Friday, July 17, 2009

off the top

The frustration with these "tough economic times" is that we live in such prosper, such grandeur, that we are filled to the gullet with knickknacks and gizmos. We, I should say I, sit, bloated and so busy with stuff that I cannot focus or prioritize. I skim. I read multiple books at a time. There is one on my bedside table (Steve Turner's Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts), one on the dining table (Tony Campolo's Speaking My Mind), one on the coffeetable (Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door), and a host of others I don't dare to crack open until...later. I pick them up at different parts of my daily routine. Snippets of this and that tap at my mind, but I rarely indulge. There is too much other stuff to do. I itch with it. I itch to create. The part that really bothers me is that it isn't that I do not have ideas. I have plenty of ideas. They are my children. They are my kindred spirits. I create them and play with them as I close my eyes to sleep. Some vaporize in the morning, others have become shaggy live-ins so comfortable with their abode they walk around disheveled and in their pajamas. Once in a while they are booted from the nest and come into fruition. But then another hurdle presents itself: actual completion. Some ideas roost in my head, and I am sure they cringe as they imagine the day they will be left half-complete, on a shelf, like a broken toy. My wife has been great and practically dangles me by my feet jingling my ideas, like change, from my pockets. I subconsciously fight it however, disappointment looms and reminds me of my shortcomings, lack of practice (ooh the paradox!), time, and tools. It's dumb and it is a disease. "Real life" needs my attention now. That whole career-thing, sodding, building a deck, installing the knife magnet in the kitchen, etc etc. Yet, I'll skim over those too...

Rinse and Repeat.

Tid Bits: an artist (a Canadian artist, I might add), Michel Gagne, whom has plagued every Flight volume has created this. What a sweet symphony of his distinct style and old-school gaming.

And if this isn't a hotbed of creative interpretation and mystery. I don't know what is.

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