Monday, April 30, 2007

from the Knox MagazinePosted by Picasa

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"When YOU Were WR Kowinski or Who Knew Phil Ralston Was a Poet?"

This seems like the appropriate place to reminisce about several ideas in your blog writings. I too have books from my time at Knox readily at hand: Crowell's choice of American Lit texts, Jacobs' required 'All the King's Men,' the texts for Philosophy 101 and Bio 101, and four 'Siwasher' and two 'Dialogue' issues.

I missed the reference to Capt Toothpaste in the previous issue of the KNOX mag but caught it today. The memories and images have been dancing through my day so I finally sat down for a Google session and an interesting read of your blogs and columns.

I checked the yearbooks where part of the time you looked like a cute Beatle but remember other times when you seemed impatient and distracted - the quintessential brooding artist.

I am pondering the differences I felt when we were both on the same campus for three years. In one place you called yourself wild; I saw sophisticated, daring, petulant, talented and on a plane I could neither comprehend nor understand. I was fascinated but had no clue.

Now, I read you and there is so much common ground. The liberal arts education appealed to me but studying didn't so I spent too much of my time at the movies not as a member of the Cinema Club but downtown at the West(?) Theater. '8 1/2,' 'Blow Up,' 'Taming of the Shrew,' and many others over the years.

Thanks for the day away from my usual habits and for a space to put some of my nostalgic ramblings. I'll tune in again.

Captain Future said...

Ellenois--Thanks so much for your recollections, and especially for finding my sites. I just got my Knox magazine today--they apparently have some policy against providing web addresses in the magazine. I don't know why they just didn't link to this post, because that's where they got their information.

Your recollections seem pretty accurate to me--"petulant" is a good word. Although I also get a kick out of entirely imaginary memories--someone remembered me as striding about campus wearing a cape, which while not literally true has its resonance, apart from being very funny.

I've since looked back on a lot of that through the lense of James Hillman's "The Soul's Code," a profound book. (Hillman is one of the major voices in my life that didn't start at Knox.) In some ways we know what our fate will be, from the point of view of the "acorn" inside us that is going to find fertile ground or not. Petulance might have been an inevitable expression of anxiety.

I remember the Orpheum theatre? Was there another? "Cute Beatle"--I like that! I was more of a Lennon guy though I liked McCartney more than most of my peers. In recent years I've become more attached to George Harrison. I'm reading a bio of him now.

I don't have a yearbook of my class, so I can't even begin to guess who you might be. But thanks for the contact now.