Musings Archive: March 2004

:: Welcome to DwightOzard.com ::
 
After nearly a year of fits and stuttering, it looks like we're ready (finally!) to throw open our doors. Come in, look around, make yourself at home. The cupboards may be a little bare initially, but hopefully there are enough scraps, some old, some new, for your nourishment. Here's where you'll find what's "in stock" this month:

Who is this guy? Given that this little stop on the world wide web is named dwight-ozard-dot-com, it seemed only natural to create a section to let you learn a little bit about me. We especially hope that the section outlining our (plural, because you don't do it alone) ongoing battle with cancer will be challenging and encouraging.

He does what?? My business card says that Dwight Ozard Consulting Services serves "individuals and non-profit, entertainment and governmental organizations through innovative strategies for communication, public relations, marketing, special events and fundraising." Click on the link and figure out what that means. Meanwhile, please understand that I'm good at what I do, and anxious to do it for you. (And, yes, I'm deeply uncomfortable with the narcisism of these paragraphs.)

"A Lover's Quarrel" (with apologies to Rev. Dr. Maurice Boyd) will serve as both an archive of many of my older essays, reviews and musings, as well as evolving over the coming months into a webzine that is conceived of to provide a safe haven for the restless and righteous dissent of "profane saints"--a place that will nurture (in both writer and reader) a kind of "godly irreverence," resisting anything that smacks of self-importance or self-righteousness, where, along with some of his best friends and favorite writers, we can point at the Emperor's laughable "new clothes" (or what they allegedly hide) without fear of excommunication or reprisal.... We also hope to provide you, the reader, with something like edification, challenge and even a mild titter or two.

So, again, welcome! and raise a glass to toast a new beginning:

To a radically, perpetually unnecessary world; to the restoration of astonishment to the heart and mystery to the mind; to wine, because it is a gift we never expected; to mushroom and artichoke, for they are incredible legacies; to improbable acids and high alcohols, since we would hardly have thought of them ourselves; and to all being, because it is superfluous: to the hairs on Harry's ear, and to the seven hundred and sixty-eighth cell from the upper attachment of the right gluteus maximus in the last girl on the chorus line. Prosit, Dear Hearts. Cheers, Men and Brethren. We are free: nothing is needful, everything is for joy. Let the bookkeepers struggle with their balance sheets; it is the tippler who sees the untipped Hand. God is eccentric; He has loves, not reasons. Salute!

from Robert Farrar Capon's "The Supper of the Lamb" (1969)

Posted by Dwight Ozard   (3/29/2004 10:33:00 AM | link)

:: Greetings on a Third anniversary ::
 
This week the American Association for Cancer Research is meeting in Orlando, Florida. Sheri, my long-suffering wife, works for them running a bunch of their grant and award programs, so I came along for the ride, along with nearly 15,000 cancer researchers.

Not an exciting trip, but an interesting discovery: in the AACR's very unsexy exhibit hall (better test tubes!) the oddity of encountering the utterly weird reality (but completely logical notion) that there are multiple companies competing for these scientists' and doctors' lab mice-buying dollars. That's right--you can walk around the exhibit hall and encounter displays that assure you that Company A's albino, hairless mice are better than Company B's albino, hairless mice.

Even better than hairless mice, it's been a genuine honor to be around these folk who give their lives (most at pretty paltry salaries) to very hard work. I'm told I play an important role this week too, in that many of these researchers rarely meet cancer patients, so my story is allegedly encouraging to them.

Here's hoping.

Anyway, along with lots of awkward looking scientists, I'm enjoying the gorgeous weather, and I’m having a reasonable time loitering and working/writing and trying to do rehab. To that (latter) end (and after a very difficult week last week, with very bad steroid side-effects and not a lot of good sleep), I went to a driving range yesterday to see if I remembered how to golf: turns out that I only barely do. Hitting golf balls was among the hardest emotional (as well as physical) emotional hurdles I've faced in three years (yup, three years this week in fact!) as it felt like my body was doing this thing for the very first time, rather than something that I’ve done to near obsession over the past few years…Honestly, for that first half an hour or so it felt like I had no physical memory. I was at the range for about 2 hours, but after the first 20 minutes I had to step back for a bit, have a good 5 minute cry (I’m such a little girl), regroup and ask myself if I really wanted to do it…. I'm nearly certain that I do. I may try and actually play tomorrow… if my forearms and hips are a little less stiff, we’ll see. It teaches me for having such a pathetically bourgeois (and indefensable) hobby.

So, there you have it, life from the road.

We love you all.

PS (later in the week): I did golf on Tuesday (3/30) and I did remember how. I also was blessed to golf with famed Philly criminal defence lawyer Joe Zawrotny, who, for 18 holes, lectured me about needing to relax and to not beat myself up. Funny thing: the more I listened, the better I golfed. Go figure.

Posted by Dwight Ozard   (3/29/2004 10:29:07 AM | link)

:: Oprah and Bono, sitting in a tree... ::
 
This is a fabulous little interview.

Posted by Dwight Ozard   (3/17/2004 9:35:57 AM | link)

:: Johnny Cash Was My Hero ::
 
Johnny Cash was my hero. Why?--because Cash was uncompromising, outspoken and never ashamed of the fact that he was a believing, practicing Christian--and that he was, by his own account, not very good at it. This, for some reason, holds a certain charm for ....   more

Posted by Dwight Ozard   (3/1/2004 10:40:25 AM | link)

:: (apologies to Rev. Dr. Maurice Boyd) ::
 
The Rev. Dr. Maurice Boyd was preaching minister at Metropolitan United Church in London, Ontario, Canada in 1985 when I returned to university (Huron College, UWO, London) and along with my roommate and best friend, Bob Holmes, began a search for a new church home. Boyd was a revelation, the greatest preacher they had ever heard, and they became regular fans. Around that same time, Boyd released a collection of his sermons, A Lover's Quarrel with the World. I bought the book, and Bob married the woman that sold it to him.

Nearly 20 years later, I have borrowed (co-opted? stolen?) the title, with apologies.

Currently, Boyd is the minister of The City Church, New York.

Posted by Dwight Ozard   (3/1/2004 9:00:00 AM | link)

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