rimric.com

#6. Timeless Trilogy

For my birthday month, and for the 25th anniversary of my publishing efforts, I've been discussing my published books, 18 in all. As I've noted, I'd moved into a phase I described as "nuanced, expressive, solid". In the late 90s and early 2000s, I'd had an idea about a Philosophy professor who was being given a lot of attention by an alluring, beautiful spy. That was the kernel which became the very complex set of novels, each called "Timeless" (2003, 2008, 2013).

Each of the three books work as a self-contained novel, carefully-plotted, each with its own main character, but then each also weaves together tightly with the others as a trilogy, with all of the characters as part of the larger epic story. In contrast to my first novel, the novella "To Lie Within the Moment" (1998, 2008), which had a complex language structure and a small number of characters and locations, I wanted Timeless to read as simple as possible in terms of the density of the language styles. As I had in "Moment", I used a not-so-omniscient narrator voice, with most of the internal dialogue coming from the characters themselves. Because the plot and characters would be so dense, the feeling of the language is lighter, more what I meant by "nuanced, expressive, solid", and hopefully indeed, "timeless".

My Timeless Trilogy was a writing project that, like "Dynamism", I'd put my heart and soul into for years, with simply a huge amount of research that took over my life for a very long time. I had charts and lists to keep track of the characters who would be travelling the world in different times and timezones, both in the forward story timeline as well as in flashbacks. I had a massive amount of future trending, future technology, and future military hardware to create, which couldn't just be like "Star Wars" or "Star Trek", of course. Also these novels boast a large array of characters and backstories, scene locations and scene times. So, these novels are in some way Science-Fiction, but each forms its own Thriller (Book I is a Spy Thriller, Book II a Techno-Thriller, and Book III is a Conspiracy Thriller), yet they are also intended as Literary Fiction, with nods to "The Lord of the Rings", "The Matrix", and others. My goal was for you to be as immersed in the story as I was in creating it.

Timeless: Book I
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA47I
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286820

Timeless: Book II
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA540
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286868

Timeless: Book III
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HLV8VVQ
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286912

Timeless: Book I (Timeless: A Novel Trilogy 1) United Nations scientists have discovered a strange distortion field approaching Earth, and they suspect time travel itself is to blame. UN Command develops two courses of action: Travel to the past and execute the supposed originator of their time machine, and engineer a shield, deployed directl...

#5. Dynamism: A Philosophy of Dynamic Systems

For my birthday month, and for the 25th anniversary of my publishing efforts, I've been discussing my published books, 18 in all. As I've noted, I'd moved into a phase I described as "nuanced, expressive, solid". Since my primary training was in Philosophy, and after writing a number of books devling into the related subjects and disciplines, as I've noted in a previous post, the time was right starting in 2001 for me to do the impossible, as my professors would have it, to build my own system. My biggest inspiration had always been Kant's "Critiques", but by this time I'd also been strongly influenced by Systems Theory and Quantum Mechanics, Spinoza and Liebniz, Nietzsche, Deleuze, and more.

These works, "Dynamism: Volume I: Force" (2005) and "Dynamism: Volume II: Life" (2011), are truly some of my most proud achievements, because they were so difficult to "wright" (see my post on my full-length play), and involved so many interstices of theory and evidence. These books examine incredibly deep issues regarding the nature of reality and life itself, with contemporary experimental evidence and references in Quantum Physics and Biological Chemistry interwoven with hardcore issues in Metaphysics. A third volume is underway to complete the series, promising to be at least as difficult and complex. Below is an exerpt from the preface to the first and second editions of Volume I.

Dynamism: Volume I: Force: Quantum Physics and Ontology
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA1L2
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286837

Dynamism: Volume II: Life: Biological Chemistry and Epistemology
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00597RML4
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286882.I have often found it deeply ironic that such a complex, and indeed, ambitious idea was had while lounging on an academic campus, one that had launched me into the world of Philosophy with such a lack of luster and so little inspiration years ago. To be sure, the whole of my old Department could not brave such ambition, if all of them, together with enough dark beer, wine and spirits to float the group, were to find themselves in an open-ended brainstorming session at a pub. Such brazen ambition, some might call it, is something entirely lacking in contemporary academic work, to its detriment, as the rule is to worry more about funding than originality.

