Originally Published in Ariadne’s Thread 1999 Love inspires grand feats in art, music, and valiant action. The Great Trojan War, according to Homer, was fought for the love of Helen. St. Valentine’s Day is the day on which we celebrate and honor love. St. Valentine served a prison term in Rome for being Christian. While …
Author Archives: Sean D. Francis
The Art of Worldly Wisdom: The First Maxim
Since this blog takes its name and tagline from the works of Baltasar Gracian, I thought I could also utilize this space as sort of a virtual discussion and meditation on his work, The Art of Worldly Wisdom. I do prefer the direct translation of the title, though: A Manual of the Art of Discretion. …
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The Third Diaspora
The concept behind this short piece of fiction started when a friend wrote a short piece of fiction about a guy who was working at a particle collider and dealing with all sorts of bizarreness. It was inspirational and I wanted to piece together an anthology of similar stories… common people in crazy circumstances. Even …
Quick Fix: Chicken Pot Pie
Originally posted March 12, 2008 As a single man in the city, I sometimes struggle with the concept of eating well. Sometimes eating well to me is not eating the entire bag of tortilla chips. I was discussing the process of making dinner with a coworker and he talked about making chicken pot pie by …
Map Theory
Originally published Wednesday, October 06, 2004 Maps are windows to the past, though many hold a map and pretend they see the future. “Here is where I will go,†they say pointing to a location on a map. That location represents their future to them, but it is actually the past. If I hold a …
Winter Lake
Originally published Wednesday, September 01, 2004 Winters in Montana were never mild when I was growing up there. The snow always threatened to bury the house, or at least cover the windows on one side of the house. One of my earliest memories of winter in Montana was that of a small Franklin stove. God …