Creative Thresholds

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“The Clocks are Melting” is the seventh letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

I appreciate both the fact that you are concerned about me and the tact with which you let your concern be shown. While you never directly probed me about my current mental situation, your worries nonetheless were revealed lurking under every other “innocuous” question. How was dinner last night (i.e. are you eating?) Do you still dream of me? (i.e. are you sleeping?). It’s sweet, though. And I do appreciate it.

I suppose you may wonder that I am writing to you again, but the nature of this missive will reveal itself: I am concerned about time. Please do not worry, but you should know that I am having problems with it. I will look at a picture on my wall, one that I have seen many times: 10 minutes will pass. I will go to the kitchen for a glass of water, and find that the clock will have advanced 30 minutes and the water remains unconsumed, growing warm on a countertop. I sit down for a moment–and it IS a moment–but an hour will have gone by.

Rumor has it that time is relative, after Einstein. And…he was smart. I suppose that he is right. Nonetheless, it seems problematic that I keep on thinking that time is shorter than what it is: how can 30 seconds turn into a half hour? Why do small tasks–cutting vegetables–last for hours?

I am not so naive…which you know. I am avoiding the reality of my task. It is self given, but it doesn’t make the strain any more. I want to be able to focus on it, but it seems to momentous for me. Inertia creeps through my skin, slowing me down, slowing down how I feel about the day. I feel as though this time will stretch on forever, as though I have an infinite amount of it…more than enough to accomplish my preparations. Outside of me, however–in your world–I know that time marches on, impervious to my experience of it.

Time moves too fast for me, and too slow. Why can’t you be here with me now, when I need you most? I know your reasons. They’re good ones. I even approve of them. But they’re like time…while I can understand, there is little that I can do and all that happens is my minutes turn into hours in your world as I grow smaller and smaller. Will I live forever at this pace? And if so–at the end of time–would I still be held accountable for all that I claim I had too little time to do?

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

by Christopher Hutchinson

“Liz Linden presents viewers with simple, straightforward imagery that unfolds into multiple, often contradictory readings of everyday objects. Over the past seven years Linden has created striking readings of images from The New York Times in her Cartoons (2006-2013) by enlarging and re-captioning selected photographs with text from the articles they illustrate: drawing attention to commentary in the article that broadens the meaning of the image.”
http://www.hfgallery.org/exhibitions.html

Liz Linden
Cartoon (04/09/06, from text by Anthony Tommasini, photo by Stephen Crowley), 2006
Archival pigment print on plexi mount
13.25” x 9.25” http://www.lizlinden.com/Cartoons.html

Semiotics & Pop

se·mi·ot·ics
n. (used with a sing. verb)
The theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language or other systems of communication, and comprising semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/semiotics

Linden’s artist talk at the Hagedorn foundation Gallery on January 9, 2013 was full of the artspeak terminology, especially that of semiotics, to explain and validiate her work. While Linden rationalized her work behind an academic vocabulary, upon examining the work itself, the context of semiotics is not quite accurate.What we have here is a literal definition of theory projected as art. Does this literal definition art qualify as art or artifact?

There is a common misconception of the definition of conceptual art, where one thinks that by executing a specific concept one has achieved conceptual praxis. This is not conceptual art; rather it is an illustration of a narrative. True conceptual art requires no physical making; it’s not interested in illustrations. In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. “When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. This kind of art is not theoretical or illustrative of theories; it is intuitive …”-Sol Lewitt http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/fah188/sol_lewitt/paragraphs%20on%20conceptual%20art.htm

Joseph Kosuth. 1965. “Box, Cube, Empty, Clear, Glass – A Description
http://nsmn1.uh.edu/dgraur/Research.html

Linden claims the use of the random text already present in the newspaper juxtaposed beside the image printed creates the system necessary for the recognition of semiotics at work. Juxtaposing the Image and Text, only allows for one possible conclusion. The issue present in Linden’s Cartoons is the iconography present in its illustration of concept. Pop would be a more accurate term for Linden’s work. There was a familiarity with her Cartoons that brought to mind Warhol’s disaster series. Warhol did not use art speak to elevate Pop art to become more than what it was, 15 minutes only to be easily digested then forgotten.

