In Search of the Salient Self

“Everybody interprets things differently with their own perception, and I want poetry to pull out of them their own feelings.”

- John Trudell

I think we can all agree that poetical essays are exhausting and a little too much too close together like the idea of riding BART in San Francisco during a pandemic or when they put too much salt in the gomen at your favorite African restaurant because a little salt is good obviously salient like taking a moment to be inspired by these things and you will find your own these things but these are the these things that inspired me recently:

• The Pirate Radio Broadcaster Who Occupied Alcatraz and Terrified the FBI - This is the fantastic story of John Trudell and how his pirate radio station started to change the way we look at the Native American experience.

• Smoke Signals - Based on a couple of short stories from Sherman Alexie’s “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven,” a Sundance winner, and a great story of two Native American men on a journey. I can’t recommend this one enough. And Trudell has a small role as a local DJ.

• Time, Tarkovsky, and the Pandemic - I really dig how Nerdwriter explains ideas in art and philosophy. In this video he asks how the pandemic has affected our experience of time and wonders that it’s similar to how Tarkovsky represents time in his films. Yes, you saw this title the last time we met here.

• The Secret to Being Witty, Revealed - It comes down to the desire to play with language and ideas but some interesting ideas on perception too.

• Getting out from under the influence - No matter what we do professionally or avocationally, we each look up to people who have done the thing before us for inspiration and ideas. We mimic and learn from those who inspire us but at some point we have to learn to trust and be ourselves because, in the words of Oscar Wilde, “everybody else is taken.”