By necessity I've been revisiting my archives recently, which coincidentally also happens when I don't have anything new to print for the biweekly Focal Forum meetings. So one thing led to another, and I took this one in for critique.

They hated it.

That's not unprecedented, but it was uncommonly unanimous. And that's okay. The group is a useful sounding board, and it's good for me to get the exercise and hear what comes across. But the key is to not work for praise any more than I recoil from criticism, while still being able to learn from experience. It's a balancing act.

To me this is a little capsulation of America as seen on a pixel board at Times Square. There's the casual patriotism of the red, white, and blue; the exhortation to RISE UP at the top, and the security camera at the bottom in case anyone actually tries it. 

This photo is from 2014, so the details are fuzzy, but I'm fairly sure that the exhortation was actually about sports. But that too is America.