Allow me to say, what is needed, particularly in Departments of Philosophy across North America, is more of this kind of ambition, and if brazen, so be it. Every undergraduate student should be taught that it is perfectly acceptable to have grand visions, and professors should exhibit and represent their own thoughts and publications as well those of great thinkers and scientists. Graduate students should be guided in their efforts to construct new interpretations of philosophical issues, and should be matured with experiences enough to make them in their own ways, unlimited by departmental funding and traditions. Philosophers, theorists, and creators of dramatic works in various media independent of academia should be read, studied and celebrated for bold action toward the goal of independent thinking. Philosophy would be the better for it...

M.R.M. Parrott
Columbia SC, January, 2005

Dynamism: Force (A Philosophy Series Book 1) A treatise on Quantum Physics and Ontology, first in a series on Dynamism as a complete Philosophy.

#4. Theatre and Stage: Drama and Music

For my birthday month, and for the 25th anniversary of my publishing efforts, I've been discussing my published books, 18 in all. After my "apprenticeship" period, I had moved into a phase which I described in my journal as "nuanced, expressive, solid". While my earlier works had been heartfelt, of course, I'd needed to come out of my shell more, and express ideas in a fuller form. Two passions of mine involved lighted stages, that is, dramatic stage plays and performing music. One would take form as a full-length play, and the other a solo album of songs.

"Fury Road" was a phrase I'd heard years before the Mad Max movie. I'd used it as the title of the third part of "Driving Home", and a couple of years later, when playing in a Blues-Rock band, we agreed to use it as our band name. When the band broke up, I kept the name, "Fury Road", and built up my own songs using various styles of popular music. The journey was emotional and extremely revealing, I felt, putting myself out there as not just a drummer and musician, but as songwriter, lyricist, digital and acoustic performer, and as a solo singer, when I'd never sung as a band thing before. Below is one of the key song poems.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P81F4I
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286899

Fury (M.R.M. Parrott, 2012)

We can hope to sing our praises
Hope to lead parades
Form well-intentioned armies
With the minds we've made
We can try to get real traction
Try to find the truth
Get concession on the issues
With creative proof
It's not the anger of a rising tide
It's not the thunder on that righteous ride
It's not the hatred in your racist pride
Fury is the road we travel

We can dare to fly our fancy
Dare to fan our flames
Be sculptors of a future
Without fear or shame
We can drive down ribbons of road
Drive to find ourselves
Look across the endless landscapes
With our hearts to delve
It's not the temper of a perfect fate
It's not the scoring on that power play
It's not the outrage in your precious state
Fury is the road we travel

"Ctrl-V" is a comic stage play about control, gender roles, and creativity versus fame. It's a romantic comedy with a number of stories within the story, and with many overlapping scenes of dialogue, all "wrought" to be performed by a small ensemble on a procenium stage or in the round (like plotted novels, plays are wrought, not written, hence "playwright"). I'd written small play scenes before, as you'll find in my Poetry chapbooks. My influences for "Ctrl-V" were many moments from Shakespeare (aka. Marlowe), Ibsen, Checkov, O'Neill, Williams, Miller, Simon, Shepard, Albee, Mamet more. Below are two scenes illustrating the fast-paced playful dialogue.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA0SG
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286875

(DEB and MIKE)

DEB
Where is [Victor]?

MIKE
Well, we did come early, right? We could just go and wait at the pub, if you like.

DEB
I know, I'm too sarcastic. Just wanna see my buddy before Aimee gets here, or Chase, or anyone else who's winding him up, these days.

MIKE
And you don't wind him up?

DEB
I used to. He could call me on a Friday night when he had nothing else lined up. We'd go to a movie or something. Just friends, but I loved giving him a hard time.

MIKE
And he'd get to argue back? Now, that's love, Deb.

DEB
It is love!

MIKE
I see.

DEB
Are you threatened by that?

MIKE
Just confused.

DEB
We're like a lost brother and sister, separated at birth.

MIKE
More like kissing cousins, I'd guess.

DEB
It was college, Mike. Don't tell me you didn't experiment.

