Its a Small World After All

I just finished off an entire bottle of Nihon-shu (a traditional Japanese liquor) at the airport bar in Narita, near Tokyo. It dawned on me that we are living an incredible age. I am desperately trying to get get home to the US for Christmas on a stand-by ticket. That means that I have to wait until there is a free seat on a flight...no small task in this holiday season. But as I wait I can eat fine foods, finish up with some last minute Christmas shopping, get drunk as a monkey, and publish my d5runken thoughts on a blog to be read by the world (or at least a few friends who find it mildly entertaining) all in the comfortable and convenient setting of the airport. I wonder if Ernest Hemingway had enjoyed this kind of access if he would have bothered writing, editing and publishing his incredible works. Maybe "The Old Man and the Sea" would have been reduced to a two or three paragraph blog entry about facing impossible odds with courage and dignity. Who is to say whether we are better or worse for our newfound conveniences? Maybe it allows the unknown and unconnected to reach a wider audience, or maybe it encourages the rantings of a poorly constructed diatribe. Either way, it is here and we must accept that the world is, in fact, shrinking. With that I will bid you all a good night. I will find as comfortable a chair as the airport offers, curl up with my bags as pillows and my crosswords as company, sleep the best sleep that I can, and hope to board a metal firecracker bound for Atlanta in the morning. God speed, merry Christmas, and good night.

Imagination

"Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey
the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is
true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet."

I randomly stumbled onto this quote, from William Butler Yeats, recently, and it has inspired me to explore a new thread of literature. Beginning with Yeats' "The Celtic Twilight", from which this quote was drawn, I have started reading more fanciful stories of myth and folklore. It is really a fascinating genre that can open one's eyes to various cultures. As we age we tend to lose our youthful imagination, but I am increasingly inclined to recapture mine. From Paul Bunyan to Irish banshees, and from African bogeymen to Japanese raccoon dogs, I am really interested in learning more about legends from around the world. If anyone reads this blog and has any books to recommend, I would appreciate it. For the really adventurous spirit, I encourage you to write a story that might help me re-ignite my imagination.