My 200th Post

On Friday my parents will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary Bob and Joan, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Poppy! One of the things I've done for the party is go through over a half century of photographs for a slideshow display. While doing so, I came across this, my favorite picture of me. You might think it's sad that in the 47 years since this picture was taken there hasn't been one that I've liked more, that photogenically I peaked at age 2, but I think the sense of wide-eyed wonder on my face is something that I've tried hard to hold onto in the face of advancing cynicism. Arthur Rimbaud said "Genius is the recovery of childhood at will." and that's the best definition of it I've ever heard. In the criminally underrated movie "Joe vs. the Volcano," Meg Ryan's character says "My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement."
Which brings me to the story behind this blog's name. I took the name Green Genius for my writing endeavors many years ago when I was a strict vegetarian and that was what the "green" referred to. (The "genius" referred to my habit of constantly overrating my intelligence.) I'm not a vegetarian anymore, but doing crosswords reminds me every day of how much I don't know, how much there is to know, and I've kept the "green" title, but in the sense of childlike and uncynical, wide-awake and in constant total amazement.
Now you know. . . the rest of the story.