X
God help me, I'm an American.
X
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Contradiction is the lever of transcendence.
____
Everything which is inspired, heroic or saintly is derived from contemplation.
____
One--the smallest of numbers... That is the infinite. A number which increases thinks that it is getting nearer to infinity. It is getting further away from it. You have to stoop to rise.
XXXXX--Simone Weil
...on readings, writings, rants, and random reflections
Because we're the good guys. And we carry the fire.
Rodak:
If you can read this you're too close to me.
- Rodak
- I am an introverted blue collar pilgrim, surviving near the center of the continent, on the fringes of a shopworn civilization. I abide in rooms full of partially-read tomes, each bookmarked with the fragment of a shattered illusion.
Things to consider:
Contradiction is the lever of transcendence.
____
Everything which is inspired, heroic or saintly is derived from contemplation.
____
One--the smallest of numbers... That is the infinite. A number which increases thinks that it is getting nearer to infinity. It is getting further away from it. You have to stoop to rise.
XXXXX--Simone Weil
Contact Rodak
Email Rodak
Rodak's Writings
- Alone - a story
- Down By The River - a poem
- Angels - a poem
- And All That Jazz - a poem
- The Same River, Always - a flash fiction
- Z_________ - a flash fiction
- How Are Things in Blagoveshensk? - a story
- Dilemma - a story
- Song for Rimbaud - a poem
- Adam - a poem
- Every Time - a poem
- The American Dream - a song lyric
- The Kid - a story
- Before the Fall - a poem
- The Suicide's Satori - a poem
- Song for Leah - a poem
- Bacchanal - a poem
- Turner's Rhapsody - a poem
- Utopia - a poem
- Luckyland - a poem
- Veterans Day - a poem
- Cliches de la Boue - a prose poem
- Wasted - a story
- eternal recurrence - a poem
- Sonnet: Cross Roads
- Conjoined Sonnets
- Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Oligarch - a poem
- Gospel Music - a poem
- Free Lunch - a play
- Gerry Goes to Yonkers - a story
- A Deconstruction - a poem
- Nineteen Fifty-nine - a story
- Solitude - a story
- Local 666 - a poem
Blog Archive
-
▼
2009
(217)
-
▼
October
(16)
- Quotes Pour l'Avenir
- Rants: It's Only a Game?
- Readings: When Baby Fae Went Down to Graceland
- Quote(s) du Jour: Some Assembly Required
- Quote du Jour: Like Simone
- R.I.P. - Joseph Wiseman
- Readings: ...but not yet.
- Reflections: Time Outed
- Readings: Golden Silence
- Reflections: Nausea
- Quote du Jour: At the Brink
- Readings: The Inside-Out
- from Rodak's Writings
- Quote du Jour: Empty Nest Blues
- Rants: Rest in Pieces, Uncle Sam
- Readings: Pair o' Phrases
-
▼
October
(16)
Labels
- 'Fifties
- 'Sixties
- 'Zines
- "Anna"
- "Gloria"
- "Nebraska"
- 1 John 2
- 1949
- 1961
- 2 Corinthians
- 2016 Democratic Primaries
- 36 Arguments
- 9/11
- A Course in Miracles
- A-Rod
- Adam and Eve
- Adios
- Aesthetics
- Affliction
- Afghanistan
- Aging
- Agrarianism
- Al Kaline
- Al Levine
- Alain Robbe-Grillet
- Alan Watts
- Aleksandar Hemon
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Alien Pieta
- Alienation
- Aliki Barnstone
- Allegory of the Cave
- Allen Ginsberg
- Allen Tate
- American Exceptionalism
- American Fascists
- American Music
- Americana
