Yahoo! News: “Obama, who is on a six-day bus tour through Pennsylvania, also toured a factory that makes the wires that eventually become Slinky toys.
The Illinois senator played with a Slinky through the visit, meeting with a small Saturday work crew.”
Oh, those presidential candidates get to have all the fun.
I think you probably need to hear the Slinky song at this point, don’t you? Here you go; don’t say I didn’t hook you up.
Some people are like slinkies: They are not really good for anything . But they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.
Have a good Friday. I hope yours is a lot shorter than mine is going to be .
It has been a busy week. Fun family time and work stuff, mostly. No preparations for eternity, no work on the novel, the stories, or the poems. Today, a job interview; wish me luck with that.
On monday I got into a tussle with our little dog Happy, trying to prevent her eating a little piece of chicken some slob dropped in the park. She didn’t understand I was trying to save her from swallowing a bone, like the one that almost killed her in 2005. She panicked and bit me. No big deal, my hand is healing. And Happy is over it too. But I’m still annoyed with the cretins who use that park on Sunday afternoons.
Anyway, it hasn’t been a bad week, but I’m looking forward to Saturday anyway. I need to get some weekend air and exercise.
Since I have nothing new for you, here’s an old poem I never finished but mostly abandoned.
MADE OF GLASS
I’m here now. It rained
for two days and I stood
very still, made of glass.
At midnight, I buttered bread,
made tea, and it rained. Outside,
there were painful sounds.
I will be gone soon,
becomming a storm over the dull
hills. That’s how it is.
Ah, and there’s the rub. Passover hasn’t happened yet. Pascha (Easter) on the Christian liturgical calendar is the first Sabbath following the first full moon after the vernal equinox, provided that the Jewish Passover has passed. As it was at the time of our Lord’s Crucifixion and Resurrection.
I’m not saying anyone is wrong here; no schismatic, I. I’m just sayin’, for those of us who are Orthodox, it’ll be another month. So save me an egg; preferably red.
On March 23, 1978, a girl named Carol and I sat in my 1967 Mercury Cougar, at the south end of Ash St. near the beach, and decided to go steady. I was in my mid teens, a junior at Carpinteria High School, and she was my first real girlfriend. We went out for about two years, until she dumped me for a serious bonehead whose name has evaporated in indifference.
Do I mention this because I still pine? Carry a torch? Harbor resentment? Hardly. Because I’m a romantic? Well, I can be if properly motivated, but no. (Though I’ll admit those two years were mostly pretty fun.) I mention it only because of the irrefutable drama of the interval. Thirty (30 dammit) years. It was 30 years ago today. When things you can almost remember like it was yesterday actually happened decades ago, it makes you feel old.
Struggling against both online and big-box retailers, the Borders Group, the bookseller, said Thursday that it had hired two investment banks to advise it on a potential sale and had turned to its largest shareholder for additional money. [NY Times]
It seems like just yesterday that we were grieving the loss of Earthling Books in SB, which went belly-up due to the encroachment of the new Borders store, and others, down the street. We didn’t – at least I didn’t – want the big stores moving in. I liked our comfy local bookstore, with the big fireplace in the middle. You could sit and read as long as you wanted, and there was a nice little cafe.
In reality, at least a decade has gone by. Earthling has been forgotten by most of us. And being fickle, we’re turning our backs on the chain stores that replaced so many independents, so that even the behemoths are staggering.
I was in a Borders last week, to hear a writer speak about her book and her career. It was a Thursday, early evening, and aside from the 20 or so of us who came for the presentation, there were only a few people in the store. It was a little bit pitiful.
It seems fair to note that one of the reasons Borders is struggling so is that they don’t sell books online. They have book and store searching, but no online sales. They have missed the party, and that’s no fault of yours or mine.
I guess if I have a point here at all, it’s that we, the consumers, are the force driving these changes. We are deciding what our commercial choices are going to be. I like using Amazon myself, but pretty soon there won’t be any place where I can do what I like even more: to stand and hold a book in my hands, feel the weight and texture of it, smell the paper, and carry it home in a sack. It’s one of life’s little blessings for the lover of books, and it is disappearing from our experience.
Now that I have your attention, I have a bone to pick with my readership. (Excluding those of you with whom I’ve met personally this week.)
Back on Monday, I posted a set of questions for writers and poets to answer. Nobody responded, despite the fact that my blog was visited about 60 times since then.
Not just idle curiosity but a means of networking, to share possibly some better ways of doing what we do with our creative lives, would be my point. (Now there’s some fun syntax.)
I am a poet. I’ve been writing poetry since about 1985. I’m also a professional writer in other genres. As a technical writer, I’ve got some game when it comes to the geek’s side of the writing biz. But …
“He who thinks he knows does not know. He who knows he does not know, knows.”
