or reasons I cannot quite explain, I’m interested in things and behaviors that are “pointless.” Some are:
- Spatial: Think spheres, Doric columns, arches, globes, certain geometric forms, the universe
- Predispositions: In my case, I am predisposed to buying, smelling, and using cosmetics. So enticing — and so pointless.
- Mindsets: Trying to keep some distance from people who argue to “make a point,” often trying to convert someone to another point of view.
These examples (and there could be many more) seem inevitable. Easy to fall into. Almost a “second nature.”
On the other hand, being pointless on purpose is difficult. Still, I try. Here are other examples:
- Listening to Bach, whose compositions are not “about” anything except musical structures, think fugues, diatonic keys, B-flat major or g-minor. These compositions and concepts are, in one sense, pointless.
- Practicing being on both sides of a debate or topic – to be the proverbial “devil’s advocate.” To make no point or to make contradictory points.
- Writing about being pointless in articles often titled something like “Listening to Art.”
In this issue of Olive, I include the latest version of this theme with theories and ideas on wearing headsets in an art gallery.
Of course I can never resist more exploration of poetry. So here we have “Mother Goose Rhymes: Then and Now.” I am assisted by the expert opinion of Groucho Marx on eating choices.
Finally, Friends of Judy. I am pleased to be friends with an organization, Writers Without Margins, and to include three poems by authors whose work appears in WWM ‘s latest publication, “Urban Elegy,” Volume IX. To learn more about Writers Without Margins, go to www.WritersWithoutMargins.org
So – here is Olive, issue 8. Somewhat pointless, but I hope you enjoy it!