Sweet Munk Nothings

On the heels of last week’s post about nothing, I’ve stepped it up and found something to write about. And it really is something... It makes the world go around, it lifts you up and it knocks you down. It can have you floating on air, or crushed by despair. You can feel it in your fingers; you can feel it in your toes. Yep… it’s LOVE.

Love is my something this week.

I did a quick search and found numerous sites about love, each with its own categorical definitions. One was content with just two categories: passion and compassion, another described three: Eros, Philos, and Agape, some defined as many as four or five or even six. But regardless of the number, all were firm with the limits of their categories. “That’s it, love defined,” they seem to say.

I see love and all of its variants as infinitely adaptable and therefore indefinable. Trying to define love is like trying to define literary genre, each variant squirms and strains against the trappings of classification.

Don’t believe me? Grab a few opinionated friends and try to classify this list without a debate.

In no particular order…

There’s puppy love and Courtney Love, unbidden and forbidden,

There’s sensual, consensual, unbridled, and once bitten,

There is fading love so bittersweet it tastes of melancholy,

And the crazy, stupid, crushing love that only leads to folly,

The obsessive and possessive loves, of tainted jealousy,

And the unrequited stinging love of ‘never meant to be’,

There’s timeless, endless, boundless love, and trysts that lead to scandal,

Cool, gentle, tender love, and love too hot to handle,

Ethereal, untellable, agape love divine,

The carefree-careless, summer love that ends before its time,

There’s gay love, straight love, and a mother’s love unguarded,

There’s funny love, a comic’s love, and that wasn’t me who farted,

Rivaling-reveling-sibling love ‘tween sister and a brother,

And the super freaky sort of love you don’t take home to mother,

But of passion or compassion or of tender loving care,

The best of love that I have found is that which I have shared.

XOXO,

Munk

Munk’s opening line.

On vacation by a lake, Munk had a second glass of wine and wrote a poem. No one had the good sense to stop him or help him with punctuation.

Munk’s opening line is yours to keep, use it.

This week’s music… Love is All Around, The Troggs--1967 

A very cool band with a very cool and early promo video.

I will have limited connectivity this week... my replies will be even more sporadic than usual.

Damn that Munk

This is a blog post about nothing. If you find nothing of interest in the following text, it’s because my goal this week is to provide you with a string of easily digestible words and phrases that may at first appear compelling, but in retrospect present no substantive value whatsoever. No value in the least.

To repeat, and stay with me here, there is nothing, not the slightest tidbit of information in these words that should be construed as interesting. Perhaps you continue to read because you are drawn by an inexplicable desire to find out if I am kidding, hoping that a punch line awaits. I can assure you it does not. There is nothing more to this blog than the opening sentence predicts—nothing. I am writing words, with the simple goal of writing words, nothing more, nothing less.

Some of you still reading must be asking yourselves, why? Why, after reading over-and-over again that nothing of value is to come, must I keep following along?  Perhaps you are searching between the lines for hidden metaphors or some higher purpose, for some scrap of sanity among the nonsense.

And I’m sure that by now there are several folks out there who after throwing their hands up in disgust have dropped out. “Damn that Munk,” I’ll bet they cursed, before stabbing their cursor on their browser’s BACK button, “he’s always playing around, doesn’t take nothin’ serious.”

Well, see-you-later… you impatient lot… bon voyage, and hit-the-road, because I was kidding. There IS something more to this week’s blog, something amazing, something so absolutely awe-inspiring, that those of you who have stuck around will be talking about it for weeks… or not.

Munk’s opening line…

My name is Camden and I would like to be part of you.

Munk's "Opening Line" is yours to keep, use it. Munk

This week's music:
Mazzy Star -- Fade Into You.

Scary Science

This week's blog contains one big pointer, an ice breaker, and an opening line.

Pointer--> I did a guest spot over at Tim Riley's digs... please mosey on over for a list of my favorite documentaries and add some of your own. The list is actually one of the more useful things I may have ever posted on a blog.

Ice Breaker-->
What is madness if not freedom? Gone are the days when people ask me questions expecting a logical response. Oh, but it doesn't keep them from asking. With their digital recorders sucking at my words and their digital fingers stabbing away at their digital keyboards... they ask and ask and ask, mouths flapping, tongues wagging. They ask.... Ronnie, what does the fire say when it speaks? Who's voice does it use? Are you alone when it talks? Ronnie, is it talking now?
 

This week's opening line:
There is good reason to fear science.
Munk's "Opening Line" is yours to keep, use it. Munk

And, this week's music... Did someone say Ska?

Punching Mary Sue

Today’s blog contains two full disclosures and six Mary Sues at no extra cost!

If you are not familiar with Mary Sues see Lydia Kang’s blog on the subject. From the comments at Lydia’s, I get the feeling that a Mary Sue character (one that has characteristics which you, for any number of reasons, find unique or attractive) is generally seen as a bad thing, but after I followed the link on Lydia’s blog, and took the Mary Sue test, I found that not only I "Mary Sue", but so do my favorite authors.

Do you love your characters? Do you get excited about creating a life? If you could, would you want to be one of them? I do, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. In my book, I Mary Sue all over myself, though you might be hard pressed to tell with which character I share the most in common.

Full disclosure 1: I’m not even sure I know which of my characters are most like me. All I do know is that I love hanging out with each-and-every-one of the ne'er-do-wells. I love messing with them as much as I love reading and just a little less than hanging out with my family. I hear some people, even writers, say that they HATE writing, or at least that they procrastinate to keep from writing (blogs come up a lot in these discussions). Not me. I might procrastinate a little, but it is not a significant time drain. Perhaps, it is that I get my fill of “real” people at work; engineers can be very exacting, it seems that they always have to be right… which is not really me either, I don’t have to be right all the time… I just happen to be so.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if writing was my job… would I learn to hate it, and would I then translate that hate to my characters? Without my engineering career as a surrogate punching bag, would I pound the humility out of my Mary Sues?

Full disclosure 2: that last sentence gave me an evil grin.

A quote for today: “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.” ~Carl Jung (Thanks to Matthew MacNish for posting this quote on his blog)

Munk’s opening line:

The distance between pleasure and pain is measured in the flesh of the participants.

Munk's "Opening Line" is yours to keep, use it. Munk

Music this week is from the vault of obscurity. Unless you spent time in Chicago in the seventies, odds are you've never heard this gem. If I am wrong, please prove me so. Alliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah, with Lake Shore Drive