- Amy Hempel
- Amy Winehouse
- Anais Nin
- Analytic Philosophy
- Angels
- Anima
- Anima Christi
- Ann Arbor
- Anna Swir
- Anne Rice
- Anne Sexton
- Anne Waldman
- Annie Leibovitz
- Anti-Christ
- Anti-Semitism
- Appetite
- Archives
- Areopagitica
- ARPAnet
- Art
- Arthur Rimbaud
- Asceticism
- Atheism
- Athens
- Autumn Leavings
- Ava Gardner
- Ayn Rand
- Baby Fae
- Babylon
- Bad Puns
- Banality
- Banned
- Barack Obama
- Baseball
- Baseball Quiz
- Baseball. Stan Musial
- Bashō
- Beat
- Beatles
- Beauty
- Beckett
- Bees
- Belief
- Berlin Alexanderplatz
- Bernie Mac
- Bernie Sanders
- Berniebros
- Bhagavad Gita
- Bhakti
- Bible
- Big Sur
- Bigotry
- Bigots
- Bill and Hill
- Bill Evans
- Bill Knott
- Bill Porter
- Billy Collins
- birdsong
- Birth Control
- Birthday 2017
- Birthday Greetings
- Birthers
- Bishop Pike
- Blade Runner
- Blaise Cendrars
- Blaxploitation
- Bleating Merinos
- Blindness
- Bloggers
- Blogging
- Blossom Dearie
- Blue Monk
- Blues
- Bo Diddley
- Bob Dylan
- Bob Hicok
- Bodhisattva
- Boethius
- Book of Job
- Book of Mark
- Books
- Boomers
- Boston Marathon bombing
- Bourgeoisie
- Boxing Backwards
- Boyhood
- Brahms
- Bridge to Nothingness
- Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
- Brooklyn
- Bubbas
- Buddha's Little Finger
- Buddhism
- C.S. Lewis
- Called Out of Darkness
- Calvinism
- Campaign promises
- Camus
- Canopus in Argos
- Canterbury Tales
- Capital Punishment
- Capitalism
- Captain Beefheart
- Carl Jung
- Carol Richard
- Caryll Houselander
- Catholic Abuse Scandal
- Catholicism
- Cathy Wilkerson
- Cellphane
- Cervantes
- Charity
- Charles Bukowski
- Charles Simic
- Charles Willeford
- Charlie Brown
- Chaucer
- Cheap Grace
- Cheap puns
- Cheryl Holdridge
- Chet Baker
- Chicks
- Choices
- Christ
- Christian Reconstructionism
- Christianity
- Christianity. Quote du Jour
- Christmas
- Christopher Hitchens
- Chuck Berry
- Church
- Cion
- Clarice Lispector
- Class War
- Cliches de la Boue
- Clive Barnes
- Closure Fairy
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Cold Mountain
- Cold War
- Columbus Day
- Come
- Coming Up For Air
- Comix
- Communism
- Confederacy
- Confucius
- Conservatism
- Consolation of Philosophy
- Conspiracy Theory
- Contemplative Prayer
- Contentment
- contradictories
- Corners
- Corporate Greed
- Corporate media
- Corporatocracy
- Counter Culture
- Country Joe and the Fish
- Cracked
- Creativity
- Crusade
- Culture
- Czeslaw Milosz
- Dakota Staton
- Dance
- Dark Night of the Soul
- David Foster Wallace
- Day Out of Days
- Dead Lagoon
- Deadeye Dick
- Dear Abby
- Death
- Debates
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz
- Decadence
- Delaney Bramlett
- Delmore Schwartz
- Dem Bones
- Demiurge
- Democracy
- Denis Johnson
- Denise Levertov
- Dennis Miller
- Depression
- Descartes
- Desert Fathers
- Despair
- Deuteronomy
- dharma
- Dialectic
- Diamonds and Rust
- Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Diary of a Bad Year
- Dick Bousley
- Dick Cavett
- Diggers
- Dirty Tricks
- Discipleship
- Disinformation
- Disputations
- Divine Providence
- Divorce
- DNC
- Dominionism
- Don Quixote
- Donald Hall
- Donald Trump
- Doodles
- Doris Lessing
- Dorothy Sayers
- Draft Resister
- Drawings
- Dreams
- Drop-out
- Drown
- Drug toll
- dualism
- Dung
