Brilliant Thoughts 11-Month CD Special
by Ashleigh Brilliant
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Born London, 1933. Mother Canadian. Father a British civil servant. World War II childhood spent mostly in Toronto and Washington, D.C. Berkeley PhD. in American History, 1964. Living in Santa Barbara with wife Dorothy since 1973. No children. Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots”, now a series of 10,000. Email ashleigh@west.net or visit www.ashleighbrilliant.com
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Used Thoughts
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ne of the parts I remember most vividly from Lust for Life, the film about Vincent Van Gogh, is not connected with his painting, but occurs earlier, when he Is trying to begin a career as an evangelical missionary. Appearing before a group of men charged with making the selection, Van Gogh (as played by Kirk Douglas) pleads with them: “USE ME! USE ME!” Perhaps those impassioned words impressed me so much because I have so often had the same desire – a frustrated feeling of wanting to be useful, in a world which doesn’t particularly seem to need me. If you know me or my work, I can hear you offering me this kind of consolation: “But Ashleigh, your creations, your thoughts, and ideas – all your writings – are being used and valued all over the world every day. You are helping probably thousands of people you don’t even know.” My answer: that’s just the point. I don’t know them. There’s no personal relationship. Besides, all those creations are part of my past – some of them made many years ago. I want to feel useful now – just the way poor Van Gogh did. The times I feel most useful tend to be those when I’m helping somebody on a one-to-one basis, using my own particular skills (which are mainly doing things with words, and a little with drawings). I like sitting down with somebody at a computer and helping them to write what for them would be a difficult letter. Of course, it’s good to be paid, when that person is really satisfied with what we’ve done together – but money is hardly the main objective for me. It’s my own sense of satisfaction at having been tangibly useful. You might think that people would be crowding up to my door, fighting one another for a chance to take advantage of this service (which I have advertised modestly from time to time). But truly, though I have seen in India professional letter-writers sitting in the streets, plying their craft with their precious old typewriters, in our society today, there no longer seems to be a great need for such assistance. Computers and other intelligent devices are making it increasingly easy for even the semi-literate to express themselves. Incredible as it still seems to those of us with pre-com1 – 8 June 2017
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puter memories, these machines even correct our spelling! Who knows how much longer it may be before they are writing poetry and fiction of a quality indistinguishable from the old-fashioned kind? But I have at least tried to make the most of my uselessness by writing about it, in epigrams such as these:
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How can I go on strike if nobody ever needs my services? If you have no use for me, couldn’t you create one? Don’t feel totally useless – even a crippled finger can still point the way.
Computers are making it easy for the semi-literate to express themselves But even just being “used” can often carry unhappy connotations. That, no doubt, is why sellers of cars and other items, who could once describe their merchandise as “used” without any stigma, now often prefer the term “pre-owned.” But the alternative euphemism, of “second-hand,” has come to sound almost worse than “used” – perhaps thanks partly to Barbra Streisand’s Funny Girl popularization of the song “Second Hand Rose.” This hits a personal nerve, because my mother’s entire family in Toronto developed around what I only learned, when my sister and I were taken there as young children, was called the “Second Hand Business.” And indeed, they had a whole string of second-hand stores along Queen Street West – a part of that city that has since been completely redeveloped. One thing that troubles me is how much more frequently these days we hear about abuse than about plain, old simple use. I need hardly remind you of all the stories, in constant circulation, about Drug Abuse, Child Abuse, Spousal Abuse, Self-Abuse (the time-honored way of characterizing masturbation) Animal Abuse, and the catch-all categories of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. So, perhaps we should be glad that it’s only the people termed “masochists” who are likely to go around crying “ABUSE ME! ABUSE ME!” •MJ
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Publication:
Montecito Journal
From:
First Republic Bank
Run Date:
5/31/2017
Size:
4.858 x 6.19
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MONTECITO JOURNAL
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