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Another Hanif missive

You are not a machine. It would be a mistake to believe that you can continuously renew yourself. It might be an idea to take a break for some time, for weeks, even months, until something substantial begins to stir. No artist is consistently creative. Why would they be? Good ideas come unbidden and you might need to wait, to think about other things, ruminate. You are not a machine. It is a fallacy that you should be able to continuously produce new work. Masud Khan describes  lying fallow’ as a state of mind that enables genuine creativity, as opposed to pseudo activity. The term itself is taken from agricultural terminology – where the fallow ground is ploughed but left uncropped – to allow for genuine regeneration. He does not endorse inertia or listless vacancy, but an active state of receptive awareness. Khan observed that modern technical cultures have created “a colossal trade in organising people’s leisure,” filling every stillness with ready-made distractions. This repres...
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  I can be having a for sure blah kind of day and then walk home from the market and see a young kid, maybe 14 with so much style drenching him - a black cardigan with big sloppy white blobs all over it and a white dress shirt buttoned at the neck and baggy light blue colored jeans - and think, gee, I bet he looks that cool and singular everyday and I love seeing him and more on the streets where I live.   And before him, maybe the most beautiful arms I’ve ever encountered. Lightly muscled, long, sinewy, a tasty autumnal brown hue. I almost told the guy what I was thinking but then thought not. He was carrying pruning shears and maybe if it was my bad luck that he was a creep, he could lunge them into me. But alas, he unlocked the gat eto the pocket park behind the library and walked into he greenhouse that I’ve coveted for years.  
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Patti was on Colbert tonight. Yeah, she still has it.

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  “People have made a lot of stuff about the   Horses   cover. But a lot of what we do is bred on innocence. How people interpret it is up to them. I thought of myself as a poet and a performer, and so how did I dress? I didn’t have much money; I liked to dress like Baudelaire. I looked at a picture of him and he was dressed, like, with this ribbon or tie and a white shirt. I wasn’t thinking that I was going to break any boundaries. I just like dressing like Baudelaire... I know people would like to think that we got together to break boundaries of politics and gender, but we didn’t really have time for that. We were really too busy trying to pull enough money together to buy lunch.” Clive Davis, the founder and president of Arista records, however, was appalled by the image, and pleaded with Smith to change her mind about using it. He objected to her unkempt hair, lack of make-up and man’s tie. He was also, reportedly, critical of the trace of facial hair on Smith’s uppe...
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Don't let us get sick Don't let us get old Don't let us get stupid, alright? Just make us be brave And make us play nice And let us be together tonight."                                                                                                              -Warren Zevon
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  August Lizette Woodworth Reese No wind, no bird. The river flames like brass. On either side, smitten as with a spell Of silence, brood the fields. In the deep grass, Edging the dusty roads, lie as they fell Handfuls of shriveled leaves from tree and bush. But ’long the orchard fence and at the gate, Thrusting their saffron torches through the hush, Wild lilies blaze, and bees hum soon and late. Rust-colored the tall straggling briar, not one Rose left. The spider sets its loom up there Close to the roots, and spins out in the sun A silken web from twig to twig. The air Is full of hot rank scents. Upon the hill Drifts the noon’s single cloud, white, glaring, still.
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