Scrapple

Eatin' all that scrapple's gonna kill ya, he said as if I wasn't already dying of natural aging. Look, I'm at a time on this declining planet when quality of life trumps quantity of life without exception. Your have your little pleasures, I have mine. Nothing faces the impending daily onslaught of bad news like scrapple for breakfast. So give me a break. On the Titanic a fat man on a diet decided to eat a candy bar. I would have encouraged him to eat several.

After Lew Welch

Th stunning silence of early morning offers no clue to the noisy mayhem that follows through the hours. Reality will drive you crazy today. This is what happens in a dying empire that is taking the planet with it. Unless you are waiting for the Rapture you might want to look at your options. You can't stop this decline. You can obsess about it. You can rage against the injustice of it all, get drunk, raise hell. You can kill powerful folks, mistaking this for revenge. Or you can blow bubbles in the park or read a good book or buy a painting or cook a great meal or go out dancing or give things away just for the hell of it. It's up to you. Nature doesn't care. You make good fertilizer as well as the next guy. The great Lee Hays of The Weavers had his ashes scattered in his zucchini garden. A man ahead of his time.

Demons

1

The demons are back. These termites

of the mind are blowing up synapses

morphing consciousness into obsession

banning all thoughts unrelated to hypertext

and the project at hand to a Mental Siberia

where Lawrence Welk music plays

throughout eternity. There's no rest

here, in the demonic mind, a stressful

dance I thought I'd left with semi-

retirement, recently enjoying a new

life of tranquility, relaxation, peace

but no, no, no, the demons are back

keeping me awake, dragging me

to the computer at odd moments

to change a word, fix some code

obsessed, always obsessed, with

the work, the work, the work

I thought I was done with all this.

2

But I learned something.

Across the way the grass is never greener.

Across the way the grass is always brown.

Happiness is knowing when to quit.

Caruso & scrapple

A breakfast made in heaven!

Coming this summer

Reviews & testimonials.

Perspective

With the planet in clear decline handwriting in blood on the wall I wonder why folks quibble about the small shit instead of finding as much joy as possible in their lives. If ever the glass was half full, it's now. But no matter. Some folks were born to be negative. The small shit rules.

Survival

Look, there's already enough negativity in the world. I don't need more here on the small island of my life where it's hard enough in this dying culture keeping my own positive thoughts in my head. Spare me your complaints, corrections, criticisms, venting, whining, raging. Spare me your soap operas. Find something you like to do, do it, enjoy it, and shut up.

Solitude

After three hours of sound sleep I toss and turn and finally get up into a room as silent as it gets here in this house, in this neighborhood in this city. Elsewhere on the planet bombs are dropping children are raped prisoners are screaming. With luck, someone, somewhere, cries out in sexual ecstasy. It's a big world with big sounds but silent here at this hour in this house, in this neighborhood, in this city. In this mind. I have things to do to pass the time but later, tired again, I'll return to bed and stretch out, knowing that the best part of the day has passed; after more sleep, if I am lucky, it will be downhill from here. This is the magic hour.

Low Profile

There's already enough misery in the world you don't have to add to it. Play your cards close to the vest. Don't be the one who blew it.

Song of the Citizens

Candide and Pollyanna on a date paying no mind to news of late; suicide bombers and massive storms too far away to do them harm. They walked in the park, went out to dine and ate fine food and drank fine wine. In Oklahoma on this day entire towns were blown away. Starving children dropped like flies; Pollyanna made goo-goo eyes. Candide got brave and stole a kiss. Political prisoners are never missed. He asked if he might feel a breast; her mother taught her No! is best. She said no and he heard yes. The Middle East is such a mess. He felt her breast, he ripped her clothes; but was it rape? Well, no one knows. Candide said, What's done is done but Pollyanna bought a gun. She told the police that Candide lied. Torture, war and genocide. She sued him for her self-respect; date rape made her such a wreck. The jury heard the case for days; the crowds were split a dozen ways. The warming sands, the rising seas were causing widespread misery. This is where the moral comes but overhead the sound of drones the sky electric with such threat humanity has never met and this means simple tales must end never to return again. But was it rape or was it not? A dead planet is all we've got.

