Craft

As the venerable Professor Emerson and I discussed craft, an image came to mind: the girls fighting through one more floor routine, legs a bit sloppy in the air, landing heavily. And then the gymnasts warming up with a line of basic tumbling, bodies tight and perfectly controlled. They walk off the floor calmly: That will do for now.

I think similarly of words. Words that unobtrusively show you the story without working too hard (or at least, not appearing to work hard). Words that you almost don't notice until something beautiful happens and you think, Damn, I wish I wrote that.

Perhaps that's my problem with the whole emo genre of music. It's cool that groups of youths jam together and try to make it big. It's cool that they want to sing about relationships (or, more often, a lack thereof). But each song comes out louder, more angsty, and more "clever" than the next. The quest to show pain and be profound becomes too forced for me to sustain interest in an entire album.

Let it be. Let the story tell itself. With a bit of help from you, of course.

..

For my next paper, I'm thinking about exploring the theme of defense. Fighting against the opponent. What it means to be a team when members are truly out for themselves, and the excuses they use to justify their failures. The way the body defends itself against an injury. Or perhaps I'll go the injury route -- I've got several good friends bouncing about with reconstructed ACLs.

Suggestions for the above topics, or any other topic, are more than welcome. :-)

For now, I shall go for a run before practice. This is my favorite time of day to run -- the late afternoon sunshine slanting down, the day beginning to cool under blue sky.

See you out there.