Boise is not the world

You've heard us speak passionately over many moons--especially over the past several months--about Boise, Idaho, particularly its Bench neighborhood. While the City of Trees has certainly served as a suitable base of operations for Kreationism for a lot of years and many of us are quite fond of the burg, we'd like to take this time to dispel any perceptions that The Korner subscribes to or endorses the myth of Boise Exceptionalism. This a metanarrative as rampant as it is destructive in Idaho's hauptstadt, which only continues to be fueled by occasional arbitrary business and/or lifestyle rags that sing its praises. The more Boise's civic and commercial leaders exclaim "we're number one," the more they help to breed a culture of superiority that does Boiseans a disservice by cutting them of from rather than connecting them to the vast and varied world out there. This smugness, in our view, leads more to laurels-resting than any earnest effort to identify and strive to rise above any areas in which we are mediocre as a community. At The Korner, we believe that life is a zesty enterprise that can happen in a multitude of places and if you feel the need to pursue the fool's errand of defining your happiness by the highly-relative quality of your community, you better free your mind instead. In an effort to dismantled Boise Exceptionalism, we offer this honest promotional graphic for the city. My it grace paid-content spaces and in-flight publications everywhere. We love Boise. We love it enough to not distort the facts. Only by sound assumptions can we predicate truthful trajectories toward tomorrow. See clearly:

Benchmarks the spot

It's been over three months since we've heard any news about the impending Boise Bench redevelopment. That's because very little has happened, thanks to bureaucratic inertia. Who knew that oft-bemoaned procedure-obcessed government functionaries would be our saviors, at least for the time being? While Chas Murdoch's gross incompetence in navigating the political terrain of property development hasn't done much to move things along either, it remains a matter of "when" not "if" the ultimate rubber stamp will be depressed. We must continue to transcend our righteous emotional tumult to employ any and all practical strategies and tactics* in our power to work towards justice for The Bench and its inhabitants. In the spirit of this policy, we present to you today a leaked transcription of a recent Bench project team meeting lead by Murdoch Organization underboss Hart Packard. It seems to be some sort of a pep talk Packard delivered at the dreaded company's head office in Three Spankbancorp Plaza to the various family members and un-qualified opportunists who compose Murdoch's inner circle. It's thin on anything resembling action items, but it's essential for us to keep abreast of as much information on the enemy as possible, even if such information's application will not be revealed until a later date. Heads up:

Look at this team Chas couldn't be here he's between the third and forth hole but wanted me to express how proud he is of this team none of that insider knowledge none of that innovation-stifling experience you are all fresh and new with that outside perspective ready to re-invent the wheel ready to disrupt the development game that game has needed disrupting for some time let me tell you and this little team is the team to do it this team can do a lot with a little this team can be the envy of the industry this team is the best team I've ever worked on I really mean that this team this little team will really surprise the other guys the big guys will take notice they'll know us this team can do will do is doing is already doing great things this little team is all ready to do big things because it's nimble it's agile we can out-maneuver the big guys the big guys are aircraft carriers try pulling a u-turn in one of of those babies they're battleships we're point guards all we need is 18 inches of daylight I really think we have a play here really honestly I think we can win this little team our shop can move at the speed of business and the big guys can't I have big ideas for this little team this little team this team is destined for glory I mean it we're just a nine iron shot from victory.

*So far, we've inundated relevent public officials via all known communication channels, and even over-stayed our welcomes at their places of work, to make known the plight of low-to-moderate income Bench dwellers, but feel we are, at best, being paid lip service and at worst, ignored. We welcome suggestions for new approaches. Please slide best practices under the door of the HQ. 
--THX, TKK

Korner Wisdom

No. 46: Any act of Kreation is precious.

No. 47: No act of Kreation is precious.

No. 48: People, generally, don't seem to live in enough fear of electricity these days.

Kreation is

A very heartfelt "hello" to you, beloved Korner reader. Today marks a momentous milestone for The Kreation Korner. The very post you are reading is the 500th we've published since we brought Kreationism into the latest iteration of the digital age nearly 10 years ago. It is a time of celebration and of reflection, an opportunity to check in with ourselves and reaffirm why it is we do what we do. We pledge today to kontinue the Kreative Program, which is, briefly, to find, encourage, facilitate, disseminate, and promote Kreation in all it's forms. Any of you reading this who have been with us for a while must certainly be aware that "Kreation" evades a clear or easy definition. We intend to keep it that way, for even the most esteemed praktitioners of Kreation can't say kategorically what it is. We are komforted daily (and hope you are too!) by this uncertainty in a world where certainty all too often seems to subjugate and harm. The Korner is a space free of the tyranny of answers. To kommemorate this day, we sent Gabe Gabriel to our klimate-kontrolled storage vault at the bottom of an appropriately-depthed 500-foot mine shaft in Atlanta, Idaho to dig up a piece of rare Kreationism history. He found the following photo from 1968, which depicts a graffito in Downtown Boise left by the Kreationist International, one of our predecessor organizations. KI's adept sloganeering remains effective as ever in encapsulating the mysterious, exhilarating, and liberating nature of Kreation. Here's to another 500! Cheers:

