Old Ways - Aaron Lake Smith

Sunday, January 6, 2013

HUNAN, ALL TOO HUNAN

Saturday, January 5, 2013

VIENNA IN THE 20s

“I am glad I have discussed the Nostalgic Fallacy at the beginning of this book as a warning to myself….it is difficult to resist a tete-a-tete with the charming ghosts of Vienna, difficult not to indulge in memories of summer nights in the vineyards of Grinzing, of picnics on the Danube, of sitting with a book in the sunbathed public parks, of nocturnal processions with lighted candles along the “Ring.” Of Richard Strauss first nights at the Opera or Alexander Moissi’s performance in Hamlet; and above all, to pass in silence a gallery of smiling portraits of sweet Vienna girls, Friedls and Hansls and Christls and Bertls, who seem to curtsy with tender and mocking glances, as in the ballet scenes by Degas…

That Vienna is as distant from us today as the lost continent of Atlantis. The stars which shone in its firmament are extinct without having been properly charted on the maps; who, in the West knows, and who in the East remembers Karl Kraus, the most brillian satiririst in the German language; Peter Altenberg, the Dr. Johnson of Vienna’s café; the early Werfel; Anton Kuh; Egon Ervin Kisch; von Hofmannsthal’s books for the operas of Richard Strauss? The opera and the ballet and the repertory of classics in the Burg Theatre; the concerts and the Philharmonic Orchestra were a permanent festival, the last display of fireworks before the clock struck twelve and closing-time arrived for Europe.”

-Arthur Koestler, Arrow in the Blue.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

NAMED ONE OF THE 11 AMAZING WRITERS YOU HAVENT HEARD OF YET

I am grateful to Flavorwire and Jonathon Kyle Sturgeon, along with the editors of The American
Reader for naming me one of Flavorwire's "11 Amazing Writers You Haven't Heard of Yet."

Monday, December 3, 2012

VICE SYRIA ISSUE ON THE RADIO

Went on NHPR's Word of Mouth show with Anna Therese Day to talk about the VICE Syria issue. 15 minute segment, listen here: http://nhpr.org/post/vice-turns-back-pages-syrian-resistance

Sunday, November 4, 2012

LIFE 1983-2012

Saturday, November 3, 2012

INTERVIEW WITH NEW HAMPSHIRE NPR

I was interviewed by Virginia Prescott about my article, "Death of the American Hobo"
on Word of Mouth, on New Hampshire Public Radio.
Link to the 12-minute segment is here: http://nhpr.org/post/american-hobo

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

MYSTERY

I was on a street corner smoking
Surrounded by people reading similar books on iPads
Listening to music on similar iPods
All walking the same

And I saw little birds playing and darting around singing their little song to each other
And a voice said:
Don’t be like everyone else.

Follow your secret dark mystery
Whatever that may mean to you
Friendship and solitude are both a part of that.
Inspiration doesn’t come with mechanical artistic consumption
It comes from the lonely-god-secret.

BURST FORTH!
In bloom!
And why choose gloomy darkness when
You have all the time in the world
To be a life-lover
And a dream-speaker
Lonely-sad-one
so caught up in it
When will you listen to yourself?
Offers always come, they need to be refused
Don’t be so fresh to the world
You’ve been around long enough
You know where the secret lies.