Andy Warhol, “A boy for Meg,” 1962
http://gloriajoh.wordpress.com/tour/

Pop & Authenticity

“In the suite of collaged images, exotic domestic (2013), Linden resituates photographs of archetypal houseplants culled from the pages of interior design and lifestyle magazines in groups on blank pages to create surprising and quirky relationships through the plants anthropomorphic abstractions. These houseplants are the cornerstone of Linden’s third body of work in the exhibition—a hypothetical installation for which she will place a live and artificial Phalaenopsis orchid side by side for the duration of the exhibition. With this coupling Linden presents a compelling tautology that presses on questions of representation, signification, and what the artist calls the plant’s “oxymoronic status as minimalist decoration.” These works shed light on the social and political context we consciously or unconsciously bring to our perception of images and objects, challenging the received epistemology and learned affective responses ubiquitous in contemporary western culture.” http://www.hfgallery.org/exhibitions.html

Liz Linden.   exotic domestic no. 1
Paper on denril
17”x14″
http://www.lizlinden.com/exotic_domestic.html

Linden led a discourse on the strange habits of humans that bring exotic plants into their homes and how in catalogues the only objects that are not for sale are the plants. Of Linden’s exotic domestic series (not pictured) the most interesting was the Orchid sculptures exhibited side by side on two pedestals. One orchid was real and the other fake.

The viewer was asked to question, which was the authentic? One of the main components of Pop art was to purposely challenge the value of authentic art, to use mass media production as the cheapest way to level the all that the art world values. Linden’s work repeats these same dated goals, which would not be a problem if these works were presented as artifacts. Does Linden’s exotic domestic orchid challenge authenticity more successfully than Warhol’s brillo boxes?

The values of artifacts are judged based on the civilization present when created. Roman sculpture considered less in comparison to Greece. Linden’s artifacts do not succeed in contributing a new dialogue Pop, much less semiotics.

Andy Warhol,
A brillo box from the Moderna Museet
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Warhol+Brillo+boxes+downgraded+to+%E2%80%9Ccopies%E2%80%9D/21573

Christopher Hutchinson is an Assistant Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College and Archetype Art Gallery Owner in Atlanta, Ga. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from Savannah College of art & Design, Atlanta and his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama. He lived in Alabama for 10 years before moving to Atlanta in 2008.

Learn more about Christopher and his work at Black Flight 144.

by Virginie Colline

Illustration by Riccardo Guasco from “The Book of A+R”

onyx shingle beach
all night long he gently chokes
in a stagnant dream

far side of the bed
after a winter away
an ocean of ice

the words left unsaid
sinking down into the depths
ripples and sunset

unknown latitude
he has lost track of his self
riding the black waves

Virginie Colline lives and writes in Paris. Her poems have appeared in The Scrambler, Prune Juice, The Mainichi, Frostwriting, Prick of the Spindle, Mouse Tales Press, StepAway Magazine, BRICKrhetoric, Overpass Books, Dagda Publishing, Poethead, Silver Birch Press, The Bangalore Review, and Yes, Poetry, among others.

