Quent Cordair's Blog, page 17
September 18, 2015
We always may be…
Have we not all, amid life’s petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a noble life
That once seemed possible? Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings and feel it near,
And just within our reach? It was. And yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret.
But still our place is kept and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.
No star is ever lost we once have seen:
We always may be what we might have been.
– Adelaide A. Procter
With thanks to Zev Barnett.
September 12, 2015
Friends
“Evil’s worst enemy,” she said, “is the one from whom it has taken the most.”
“Backed by the one with the most to lose,” her new friend answered.
And with that they turned and, together, walked into the night….
Strive for STRIVE
My story “A Prelude to Pleasure” is free today and tomorrow (9/12-13), in celebration of the launch of STRIVE Clubs. Why? Those who have read the story will know. For those who haven’t, I’ll only mention that “Strive” is a fine name for an organization…. Enjoy! You can download your free copy of the story here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005IDQFCQ
STRIVE: STudents for Reason, Individualism, Value pursuit, and Enterprise.
STRIVE is a nationwide student organization which consists of a network of campus clubs: (“STRIVE Clubs”) as well as a campus newspaper distributed across the country (“The Undercurrent”).
Our clubs focus on personal and leadership development and are inspired by Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. We provide students with tools that help them develop into young people with a clear, first-handed purpose in their own lives and a moral certainty about their right to pursue it. We work together to discover and define our personal values, for the sake of happiness and achievement.
STRIVE Clubs give students access to practical resources and knowledge, through the unique perspective of Objectivism, and provide them with opportunities to join the broader Objectivist student movement.
September 11, 2015
September 10, 2015
The Seduction of Santi Banesh
“The Seduction of Santi Banesh” is free today on Amazon. “A beautiful, innocent young girl discovers this-worldly values and makes the most important decision of her life. That’s about all there is to this story, and yet it is a delicious pleasure to read. Cordair’s descriptions of the city, his insight into the various psychologies of the characters, his metaphors, and especially his admirable heroine, all combine to take the reader on a joyous journey of discovery, right along with Santi. The ending is one of the most perfect I’ve ever encountered, summing up the benevolence of the whole experience with its simplicity and inevitability. Cordair has seduced me – his is the type of world that I choose to live in. A delicious pleasure to read.” http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006596U8G
August 28, 2015
To the best that’s within you, To your lift and your try...
To the best that’s within you,
To your lift and your try,
To your will to see dawn,
To your laugh while you cry,
To your hope through the sorrow,
To your float over pain,
To your push through the dark,
To your dance in the rain,
To your rise from the ash,
To your straightening the bend,
To your fire to the lie,
To your go till the end,
To your cutting the knot,
To your swearing anew,
To your mind of your own,
To your you being you.
– Quent Cordair
...
To the best that’s within you,
To your lift and your try...
To the best that’s within you,
To your lift and your try,
To your will to see dawn,
To your laugh while you cry,
To your hope through the sorrow,
To your float over pain,
To your push through the dark,
To your dance in the rain,
To your rise from the ash,
To your straightening the bend,
To your fire to the lie,
To your go till the end,
To your cutting the knot,
To your swearing anew,
To your mind of your own,
To your you being you.
– Quent Cordair
The Evening Tree, painting and poem by Quent Cordair. Now available as a signed print @ Quent Cordair Fine Art, http://www.cordair.com. The print measures 11″ x 14.” Signed by the artist/author. Introductory price: $95. Contact the gallery today @ 707-255-2242 or email art@cordair.com.
To the best that’s within you…
To the best that’s within you,
To your lift and your try,
To your will to see dawn,
To your laugh while you cry,
To your hope through the sorrow,
To your float over pain,
To your push through the dark,
To your dance in the rain,
To your rise from the ash,
To your straightening the bend,
To your fire to the lie,
To your go till the end,
To your cutting the knot,
To your swearing anew,
To your mind of your own,
To your you being you.
– Quent Cordair
The Evening Tree, painting and poem by Quent Cordair. Now available as a signed print @ Quent Cordair Fine Art, http://www.cordair.com. The print measures 11″ x 14.” Signed by the artist/author. Introductory price: $95. Contact the gallery today @ 707-255-2242 or email art@cordair.com.
August 18, 2015
“Mujahid” is free today. :)
My screenplay *Mujahid* is free today on Amazon. It’s earned a 4.9-stars average over 40 reviews. “A screenplay jihadists will hate and civilized people will love…. Set in Chicago during the holiday season, the story involves a conflict between Husam, a young Muslim man who takes Islam seriously, and his younger brother Jasim. The conflict escalates after Husam is handed a heavy bag by a bearded man and gets on a bus heading downtown…. How is the conflict resolved? In an immensely satisfying way—as fans of Cordair’s work would expect.” — Daniel Wahl, The Objective Standard.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R8QP8NI
Every review is so appreciated. Thank you!
August 14, 2015
Amuse bouche…
An excerpt from yesterday’s editing of A New Eden, Part II of Idolatry.
Context: the two are on horseback:
“She stayed beside him as they rode through a grove of stubby limber pine, above which the view opened to a golf course falling away in sculpted steppes to a narrow gorge. Long lush tracts of freshly mown fairways, bordered by poplar, willow, juniper and cottonwood, were bookended by neat rectangles of tee boxes and undulating greens, bordered with lavender, firewitch and red valerian. Bunkers of clean, smoothed sand had been stamped into the layout, strategically positioned to challenge a player’s ambitions and daring. A cascading creek meandered through the heart of the course before plunging in a thirty-foot plume into the gorge, on the far side of which, perched in an alluvial fan, a half-dozen holes more were accessed by a gracefully arched bridge of steel, with abutments of local stone. The course’s verdancy was sharply delimited and intersticed by the rawness of the dun desert and its stubble of unforgiving sage and greasewood—a breathtakingly stark contrast between the improved and the unimproved, between the man-made and the natural, between the golfer’s heaven and his hell.”