Robert Coover: “Going for a Beer” : The New Yorker

Robert Coover: “Going for a Beer” : The New Yorker:

The last story that really blew me away. It's an amazing narrative feat.

The Dandelion

I have profound admiration for the solitary dandelion on the sidewalk in this harsh environment somehow finding the small path through which to reach for the sun no weed, o heroic flower!

A Time of Tears

In this time of tears what is precious becomes more precious still and the fulcrum for living without fear.

Reality

Nothing gets better before it gets worse and nothing gets better by writing bad verse.

Modern Times

If I turn away from floods and quakes ...just so many times a heart can break.

Waiting for the Rapture

Even Jonathan Swift might do a double-take on encountering certain Americans on his travels. Has ever a people denied science more, calling knowledge elitist, making a literal reading of the Bible the one and only arbiter of reality? Has ever a people welcomed disaster as the calling card of end times, foreplay to the orgasmic Rapture? Has the end of the world ever been more attractive? But who will do anything about it? Has ever a government been more impotent? More ignorant? More cowardly? More pathetic? Has ever the media given so much equal time to ignorance? Who will separate fact from fiction? What kind of a God would want to populate His Heaven with such deluded, self-righteous martyrs for stupidity? And the thing is, When they leave this world, they're taking you and me with them.

Design

Surely a strong argument against the existence of God is the human species. What deity worth its worshippers would create such a self-defeating, contradictory creature as the mess of us? No, we suggest the very embodiment of chaos theory. Or perhaps, just as an elephant is a horse made by committee, we are an attempt at a civilized biped made by gods in constant conflict. What is clear is that those who believe in Intelligent Design have never looked in the mirror.

Repackaging stories

I've been fascinated with the notion that screenplays, in their sleek concise form today, suggest a new narrative form best read on small electronic devices, once the film jargon is removed. Moreover, the new short narrative forms now marketed at Amazon embrace this possibility. Stories driven by what screenwriters call vertical writing.

This summer I'll convert one of my splays in just this way. If it works out I have a couple dozen stories I can convert. The possibilities are a little mind boggling.

New Release: Write Your First Screenplay

The Writing Life II: New Release: Write Your First Screenplay:

The long day ahead

Tomorrow is our only day of decent weather for a while ... more work I get done today, the more I can enjoy it. But it will be tough, mostly working in my office downstairs. And I need to get started.

A repackaging of an old book just published. More soon. Let's call it a new release.

Teaching

Slow going today.

The notion that next year is my last in the classroom has been feeling rather nice in my brain. Yes, it may be time.

Morning

In the dark still morning awake, stretching in bed like Sketch on the sofa shaking my mind into thought preparing to face the day I realize the hours go downhill from here, that the serenity of sleep and unremembered dreams has ended, replaced by daydreams and demons that stir the mind into restless brooding, which won't end until sleep again returns and brings tranquility. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living but he never added that the examined life was.

Song of the Leisure Class

How I love days with nothing to do and all the better if the sky is blue; when I can brood to my heart's content with nary a thought to weeding or rent. How I love days when time is my own to do as I please, to turn off the phone; to think about nothing or think mighty thoughts do what I feel like and not what I ought. And this is not the impossible dream doing it, not as hard as it seems; here is the secret, now you've been told: leisure comes naturally once you grow old.

Applause: Antonio

Emile de Antonio's 1968 documentary about Vietnam, made while the war raged, should not be missed. It's called "In the Year of the Pig." Passionate, impressionist, ironic, maddening in its dissection of cultural arrogance. Almost as brilliant as the Greene novel, The Quiet American.

And we make the same mistakes in the Middle East now.

May 17, 1864

Nathaniel Hawthorne dies. Does anyone read Hawthorne out of the classroom? I have good memories of a Hawthorne seminar I took in grad school. Some of his short stories are particularly interesting.

In one, Wakeful, a man walks out on his wife and disappears - but is living only blocks away. Early in my career I wrote "The Other Wakefield," from the wife's point of view, who knows he's there all along.

