If you've never checked out Cary Tennis' Since You Asked column in Salon, consider this my plea--nay, demand!--that you to do so immediately. Upon first launching into the dark unknown of the blogosphere with my Google Reader's engines pinging away, Cary's column was one of the few stars I found myself orbiting around more than once. Now I find I can't miss his answer to a single question whether it be what to do when you realize you've stopped doing your job, how to deal with an intense hatred of buzzwords, or what it means when a man farts in your face on a crowded airplane and you say nothing.That's right, Cary Tennis deals with the tough topics--the farts in your face--pulling from the (pungent) air greater truths than the questioner ever imagined learning. Take for example, his response to the airplane question:
But let us get beyond the farting, the rudeness, the olfactory assault, my fellow passengers, and ask the larger question: Are we not sitting idly by every day as powerful people fart in our faces with impunity? Is there not a terrible stink in the national air about which we are saying nothing? Why are we filled with outrage and yet unable to raise our voices in protest? Are we not feeling mute and discouraged in our daily lives as we watch the news? Why is that? Is it because we feel vulnerable to the commands of the captain, fearful of being incarcerated if we raise a stink, pardon the pun, fearful of the consequences if we simply call attention publicly to the fact that a man is standing in the aisle farting in our faces?Every day a new question, every question another attempt at seeing life's bigger picture. It's amazing really, the work that he does. There is no ivory tower here, no shack on a Greek isle completely removed from his audience while he creates his work. No, Tennis rides the bus like the rest of us: face pressed up against the window, teaching us how to focus our eye on the once-blurred beauty before us.
1 comments:
oh, the secluded greek shack. that woman was farting in the face of starving artists everywhere.
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