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“the me that i most long to give i give to others instead” is the sixth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

i wish that it were easier for me to reach out to you in comfort and in love, but you make it so incredibly difficult to love you that i must admit that your efforts have become more or less acceptable.  i believe that you do desire to be loved, in your way…but of course only insofar as it meets your expectations.  You have a list of rules about what loving you must mean, and insofar as i am not designed to follow a program of rules…i fear that i will continue to be a disappointment to you.  Why must you insist on finding things which you can take personally, or reasons that will allow you to feel wronged?  Is it as simple as the fact that you would rather stew in a justified hurt than enjoy the world?  That you would rather clothe yourself in the humble garments of the put-upon saint than expend your energy in serving the others in the world with actual sorrows?  That you would rather be the object of pity than love?  If only you could see that your rules for others are what hurts you, and not the intention of those who are moved (in their own ways) to love!  i cannot be sorry that i offend you for i feel as though the offense is solely YOURS.  my intention is always to love you, always and in spite of your reactions to my desires: i know not what more i can do.  even though you clearly desire unhappiness, i nonetheless cannot be one to mistreat you directly for i feel as though there is enough misery in the world. 

but for this i am sorry: i lack the courage to confront you with these facts.  perhaps if i were to call you and explain to you why others are slow to embrace you, and quick to move away from conversation…it would help.  perhaps if i were to go for a coffee with you and speak softly to you these hard truths, there would be time enough for a change.  the rare moments when you sparkle forth with a genuine smile–the ones you cannot help but control, the ones that take you by surprise–i know that you are worth saving; however, i always come against the fact that it truly is not my place to have this discussion.  the suspicion about you that you have taught leads me to believe that my words will be twisted and misinterpreted, and that i will become one of the legions in this world which plot against you.  your ability to deceive yourself is a powerful one which not even the truth, in this case, can overcome.  and so instead of being your true friend, or at least a true enemy, i suffer the thrusts of your unjust tongue in silence, preferring to be lashed rather than lash back.  i wish that i could help you, but you have neutralized every attempt to be aided.  you are in complete control of your life: those things which you do not control you ignore.  although i wish that i could know you better or love you more, i content myself with superficial greetings and a hug hello and goodbye.  the would be gifts of love that i would offer, the ways i wish i could delight you, the me that i most long to give i give to others instead.  you leave me no room to do otherwise.

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

by Rebekah Goode-Peoples

It started off serious, this year. Long, late night drives listening to the modern spirituals of Phosphorescent and Nick Cave and writing in a pool blue basement room to Daughter. Last winter wasn’t particularly cold, and nothing particularly harrowing happened to me that season. Nevertheless, I hardcore wallowed. Stayed inside.

It didn’t help that I was finishing the last few songs of Oryx and Crake’s next full-length album, a concept narrative exploring commitment, from brief moments of comfort and security to long, bottom-of-the-well places. The chokehold of bondage. It wasn’t an easy story to tell. And I dreamt of summer.

Maybe I wasn’t the only one–seems like many folks in my circle had a tough year.

Things have been hard, right? Syria, Sandy Hook, the government shutdown, whatever other horrors make you shy away from the news stations’  Twitter feeds and turn to pop culture demerol.

So maybe you push play on Icona Pop’s “I Love It.” All flashing lights, so swirling that you can’t focus on anything for more than a fraction of a second. The neon, the thumping glitter distracts us from disaster, both our own and the world’s. Makes it unreal.

See, we’ve been hurt, and hurt again. We know everyone’s tragedy all of the time. So we run. Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent sings in my favorite song of the year, “Song for Zula, “I will not open myself up this way again…And I am racing out on the desert plains all night.” It’s a love story, sure, but it’s also our story. Of being too tender, too raw to handle it all.

Sometimes you need to take a break, but you have to be careful.

Stuff happens under the surface for all of us–that we try not to notice as thumbs slide away on Candy Crush or scroll through tumblrs of gif after gif of adorable dogs and sloths–that we don’t discuss, or even notice, because we’re so tied to our black screen holes.

We forget to look around, know each other. To feel things. We just follow the formula.

But we don’t have to.

We can pay attention. We can dance it off. We can be who we want to be.

This is the only life we get–yell loud and make earthquakes.

