Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Wisdom (1893)

Not Letting My Reticence Chase You Off
The Muse insists that I and the world are inevitably better off when I get out and mingle in the world. I tend to disagree on principles. As an introvert, my world revolves around something other than public spectacle, but I cannot successfully disagree that more variety appears when I get off my duff and mingle. Her candidate booth at the local fair, as well as her entry into the accompanying parade, had me living well outside my usual comfort zone through almost this entire writing week. I didn't die. I might have even thrived. I might admit under mild duress that I, at times, even almost enjoyed the engagements, but mum's the word on that account. I remain a writer, your writer, and not some itinerant schmoozer. I'm the guy who appreciates those with social skills, who gratefully cedes center stage to those who seem to gain satisfaction from standing there. I'm atmosphere people, more than satisfied to chronicle my emotional experiences via the PureSchmaltz. Thank you so very much for following along and not letting my reticence chase you off.

Weekly Writing Summary

I began this writing week with an encounter with bureaucracy that left me feeling absolutely Gutted. "Were it not for the bureaucrats, we would be in grave danger of engaging with genuine decency rather than superficially without the numbing complacency to which we've all grown too accustomed to experiencing."

Russell Lee:
Gutting tuna at the
Columbia River Packing Association.
Astoria, Oregon (1941)

"It would have just been my fault."
—
I spent much of this writing week working The Muse's Fair booth so I rendered a small portrait of that effort in RealPolitic. "Almost nobody comes to The Fair to engage in conversation about Economic Development agencies. The fudge booth frankly looks a whole lot more attractive. In the real world, people would rather vote for fudge than for anybody for any office."

Jack Gould:
Untitled [several people holding political posters
and signs at mock convention] (1955)
—
The Muse and I attended a Roe-Day-O and I lasted about fifteen minutes before the blathering announcer and the overt Christian Nationalism drove me out like a culled calf. This contribution proved the most popular this period. "The Roe-Day-O's motto exclaims, "Let 'Em Kick!" Who or what was never made explicit."

Harold Edgerton: Rodeo (1940)

"Who or what was never made explicit."
—
I attempted but failed to describe how The Muse As Candidate operates in the mis-named TheSchmoozeAlarm. (I should have named it The SchmoozeButton.)"I might describe this skill as the innate ability to engage in useful conversation with anybody, even and perhaps especially with the initially unwilling."

Thomas Jones Barker: Two School Boys (c. 1830)

"Blessed are the Schmoozers …"
—
I publicly admitted that I'd gotten TheSchmoozeAlarm story FlatWrong. "If you want to know who somebody is, just watch how they react when they screw something up, when they catch themselves FlatWrong. I suspect there are no wrong responses, only informative ones."

Egyptian: Plaque Depicting a Quail Chick
(Ptolemaic Period [332–30 BCE])

" … never any different from antiquity to present."
—
I described our Last_Night in The Muse's Fair Booth as the extraordinary experience it was. "It might be that we do everything so that we can experience another ending again, for these tend to be bittersweet and savory almost beyond belief. We cannot share these through superficial engagement."

Edgar Degas: Portrait after a Costume Ball
(Portrait of Madame Dietz-Monnin) (1879)

"May we always remember."
—
I ended my writing week by recounting my interactions with people who possessed what I labeled Disconceptions, convictions most likely anchored in disinformation. They'd enthusiastically swallowed the rubber worm. "We seem to have spawned an entire demographic of those absolutely convinced of the righteousness of their fiction."

Percy Billinghurst:
The Fool Who Sold Wisdom (1900)

“ … a particular sort of Hell.”

Much of this week's writing was inspired by my "volunteering" in The Muse's campaign booth at the Fair. That obligation pulled me out of my usual isolation and forced me to mingle among the general population of the asylum. I found the experience enlivening as well as terrifying, as captured in my writing. Bureaucracy Gutted me, as usual, as it always has. The Muse engaged in what must have been RealPolitic and, like all reality, came across as distinctly different than expected. I found a root and perhaps a harbinger of the worst of our so-called civilization in Roe-Day-O. I publicly big-time messed up in a way few would have even noticed had I not publicly apologized by admitting I'd been FlatWrong. I really caught one of those perfectly ordinary exceptional experiences in my Last_Night story. I ended the week describing my dismay, how people who could choose Heaven opted for the Hell alternative in Disconceptions. I admit that I remain steadfastly intolerent of the steadfastly intolerant. Thank you for following along. (Only two more weeks of my Honing Stories before I choose another theme!)

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Honing, #PureSchmaltz