Prologue to a Blog

How does one start a blog? It seems fashionable these days to start with a short, quirky greeting (which, as I have been lead to believe, is commonly referred to as a 'shout-out'). But this is my first post, and at the time of writing I have precisely zero readers. So then, to whom would such a greeting be directed?

Other popular alternatives are the in-depth biography of the author, and the 1000+ word blog manifesto. But again I have objections. While the former would be nothing but thinly-veiled narcissism, the latter would raise expectations; expectations that may or may not be realized. Furthermore, trying to define something so soon after its very inception is not something that sits well with me.

No - I will start with a Prologue. An opening to a story not yet written, and with no promise of relevance, nor even vague connectedness. A small sharing intended to be nothing more than a lead-up to the first, and a modest platform from which to progress.


The photograph at the top of this post is from the first page of the prologue to "Invisible Man", by Ralph Ellison. This copy belonged to my mother, and was one of her set-works at university. It was my mother's hand that so innocently doodled over the heading, leaving evidence of the 20-something year-old daydreaming student to whom I owe my very existence, and yet remains very much a stranger. It is easy to believe that books leave something behind in each reader, but perhaps the converse is true as well. Perhaps each reader also leaves a bit of themselves behind in the book. Not always as obvious as the blue ink from a ball-point pen, but hidden somewhere in the yellowed pages, and the bubbling scars down the spine.

To end, I will quote a section from the prologue to Invisible Man. This passage was the inspiration for my blog's title, and stirs a wonderfully bipolar mix of emotion: aggression and placidity, separation and brotherhood, and passion and cold calculation. I hope you enjoy.

That is why I fight my battle with Monopolated Light & Power. The deeper reason, I mean: It allows me to feel my vital aliveness. I also fight them for taking so much of my money before I learned to protect myself. In my hole in the basement there are exactly 1,369 lights. I’ve wired the entire ceiling, every inch of it. And not with fluorescent bulbs, but with the older, more-expensive-to-operate kind, the filament type. An act of sabotage, you know. I’ve already begun to wire the wall. A junk man I know, a man of vision, has supplied me with wire and sockets. Nothing, storm or flood, must get in the way of our need for light and ever more and brighter light. The truth is in the light and light is the truth. When I finish all four walls, then I’ll start on the floor. Just how that will go, I don’t know. Yet when you have lived invisible as long as I have you develop a certain ingenuity. I’ll solve the problem. And maybe I’ll invent a gadget to place my coffeepot on the fire while I lie in bed, and even invent a gadget to warm my bed—like the fellow I saw in one of the picture magazines who made himself a gadget to warm his shoes! Though invisible, I am in the great American tradition of tinkers. That makes me kin to Ford, Edison and Franklin. Call me, since I have a theory and a concept, a “thinker-tinker.” Yes, I’ll warm my shoes; they need it, they’re usually full of holes. I’ll do that and more.