- Dust
- Dylan Thomas
- Dynamite
- Dystopia
- e.e. cummings
- E.L. Doctorow
- Earthquake
- Easter Sunday
- Easy Grace
- Ecumenism
- Eden
- Election 2016
- Elections
- Elegy Owed
- Elephant Rocks
- Elite
- Elitism
- Elizabeth A. Dakin
- Elizabeth Hardwick
- Emil Cioran
- Emily Dickinson
- End of Time
- Epistles of Paul
- Equilibrium
- Eric Clapton
- Eric Puchner
- Erich Fromm
- Erik Erikson
- Erik Satie
- Etheree
- Eugene Zamiatin
- Evelyn Waugh
- Evil
- Excelsior
- Executive Rants
- Exegesis
- Exiles
- Existence
- Existentialism
- Ezekiel 37
- Ezra Pound
- F.W. Schelling
- Facts
- Fall of Man
- Fanon
- Fareed Zakaria
- fascism
- Fassbinder
- Fastasy
- Fate
- Fear
- Fear and Loathing
- Feather
- Featherweight
- Fiat lux
- Fiction
- Fine Arts
- Fiona Clements
- Flannery O'Connor
- Flash Fiction
- Fly in the Ointment
- folk music
- Force
- Foreign Policy
- Foreign Policy Smarts
- Frank Kermode
- Frank Morgan
- Frantz Fanon
- Franz Kafka
- Freddie Hubbard
- Freedom
- Friendship
- Frodo
- Fun With Problems
- G.K. Chesterton
- Gabriel Marcel
- Gary Snyder
- Gaza
- Gematria
- Genesis
- Genetics
- George Gurdjieff
- George Orwell
- George Saunders
- George Shearing
- George W. Bush
- Georges Bernanos
- Gerrard Winstanley
- Gilead
- Gillian Welch
- Gimme Shelter
- Gitmo
- Glenn Gould
- Global Warming
- gnostic
- Gnosticism
- Go Blue
- God
- God and Man at Yale
- God Bless You
- Good
- Good and Evil
- Good News
- Good People
- Goodness
- GOP Convention
- Gorecki
- Gospel of Matthew
- Gossip
- Grace
- Graceland
- Graham Greene
- Grandiosity
- Graphic Art
- Gravity and Grace
- Greek Philosophy
- Green Mars
- Gun Nuts
- Guns
- Haiku
- Haiti
- Hall of Fame
- Han Shan
- Hannah Arendt
- Hans Jonas
- Hans Urs Von Balthasar
- Happiness
- Hard Times
- Harold Bloom
- Harper Lee
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
- Hat Tip to the Pope
- Hate It Here
- Hayyim N. Bialik
- He said She said
- Health Care
- Heavies
- Heidegger
- Heinrich Heine
- Heinrich Kley
- Helen Thomas
- Helene
- Hell
- Helpless
- Henrietta Lack
- Henry Green
- Henry Karlson
- Henry Miller
- heresy
- Heretics
- Hermeneutics
- Heroes
- Hildegard Knef
- Hillary
- Hillary Clinton
- Hipster
- History
- Hole
- Holy Spirit
- Holy Trinity
- Home
- Hope
- Horror
- Hot Chix
- Howling
- Huckabee
- Human Population
- Humor
- Humor?
- Identity Politics
- Ideology
- Iggy Pop
- Imperialism
- In Defense of Reason
- Inauguration
- Incarnation
- Incompentency
- Infinite Jest
- Inherent Vice
- Inspiration
- Integrity
- Intellectual Integrity
- Interfaith Dialogue
- Interpretation
- Introversion
- Invisible Cities
- Iraq
- Iris Murdoch
- Irony
- Islam
- Israel
- Issues
- Italo Calvino
- J.E.L. Eldridge
- J.M. Coetzee
- J.M.G. le Clézio
- Jack Gilbert
- Jack Kerouac
- James M. Robinson
- James Tate
- Jane Hirshfield
- Jane Kenyon
- Jane Mayer
- Jazz
- Jeremiah Wright
- Jesus Christ
- Jews
- JFK
- Jihad
- Jim Bunning
- Jim Carroll
- Jim Harrison
- Jim Joyce
- Joan Baez
- John 12:25
- John C. Lilly
- John Calvin
- John Derbyshire
- John Edgar Wideman
- John Fowles
- John Gardner
- John Lennon
- John McCain
- John Milton
- John Updike
- Johnny Carson
- Jonathan Edwards
- Jonathan Franzen
- Joni Mitchell
- Jorie Graham
- Journal
- Journeys in Alterity
- Joy
- Joyce Carol Oates
- Jr.
