Covering a famous song is an uneasy task for the unanticipated. For example, Pink Floyd's haunting song "Wish You Were Here" is not a soft lullaby, but a confrontational lament. Too many amateur performers choose the wrong method for the retelling; here's how to fix that problem. 

From circles, to spirals, to straight lines; we remain our own worst enemy. The self prefers introspection over outer innovation. It is safer, and warmer, to remain self-reverent instead of exponentially helping others exploit their cold talents for human conclusion, and community consciousness.

Chess can be beautiful in its expansive logic. Bobby Fischer taught us that chess could be played, and won, beyond the board; and AlphaZero shows us that chess imagined by a computer can be even more creative in process than the previous human mind.

Architects should be required to live in their own designs. Too often the theory of implementation becomes more important than the actual pleasurable living experience in a designed space. It is not enough to create beauty without also adding functionality to a protected space.

To be an advocate, you must care about the end. Too often, the False Advocate is not in the world for the goodness of it, but merely for the temporary, self-staking glory that reeks from publicity, and social media. We need to find a way, together, to press back against unserious idols who live to trick us, and fake results!

The immoral outnumber us, yet they claim to be the majority. We cannot be corrupted by the "second chancers" and by those who do not wish us to be better human animals. We must always work together, to form a better society, where character, and deeds, matter.

When things come undone, we search to blame. It isn't enough for us to accept a failure. No, for closure, we need just one reason for the fall, but only one reason. Neil Young taught us that, sometimes, there are a thousand reasons for a fall and that fact alone needs to be the answer.

We cannot be left alone to learn community rituals. We become one, together, by sharing information, and by teaching expectation; and if time is not spent on bringing young minds into the human rituals of society, we become, and then remain, broken and alone as a people.

Cheap is not the path to generosity. You've met the skinflint. You know the cheapskate. You might even be one of them; but there are few things in life more disappointing than being told after the fact that you owe someone money. Here's how to deal with the deadbeat payer.

There's a difference between being dumb, and being a Dummy. A whole book publishing industry is dedicated to those who self-identify as a Dummy; but what do we make of those who are proud of just being dumb, and unwilling, and protected from learning anything new? The biggest threat to a safe society is the self-identifying, self-comforting, and self-condemning, dumb person.

A human aesthetic is created to celebrate, not humiliate. What do we choose to value in Art? Is inclusion more important than ability? Do we care more for participation than precision in performance? Some among us want to change the look, and resonance, of the traditional performance Arts; but do we want to so quickly toss away a 500-year-old standard? 

The Holocaust is not an Easter story. There are some, the Christofascists among us, who propagate the lie -- some, perhaps, unwittingly -- that the Christ child is the center of all religions, when that is not true. Here is the story of how that lie is propagated.

We seek renewal in the East, and find death in the West. In that arc of the day, we struggle to define the truth of each moment, while resisting the evil effort to rewrite what has already been lived.

We have a shared, and fatal, fat mentality. Some try to convince us there's such a thing as being "Healthy Fat" when no such condition exists. If we are ever again to regain our place in our own lives, we must become honest, and face down the temptation of the adverse calorie.

Joe Biden is a historical bridge worth crossing. Sure, Joe is owned by the big banks. Sure, Joe told student loan borrowers to pound sand. Sure, Joe lied about the $2,000 stimulus checks; but maybe there's more to his throughline than we need to imagine. 

A "Deal is a Deal" is dead and gone. A handshake is cancelled. All the terms of keeping your word have now gone the way of the comfort of community where you once belonged merely by being. Now the world is about paper, contracts, and the forced enrollment of a morality that no longer matters.

As the world spins forward, we, the newly aged, get left behind. What are we to make of the changes in a culture that cancels the opposite opinion, and where booty shaking overrules the arched foot? In the end, we shall all return together for the yearning of the faraway fire lighted just for us.

Ghosts get the work done. Ghosts become us. Ghosts are up from the grave to provide solace against "Cancel Culture" -- because you cannot kill what does not care!

Music connects us to the living, and reminds us of our demise. In the Summer of 1973, the Coven song, "One Tin Soldier" was on the top of the music charts, and that tune was sung by 8-year-olds in the yellow school bus, on the way home from Camp Kitaki, in Nebraska. Music supplies the memories for our memes.