Imperfectly Vertical

I've moved my original blog Imperfectly Vertical here. I wanted very badly to steal that title but could not talk myself into plagiarism that blatant. The person who really came up with this most excellent title is Billy Sothern, a writer and criminal defense attorney in New Orleans. His blog is here and you should check it out.

The words Imperfectly Vertical are found together in the pages of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces as a means of describing Mattie’s Ramble Inn in the Carrollton section of New Orleans – “Mattie’s Ramble Inn looked like all the buildings on its block; it was low, unpainted, imperfectly vertical. Mattie’s rambled slightly to the right, tilting toward the railroad tracks and the river.”

What strikes me about the phrase, and I wonder if it also did Mr. Sothern, is how apt a description it offers of the human condition. Most all of us are doing our best to walk upright and do it convincingly, but more often than not we lean and ramble one way or the other. Though we’re positioned in the general direction of vertical, we can’t quite get it to hold.

So, I changed the title of my blog because it’s just bad karma to so obviously rip off an idea like that. But this imperfection in us, the funny to be found in it and the life that comes from it, is sure worth noticing. And whether I’m able to keep the words coming or not, I’m hopeful Mr. Sothern will, because it’s worth writing about, too.