- Judaism
- Judith Kornblatt
- Judith Shulevitz
- Julia Haslett
- Junot Díaz
- Kabala
- Kabbalah
- Karen Joy Fowler
- Kay Ryan
- Keith Kevinson
- Ken Boyer
- Kenosis
- Kermode
- Kim Stanley Robinson
- Kingdom of Heaven
- Knowledge
- Kochs Brothers
- Kornblatt
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Kyle Cupp
- Land of the Free
- Language
- Lao Tzu
- Last Days
- Latka
- Laura
- Law Enforcement
- Leap Day
- Lee Harvey Oswald
- Leisure Suits
- Leonard Cohen
- Let It Bleed
- Levellers
- Lewis Hyde
- Liam Clancy
- Liberal Media Bias
- Liberalism
- Life
- Linda Gregg
- Linden Street
- Lionel Trilling
- Lisa Hannigan
- Logos
- Loneliness
- Lotion
- Lou Reed
- Love
- Luck
- Luckyland
- Lutheranism
- Lydia Lunch
- MacGuffin
- Madonna
- Maggie Estep
- Mainstream Media
- Mammon
- Man
- Marcel Proust
- Maria Arana
- Marianne Moore
- Marilyn Ferguson
- Marilynne Robinson
- Mark 8
- Mark Shea
- Mark Strand
- Marlon Brando
- Marranos
- Marriage
- Martha Graham
- Martin Amis
- Martin Ling
- Martin Luther
- Mary Oliver
- Mary Robison
- Materialism
- Maureen Dowd
- Maynard G. Krebs
- McCain
- meaning of
- Media
- Mediator
- Medical Ethics
- Mediocrity
- Memorial Day
- Memories
- Memory
- Memos
- Merce Cunningham
- Merle Haggard
- Messages
- Meta-narrative
- Michael Bloomberg
- Michael Chitwood
- Michael Dibdin
- Michael Jackson
- Michael Moore
- Middle East
- Middle-class
- Miguel de Unamuno
- Milarepa
- Millennials
- Mind-Body Problem
- Mirabai
- Miracles
- Misogyny
- Misread City
- Mockingbird
- Model Home
- Moles
- Monasticism
- Money
- Monolithos
- Morality
- Moravagine
- Mortality
- Mother
- Mr. Rosewater
- Muhammad Ali
- Muriel Spark
- Music
- Music Through the Floor
- Musings
- Myers-Briggs
- Mystery
- Mysticism
- Myth of the Cave
- Naomi Klein
- Narrow Road to the Interior
- Natalie Merchant
- National Book Award
- Native Americans
- Natural Law
- Nature
- Nausea
- Neal Cassady
- Necessity
- Negative emotion
- Neil Young
- Neo-liberals
- Neoconservatism
- Never Leave Me
- New Riders of the Purple Sage
- New Testament
- New World Order
- New Year
- News
- Newt
- Nietzsche
- Nihil Piped
- Nihilism
- Nikos Kazantzakis
- Nobel Prize for Literature
- Nonsense
- Norman Mailer
- North Korea
- Nostalgia
- Not Asking Much
- Nowhere Man
- NRA
- Numerology
- Oakley Hall
- Obama
- Obituaries
- Odetta
- Ohio
- Oil
- Old Age
- Oligarchy
- Oliver Nelson
- On the Road
- Open Communion
- Orthodoxy
- Oscar Peterson
- Otto Warmbler
- Ouch
- Out of Egypt
- Ownership
- P. D.Ouspensky
- Pain
- Palestine
- Pandemic
- Panopticon
- Paradise Lost
- Paradox
- Paranoia
- Paris Review
- Partisanship
- Party Going
- Pat Barker
- Patrick J. Buchanan
- Patriotism
- Pattern Recognition
- Patti Smith
- Paul Auster
- Paul Newman
- Paul Simon
- Paul West
- Paula Fredriksen
- Peace Train
- Peanuts
- Pearl Lang
- Pentimento
