No Walk in the Park

I was just reading a review of a couple of books about walking. The theme of both books was the idea of walking as a boost to creativity—literary creativity in particular.

Maybe I need to walk more.

I used to walk a lot, really. When I lived in New York, I followed a principle of only walking—as opposed to hopping the bus or subway—when traveling within a borough. Of course, I couldn’t follow this rule exclusively: Time was often a consideration, as was company. While I might not have thought much about walking from, say, Jackson Heights to Forest Hills, my dinner companions might look askance.

Still, when time was not of the essence, I wouldn’t think twice about employing feet as mode of transportation. When I was working at Hunter College (68th and Lexington) and rehearsing in Alphabet City, I walked every evening, rain or shine. When I was living in Jackson Heights and working at LaGuardia Community College, I would walk to and fro, five days a week. 

I’m not claiming these as examples of great physical exertion. In both cases, we’re talking about walks of three to five miles. But, still, good for the heart, good for the legs, and ostensibly generative of all kinds of creative output. 

Still, the great American novel remains unwritten.

I think the problem might be that, while I’ve never minded—and frequently enjoyed—walking, I’ve never really cared for going for a walk. Whenever someone invites me to go for a walk, my first question is, “To where?” Walking is not an end in itself. I need a destination—even a completely arbitrary one—before setting off.

And maybe that’s what’s blocking the creative juices. Because I suspect that those Romantic poets and Parisian flaneurs were far more comfortable with the idea of letting their minds wander along with their feet. If you’re not concentrating on a destination, with its attendant choices about pathways and street surfaces, you have more mental space for creative contemplation.

Maybe someday I’ll learn to just enjoy the journey and thereby find myself at a strange and wondrous endpoint.

Barnaby Jones Doesn’t Smoke

I like my voice remote. To get to Netflix, I just press the voice-command button and say, “Netflix.” You know, instead of opening the menu, scrolling over to Apps, opening THAT menu, scrolling over to the Netflix icon and selecting it. Like an animal! No, the voice remote is a wondrous innovation.

Sometimes, though, I wonder about it. Like, when I say “Netflix,” and I get the message, “To get to a show faster, say something like ‘“Quincy” on Netflix.’”

[DIGRESSION: And if you’re not impressed by those embedded quotation marks, you are just NOT paying attention! EOD]

“Quincy”? 

I mean, I’m currently bouncing between “Supernatural” and “Penny Dreadful.” I’ve recently watched things like “The Queen’s Gambit” and “Community.” What kind of f—ed up algorithm looks at that and says, “Yup, ‘Quincy’ it is!”?

[DIGRESSION: Seriously, are you not impressed with my punctuation game today? EOD]

Speaking of “Penny Dreadful” and “Supernatural” (and any number of other shows): When I start an episode, I get the standard “rating message,” warning me of all the moral and psychological depravity to which the show might expose me. Standard warning for “Penny Dreadful”: Violence, sex, nudity, gore, smoking.

I know smoking is bad and all, but does it really require a trigger warning?

Checking In

I know I’ve been AWOL the last couple of days. Just kind of exhausted from work. But I know that the last time I disappeared for a while I disappeared for a WHILE, so I wanted to just check in and let you all know—all three of you—that I’m not planning on abandoning the blog again. I just need to be inspired... and maybe get a little more sleep.

But since you’re probably craving some kind of random observation, I will mention this: Whenever I start a new post, the first letter of the post is always automatically indented one space. I don’t understand why. And of course it doesn’t matter, and I could just ignore it. . . But of course I can’t just ignore it! Have you met me? Nothing triggers incipient OCD like random unexplained typographical irregularities!

Is Blogger just messing with me? Pissed off by my extended leave of absence? Blogger! I’m back! Give me a break! Sheesh!

Grover Could Conceivably Refer to Cleveland

 It occurred to me that any “Kermits” born since around 1975 or so were probably named after the frog.

I mean, seriously, if you were on “Match Game,” and the final Super Match was “Kermit _____,” all three answers would be “the Frog.”

And yeah, I just hit you with a “Match Game” reference! That’s just how cool I am!