Category Archives: FREE ADVICE

Free Advice about Life, Universe and Other Stuff from Lawrence R. Spencer

ART, BULLSHIT, FREE ADVICE, READING MATTER

POETIC IGNORANCE

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Adrian Mitchell (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British anti-authoritarian Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country’s anti-Bomb movement. Mitchell sought in his work to counteract the implications of his own assertion that, “Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.” In a National Poetry Day poll in 2005 his poem “Human Beings” was voted the one most people would like to see launched into space.  “Most people ignore most poetry / because / most poetry ignores most people.”

Since the Vietnam war nothing has really changed except that war-mongers have become more sophisticated about sanitizing acts of mass-murder with remote controlled drones and smart bombs.  More “enemies” are killed per square “peace keeping soldier”.  Listen to a poem performed by Adrian Mitchell in the video below.  Fill in the word “Vietnam” with the word “Iraq” or “Afghanistan” or “Iran”, etc..  Different year…. same old shit.

1001 THINGS TO DO WHILE YOU'RE DEAD, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, MORTALITY MECHANIC'S MANUAL, PICTURE POEMS, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER

YOUR VOICE ALONE

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VoiceSamuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. He is widely regarded as among the most influential writers of the 20th century.

Beckett’s work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and became increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what Martin Esslin called the “Theatre of the Absurd”.   Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature.

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, PICTURE POEMS, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, SOUNDS, UNIVERSES

HAPPINESS IS NOT

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I have been thinking a lot about “happiness” recently.  There are many different definitions of this word.  In an English language dictionary defines “happiness” as:

elatedness, elation, exhilaration, exultation, high,intoxication; ecstasy, euphoria, glory, heaven, nirvana,paradise, rapture, rapturousness, ravishment, seventh heaven, transport; delectation, delight, enjoyment,pleasure; cheer, cheerfulness, comfort, exuberance,gaiety (also gayety), gladsomeness, glee, gleefulness,jocundity, jollity, joyfulness, joyousness, jubilance,jubilation, lightheartedness, merriness, mirth; content,contentedness, gratification, satisfaction, triumph.

Here are a few ideas I have about what happiness is, and what it is not….

THE CLIMB