robertsgriffin.com

THOUGHTS

In this section are thoughts on whatever comes to mind, no limit on topics, written for this web site.  When I get the impulse, I’ll write thoughts and add them to what’s already here (I don’t plan on ever deleting any thoughts).  For each thought, there will be a title, length, the month and year I wrote it, a blurb on what it’s about, and a PDF of the  thought. 

To get a sense of who I am and how I see things and what's going on with me, you could read these thoughts in order: start with "On Foucault."  The thoughts are self-contained, however, and you can read them in any order.

  • On Foucault.  19 pp.  June, 2007.

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a philosopher who taught at the College de France and other universities, including in the United States. He authored critical studies of social institutions, including psychiatry, medicine, and the prison system.  He also wrote about the history of sexuality and the relationship between power, knowledge, and human discourse. I first read a biography of Foucault by James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault, in, I believe, 1995, and have revisited it regularly since, once or twice year, reading a chapter or two or three and browsing sections here and there before setting it back on my library shelf.  This last time I pulled the book off the shelf—in June of 2007--I noted the phrases and sentences, sometimes a paragraph, I had underlined, I suppose, ten or twelve years ago.  For this thought, I reproduce the underlines and offer my comments.  This thought provides a sense of the impact this book has had on me, including my writing, this past decade, and gets across something of what I am like in 2007.  Also, I hope this thought will prompt readers to reflect on their own lives, as well as look into Foucault and the other philosophers mentioned in these pages.  Read the full thought here.

  • On Mishima.  8 pp.  July, 2007.

Yukio Mishima (1925-1970) was a Japanese author and playwright, who gained international recognition and acclaim, including being on a short list for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  He is most remembered, however, for his ritual suicide at 45 by seppuku (disemboweling oneself with a knife and then being beheaded by a colleague).  I’ve read a good bit of Mishima’s fiction, but I have been most drawn to his outlook as an artist and as a man and to his personal story.  Every couple of years for the last fifteen, I’ve checked out from the library two biographies on him and his philosophical essay and memoir Sun & Steel.  In this thought I comment on excerpts from Sun & Steel.  I hope I explain Mishima some here and encourage readers to look into his writings and personal example, but most of all I use Mishima’s writings to explain myself.  Read the full thought here.

  • On the New McCarthyism.  18 pp.  July, 2007.

The topic here is the current attacks on racially conscious and active white people by those who would marginalize, silence, and punish them for their beliefs, expressions, and actions.  I use a memoir on the McCarthy era, as it was called, in the 1940s and ‘50s, written by Walter Bernstein, Inside Out: A Memoir of the Black List, and an encounter I had in late 2006 with the Southern Poverty Law Center to frame an analysis of this phenomenon, drawing parallels between what went on in the McCarthy years, and at other points in history, and what’s going on now.  I offer some suggestions on how racially committed white people can deal with attacks against them.  Read the full thought here.

• On A Very Big Regret.  22pp.  July, 2007.

I’d like this thought to speak for itself.  The title says as much as you need to know about it before you read it.  Read the full thought here.

• On Personal Health.  16 pp.  August, 2007.

I’ve never gone after good health for all I was worth at any time in my life, and that has held me back in significant ways.  I’m making that commitment in this thought, and I’ll describe how I plan to carry out this commitment over the next few months.  I hope this thought gives guidance and inspiration both to me and to the reader of these words.   Read the full thought here.


On Three Films That Touched Me 3 pp.  August, 2007.

This past year, I saw three old Japanese films by the same director, Yasujiro Ozu, that touched me more than any films in my memory.  All three feature the actress Setsuko Hara.  This is my report on those three films.  Read the full thought here.

•On Living the Martial Way.  8 pp. August, 2007.

In the same way I did with the Foucault and Mishima thoughts, I record underlines I made in a book years ago and comment on them, a book I have gone back to a number of times since that first reading.  The book is Living the Martial Way by Forrest Morgan.   My focus is on the application of what Morgan calls the warrior mind-set to daily life.  Read the full thought here.

          •On Big Sur.  2 pp. September, 2007.
                  
          Excerpts from the book Big Sur by Jack Kerouac; although in some cases I may not have copied them down exactly
          as  they were in the book.  Read the full thought here.

          •On Chuck Davey  7 pp.  October, 2007.

           Chuck Davey was a boxer prominent in the 1950s.  I went back to a few pages I had written about him back in 2002
           and  filed away.  This thought is about what came up for me as I revisited this writing.  Read the full thought here. 

         •On Victoria’s Dogs  6pp. November, 2007

          Victoria Stilwell is an animal trainer who straightens out unruly dogs on the Animal Planet show, "It's Me or the Dog."
           I think I'm learning something from Victoria about straightening out unruly people.  Read the full thought here.

       •On John Cheever   3 pp. November, 2007

          Entries from the journals of novelist John Cheever written in the last months of his life.  Read the full thought here.

       •On Man in the Holocene  2pp.  November, 2007 

           Excerpts from the novel by Max Frisch, Man in the Holocene.  Read the full thought here.

        •On Hemingway’s Politics  2pp.  November, 2007

        
Some passages from the book By Force of Will by Scott Donaldson about the political outlook of Ernest
         Hemingway.  Read the full thought here.

