Language is an anonymous, collective and unconscious art; the result of the creativity of thousands of generations.
– Edward Sapir
Author Archives: Kyle Kimberlin
back on your heads
Well that was a nice weekend, wasn’t it? Weather-wise, a little something for everybody, assuming you like sunshine or fog.
I didn’t get much accomplished, except that I managed to fork over $215 for a new window for the camper on my pickup. Long story short, it got busted, had to be replaced. One of those things.
The book and author festival in SB was nice. I got to hang with some good people and hear Gerald Locklin read. So it was good, except that’s where I discovered the broken window.
I did some laundry, played with the dog, watched football (Way to go, Fresno St!) hung out with my folks and friends, rode my bike around town … stuff like that. Oh, I put OpenOffice on my desktop comp, because my MS Word is acting up. It’s pretty cool.
But first, I was wondering this tonight:
Imagine your home and town were about to be assaulted by a dire storm – say, for instance, Hurricane Kyle. And you have a choice: You can be a little kid, and have grown-ups taking care of you, keeping you safe. Or you can be an adult, a parent with children in the path of the storm.
Which would you choose? Would you abdicate your adulthood in have instead that feeling of security your parents presumably gave you in their love? Or would you trade the luxury of innocence and helplessness, for the powers imparted to those old enough to vote and procreate? Keep in mind, if you don’t choose dependence, you must be willing to protect.
Me? Sometimes I miss being a kid.
John McCain’s Baby Bunny BBQ
I guess I should post something on the blog, because I’m getting all these e-mails asking if I’m alright. “Kyle,” they say, “where are you? We miss your posts! Write something clever for us.”
OK, I missed about 10 days and in truth nobody noticed. So it goes. I’m just being a little facetious. Or sarcastic.
What’s the difference between facetious and sarcastic? Anybody know?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Which leads me to wonder if Ferris is a real first name. By real, I mean one ever given to a real person, rather than just to fictional Ferris in the movie.
Turns out it is a real name, though rare. And did you know that the poet Galway Kinnell has a son named Fergus? They’re both Irish names.
I’m a poet. a creative writer, and a technical writer. The latter is why I haven’t been blogging. See, the economy sucked the life out of the freelance writing & editing gig I had, working from home. So I’m grateful to have a new one, which started on Monday 9.8. I like it very much. The people are nice, and the technology is interesting.
My days this week were fully occupied, while evenings were lent to the bio-feedback essential to acclamation to a new situation; in other words, more rest.
I’m still technically freelance, a consultant, but it’s full time, on site, long term. Now I can pay the bills, which is nice. Southern California Edison won’t cast me into outer darkness. Cox Cable and Verizon won’t strip me off all connection to other sentient life.
You are all sentient, aren’t you? Self-aware? Infected by consciousness and the consciousness of consciousness? (That’s Wallace Stegner.) Sure, just like me. Let’s let each other know how that works out, alright? In the words of Garrison Keillor, Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
give me victory or give me damages
Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue.
a source of terror
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
-Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (1884-1972)
the trouble
Look at his eyes, how they reflect the light cast down from the kitchen ceiling, born back from the white cabinets, shining on the spoons and glasses that he rinses in hot water. The eyes of such a man give back what they cannot keep.
His eyes have sent back everything for years, just a bit diminished, worse for wear. He remembers how he met her on a rainy day in November, saw her standing by the elevator wearing a burgundy dress and black stockings, black shoes, holding a fawn coat. Which is what he thinks about, spraying down the countertops and wiping them with paper towels.
They were not married in the height of summer, when the leaves stood out against the sky pretending to be shocked by sheer neglect. But the birds still sang, so he thought everything was fine.
He has walked out across the highway and along the edge of the hill, where the first blue flowers of spring are blooming, and now he is home. He thought he could smell the dark mushroom life under the trees; all the sweet damp death that feeds their roots. It made him feel apart from things so inevitably rotting, to be a man upright and walking on the earth. The birds singing in the branches almost made him smile.
Wishing he had an onion, he cooks a piece of chicken and eats it slowly, watching the evening news. People are dead for no reason, and he thinks the earth is far too eager to welcome back his kind. It’s a long process, the feeding of soil. It hardly seems worth the trouble to which the planet goes.
unarmed
Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.
– Eli Khamarov
Phoo. I guess that makes me a conscientious objector.
a man and an angel
A poem of rare brilliance, written – if I didn’t know better – about me, by a poet I’ve never heard of before.
Not bad, for a Wednesday night.
wake up america!
roll this over, dudes
I thought y’all might get a giggle out of this little email I sent to my investment company today.
I received your undated snailmail letter, urging me to combine all my 401Ks with my Fidelity IRA. I have two questions.
1. Do I have any 401Ks which are not so combined?
2. Is there a way to get Fidelity to completely stop sending me snail mail? I’m already getting my statement online, but you good people just can’t seem to wean yourselves, finally, from using chemical dies to imprint information on sheets of cellulose and then sending the resulting recyclables to my home. Cheesewhiz! I mean, it’s 2008 already.Thank you. :o)
Anybody with me out there? Can I get an Amen or something?
and with that
Quotes for a Friday evening:
And with that a sob broke from her, and she turned her back to him again, her shoulders shaking in the exquisite evening dress by Trigère.
– Danielle Steele
I’ve had an unhappy life, thank God.
– Russell Baker
…She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
the sport of truly chastened things.– Kay Ryan, from Turtle
talents
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
-H.L. Mencken
That is very true. God gives each of us a talent, in the expectation that we’ll know better than to bury it for safekeeping. For some, it’s more subtle than being a genius in poetry or music, and in some of us – like me – it’s just as lopsided as that, but just more dull. By subtle I mean that some people have the talent for being a good listener in times of crisis, a loving parent, or a good neighbor. Some people care for the helpless, voiceless creatures around us.
Those talents are no less important in the Web 2.0 of life than to be a Shakespeare or a Tiger Woods.
Sadly, some people have a great talent for obstruction, for failure, and for abject indifference. I think we should work harder to identify them and move them out of the way. They are vexations to our peace and happiness.
He said, being purposefully obscure.
Metaphor 