Gotham City Soul

So the other day someone engaged me in a conversation full of information I’d rather not have had. It was not useful, positive, enlightening, or nurturing in any way. What the individual had to say was born of an ignorance of the big picture—this person had no idea what they were talking about (I incorrectly use the plural rather than singular here to mask gender) when it came to the subject at hand, which included me and someone close to me. It might not have been so unpleasant had it not been practically the first words out of the person’s mouth. This took place in a setting where I had expected to relax and enjoy a peaceful afternoon, not get blindsided by spiritually draining gossip. The way the individual began speaking before they even said hello, it was almost as if they couldn't wait to tell me this bit of upsetting news. I choose to believe that it was thoughtless, not deliberate. It happens to us all. I had a conversation with one of the subjects of the gossip, who told m...

So the other day I was reading an article in the July Esquire about something called Radical Honesty . In essence, to practice radical honesty you must tell all truth all of the time. He says, according to the article's author A.J. Jacobs, that "we should toss out the filters between our brains and our mouths. If you think it, say it. It's the only path to authentic relationships. It's the only way to smash through modernity's soul-deadening alienation. Oversharing ? No such thing." 'You'll have really bad times, you'll have really great times, but you'll contribute to other people because you haven't been dancing on eggshells your whole f--- ing life. It's a better life,' explained the 66-year-old Virginia-based psychotherapist Brad Blanton , creator of the RH movement. The only good times to lie, says Blanton , is if you're hiding Anne Frank in the attic and the Nazis are pounding on your door, or to the government; his e...

The other day I watched the movie Lady in the Water . Yes, it came out last year—I don’t rush to see things just so I can say I saw it first—I’m too distracted by so many books to read, and stories to write, and art I need to make, and conversations I need to have—movie watching happens in between times. When it's raining or snowing and I want to stay in. When I have a cold, or need cheering up, things like that. Lady was panned by the critics; but that’s not surprising—in the film a character is a film critic, a beady-eyed, pompous little bore of a man who gets eaten by a monster. I’m not really all that interested in what critics have to say—aside from one or two, I really don’t care to know the opinion of most people who bloviate* for dollar bills. But then again, I liked Snakes on a Plane . I know schadenfreude is not a good thing, but I have to say it was kind of fun watching all those CGI snakes losing their reptilian minds, while Samuel L. Jackson almost singlehandedly sav...