NFL Fans In Seattle And Kansas City Battle Over Who’s Louder– NPR Morning Edition, December 18, 2013:

—————————————————————————————————————————

PLAYLIST:  Five fingers of one hand (Spotify)

Albums:

Daughter “If You Leave”

Phosphorescent “Muchacho”

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “Push the Sky Away”

CHVRCHES “The Bones of What You Believe”

Lorde “Pure Heroine”

Rebekah Goode-Peoples is a teacher and writer who lives in Atlanta, GA. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at @goodepeoples and her band, Oryx and Crake, at @oryxncrake

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“all that I had in you was only myself” is the fifth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

we are said to be meaning-makers–you and i, all of us–who by nature interpret events and things which are given in such a way as to determine their significance for our own lives.  We MAKE meaning, and do not find it.  In former times, these were considered omens and portents, glimpses of the future which the gods would give us.

Lacking a sensitivity to the role which the natural world plays in determining the web of relationships in which i continually am caught up within, I find that I more often engage in making meaning of signs and symbols, finding meaning in languages present or absent.  Despite knowing that such text has no relationship to your relationship with me, I nonetheless persist in attempting to determine SOME sort of connection which nonetheless would exist.  This is my most frequent action.

I read the words which you wrote to a mutual friend, some months ago.  I walk past the place where once we ate lunch.  I hear a song on the radio that you had once played for me.  None of these things have anything to do with your current life, yet you force me to investigate these glyphic scribbles as a way to postulate how you are now.  The song is clear and undistorted: you are having a good day.  I see a child crying in front of the restaurant: you’re having a bad day.  I simple and dichotomized world: this is how you force me to view your life.  Thinking about you is not an option, and so I take what I can to construct a relationship with you.

Often when we talk, those rare moments, you force me to pick through your words and fill in the blanks which you leave, spaces which are events in your mind and nothing within my own.  Because I want to have a relationship with you, I let myself believe that I know how you feel, that I know what you’re talking about.  You force me to make guesses and fill in the blanks of your mad-lib life, and, lo-and-behold!  It always conforms to what I had been thinking about anyway.  It always reveals to me that we had the same connection as ever.  I tell myself that you consciously continue our relationship through such absences in speech, such empty points which give me a blank entrance into your soul.  I tell myself that I see you in how you frame it, and that it is more than just a mirror.  You permit me to tell myself this.  I allow myself to believe it.  …this is what friends are for, right?

Not talking is just an expanded form of this–a sheet of paper filled with blanks.  I tell myself that we’re still friends, that this is still a relationship.  The moments where you break into my life, even indirectly, are caused by you.  I’ll say a prayer, or smile at a memory, and then move on.  I tell myself that you’re doing okay, and remind myself that such miniature affirmations, on a cosmic level, are powerful and have the ability to, where you are and at that time, generate a smile that I can’t see and that you can’t understand, but which exists nonetheless.  We’re magicians, all of us, I suppose.

Without your body, the world around me becomes your face that I investigate to see how you are.  Lacking your voice, I listen to the babble streaming around me, the cacophonic choir which only JUST covers up the words which you speak to me.  I strain and peer to find you: when I find something, I simply accept it lest the dark fear start to grow that all that I had in you was only myself all along.

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

by Bruce Covey

photo by Lee Ann Roripaugh

She has a dollar sign in her name, instead of an “S.”

Since Animal came out in 2009, unemployment has decreased and Wall Street stock prices have risen. No, really.

The day after I joined twitter in January, Ke$ha tweeted, “omg I’m cooking a carrot omg omg omg.” She’s talking about carats of gold, right?

In 2007, a music producer and a libertarian economist teamed up to write a rap song that talked about the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich von Hayek. When Ke$ha saw the video, she said, “It’s like legit. It’s really good rapping.”

She says, “Glitter fixes everything. At the end of my shows, why don’t I put on a backpack that’s like a handheld cannon and blast glitter at people?”

Mick Jagger attended the London School of Economics in the early 60s. Ke$ha refers to Jagger in her 2009 song Tik Tok.

