Tuesday, February 28th - On this penultimate day of February, in the year 2012, I, like many others on the planet, begin my blog out of a sense of need: obsessed with literature, writers and writing, mesmerized by outstanding prose stylists of the immortal pantheon, and by great books of ages past (modern novels in particular); inspired by the Zeitgeist of the ineluctable "now" and wanting to achieve my fair allotment of fame, applause, attention or  "mere contact" with any other truth-seekers likewise preoccupied with thoughts of literature, history, current events, not to mention  the "ultimate questions" of life, philosophy or theology - you denizens of the virtual stratosphere - perplexed, haunted, tied-in-knots as you are by questions of "culture" both high and low, including the problem of "middlebrow" which haunts me. To be or not to be "middlebrow" - that has become the question for us all to answer; whether it be nobler in the mind to give in to the common, instantaneous and already-formed "majority opinions" and "middlebrow tastes" of the mediocre mindset - based on our present ordinary circumstances which most of us know and love as being most familiar, inescapable and problematic (suburbia, lawns, cars, gadgets, cubicles, mobile phones, video screens, mass marketing, processed food) - feeding our thoughts and making them all so tiresome and banal, dragging them down to the realm of "genus generica" despite our desire to pretend otherwise; I refer of course, at least in part, to that predictable Middle-America (as opposed to Middle Earth) fly-over state consensus, forming anew at sunrise in reaction to the snootier if equally shallow and "middlebrowsian" conclusions of the "East Coast elites" - who ride taller elevators and have better views of Central Park - as the price we pay ("Which side are you on boy?") for inhabiting the jumbled world of "pop culture" where high becomes low and low becomes high and the most execrable the most celebrated, where the "most noticed" is most sacred (for a time) while the overlooked is justly forgotten and vilified by corollary, where all people - as "trade commodities!" or "paid actors" - are equal or at least equally transparent, depending on circumstance, and - as contributors to the general porridge - famous for a day - therefore transient, therefore anonymous.  I guess what I'm really talking about here is recognition of the individual on the basis of merit. And whose merit you say? According to which point of view? And which stature as decided by whom and when and in which order and sequence?  Exactly. Exactly. Now you're getting it. Now you understand.

But there's more....The bone-chilling winds continue to howl outside the expansive windows of the teacher lounge, even now, as brisk sunlight disperses the retreating clouds, which are by no means defeated, and which shall return soon enough to dump a foot of snow upon us. As omen? As punishment? As encouragement?  It is February of course, my least favorite month, weather-wise and otherwise; it is cabin-fever time, season of restlessness and spicy-savory meals, season of headaches, long-underwear,  aspirin and lack of exercise, a short, petulant month, dragging its heels, demanding one more day to leave its icy, inconvenient mark upon the parking lot and the expansive blueberry field which sits there barren and forgotten. Amid such atmospherics, I continue to think of Kafka's Castle and Musil's The Man Without Qualities - books so very European and yet so relevant....

Anxious as I continue to be over the state of my country (what else is new during an election year?) not to mention my ongoing dizziness regarding the speed with which technocrats seek to replace their most prized inventions (at our expense - literally); and don't get me started on the vile headaches caused by inane traffic patterns or my irrational worries concerning dense, dilapidated housing units, or those ongoing chills induced by menacing youths who rule over urban enclaves for the poor, or the gastric irregularities triggered by mere thoughts of dubious carcinogenic additives to food, or perhaps even the eye strain resulting from staring too long at video screens for no particular reason,  cue the "gloom and doom" music Igor, even so, there exists, somewhere, a counter-opinion; but to return without delay to my previous topic: this ongoing painful confusion  I feel, we feel, you may feel (partially, somewhat), over the meaning of "high" and "low." I speak of thought itself, yes, of culture, of what it means to have art, literature, music, fashion, manners, morals, nowadays, and I worry, because I'm confused, because so much is accepted, feted, celebrated, stamped, indexed, numbered - with no concern over lasting merit. But thankfully, at long last, in this very post, there occurs a reversal of sorts. My alter ego - or perhaps yours as well: call him "Opp" for "Optimist" begs to disagree. He claims that it's not so bad, that many people are getting on just fine, that culture is chugging right along: great painters painting, musicians playing, singers singing, new novels of merit finding readers, colossal buildings rising up in major cities, photographers finding new angles by which to teach us how to see, small towns acquiring museums, shopping centers, paved roads, biking paths, parks for children to gather in. Little League still co-existing alongside ballet lessons. You get the idea. So anyway....this Opp fellow - the left side of my right-brained psyche (I'm left-handed, vous est compris?) says it's gonna be alright. Take everything I say with a grain of salt or sand, and don't despair.