  

Kandor Korner

"It's not that I don't care. I actually care a lot. I care enough to not care about things that aren't worth caring about. How, you might ask, do I distinguish between things to care and not care about? I don't care." 
--Known Universe

Exhortation Korner

We just received the following unsolicited sermon from the Reverend Ambo Dais over the Teletype out of the clear blue. It feels very “now” but also timeless in a way. Words of wisdom, perhaps, or, at the very least, food for thought and conversation. Hark: 

“The Future is Social, The Future is Mobile, The Future is Here...now what?”

compassion, dear entities, compassion
honor thy outrage, thy anger, thy fervor
honor, don't dwell in that house forever
sing a new song, sing and breathe
breath is key to working song, compassion
compassion, compassion, compassion
and slow, my entities, much slower
slow down and silence too, ponder in silence
ponder in silence, pondering silence, ponder
really grapple, critically, honestly
in silence from love, good faith, no hate in your heart
patience, entities, consider, consider humble
humble compassion, humble, honest
always the breath, always breathing, telling truth
honor truth, compassion, dear entities
be as drops in an ocean of drops, the ocean of drops, compassion
eschew disingenuous, eschew distortion, compassion
for your selves and others', wise compassion
pursue truth, be open too, consider routes, compassion
any routes to There, eternal There, elusive There, compassion
consider love, ponder grapple, refine always, patient compassion
love, my dearest entities, no hate in sheep’s clothing
the How can be the What
the occupation the industry
don’t be a tool to a tool, a tool to the tool
may they without flaws post the first post for post’s sake
work the work, entities
the work is sacred
the work is holy
in conclusion, compassion
compassion, compassion

Poet's Korner

Today we bring you the latest from Chris Peebles and, to be frank, he’s testing our capacity for empathy with this one. It all started last summer when our money boat was struck and sold for scrap, forcing The Kreation Korner staff and kontributors to pursue more conventional forms of gainful employment. Since then, Peebles was hired on as a nonperishables buyer for Tsar Mart and became a father. As the following poem suggests, these life-changing events have precipitated a full embrace on his part of the middle-class lifestyle in all its predictable, humdrum glory. While it’s not our place to judge and certainly not our place to police the expression of our kontributors, we feel it’s important to at least point out that Chris’s “domestic trip,” though he has every right to pursue it, can have negative consequences for our movement as it perpetuates the sort of suburban banality an originalist interpretation of the Kreationist Manifesto tells us to fight against. It’s troubling that one of the sturdiest pillars of Kreationism could be so seduced by such un-kreative fantasy, but we do acknowledge that a person can assume multiple personae all at once, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes clashing, in the ever-unfolding ballet of human experience. We're confronted with the reality that there are no easy answers--we’ll give Chris credit for that much at this point. We’re still unpacking this, and it will take time to arrive at a final ruling, if any. If you wish to consider a fully-formed opinion at this time, stay tuned after the poem for a short review by budding kreation kritic Schuyler Graves. Proceed with caution:

“Content of Contentment”

I’ve found stability in my life
The Dove of Balance snatched up my strife
Vanished into the majestic sky
Make sense of life? I no longer try

I’m now at ease with life’s contradictions
I calmly surmount all its frictions
Not anxious nor angry, self-destructive nor mean
I’ve found comfort and joy in consistent routine

--Chris Peebles

Chris Peebles the archetypical family man, pictured September 2016 smoking the traditional tobacco product of new fatherhood and engaging with a popular brand of canned fizzy water. He's probably out there grilling or something.

Review: “Content of Contentment”/Chris Peebles/2017 
To say Chris Peebles new poem for The Kreation Korner is confounding is an understatement among understatements. “Content of Contentment” is a full-on head-scratcher  Though the composition is short and sweet for the snapchat age, its sentimentality and naïveté could fill vast volumes. Is this THE Chris Peebles, The Korner’s franchise player, Boise’s legendary street poet laureate reduced to silly rhymes and embarrassing metaphors (“Dove of Balance” deserves its own level on the cringe scale)? After wincing my way through the two cloying quatrains, I seriously questioned Peebles' credibility. Have we been duped? Has he been just another over-represented over-hyped mediocre white male artist all along? 

That's what I thought at first. 

Then I realized I’d been played like Dig Dug. If we’ve learned to expect anything about Peebles it’s that he’ll invariably subvert our expectations. And subvert he has! But he employs a device far more sophisticated and enduring than the garden-variety irony used to elicit a passing guffaw (although an overtone of that signature self-awareness is of course present). It’s possible that Chris is being completely sincere, and, if so, should we not applaud him for daring to make himself vulnerable in this lingering postmodern nightmare in which the pressures to drape oneself in the veils of cleverness and coolness are so great? Are we the readers, Peebles ultimately asks of us, ready to incorporate sincerity meaningfully into our lives as a healthy counterweight to our cynicism? Congratulations, Chris, on a landmark addition to the Kreative Kanon. I’m not ashamed to admit that at least some small part of me now wishes the Dove of Balance would swoop down and snatch my strife away. 
--Schuyler Graves