       •On Leonard Schiller  2pp. November, 2007

      
From the novel by Brian Morton, Starting Out in the Evening.  A young woman has contacted Leonard Schiller, a
       novelist in his seventies, requesting to meet him as part of writing a masters thesis on his work.
       Read the full thought here.

       • On the Death of Faron Young    2pp.  December, 2007
                                   
        Faron Young was a country music star from the late 1950s to the 1980s, a honky-tonk singer and entertainer
        in the mold of Hank Williams.  Read the full thought here.

       • On The Beans Story  2 pp.  December, 2007

       Beans, a Boston terrier (at least nominally), was the beloved family dog when I was little.  Beans was “put to sleep,”
       as they say, when I was about three—I think he had just gotten old.  Beans was often the subject of discussion
       when my much-older brother and sister and their spouses came to the house for Sunday dinner.  There was one
       Beans story, so to speak, that was repeated time and again.  Read the full thought here.

       • On Falconer 2pp. January, 2008

       John Cheever’s novel Falconer ends with convict Ezekiel Farragut’s escape from prison (New York: Knopf, 1977).
       Read the full thought here.

       • On War 1p.  January, 2008.
         Read the full thought here.

       • On Self-Abuse, 4pp., February, 2008.

       
David Crosby is a singer/songwriter who was prominent in the 1960s and ‘70s.  He developed a very serious
        drug problem in  the years of his prominence, the subject of this thought.   Included are excerpts from two hospital in-
        take  reports in late 1983.  Following the excerpts is my commentary.  Read the full thought here.

       • On Aldous Huxley, 14 pp., February, 2008.

        Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was a British-born novelist and essayist who lived the latter part of his life in the United
        States.  He is best known for his novel Brave New World, published in 1932.  Brave New World is the ironic 
        depiction of a “utopia” in which people are brainwashed into subordination, accommodation, and a mindless, shallow,
        though happy, existence by the  government and its agents.  Later in life, Huxley became associated with spiritual
        and mystical concerns and experimentation  with drugs reputed to be mind-expanding, such as mescaline.  This
        thought contains my commentaries on excerpts from a biography of Huxley.  Read the full thought here.
  
      • On Living the Artist’s Way, 10 pp., February, 2008.
      
       Robert Henri (1865-1929) was a prominent American painter.  Not long before his death, the Arts Council of New York
       chose him as one of the top three living American artists.  Henri was also a popular and influential teacher of art.  Henri’s
       ideas on art and life were collected by a former student and published as a book in 1923 entitled The Art Spirit.  This
       thought is made up of  excerpts from that book.  Read the full thought here.

      • On Personal Health II: From Fear to Rage, 9 pp., March, 2008
                      
       This thought is an update on “On Personal Health,” which I wrote back in August of 2007.
       Read the full thought here.

      • On Jack Nicholson, 3 pp.,  March, 2008.
                
       Things the actor Jack Nicholson said about himself to journalists over the span of his lengthy career in films. 
       In one instance it is something a friend attributed to him.  Read the full thought here.

     • On Woody Harrelson, 5 pp., March, 2008
                                  
       Actor Woody Harrelson first came to prominence as the bartender on the hit television series “Cheers.”  He has gone
       on to an active big screen career, including starring in director Oliver Stone’s film “Natural Born Killers.”  He continues
       to act in both lead and supporting roles in films, and has become an environmental activist.  This thought is made up of
       quotes from Harrelson.  Read the full thought here.

      • On the Death of James Whale, 2 pp., March, 2008
                                  
       British-born film director James Whale is best known for directing the sophisticated and morbidly
       humorous horror classics “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein” in the 1930s.  By the 1950s he was
       retired, essentially discarded by the Hollywood movie studios.  Read the full thought here.

      • On Arthur Bremer, 3 pp., April, 2008.      
            
        On May 15, 1972, twenty-one-old Arthur Bremer shot presidential candidate George Wallace at a rally
        in a Laurel, Maryland shopping center, paralyzing Wallace for life.  Read the full thought here.

     •On The Punisher, 1 p, April, 2008.

      Comic book superheroes tend to abide by the law and stay away from killing.  One of Marvel              comics' characters, however, created in the 1970s, The Punisher, had a very different outlook.  
      Read the full thought here.

      • On Monsieur Hire, 2 pp., May, 2008.

       “Monsieur Hire” is a 1989 French film directed by Patrice Leconte.  This thought is dialogue from the film:
        Read the full thought here.

      • On Dashiell Hammett, 1 p., June, 2008.
     
      Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) was an American author best known for his hardboiled detective fiction.  This thought
      is the last words he wrote for publication.  Read the full thought here.

     • On Two Romanian Films, 3pp., June, 2008.
                            
      This past week, I saw a couple of films I found remarkable, compelling, personally transforming. 
      Read the full thought here.

     • On Samuel Beckett, 2pp., July, 2008.

      In 1982, at 76 years of age, the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett (“Waiting for Godot,” “Endgame”) wrote
      a play without spoken words for German television entitled “Nacht und Traüme.”  This thought is a description
      of the play.  Read the full thought here.