Hawthorne loved moral dilemmas, which is why he's still interesting today.

First Words In The Afterlife

So there is one! I'll be damned. It took long enough to get here. I've been ready for months. And no more Portland chill! In fact, it's damned hot. But what's that godawful stink? Garbage? Rotten eggs? Sulphur?

Do I see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Each year, teaching takes more out of me than it did the year before. I can still do it but it takes me longer to recover from it. I'm committed to teaching next academic year but I'm wondering if 2013-4 might be the end of the road. Or will I get a second wind over the summer, as I always have in the past?

If I stop, we'll miss the extra income and will have to adjust accordingly. This also is a nudge to keep going. H would have a bigger adjustment because she does so much traveling.

Well, what happens, happens. I take it one class at a time. I still enjoy it, in fact I enjoy it more than ever, but I am physically and mentally exhausted after two hours in the classroom these days. And the prep work takes longer than it used to. Very much so. And the responsibility is more stressful than ever, considering how much an education costs kids these days. It's outrageous.

Also, it would be very nice to experience something like retirement. I would like to know how that feels.

I do sense some changes in rhythm ahead. That, or I collapse from exhaustion.

"THE OBSCENE INTERRUPTIONS OF WAR"

"THE OBSCENE INTERRUPTIONS OF WAR":

My 1975 one-act play. One of my best titles.

A Silly Rhyme About A Serious Concern

The worst thing about aging
is the change in one's bowels:
what was mindless habit
becomes speaking without vowels.

Against the Chill

In the gray damp chill that embraces Portland a rare ray of warmth is Sketch cuddled against a pillow on the bedroom chair.

Almost Inspirational

I heard an amazing speech by a scientist about the 1950s and how the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik and the first animal, first man, first woman into space and how far behind we were. But then President Kennedy gave an inspirational speech about Americans being first on the moon if we untapped our creative power if we untapped our brain power whatever the expense, whatever the effort Americans can be first on the moon because that's who we are. And it worked! Suddenly everyone wanted to be a scientist scientists were sexy and cool and just like Kennedy said, we beat the Russians to the moon. Climate change is our new moon said the scientist, and if we untap our creative power and untap our brain power and spare no effort or expense we can conquer a great challenge once again because we are Americans and this is what Americans do. And the roar of approval from the audience was so great, for a brief moment I thought science might be cool again. But then I remembered how different we were then. Our schools were ranked best in the world. We didn't have 30% of us waiting for the Rapture. No one believed science is a conspiracy. No, you can't fix anything in a democracy with ignorant citizens. It would take a benevolent autocracy to change things, which is why assault rifles and grenade launchers are flying off the shelves. What is it these warriors plan to do? Wait for the start of Civil War II.

Oral Sex

Made with Drawing Pad - http://drawingpadapp.com

Pussy-whipped

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When Romance Stinks

She was going down on him as she had many times before. Suddenly she stopped and fighting back tears, told him the odor of his crotch made her want to puke. This was the last time they made love.

Obsession

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The Old Man

Made with Drawing Pad - http://

A Galactic Vacation

A couple from Planet rE32x, wanting an exotic vacation, decided to visit the primitive life forms on the planet Earth. "It was fascinating," they reported, "to witness such strange behavior. "The entire Earthling culture is a contest for power and control. This is so important that actual adult careers, professional careers, are based on playing juvenile games. Participants in these contests are routinely paid much more than they pay their children's teachers! No wonder Earthlings remained so primitive. "Even the pleasure of sex has been turned into a struggle for power and control. "Sex is not considered natural. They have a concept called 'sin,' which is difficult to understand. It's different from Evil. It seems to have to do with inappropriate sexual pleasure. We found it all very confusing at the Museum of Sin. What we did get is that sex and violence happen together often, another feature of primitive behavior. "Earth is not a pretty planet but apparently was before it became a desert. The primitive life forms that remain are protected but can be observed in their natural desert surroundings. "Our vacation package was for a week but this is too long. It only takes a few days to see how irrational behavior was before evolutionary progress reached civilization. And after a few days the pervasive color of brown gets boring and a little depressing."

