Everyone is a magician these days.

One hand distracts, while the other does the work, right? Perhaps. Lines of thought that run roughly, 'X is just a distraction from Y', are interesting.

The person making the claim presumably has followed both X and Y without losing focus, without which it would be harder to convincingly dismiss X.

Y is often a complex series of roughly related items, which itself presumes one can keep track of multiple threads without being distracted.

And, while this is perhaps a fair criticism of cable news (which does tend to obsess over one story per 'cycle'), actual newspapers, news-sites, and TV and radio programs typically cover more than one story in any given iteration.

Yet this odd meme persists. Every day, I see different people saying this, that, or the other thing is merely a distraction from some set of other stuff. Pretty regularly, one person's distraction is another person's story-They-are-trying-to-distract-You-from. If we're not all magicians, fooling eachother with elaborate gestures, then we have become that guy who sits in the crowd during the show claiming, "I know how that's done."

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For Every Problem, a Solution (4)

God as depicted throughout the ages. No Alanis Morissette, and, no, that isn't ironic.

An introduction to a book that doesn't exist:

Prose and verse are generally accepted as distinct writing formats with their own rules, styles, and grammars. Though their borders are somewhat vague, they have come to be seen as something of a dichotomy in the eyes of the general public. There are, however, at least 3 other popular approaches to writing as exhibited in picture-books, comicbooks, and plays. Though sometimes given short shrift, these styles are accepted as literature. They are included in libraries, book stores, and academic study. Most importantly, they are read. In the general case, there is clearly writing being done in the creation of any one of these. But what of the wordless comic or silent play? Should we consider scripts written, but fully realized plays, comics, and picture-books, to be performance, art, or some other kind of non-literature? These worries of theory are kinks to be worked out, surely, but they are not of immediate practical concern to the writer...

My room is a mess, my painting unfinished.

...and I still haven't found a good alternative to my scanner with its missing power-cord. Almost finished with this painting, though. I just need to put in a bus seat in front of and behind the passenger. Incidentally, the Seattle Metro buses have the ugliest upholstery I can remember seeing, and I spent five years working at a used furniture store.

Pointless Man

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