– Joseph Campbell
I want to learn from you. And I’m completely willing to share everything I think I know and know I don’t know. No charge, for whatever it may be worth.
When I post my own writing and no one comments, I can only assume it must have blown baby chunks. So back to the editing desk it goes – or to the drawer. No one wants to be cruel and I appreciate that. But I’m amazed that here we have a small group of poets and writers who don’t want to talk about themselves. We poets and writers – especially bloggers – Love to talk about ourselves.
I would post creative work in process here a lot more often, if I got more response to it when I do.
I can take a hint: I have not sold the proverbial bike shop in hopes of taking wing. But I feel like I’m hiding my own Easter eggs here, folks. He said, baldly mixing metaphors.
This blog is about writing. It’s about the creative impulse, the dim vision, the rare visceral pangs of clarity, the technique, the process, the dream deferred and supplanted, and the warm hard copy received in lieu of payment.
If you’re looking for Dilbert, you’re in the wrong place.
If you’re interested in writing let’s have a little intercourse, shall we not?
in·ter·course – [in-ter-kawrs, -kohrs] –noun
1.
dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.
2.
interchange of thoughts, feelings, etc.
My Dad has an expression: If someone is clever, he says, “that’s pretty coyote.” Well a couple of days ago, Dad was coyote enough to be up before the crack of dawn – 5:00am – and he stepped out in his front yard to watch the dark go by. But what he got to watch go by turned out to be two coyotes – real wild coyotes, not dogs – strolling up with center of the street in the shadows.
Dad said that he looked up the street and thought “that’s a very big dog,” then saw another coming behind it. And as they got closer he realized they weren’t dogs at all.
My folks live about two miles from me, here in a little beach city near Santa Barbara. They’ve lived in that house since 1963, and this is the first time coyotes have been spotted in their neighborhood. Which begs the question: why? Why now? What strange new world does this portend?
Speaking of strange futures, Arthur C. Clarke is dead, they say. He was a fine writer, no doubt. But he was more than that: the man had vision. He not only imagined the future, he understood our place in the context of time.
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
— Douglas Adams
Are you a writer? So am I. And I want to ask you questions. I want to get down to brass tacks, or nuts and bolts or something with you. I have been looking everywhere, trying to learn the secrets of sanity. I want to know how you write.
I’m not talking about inspiration here. I don’t want to know – at least not today – how you finally get those elusive drops of blood to spring forth from your indehiscent brow. I need to know how you get your ideas into the world on any given day, and keep them from dissolving into the dew.
Here are my questions. If you will answer them for me, I will reciprocate in an impending post.
Please enter your responses in Comments in any format that suits you. Number them if it pleases you. Or respond by e-mail. Let me know if I can quote you on this blog, and if you prefer to be quoted anonymously. Thank you!
The Ides of March have come round again and it’s windy in my little town, as it should be.
I’ve been trying to concoct some generalized meaning for us to take from the otherwise unportending day of almost spring. But all that’s coming to mind, in a literary vein, is a memory of high school. I believe our English class put on scenes of Julius Caesar, with white bedsheets for togas.
I wish I had pictures of that. No doubt we were cute as hell.
The lines of that play which have stuck most clearly in my mind are these I encountered in College:
CASSIUS.
Then, if we lose this battle,
You are contented to be led in triumph
Thorough the streets of Rome?BRUTUS.
No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;
He bears too great a mind. But this same day
Must end that work the Ides of March begun;
And whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why, then this parting was well made.
Those last two lines especially have stayed with me. About 15 years ago, I quoted or paraphrased them to a friend of mine. That was the last time I saw my friend in this world; he died on St. Patrick’s Day 1994, at 30 years of age. He has been missed.
Of course, there was no cause and effect involved. I’m just sayin’ be careful quoting Shakespeare.
Anyway, it is almost Spring, so here’s some poetry from e.e. cummings. And if we do meet … oh never mind.
In Just —
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonmanwhistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
springwhen the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancingfrom hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
thegoat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
weee.e. cummings
Picture yourself driving your car, pickup, vespa, hearse, ice cream truck, or whatever. Hopefully, you’re not doing it as you read this post.
You and your ride confront a long steep hill in harsh weather. You’re worried about reaching the top, but you finally do. So you reach out and give your trusty machine a pat of appreciation on the dashboard.
“Well,” you say, “We made it, ______.”
Does your vehicle have a name? Is it male or female? Why?
Dr. Weil explains why it’s important to get your vitamin c.
Guess I think it’s important too, or I wouldn’t stray so far from the topic/s.
tərˌk
Metaphor 