I Had To Realize That Some Of This Was Tongue-In-Cheek

That's what he told the PBS viewers out there as he led the cameras on a tour of the more outrageous commissions on display in his wood-working studio. Lately, he's been depicting New Mexican interpretations of saints driving contemporary cars.

After-hours on public television is a world unto itself, beckoning the exhausted, the drunk, the bored, to settle in and engage the quirky subjects and muted colors and soft-spoken voices.

Glass ornaments line a simple wooden table. Their creator explains that her work is largely feminist, and that she draws her inspiration from the inevitability of death. One woman goes on a cross-country journey to interview her late mother's favorite cartoonists from the New Yorker, while a British food traveler forces a smile as he eats a thick brown paste containing at least one raw egg, so as not to offend his Saudi Arabian host.

It's hard to say when that transition occurs. When what begins as camp, as awkward funny, slowly becomes endearing, becomes unendingly fascinating, becomes the comforting glow of an old friend in the dark—always open-minded though somehow never full-of-it, if ever a little tongue-in-cheek.

Help Me, If You Can

"When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name, and had been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you couldn't be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one—Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers." - A. A. Milne

I would like to pay the Hundred Acre Wood a visit sometime soon. Or rather, it's about that time of year when the Hundred Acre Wood decides that it wants me to pay it a visit. I think you can only find your way there when the air has that certain sweet sort of thickness to it, and the sun shines in that way it does on days when logic is replaced by a truer sort of truth. The kind of day when the simpler something is, the bigger an adventure it turns out to be.

Starting...Now!

I have, for the last two years, been unsuccessfully trying to start a blog. In its various incarnations, this blog has been:

- a hapless attempt at creative writing
- a log of memorable moments
- a portfolio of op-ed clips

Each has proved, in its own way, to be quite lame. But as today is Easter, I have, in the spirit of rebirth, decided to once again clear out all old posts and begin anew. Embarking without purpose or direction, always there exists the possibility that I may stumble upon both. So it is within the blogosphere, and so it is without.