The Order of the Universe

Tossing and turning in the gray morning, unable to sleep, not ready to rise, it is Sketch who jumps on the bed and decides the day has begun. I get up without argument, let him out, and when he returns I am at one end of the couch, reading the paper on my Fire. Sketch jumps up on the other end and goes back to sleep, which always makes me smile. This is our reveille for a new day.

Tran-Tango

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In the beginning ...

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Advice To Bachelors

Be careful if you date a single mother used to herding kids. You'll be another.

James Salter: the forgotten hero of American literature | Books | The Observer

James Salter: the forgotten hero of American literature | Books | The Observer:

"Acclaimed as one of the great postwar American writers, James Salter has, at 87, spent his working life in the shadow of his peers. But his first novel in more than 30 years may finally raise the profile of this former fighter pilot whose books are inspiring a new generation of readers"

REFLECTIONS ON THE DESIGN OF A HYPERTHEATER

REFLECTIONS ON THE DESIGN OF A HYPERTHEATER:

If only there had been Kickstarter years ago, I would have tried to fund this. I swear, if somebody does it, with good content hyperdrama to perform, this will be so hip and so cool and so unusual, it would be a smash hit. I think the tech savvy audience of today would respond to it.

More about this design near the end of the video, Nuts and Bolts, part of the Changing Key project.

Thought Experiment

Einstein was always making thought experiments so I decided to try one myself. Imagine a grass roots protest of three million people on the Capitol mall. Thumbs down to this government! is the theme, and to dramatize the point, one guy brings a chain saw and cuts off his thumb and tosses it in the pool. Then somebody else wants his thumb cut off and then another, a rush of energy, and eventually there are so many severed thumbs in the pool that it spills over. What a protest! What a story! What video! What sound bites! What an avalanche of tweets! But nothing changes. Oh, there are expressions of concern and sympathy, committee meetings and proposed legislation, but nothing changes. No power shift. No income shift. No war stopped. No greed stymied. Same-o, same-o. So it occurred to me after this thought experiment, the Mother of All Grass Root Protests, that if this doesn't change things, nothing will. "You can't fix it. You can't make it go away." Forget the world and fix yourself.

Civil War II, or the Parameters of Doom

Take a considerable number of angry citizens almost all of them white almost all of them with guns; give them a coloring book education emphasizing mythology over history simplicity over complexity with the Bible as Final Word; add so much paranoid anticipation of government aggression that they buy military assault weapons for defense; add a profound ignorance of and resulting distrust of science; add corporate sponsors who understand that funding ignorance can help their bottom lines; add a yellow-bellied university system that lets moronic discourse continue unchallenged; add well meaning, reasonably smart citizens who take none of this seriously and therefore see no threat; wait for the inciting incident the match put to all this gasoline and then run like hell

A Beautiful Day

It's a beautiful day when you can listen to Brahms, Bach, Mozart or Mulligan, Miles, Kenton or read prose written by Connell, Fawkes, O'Hara or listen to lyrics written by Porter, Dylan, Brecht or read poetry written by Welch, Cummings, Whitman or listen to the voice of Sinatra, Connor, Caruso; it's a beautiful day when you can wake up, stand up and walk into hours shaped by your choices.

