cup at my feet. Are bitch and wank fests about "information and experience?" js ]]>

Comment by Disgusted

Sat, 20 May 2006 16:00:57 EDT

Ugh. I remember when BC was about information and experience, and not about whoring one's own works. ]]>

Comment by mschannon

Sat, 20 May 2006 13:14:12 EDT

Ah, John, me lad, we've got to figure out how to promote your book. You write with a simple elegance that I envy and admire. You offer lessons with a subtly and modesty that make them all the more powerful. I'm back posting on Readerville. In fact, I'm heading over there now to promote your book & see if I can get some of those folks to buy it. Keep on writing...for your fans, regardless of how small, you are an inspiration. ]]>

Comment by John Spivey

Sat, 20 May 2006 11:15:43 EDT

Gordon and Chantal, Thanks very much. Peace is a dynamic thing, more present at some times, less at others. The last main "peace" of the puzzle for me is to simply make a living from my creations and to have those creations serve a larger purpose. js ]]>

Comment by chantal stone

Sat, 20 May 2006 10:03:18 EDT

Read his book, Gordon, and you will truly be awe-inspired. Great piece, as usual, John. You're lucky to have found the peace that eluded your father. I think many of us are left trying to put the pieces together, after a lost-soul of a parent has passed on. I wish I could have understood my father better. Reading your book has certainly shed some light for me, to understanding myself better. ]]>

Comment by Gordon Hauptfleisch

Sat, 20 May 2006 05:11:48 EDT

Great piece, wonderful writing--might even go so far as to say you've exposed me vicariously to a little awe. ]]>