Confessions of a Conservative Atheist
Living proof marijuana doesn't kill brain cells…
We’re all looking for something better, but are unlikely to achieve it through some magical moment, some mystical epiphany, or some mythical transformation. Ironically, Bruce Springsteen’s two albums most focused on positive outcomes and the possibility of redemption, are also his most underrated if not outright forgotten. After spending almost two decades penning songs about… Continue reading Springsteen’s “Better Days” and the promise of a more limited redemption
Love can sing to us, sweetly, and we can build an edifice upon it for that special choir, an edifice composed of both the joy we have in our lover and the fears of how it will end, for everything is ultimately “ruin’d” in this world, but in Shakespeare’s, even a single intentionally shortened syllable… Continue reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, the “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,” and the meaning of love itself
Jaques, As You Like It’s “melancholy fellow,” is not likely to appear on any list of Shakespeare’s greatest characters, nor is his speech on the nature of his melancholy, but we see in him a sort of proto-Hamlet without the need to wound, opinion unrestrained, as he fancies himself said, claims it is better to… Continue reading Shakespeare’s most underrated character and speech, perhaps
We cannot know the wellspring of the emotion we call love, neither where it comes or where it goes, but we should embrace it, lest the entire species should falter. Such is the weight of our dalliances, which are about a lot more than nothing – as is the play itself. Much Ado About nothing… Continue reading Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and why the world must be peopled
If brevity is the soul of wit, Macbeth’s might be the superior statement of the futility of our existence, an entire philosophy contained in a few simple lines, but the overall meaning couldn’t be more different. It’s as if each speech is itself a prism, and the meaning reflected is based on the direction of… Continue reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth, As You Like It, and all the world’s a stage
Barely half as many couples are getting divorced and more couples are getting married than in recent years. Some experts attribute the trend to being intentional about your mate and choosing companionship rather than romance. Perhaps Springsteen put it best in “Tougher Than the Rest,” or even Shakespeare hundreds of years earlier in Romeo and… Continue reading Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest” and the dramatic decline in divorce rates
The search for something better defines us, and will always do so. The only way to cope is to tell the world itself to fuck off. We can rise above our fates only if we spit fate itself in the face and live in the moment. “Badlands” isn’t my favorite Bruce Springsteen song. A perennial at… Continue reading Springsteen’s “Badlands” and the moment that just don’t come
Much like music, a great film can exist purely on an emotional level, as a stream of loosely related and structured consciousness that teases us with symbolism, impenetrable to a complete analysis, and yet filled with meaning all the same. Federico Fellini’s 1963 surrealistic fantasy about a film director struggling with his love life and… Continue reading Fellini’s 8½ and whether or not reality matters in either art or life itself
The Boss released Human Touch and Lucky Town on the same day in 1992 to some of the worst reviews of his career. This doesn’t mean there aren’t stellar songs on both including the most poignant take on jealousy in his canon. By Springsteen standards, the early to mid 1990s was the nadir of his… Continue reading “I Wish I Were Blind,” revisiting Springsteen’s oft forgotten classic from Human Touch
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 