Late last year Ke$ha asked her fans to send her their teeth. She says, “I got, like, over 1,000 human teeth. I made them into a bra top and a headdress and earrings and necklaces. I’ve worn it out!!!!”



Bruce Covey‘s sixth book of poems, Change Machine, will be published by Noemi in 2014. He lives in Atlanta, GA, where he edits Coconut magazine and Coconut Books and curates the What’s New in Poetry reading series.

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“who are you without what you are without” is the fourth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

when asked what one would prefer to sacrifice–what one has, or what one does not–i would dare to wager that most would prefer to do anything BUT give up what one does not have. I would do this, and I wager that you would also. To have something is, at best, ambiguous. i know the strengths and weaknesses of what I have, what is good about it, what i dislike, and i can rest contentedly in my relationship with what is known. at the same time, this seems an insufficient explanation for why humans (and i’m including you and i within this discussion, as you can tell) refuse to give up what they do not have, despite the fact of not having it. we will sacrifice everything–but not nothing. is it to hurt ourselves? are we this twisted? am i? are you?
if i only want what i do not have–what happens when i receive what it is that i want? is it acceptable? will i spend my lifetime pushing away everything that i want, so that i can continue to have a desire? is there some happiness possible out of this conundrum? is there a way to resolve it, such that i can rest contentedly in what i have? is absence the necessary AND sufficient condition of desire?
can i desire what i have? can you? can you look at your life, as it is, and will it again, an eternal return of the same? would you will your past, were you to do it again? amor fati, if you will…more fate! i desire to desire what i have and who i am, but i find this desire to be impossible. at the same time, i can accept the reality of this situation.
the reason this troubles me is that i am now forced to watch you chasing rainbows and butterflies, attacking windmills, and allowing your heart to be broken. i can see you as a mirror for who i am, and it frightens me. are we really so similar? can i remember that there is a distance between us, or has the distance disappeared?
a dream deferred wastes away like a raisin in the sun, so they say. will your past, so they say. i refuse to sacrifice what i do not have. the treasure of my imagination, the secret jewels of my desire–these are more precious than reality. what quivers in your heart? is it what is present, or absent? what motivates you to get up in the morning? who are you, without what you are without? can you even conceive of such a sacrifice, a sacrifice of that which does not exist? do you realize the difficulty of depriving yourself of what you already are deprived of?
IF YOU HAVE READ THIS FAR, i will offer something by way of a consolation, perhaps, although it may be a far cry from a consolation of philosophy. there is a hope of a positive movement by which you can give up what you do not have without isolating yourself from time (past, present, future). There is a sacrifice that can be made in faith, NOT resignation. There is a perspective in which we are all paupers in the world, born with nothing and having pockets too small for any real gift of the soul. in giving up everything, we can learn to give up nothing. in sacrificing nothing, that hardest sacrifice, in giving up what we do not have, we MIGHT be able to learn to have everything–both what we have and do not have. to be able to gain what you do not have in such a way that you can accept its gift, you need first to be able to give up what you lack in order to be able to accept it joyfully. Let go of what is absent. Decrease its control over your life. Face who you are without what you already are without, and then you can be, perhaps, the success which you are terrified of becoming.
are these all problems which don’t exist, problems of nothing? perhaps. at the same time, i offer these truths to you for your examination and contemplation. i do not claim hold to a truth–absolute or relative. i pray if you find error in these words, that you offer up a correction. show me that this is untrue, pray that i can accept the truth.

