Sometimes The Crowd Is The Madness -

Just As The Blurring Between Childhood And Adulthood Has Produced The Kidult, So The Stretching Of Middle Into Old Age Has Fostered Another Peculiar Chimera: Septuagenarians With Apoptosis Sporting The Depeche Mode.

Modernism Has A Reputation For Being A Forbidding Phenomenon: Its Visual Arts Disconcertingly Non-representational, Its Literary Efforts Devoid Of The Consolations Of Plot And Character - Even Its Films, It's Argued, Fall Well Short Of That True Desideratum: Entertainment.

I Think Of Writing As A Sculptural Medium. You Are Not Building Things. You Are Removing Things, Chipping Away At Language To Reveal A Living Form.

It Is Fair To Say That Insofar As Sport Is Taken Seriously By Those Who Play It, Then To That Extent Their Conduct In Play - Their Ability To Deal With Loss Or Victory, Their Ability To Meld Strategic Thinking And Brute Force - Can Be Taken As A Small-scale Model Of How They, Or Others Like Them, Might Behave In Life.

Well, I Wanted To Be A Philosopher, Which Is The Idlest Occupation In The World. I Wanted To Be Involved In Abstract Thought, But Because Of Various Problems With The Authorities I Wasn't Able To Pull That One Off. A Lifetime Of Idleness In Academia Would Have Really Suited Me. So I Was Thrown Out, As It Were. Other Than That, There Seemed No Possible Idle Occupations, So Writing . . . Although Writing Isn't Exactly Idleness. There's An Enormous Tension Between Indolence And Languor.