- Perpetual War
- Perspective on Politics
- Phaedrus
- Phil Schaap
- Philip K. Dick
- Philokalia
- Philosophy
- Philosopy
- Photography
- Plato
- Plato's Republic
- Platonism
- Player Piano
- Plotinus
- Poetry
- Poetry Judee Sill
- Pogo
- Political Correctness
- Politics
- Pongidae
- pop music
- Populism
- Positivism
- Postmodern Papist
- Postmodernism
- Pour l'Avenir
- Power
- President Obama
- Presidential Election 2016
- Press Coverage
- Pricksongs and Descants
- Pride
- Prisons
- Progressives
- Propaganda
- Propapanda
- Proportion
- Protestantism
- Proud Daddy
- Psychology
- PsyOps
- Pugs
- Puritans
- Purity
- Quiz du Jour
- Quote du Jour
- Quote du Jour. Loneliness
- Quote du Jour. Roberto Bolano
- Quotes
- R.H. Blyth
- R.I.P David Bowie
- R.I.P George Shearing
- R.I.P Herman Leonard
- R.I.P Irwin Silber
- R.I.P Muhammad Ali
- R.I.P Tuli Kupferberg
- R.I.P. Don Van Vliet
- R.I.P. Edward M. Kennedy
- R.I.P. Howard Zinn
- R.I.P. J. D. Salinger
- R.I.P. James Moody
- R.I.P. Janine Pommy Vega
- R.I.P. Joseph Wiseman
- R.I.P. Mary Travers
- R.I.P. Ollie Matson
- R.I.P. Pete Seeger
- R.I.P. Ron Kramer
- R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt
- R.S. Thomas
- R'n'R
- Rabbis
- Race
- Race Card
- racism
- Radicchio
- Ram Dass
- Rants
- Rat Race
- Rationalization
- Reading
- Readings
- Reality
- Rebecca Goldstein
- Recession
- Reconciliation
- Red Mandala
- Red Pine
- Red v. Blue
- Redesign
- Reflections
- Reformation
- Refugees
- Reincarnation
- Reinhold Niebuhr
- Relationships
- Relgion
- Religion
- Remembrances
- Renderings
- Rendition
- Renee E. D'Aoust
- Rent
- Reprehensible Rhetoric
- Reprobation
- Republicans
- Resistance
- Ressentiment
- Retirement
- Retractions
- Revenants
- Reviews
- Richard Dawkins
- Richard Ford
- Richard Powers
- Richmond Lattimore
- Riffs
- Rimbaud
- Robert Bly
- Robert Coover
- Robert Ford Dakin
- Robert Giroux
- Robert Hass
- Robert Lax
- Robert Lowell
- Robert Mapplethorpe
- Robert Musil
- Robert Stone
- Roberto Calasso
- Robertson Davies
- Robin D. G. Kelley
- Rodak's Writings
- Roger Maris
- Rolling Stone
- Rolling Stones
- Romano Guardini
- Ron Ashton
- Ron Hansen
- Ronald Reagan
- Rudolf Steiner
- Ruminations
- Rush Limbaugh
- Rushdoony
- Russell Kirk
- Ruth Stone
- S. G. Shoham
- Sabbath
- Sainthood
- Saints
- Sam Rocha
- Sam Shepard
- Samsara
- Samuel Beckett
- Sandra Agricola
- Sandy Green
- Sarah Palin
- Satan
- Satchel Paige
- Satire
- Say Uncle
- Scaremongerers
- Scarlett Johansson
- Science
- SCOTUS
- Second Amendment
- Sectarianism
- Self Identity
- Self-Remembering
- Self-righteousness
- Selfhood
- Selfie
- Senility
- Sephardic Jews
- Serpent
- Sexuality
- Sharing
- Shaun Tan
- Sheeple
- Shekhinah
- Shirley Sherrod
- Shrillness
- Simon Magus
- Simone Weil
- Sinclair Lewis
- Single-payer
- Sister Noon
- Sketchbook
- Sky Pilot