(AMIEE and VICTOR)

VICTOR
I think they're all worried about us.
AIMEE
They're not the only ones.
VICTOR (moving to hug AIMEE)
Aim...
AIMEE (moving away)
Don't touch me.
VICTOR
What?
AIMEE
You heard me. I'm very hurt by all this.
VICTOR
Well, not to be pedantic, but you were the one who gave me a totally embarrassing gift, right in front of...
AIMEE
Don't you blame me!
VICTOR
Who else? Oh, of course, the masculine figure. Always.
AIMEE
What?
VICTOR
How is it my fault that you surprised me with a...baby's outfit?
AIMEE
I'm not talking about that.
VICTOR
I see. Suddenly, we can't talk about it.
AIMEE
I mean that's not what I'm talking about.
VICTOR
Oh, because that was so easy to figure out.
AIMEE
Damn it!
VICTOR
You must be mad, then.
AIMEE
You're psychic.
VICTOR
But, how could it be from my reaction to...?
AIMEE
It wasn't just a reaction. You were all, like, Hehhh, I'm gonna throw-up, and all, Ugghh, get me outta here!
VICTOR (laughing)
I was not like that.
AIMEE
Yes you were.
VICTOR
Well, even if I was, it was excusable. That gift was like a kick in the gut, Aim.
AIMEE
A baby with me is a kick in your gut?
VICTOR
The gift, Aimee. I think a baby with you would...
AIMEE
I'm not talking about that, anyway!
VICTOR
I'm confused.
AIMEE
So am I!
VICTOR
You were the one who wanted to stay behind and...
AIMEE
About us!
VICTOR
Us?
AIMEE
I'm confused about us.
VICTOR
Because you got me a thoughtless gift for my Birthday and I didn't react the way you'd predetermined I should act. Got it.
AIMEE
Oh, you are so infuriating!
VICTOR
Why, because I'm not playing along with...femi-nazi?
AIMEE
I am not a femi-nazi!
VICTOR
Then why are you so confused?
AIMEE
I know what you're not going to do.
VICTOR
Why do you keep saying things that greatly confuse me?
AIMEE
I'm not talking about the gift. I'm talking about what you're not going to do, for us.
VICTOR
At least we're making progress. You've reached a thesis statement, of sorts.
AIMEE (moves away)
I'm leaving.
VICTOR
What? We can't go to dinner like this...
AIMEE (gathering her things)
I said, I'm leaving. This just...isn't working, Vee.
VICTOR
No, it isn't. I don't even know what we're talking about.
AIMEE
I think we're through, Vee.
VICTOR
With a pointless conversation, or through with...
AIMEE..I'm breaking up with you!
VICTOR (pausing)
Didn't see that one coming. Why are you...
AIMEE (turning from mad to sad)
I'm just breaking up. I mean I'm leaving, because...you won't...
VICTOR (pausing)
Aim. What's wrong? What won't I do?
AIMEE
You're not going to law school.
VICTOR (pausing)
You're leaving me because I won't go to law school?
AIMEE
No, that's not it.
VICTOR (moving away)
Here we go again. So, who's on first?
AIMEE
What?
VICTOR
No, what's on second!
AIMEE (pausing)
How can you be so sarcastic while we're breaking up?

Ctrl-V: A Play in Four Acts A comic stage play about control, gender roles, and creativity, which threaten Victor's life with Aimee, their family and friends.

#3. Driving 40,000 Miles to Find Chicago

For my birthday month, and for the 25th anniversary of my publishing efforts, I've been discussing my published books, 18 in all. After my "apprenticeship" period, I had moved into a phase which I described in my journal as "nuanced, expressive, solid". While my earlier works had been heartfelt, of course, I'd needed to come out of my shell more, and express ideas in a fuller form. One of my writing and publishing efforts really stands alone like no other.

In 2006, my job in Charlotte was phased out and I wanted to go travelling ahead of my 40th birthday. I got out of an apartment in Charlotte and sold my condo in Columbia, packed the car, and took off. In all, I was on the road for six months and 40,000 miles across the US, Canada and Mexico. It was the trip of a lifetime. Along the way I took notes and lots of photographs, sending out emails and posting on my website for friends and family. Later, after moving to Chicago, I edited it all into a travelogue, "Driving Home: A North American Tour" (2008). This was the tale of a life-changing, death-defying "crazy" road trip that went on, and on, and on.

