Extraordinary Discourse 137


Cherrypicked Jawboning








All the selections had something in common: a determination by their authors to push the genre into new territory, to feature prose that - to put it quickly - depends more on poetic fragmentation than rhetorical coherence and discontinuous narrative than straightforward self-presentation. The trick, of course, is to employ innovative forms without sacrificing ideas, substance, or urgency.
Robert Atwan
Foreword
The Best American Essays 2011



He [Montaigne] followed himself wherever his attention settled, and his regard was always the same - intent, amused, compassionate, contrarian, and irreversibly eclectic (He could jump from Plato's discourse on the divinatory power of dreams to dinner at a castle - "a confusion" of meats and a clutter of dishes displeases me as much as any other confusion" - and do justice to them both.
Jane Kramer
Me,
Myself, and I





Let me raise a battered gold coffee cup to U. Utah Phillips, old hobo wise man/guy who flagged the Westbound back in May 2008. A treasure-chest of stories, humor, and Ulterior Americana. LOAFER'S GLORY, The Hobo Jungle of the Mind. 100 shows!  Free! A click or so away. Listen for Utah clips here, some slices of his slice-of-life material, and then go dive in the big feast Utah left us from his collection.

On this podcast, from Loafer's Glory, (although he passed on, he passes these gems on while still keeping them, which is nothing if not having your cake and eating it too, which is digital) some of Tickets Please, by Lord Buckley, to edify the mix.
Jack






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