- Slaughterhouse-Five
- Snitches
- Social Contract
- Social media
- Socialism
- Solipsism
- Solitude
- Solovyov
- Some of the Dharma
- Son of God
- Sonnenizio
- Sophia
- Sophie Scholl
- Sophistry
- Soren Kierkegaard
- Sorrow
- Soulstorm
- Southern Heritage
- Spe Salvi
- Spinoza
- Spinozo
- Spirit Guide
- Spirituality
- Spring Showers
- St. Paul
- Stand By Me
- Stanley Elkin
- Stephen Spender
- Stereotypes
- Steve Allen
- Steve Earle
- Steven Pinker
- Stevie Smith
- Stooges
- Story
- Straw for the Fire
- Straws for the Fire
- Subconscious
- Subterranean Homesick Blues
- Sufficiency
- Sufism
- Suicide
- Supreme Court
- Swann's Way
- Sweet Thing
- Symbolism
- Symposium
- Synchronicity
- T.S. Eliot
- Talents
- Taoism
- Taoteching
- Teachers
- Terry Knight
- Text
- Texts
- Thanksgiving
- the Absurd
- The Aquarian Conspiracy
- The Boy in the Bubble
- The Catholic Libertarian
- The Conservative Mind
- The Cross
- The Dark Side
- The Donald
- The Dread
- The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick
- The Fall of America
- The Future
- The Ghost Road
- The Great Beast
- The Impostor
- The Issa Valley
- The Jane Austen Book Club
- The Kid
- The Man Who Was Thursday
- The Man Without Qualities
- The One
- The Passion According to D.H.
- The Problem of Evil
- The Reader
- The Reed of God
- The Reporter
- The Rich
- The Road to Cana
- The Saviors of God
- The Shoe Fits
- The Space Triology
- The Sportswriter
- The Stratfords
- The Time of the Assassins
- The Voyeur
- The Waste Land
- the West
- The Wizard of Oz
- Theater
- Thelonious Monk
- Them
- Theodore Roethke
- Theology
- Theology of the Cross
- Thief
- Thomas Merton
- Thomas Pynchon
- Thomism
- three gunas
- Tiger Woods
- Tim Russert
- Timaeus
- Time
- Tom Robbins
- Tom Rush
- Tomas Tranströmer
- Torture
- Total bullshit
- Totalitarianism
- Totem Animal
- transcendence
- Travel
- Tree of Smoke
- Trickster
- Tripping
- Tristessa
- Trolls
- Trump
- Truth
- Truthers
- TV Guide
- Tyranny
- Umberto Eco
- Unemployment
- Universal Salvation
- Urn
- Utopia
- Valis
- Van Morrison
- Victor Pelevin
- Vietnam
- Virgin Mary
- Vladimir Solovyov
- Vox Nova
- W.B. Yeats
- Walter Tevis
- Wandering Star
- Wandering Star
- War
- War Crimes
- War on Terror
- Warren Commision
- Warren Spahn
- Water Town
- Watt
- Waylon Jennings
- WE
- Welfare
- Wendell Berry
- What's Wrong With the World
- White Mercedes
- White Nationalism
- White Rose
- Who Dat?
- Wilco
- Will
- Will to Power
- William Blake
- William Empson
- William H. Gass
- William Stafford
- Wimbledon
- Wisdom
- Witter Brynner
- Wittgenstein
- Wm F. Buckley
- Wolf Tickets
- Wonder
- Woody Allen
- Writing
- WTF?
- WWWtW-Watch
- Y.E. Yang
- Yoga-Maya
- Yogeshvara
- You Are There
- Youth
- Yu Xuanji
- Yuriko Kimura
- Yvor Winters
- Zakes Mda
- Zeitgeist
- Zen
- Zionism
- Zippy Catholic
- Zurau Aphorisms