Toe in the chilled stream

The foray into the realm of the public is the most curious move a human being can make. It is by nature the most surefire way to invite criticism and scorn. It is also an immeasurable way to really find out if the ideas in ones own mind are as crazy as they seem in the warmth and security of private notation.

So now I add to the pile (it grows exponential, and how!) and yield up these Dispatches from the Universal Affairs Desk

With a nod to the Greats unsurmountable that write before the author, this Desk is established to recount the encounters and analyse the events that swirl around and around in the mind of anyone who sits back for even a moment and bears witness to the nature of humanity in these extraordinary times. The desk is located wherever the author finds himself. The Desk, as it were, could easily be a park bench in The Common or a slab of rock in the peaks of Vermont. It could be a beach in California or a forest in Washington. This idea of a moveable base of operations is not my own. The inspiration comes from the famous National Affairs Desk at Rolling Stone, occupied time and again by one madman who needs only be mentioned in monogram: H.S.T. I carry the tradition on now in hopes of being able to, for myself and for others, write and therefore come to grips with all the stories and issues that bear down on me with such regularity that it is almost becoming something that I rely on, like coffee or whatever form of alcohol comes my way. Why not just keep a journal you say? Well, why not indeed. This is of course a manner of journal, but each entry will take the form of an essay or a story instead of just a random screed. Or maybe it will just be screed and therefore in no way distinguishable from a journal. So be it. It’s all about directionality, as I see it. Journal entries are just that, they go in and stay in and are never let out again except in the dark hours of early morning when the drink is fully on and the past is ill-reconsidered or reflected upon though the fog. Dispatches were always meant to be out there, for all the world to see and that is what I am striving for here. I want to have the feedback and the pressure that comes with disclosure. I want to know that these things are not merely my own. Mr. Pilgrim Says: So it Goes. I concur.