27
January
2013

A Spell to Attract Attention

I have no idea if this still works, or why anyone would want to make use of it, but here it is.  If you are really, truly lonely or bored, and just want someone, anyone to talk to you – and aren’t particular – this used to be foolproof.  I know from personal experience that […]

20
January
2013

Intimations of Immortality (via my dog)

I recently had what William Wordsworth called a “spot of time.”  A moment when perception happens through some imaginative faculty you didn’t know you had. Something you have no name for turns and cracks and you suddenly, briefly “know” reality as if you’ve just made an exciting new friend. I know the phrase is from […]

13
January
2013

Why do writers stop writing?

Joan Acocella took up this question in The New Yorker several years ago. She doesn’t answer it.  Nobody can.  There are as many answers as blocked writers.  Acocella provides a history of explanations for why writers sometimes, often, abandon writing for years. Or forever.  Some of those explanations are: 1. the early Romantic notion, promulgated by […]