Extraordinary Discourse Podcast

People Talking Through Their Hats SKY PIECES by Carl Sandburg Proudly the fedoras march on the heads of the some- what careless men. Proudly the slouches march on the heads of the still more careless men. Proudly the panamas perch on the noggins of dapper debonair men. Comically somber the derbies gloom on the earnest sol- emn noodles. And the sombrero, most proud, most careless, most dap- per and debonair of all, somberly the sombrero marches on the heads of important men who know what they want. Hats are sky-pieces; hats have a destiny; wish your hat slowly; your hat is you. I seek less to state or display any theme or thought, and more to bring you, reader, into the atmosphere of the theme or thought-  there to pursue your own flight. Walt Whitman Speech is a cluster of living beings, moved by rhythms like the rhythms that move the stars and planets... Octavio Paz The full  interview with Sam Polk is still available at...

Speaking Out And Up As he well knew, man's voice is an all-powerful charm. of Jesus, from  Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation Alexander Chen reminisces about studying with the inimitable Annie Dillard, who echoes Mark Twain’s contention that “all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources,” Alexander Graham Bell’s assertion that "our most original compositions are composed exclusively of expressions derived from others,” and young Virginia Woolf’s observation that "all the Arts … imitate as far as they can the one great truth that all can see.” thanks to Maria Popova, Explore

Flâneur's Field Notes Let your world hear all the voices wanting to speak. Sheila J Ramsey  A certain mouse inhabiting a cornfield is invisible, being so small, but once it makes a sound, then people know it by means of its sound. And so, people are utterly immersed in the cornfield of this world, and your essence, being extremely subtle, is invisible. So speak, that they may recognize you. Rumi

It's All A Digression Consciousness is nothing more than maintaining conversation. James Hillman We've Had a 100 Years of Psychotherapy And The World's Getting Worse

Visceral Release Lots of violence, rambunctious profanity, mass psychosis, and fun! And in case you missed some events, an extended newscast to keep you informed of what you really need to know. If for some inexplicable reason the newscast gets tiresome, the news sequence ends at just after 21 minutes in - feel free to fly over the News like Dorothy flew over the Hammerheads to the land of the Quadlings. There's great stuff after that. Thanks to Norm MacDonald Thanks to Mark Maron, WTF podcast . The term profane is derived from the Latin pro (before) and fanum (temple). …the wild realm of the sacred as it was/is before being caged into the temple of Father Time. It is free time/space. This prehistoric sacred is prior to the patriarchal sequestered "sacred" not merely temporally, but more importantly, in range and depth. Since it is not confined within the walls of any spatial or temporal temple, it transcends the "accepted" dichotomies between th...

Autodidact's Intelligence Gathering All great ideas and innovations began life as "disruptive" from the periphery, from "outsiders" -- those people just going it alone, often "outside the box." Morris Berman calls these people the New Monastic Individuals (NMI), and Berman thinks this is where the future lies. I'm inclined to agree with him. Berman puts forth a "new monastic" model of action whereby individuals/groups get on and create new ways of doing things, without fanfare or large billboard announcements. Such monastic work, so to speak, often operates below the radar, being authentic in activity rather than seeking visibility. The monastic worker, in seeking change, chooses a way of life that has meaning and that can be a heritage for the family. Often the monastic worker strives for assisting change within their own communities. They are like ink dots on the paper, slowly spreading their impact by diligent yet creative work....

Juggle The Hand You're Dealt If you are a writer or reader of a certain temperament, you celebrate the “postmodern condition,” in which the flux and flow of events dethrone the narrator’s assured voice. If you are a scholar exploring “posthumanism,” you might believe that the human subject can no longer speak as the master of circumstances. Yet if you are an ordinary worker, you need to find your voice. You need, like our Renaissance forbearers, to find principles of continuity and unity in how you account for your material experience. “Voice” is both a personal and a social issue. To hold fragmentary experiences together in time requires the capacity to step back from the power of each event to hurt or to disorient. To find one’s voice requires establishing some distance from the immediate, from the noumenal; sheer surrender to the moment weakens one’s voice. Of course in the midst of the most traumatic events, like a civil war, stepping back can occur only after the event...