What are the coolest cities in North America? How many miles can I drive in one day? How far is it from Mexico to Canada weaving through the Rockies? How many oceans and rivers can I see on one single trip? Would every Starbucks have that great little chicken salad sandwich with cranberries? How smooth would that "Cherry-a-51" have been (read below)? These are the kinds of questions pushing me to explore every corner of North America I'd ever been interested in seeing...and a few more still.

Driving Home: A North American Tour
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054QR0X0
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286851

Exerpt from Chapter 12: Vanishing Point (M.R.M. Parrott, February 2007)

(Mon, 5th) I surely wanted to sleep longer, but I started off again, rolling South through the Washoe Valley toward Carson City. To pick up on the admittedly vague story above, that I was processing what I was seeing of this region - I drove through their valley that morning, down the road where they lived, had a quick look at their home, and just kept going - call it morbid curiosity. I had no interest in being seen or getting into a meet-n-greet, but what was surprising was how things had really not been glamourous for her. Somehow back then, as a rapidly (perhaps rabidly) developing artist, actor, writer and philosopher, I'd let myself feel outclassed by what she did, what they did. Only, I hadn't been outclassed - not at all. I'd done nothing wrong, but felt I had back then, and thus wrongly assumed I'd been left with the short end of the stick.

Except, I'd honestly been quite unhappy with her, and in leaving me, an emotional surprise, she actually freed me. Gosh, I was only 24, after all. Memory was now being revived in a way which was more accurate (a thought process which would rumble around in my unemotional "back brain" for days, actually). Other than carrying a definite scar (and wondering if I'd ever really trust a woman again), I had no real emotion left over it all after these many years, anyway (really). Being here, I felt strangely relieved about that bit of my past, and it had been one last little filament of tension, a tiny splinter in my mind somehow loosened, another kind of "vanishing point".

So, I continued on to tiny Carson City and took a few photos around the capitol. Along the way, I spotted a Toyota dealer and pulled in to get the oil changed, watching the local folks as I waited. After, I took the road up to Lake Tahoe around lunchtime, and toured it a bit. I was really impressed when I dipped my feet into the super-clear (and ice-cold) water at the Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park's beach. Boy that water looked inviting, but after warming my numb feet, I rolled on. I followed the road around and poked the car officially into California, though not very far, then turned back and headed back out through Carson City and on to US 50.

Eventually, I made a stop at what seemed like a Nevada Freak Show (a particularly colourful Wal-Mart) for a few supplies, and then I was past Fallon. Before long, I was onto "The Loneliest Road in America", whose scenery was much like I'd seen elsewhere, yet there was so much of it, and somehow it was wider than ever. I crossed mountain range after wide valley after mountain range after wide valley and so on, and on - the formations on the floor of the Great Basin. Mystified, I stopped a few times to marvel at the vastness, the distant vanishing points on the long road, disappearing far into the horizon either way. I noticed my vanishing frustration over the stresses of the travel itinerary and pounding pace I'd set for myself, as well. The photos and few words here just can't describe how wide and remote this landscape felt, and how it evaporated so much that had bothered me (you have to get out there and experience it for yourself). Indeed, I was really pleased, because now, I thought, I've really travelled in "America". As in the other deserts, I'd been somewhere totally different.

At one point, I stopped again to shoot closeups of a salt flat and walked out away from the road, then turned back toward the little green machine. The car was dwarfed by the huge landscape, little more than a green dot on a white landscape and hazy sky. Taking a shot of it against that super-wide valley made me fall in love with it all over again - it was a Corolla like so many others, but this one had been so dutiful and flexible. That little Toyota had raced along 30,000 miles of roadway in three nations in less than four months (by that point), up mountains and across deserts, through melting heat and blistering cold, and had barely offered a hiccup (other what what I'd caused). A guy and his car, right?