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World was published by the University of Virginia Press this past August.

by G. E. Gallas

Selections from G.E. Gallas’s ongoing graphic novel The Poet and the Flea, an ode to Willam Blake.

page 4

page 20

page 22

G. E. Gallas is a screenwriter and graphic novelist (writer/illustrator) best known for The Poet and the Flea (http://thepoetandtheflea.wordpress.com), a fantastical reimagining of the life of the poet-painter William Blake. Originally from Washington D.C., she spent her year abroad in Tokyo, Japan and graduated from New York University: Gallatin School of Individualzed Study with a major involving cross-cultural storytelling. Spring 2013, she attended the Cannes International Film Festival and spoke upon invitation to The Blake Society, London. Next year, her illustrations will be featured in the young adult title Scared Stiff: Everything You Need to Know About 50 Famous Phobias

Kyle Duke Adamiec as Robert Louis Stevenson in Gallas’s short film *Death Is No Bad Friend*

 (http://www.amazon.com/Scared-Stiff-Everything-Famous-Phobias/dp/1936976498/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383004778&sr=8-1&keywords=scared+stiff+50).

By Daniel Boscaljon
Image by Melissa D. Johnston

“my best for your worst” is the fourth letter in a series of posts called Letters to You written by Daniel Boscaljon with images by Melissa D. Johnston (from one of her ongoing projects). Letters to You began in July with “everytime i write i feel myself disintegrate.”

some words have power.  Even though I’m sure you will not dispute this assertion, I nonetheless will provide you with an example.  During 7^th grade band, Maria looked at me and said: “You bring out the worst in everyone.”  An arrangement of seven words–do you think that they could stand engraved in my memory if they had no power? At the time, I laughed off the words, thinking to myself that they were only tossed out in a sort of bored and half-hearted rage.  As the words continued to haunt me, I continued to defend myself using a variety of different strategies: 1) she doesn’t know me well enough to be able to judge me!  2) she just hasn’t seen me with my friends, and, reduced to the context of band, was rendering a verdict as universally true despite being only locally valid.  3) she herself was just having a bad day and simply displaced other troubles and anxieties onto me.  Over the years, I settled on one or another of these theories, seeking solace overall in the wisdom of friends happy to assure me that I produced a beneficent effect on others and made them to be better people.  At the same time, the TRUTH of these words continued to haunt me beneath the comfort and I was unable to simply remove myself from them altogether.  Over the years, systematically unable to ignore her words, it was time for me to reconsider the original statement.  This I did.  I discovered, perhaps, that it is true.  I DO, indeed, bring out the worst in everyone.  I brought out the worst in her that day, her anger and blind frenzied frustration.  But not only her, or those who dislike me, or my students, or those indifferent: in all, I bring out the worst.  I finally understood that I want to bring out the worst even in you.  I succor it, slowly allowing you to open up to me, to trust me enough to give me even that.  I want to know ALL of you, I want the gift of you unfiltered, uncensored.  I want your bests–but your worst, too.  I want to bring it out of you.  The question I’m sure you’re asking is WHY I would do this.  For you, it’s easy…although there are two possible answers:1) I see your worst and realize how truly amazing you are…for your worst is not so bad at all.  2) I take your worst, drawing it out from you, allowing you to offer it to me as a type of purgative: freed from your worst, you can truly be your best.  With others, an additional motive comes into play:  3) I draw out the worst within them such that they can see themselves as who they are. In my youth, I would bring the worst out in people as a type of game.  As I aged, I grew self-righteous and would serve as a judge but now, I simply allow people’s worst to be reflected.  Judge for yourself!  I offer only comfort, never judgment.  I will take your worst, and then give a hug in return (if such physical proximity is not abhorrent).  I will do my best to get your worst.  I use what empathy has been granted to me to probe below surfaces, to see the dark linings under silver clouds.  I want your smog and pollutions, your dark secrets and rotting skeletons: once they’ve seen the light, perhaps we both can be released.  I will not judge.  I will not be angry.  I will do my best for your worst, my utmost for your lowest.  Such is my lot, and here do I embrace it!

Daniel Boscaljon has Ph.D.s in Modern Religious Thought and 19th-century American Literature, both from the University of Iowa. His interest is in the fragility and liminality of human experiences. His first book, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in the Secular World will be published by the University of Virginia Press this August.