Yippie!!  I've got nine friends on Facebook, and seven tweets on Twitter.
Now I've got the miracle of Blogger to really go to town, for you see,
two of those friends on Facebook are literary editors, and it would be nice if they were to take notice of the ramblings of this wayward buffalo.
     I have the advantage of an excellent Liberal Arts education from several Canadian universities, including McGill in Montreal and UBC in Vancouver, culminating in a BA General from the University of Alberta in 1992.
     I once typed up a website called The Able Generalist, expounding on the advantages of a generalized education rather than a specialization, for how can one limit oneself to a single talent when one is blessed with several?
     This blog replaces that website, and will be the home of the cleverly named 'Abel, Generalist', whose outpouring of art, words, and music await your return visits. Enjoy!
     With my major in Art History, minor in English, numerous writing, drawing, painting, and music courses, I'm here to share evidence that you are in the virtual presence of a REAL ARTIST.
     I believe I qualify as both an Able Generalist and a Real Artist, so stay tuned, you may just find your heart and spirit engaged.  (Comments welcome...)
    As for the Alberta Buffalo, well that is another guise I've taken on, for sadly I fell into a void of powerlessness (learned helplessness) and saw myself as one of the millions of Alberta Buffalo driven over the cliff at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a famous Alberta landmark.
    The able generalist now faces his greatest challenge, far beyond the hopes of a rewarding literary career, as politics has taken priority over aesthetics. I'll need to reach back to my years as an undergraduate student of political science at McGill University to find a way to survive the forces of evil driving innocent Albertans like me over the cliff.
     If only I could fly before I hit the bone bed waiting below...
     One can only hope I've escaped this metaphoric fall, as I face the real fall of 2011 in Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta.
     Recently I enjoyed a few days in the Rocky Mountain resort town of Jasper, which I used as a 'Vision Quest' to figure out how to fly and not fall... I believe I saw many routes forward, including finding a book on the "living thoughts of Machiavelli", by Count Carlo Sforza, for sale at the Jasper Public Library.
    I'm studying Machiavelli just like I did 35 years ago at McGill, for as Machiavelli wrote:
   "When any evil arises within a republic, or threatens it from without...  the more certain remedy is to temporize with it, rather than attempt to extirpate it; for almost invariably, he who attempts to crush it will rather increase its force, and will accelerate the harm apprehended from it."
     and, " Prudent men make the best of circumstances in their actions, and, although constrained by necessity to a certain course, make it appear as if done from their own liberality."
     Yes power has seriously threatened my artistic nature, so I'm also reading modern theorists on the evils of global capitalism, such as Chris Hedges who has an article entitled 'Why The Revolution Must Start In America' in the Jul/Aug issue of Adbusters, and Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation.
     As Los Lobos sang, 'Will the Wolf Survive?' 
     For further updates on the fate of this Alberta Buffalo, stay tuned.