Fortune #721.) You read about dead famous people and it hits you that they (or at least their depiction which they may or may not have perpetrated themselves) share some of the same temperament/opinions/general world view as you do. & you're sad because they're dead and you'll never meet them & compare notes or something. But then you realize that ( Read more... )

Fortune #205.) At the end of his 1969 Royal Albert Hall performance (which I just finished watching), Jimi Hendrix attacks the dozens of amplifiers which spat his sound like so much bright pollen to the mass of hungry bees waiting in the Hall, guitar poised as a wild screaming spear ( Read more... )

Fortune #489.) Mediocrity is probably inexcusable ( Read more... )

Fortune #532.) I do not think I wish evil upon people as much as I used to. Now, probably the only evil I wish for is one of my own, some kind of secret evil, that I can use to scare off people of evil intent. But I think evil, or at least the attraction to it, that kind of odd admiration we all have for the bad guy, or the respect we have for the ( Read more... )

Fortune #125.) I do not think it is necessary for people to lose something before they move on with their lives; this is a time-honored cliche that we continue to bind ourselves to, eventually intentionally losing things in hope of growth, setting ourselves up for an array of milestones of defeat ( Read more... )

Fortune #66.) There is a lot of talk about breaking barriers, smashing through molds, personal freedom, etc. There is a lot of talk about disrupting the structural integrity of certain social tendencies by removing oneself from them. There is a lot of talk about escaping convention. There is a lot of talk about destroying the self-righteous ( Read more... )

Fortune #32.) It's been postulated by some intelligent people that, were we to place less emphasis on things like birthdays and new years - annual events - we might live longer ( Read more... )

Fortune #59.) We can complain about President Bush's war in Iraq all we want. There is nothing wrong with dissidence ( Read more... )

Fortune #74) Coltrane's Ascension raises the immediate question: what or who is the object of its title? Does the 38:40 free jazz track denote an ascension of the musicians, or have these masters achieved a level which we (the listeners) must ascend to? Is this some kind of incoherent joke, or is it incoherent only because of our inability to ( Read more... )

Fortune #4.

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

-- Langston Hughes;
Excerpted from "Let
America be
America
Again"