Many miles later, and after a stop to laugh at a tree full of shoes (didn't contribute any, myself), I turned South through the Toiyabe National Forest and made it to the "Extraterrestrial Highway", across many more valleys and ranges of the Great Basin. Finally, I reached Rachel NV just after dark. I'd expected a much larger town (a town, anyway, and one with gas available, let me note), because Rachel is an oft-mentioned (poorly described, I now realized) place of interest within sight of the mountains bordering Area 51 just to the South (which doesn't exist, officially). I pulled in and parked in the dusty little watering hole and stepped in to join the locals, and a few visitors like me, whom I could hear inside. It was Rachel's only restaurant and communications hub, the Little Ale'Inn, and I'd arrived just as everyone was talking about flare training pilots were doing overhead. Of course, everyone kept the ET and "cover up" themes and jokes going throughout any conversation related to things nearby. Unlike Roswell, Rachel had the charm of reminding you that you were authentically...nowhere.

The Alien Burger and a Miller Lite really hit the spot. I chugged the beer and asked for another, and the cute and funny server/bartender (I wondered why she was there, actually) was definitely the most entertaining element, but another visitor was playing a guitar, very soothing. The server joked about a drink someone had come up with (Southern Comfort, some kind of energy drink, cherry juice), and its must-be-repeated slogan, "The Cherry-a-51: So smooth, you don't even know you've been abducted!"

Although I neglected to try the drink, already with that perfect buzz from the chugged beer, I was entertained by it all, warmed by listening to everyone chat while the fellow continued with guitar. I really wanted to stay up late and hang out with these folks and get silly - surely, before long I would have tried a Cherry-a-51 (so smooth, you don't even...), but I was really, really worn out, and was so tired so fast, that I could barely stand. The night air in the desert was as cool and soothing as the guitar inside, and I simply turned the car around to a better angle outside the restaurant, and went to bed early. (490 mi.)

(Tues, 6th) Eleven hours I'd slept - and who knows, maybe I had been abducted in the night, because I felt great, like a top, like a champ. Sleeping in the shadow of Area 51 had been rejuvenating, it seemed. After a quick pit stop inside that strange diner/bar and alien gift shop, I got going by 9:30am, patiently rolling the 45 miles to the nearest gas in Ash Springs (thankful I'd had just enough to get there!). I felt like the "Road Warrior" again, there in the sandy desert pumping gas alone, then heading North off the ET Highway onto the Great Basin Highway, US 93, and more of the Humbolt National Forest.

I worked my way across more spectacular valleys and mountain ranges under the clear blue sky, and stopped for an early break at Miller's Point in the Cathedral Gorge State Park. At the time, it looked like a small Badlands-type formation of water erosions. Eventually, I made it to the Great Basin National Park, but as I'd just spent three days driving across much of the wonderful Great Basin itself, I simply freshened up in the visitor's center and chatted with the cute, red-haired "Ranger babe" (not to sound sexist, but she was really cute) and I grabbed the official NPS brochure for my collection.

As a side note, here, some folks collect the "passport stamps" provided at all National Parks, I suppose as a token or a record of their visit. As I'd forgotten and neglected to get that habit started way back at the First Flight Memorial on my first day, now was no time to get it started (lest I obsess about that, too!). I'd consoled myself that my photos and words are more important tokens of my priceless visits the parks, and far better proof. Still...

So, anyway, I pushed on Eastward, back into Utah now, across a huge dry salt lake as I got nearer to I-15. It was another vanishing point, this time in reference to the 1971 film of the same name (in which a white muscle car was shown racing all over the salt flats in Utah). Once I finally got onto I-70 East, now pointed back toward Denver, and not far south of Salt Lake City (could have returned for another look), I rested a bit at a high mountain rest area, almost a perch, and reflected on what I wanted to do, both for the night and over the next several days. I walked around a bit in the light snow cover to loosen up.

Before dark, I got going again and drove another 40 miles or so to Green River UT, to gas up and grab some fast food. After that, it was a short drive to a nearby rest area for the night, up high and among the dramatic red canyon formations of Southeastern Utah (a state which continually surprised me with its wide-ranging beauty, far beyond Oregon's or Wisconsin's). Those extra miles that night would pay off, I thought, and it would put me in a good starting place for the next few days of adventures. (540 mi.)

Driving Home: A North American Tour Haven't you ever wanted to just drop it all and take the trip of a lifetime? That's what writer and photographer M.R.M. Parrott did in the Fall of 2006. He sold his Columbia SC home, left his job and apartment in Charlotte NC, and hit the open road. Parrott travelled across the US, Canada and Mex...

