Category Archives: Featured Fool
Featured Fool: Zachary Quinto the Hopebearer
I’m Zachary Quinto and I want to add to the chorus of voices rising up against the kind of hatred and ridicule that led to the senseless and heartbreaking suicides of Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas, Tyler Clementi and Raymond Chase in just the past few month in this country. And those are only the names that we’ve come to know.
There are countless other teens and young adults who are struggling to find a sense of identity and belonging in a chaotic and often unforgiving world. To you I say: it gets better. There is help to be found. There are places to turn, there are people who will listen.
Start there, start anywhere, but start by believing that life is worth living and you will find your way. And I’m proud to be a voice that stands to remind you of that any time you ever come close to forgetting it.
Thetrevorproject.org 1.866.4.you.trevor is a place to start. Start there, start anywhere, but start by believing that life is worth living and you will find your way.
I’ve been accused of being a bit of a voice fetishist, and, if I’m entirely honest, I can’t deny it. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the parts of a voice, but I know that there’s a certain tonal quality that I respond to, a voice that, with its rise and fall, my heart speeds up and slows down.
It’s a matter of resonance, I suppose.
A voice can dig down deep, deeper than my gut, to the very marrow of my bones and set me on fire, make me believe them when they say the earth is square. or everything will be all right. Others turn my back for me, and I’m halfway around the corner before I even realize I’ve been repelled.
There is power in a voice. And when that voice lends itself to powerful words, that power intensifies, surging beyond the realm of limits and dips its toes in the ocean of the limitless.
Zachary Quinto has such a power. His voice, his words, his naming of the victims of suicide has power.
If I’ve watched this video 10 times, I’ve watched it 100. Some days, I’ve been just beyond the scope of that power, wanting to believe so badly it hurt, but afraid of getting my hopes up. Does it get better?
It does. It does. It does.
I was once told that a friend holds your faith for you until you’re able to hold it yourself.
Perhaps a friend is someone who holds your hope for you as well when it’s too much to bear, too much to hold onto. They hold it and share it and eventually your fingers and hands and heart can come together again and keep it from spilling out as you carry it.
Thank you to Zachary Quinto, and for all of those who lend their voices and their power to making the world a better place.
Thank you for being a Hopebearer.
(b&w lighthouse by John Curley, used by creative commons license.)
Featured Fool: Theresa Jones, DMD, PA
I never thought I’d be celebrating a dentist. I have a long, sordid history with dentists. From the hygienists I met who felt like they had to excavate in order to do a cleaning, to the doctor who pinched my cheek to make shots more tolerable (and giving me whiplash in the process) I’ve never had good experiences with dentists.
In fact, the last dentist I had had left me so traumatized that I swore I’d never go to another dentist again, that all of my teeth could rot from my head before I’d step foot in another dental office again. I’d had a crown that had come off, and I went in at their first available appointment to have it put back on again.
Apparently it had not been sealed, and I spent about three hours in the chair having bits o’ teeth being picked out of my jaw.
Bits o’ teeth.
I also have a complicated relationship with novacaine, something that, while evident before, became excruciatingly so as I had bits o’ teeth dug from my gums.
Novacaine and I go way back. We have history.
Novacaine is like Lucy with a football. You’re numb. You’re numb. Sure you’re numb. Oh, wait, not really.
Once, it wore off during a root canal a good five minutes before he killed the nerve. I’m pretty sure he had to use that curvy pokey thing to extract me from the ceiling.
Another time, I simply could not get numb. He gave me two shots at a time, spaced out about 15 or so minutes between sets, until I had been given the maximum number. Four? Six? I can’t remember. I couldn’t get numb. I didn’t even get a pre-numb tingle.
“Nancy,” he said, “we’re going to have to try this another time.”
So he sent me home, where I promptly fell asleep only to awake a couple of hours with an entirely numb face.
So yeah, I had a complicated relationship with novacaine and a very uncomplicated one with dentists. I hated them. After the bits-o’-teeth debacle, I swore I’d never go again.
But then I had an emergency, and someone at work told me about Dr. Jones.
Featured Fool: Shane Koyczan, Master Alchemist
(Image Credit: The Fool Card from the Gilded Tarot Illustrated by Ciro Marchetti)
I’m a bit behind on my “Fabulous Friday.” Thankfully, it’s not because I’m all out of fabulosity (cause I’m not!), but rather I’ve been trying to find words fabulous enough to do this entry justice. I just hope I have succeeded.
After getting lost in Youtube for a while, I realized I couldn’t wait til Friday.
One of my favorite books of all time is The Dodecahedron: A Frame for Frames, by Paul Glennon. I stumbled upon him (read: had it forced upon me) during a Lit class, and it’s definitely overdue for a re-read.
What I first took for “gimmicky,” twelve short stories, each reframing the one before it, was actually quite brilliant. Not only was each of the stories strong enough to stand on its own, but it was powerful enough to completely change the story before it.
It’s been years since I’ve read it, and yet the concept, if not the specific details, still sticks in my mind.
We think in language; we experience and remember in perspective. As each story reframes another, the perspective changes. The book itself was enjoyable and well-written; its theme is what resonates even now: reframing is alchemy. Reframing turns lead into gold; it transforms pain into wisdom and beauty.
Reframing is the key to transformation.
We tell ourselves stories of who we are, who we want to be. These stories often contain strong elements of other people’s definitions, other people’s goals. Our reference points can be our heroes, (I want to be just like Sally!) or our nemeses (I want to be anything but like my mother), but they’re just one perspective.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the story we’ve created is incomplete. Not only is it unfinished, but it’s from a very, very, limited point of view. It’s just one side of the story.
There’s an old parable about three blind monks who discover an elephant. Each monk feels a part of the elephant, and describes it one way, but no one gets the whole picture. No one realizes it’s more than an ear, a trunk, a leg.
Shane Koyczan is, in my humble opinion, a Master Alchemist.
I’m not sure how I first ran across him, but it was with this video, “To This Day.” It’s difficult to watch; I won’t lie. It’s one of those things, while terribly beautiful, is simply haunting.
It’s one of those things, in a sea of terrible internet memes, that you can’t “unsee.” It’s also something that you never, ever want to forget.
You should really, really watch it. You can watch it here. You can see his TED talk, which includes his poem here. You can also read it here.
(Note: It doesn’t look like my hyperlinks are showing up against my background. Until I figure it out, all of the “heres” link directly to his work.)
His spoken word poem is specifically about bullying, but in this case, bullying is the set up for Koyczan’s Master Alchemy.
Continue reading Featured Fool: Shane Koyczan, Master Alchemist
Lyrical Fool 