#2. Folio and Apprenticeship: Magazine and Omnibus (2000, 2002, 2008)

The second group of my publishing efforts includes a series of four Poetry Chapbooks, a series of five Philosophy Essay and Monograph books with a Philosophy Interview Book, a Newsprint and Internet Magazine, and also includes the novella featured in my first post, "To Lie Within the Moment". Ten of my published books, eight of them released as an omnibus in 2002, and the 2000-2004 'Zine "rimric folio" make up this period of my work, ranging from my youthful to more mature poems, to my Master's Thesis re-written ("The Ethos of Modernity", 1996), to a number of books focusing on the nature of Subjectivity and many other philosophical topics, even to (not my first) Journalism in an eclectic series of interviews, essays, and book reviews (no longer published). "Synthetic A Priori" (1998-1999) brought me a fair amount of internet fame at the time and was widely downloaded, criticized and praised. This "Apprenticeship" group of works represents my beginnings as a writer and my training as a philosopher, pointing to new directions and approaches to come later. Below, the short Preface from "The Pure Critique of Reason" (1998-1999) captures how I was feeling very well.

Opening Lyric: Poems and Stories 1984-1988
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054LR4MC
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286721

Another Generation Cometh: Poems and Stories 1991-1994
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA432
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286738

The Generation of "X": Philosophical Essays 1991-1995
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA7IY
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286752

The Ethos of Modernity: Foucault and Enlightenment
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA6B2
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286769

The Empiricism of Subjectivity: Deleuze and Consciousness
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054QR0YO
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286776

The Pure Critique of Reason: Kant and Subjectivity
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA8CY
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286790

Synthetic A Priori: Philosophical Interviews
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054RA3KG
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286806

Bartered Tide: Poems and Stories 1995-2000
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054R9ZFU
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286813

Exfoliate: Poems and Stories 2001-2005
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054QR1DE
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940148286844

The Pure Critique of Reason: Kant and Subjectivity (1998-1999)

Preface

It can be no secret that Immanuel Kant has figured prominently in my works. Any quick review of my books would turn up the name before long. Kant's long shadow is difficult to ignore, in fact. Some thinkers, such as William James, even suggest one go around him rather than deal with his theories directly. The problems Kant raises within epistemology still throw his shadow on the most contemporary and technical of discussions. His theories about subjectivity are only now being understood, and in some cases vindicated.

As a Kant scholar, I long felt a certain necessity to tackle the first Critique head on, but only after I was quite sure about my own interpretation. This is something which takes time. One cannot simply sit down and read the Critique as a college sophomore and hope to have adequate grasp on what is happening in such an abstract text. Indeed, many graduate students who consider themselves Kantians cannot hope to accurately interpret the Critique either - not at least, until they remove the overriding influences of whomever has taught Kant to them, and develop enough of their own interpretations of other thinkers as well. Again, this takes time. The situation reminds me of Delacroix's maxim: "A poet at twenty is twenty, but a poet at forty is a poet."

My situation has been a labour of love. From the very first encounter I had with Kant's work as a college Freshman, I knew I had found something powerful and challenging. I never pretended to fully comprehend Kant's great work until a few years ago, as I completed my novel To Lie Within the Moment and began reading widely and participating in online discussions. I had certain theories about the Critique as far back as The Generation of "X", but still needed to do a full study at Kant's own level, rather than reworking his text with little explanation. What happened during the reading and discussions was my coming into certain views and clarifying earlier ones which made a full interpretation of the Critique a possibility. So, I sat down to write as I promoted my novel. The result is this pure critique of the mind: The Pure Critique of Reason.

What follows, then is wholly my own, unless otherwise noted, and involves no outside bibliography aside from the Critique itself and a few of Kant's other works. This "pure", bold, work has been my most serious contribution to the realm of Kant Studien and also became my way of telling the world I was ready to graduate, if you will. Indeed, after completing this monograph in 1999, along with the related interview book, Synthetic A Priori, I felt a certain completeness - something I have since learned to interpret as the completion of my apprenticeship in Philosophy.

M.R.M. Parrott
Columbia SC, October, 2002

http://mrmparrott.com

/mrm_parrott/ writer / philosopher / musician / artist / developer mrmparrott.com is the personal website of M.R.M. Parrott, a literary writer, philosopher, musician, designer/artist and programmer