Starbucks At Three

(Scene: Two old men at a table on the patio.) Baker: Be nice. Curt: Why should I be nice? B. Because you're no better than anybody else. C. Who said I was? B. Well, sometimes it sounds like it, the way you carry on. C. I look at the world and I get upset. B. Curt, I got news for you. There's not a damn thing you can do about it. C. I know that. B. Then get off your high horse about it. Nobody else can fix it either. C. But they act like nothing's wrong. B. Because they don't scream about it like you? Maybe they tried and the wind blew piss back in their face. Maybe they have nightmares about it but keep them to themselves. C. Maybe they're stupid. B. Some of both, I'm sure. The point is, since nothing can be done - well, with an exception - why go around blaming people? C. What's the exception? B. You can keep a positive attitude. C. Are you kidding me? B. Not about the world. About yourself. About your good timing and good fortune. About how much control you have over your day. You get to listen to Chris Connor or Mulligan or Miles whenever you want. I know you like that. You can watch those old movies you like. Whenever you want, you're retired, for Christ's sake. Like that Burt Lancaster one you were telling me about. C. Atlantic City. B. Atlantic City. And what is it you were telling me the other day? There's not enough time to read all the good books out there. Even less time if you waste some banging your head against the wall. See my point? C. I just get so frustrated. B. Everybody does. What matters is what you do with it. Don't get one-eyed about it. C. Cummings. B. Exactly. "as long as you and i have arms and lips which are for kissing and to sing with, who cares if some oneeyed sonofabitch invents an instrument to measure Spring with?" Amen. Right? C. I see your point. B. Amen. C. Amen.

It Must Be Nice

It must be nice not to give a shit: that your government was overthrown by a series of political assassinations; that fat cats on Wall Street and in banks make millions from fraudulent schemes and avoid jail even when caught while some poor addict with no money for a lawyer gets a maximum sentence; that CE0s who screw up big time get lucrative severance packages while some worker with 19 years on the job gets the ax called downsizing; that some unlucky dude spends 15 years in prison before DNA proves him innocent, which is not your problem; that you've become a modern Candide and don't even give a fuck you have no idea who this is. It must be so nice not to give a shit that sometimes I almost wish I was you - before I come to my senses.

Tentative Conclusions

The human experiment failed. There's no way around it. Wishful thinking won't change the evidence. We destroyed the planet we call home. I call this failure. But the species may survive. We may colonize Mars. In the meantime, we failures left here don't have much to do. Though our experiment failed, there were wonderful moments along the way. I plan to celebrate them. Quietly, privately. Of course, most will carry on as if nothing has happened. What, me worry? I can't say I blame them but for me, personally, this feels dishonest. I'll keep out of your way, in the shadows, like the fool who keeps pining for the girl who got away.

When Silence Ends

In the silence of early morning I can imagine a peaceful world. It's only with the rising of human sounds - cars starting, bombs - that the tragic overture of civilization begins.

Man. Fire. Food.

I like the mental mode of watching hot dogs on the grill. Mesmerizing comfort. Slow, reflective. Like baseball. Like a track meet.

"Doing nothing, if properly understood, is the supreme action." Norman O. Brown

Nightmare

I try to imagine how this mess we've created - climate change, plutocracy- is going to end and it's not a pretty picture. It's already started far enough from us to ignore: drought, food shortages, disease, riots, genocide as the usual final solution. We repeat endlessly that we'll be spared all this, being so civilized and all, but look more closely and you'll see the sides being chosen for class warfare - and water shortages and the rest aren't even in the mix yet. We're riding a runaway train out of control. I'm lucky. I should be dead from natural causes before the worst happens but, man, I feel for you, faced with such a future. I ask myself, What would I do if I were in your shoes? I think I know. I'd revive my show "Ramblin'", an appreciation of the songs and stories of Woody Guthrie. And I'd sing at the top of my lungs That ol' dust storm blew my house down but it can't blow me down and it can't blow me down That ol' dust storm killed my babies but it can't kill me, Lord and it can't kill me and I'd sing this as long as I had breath because in times of crisis a man has to live his own epitaph.

Americans

By and large we're a good group we Americans, the latest benefactors living the benefits of empire (except for those of us in poverty) a people who love to rescue animals help a neighbor in distress (within limits), we love guns TV shows that humiliate people violent sports, mysteries where we can guess the villain but we dislike algebra and geometry (excepting certain immigrants among us), dislike the rich (if we aren't), dislike the poor (if we aren't), dislike anyone who has an opinion about us. We're a good lot and all this trouble in the world isn't our fault how can it be? when everyone envies us and everyone wants to live in America? Can you blame them? Who says, I really want to live in Denmark? I want to live in France? No American ever says that. We're Americans, don't blame us. Blame those anti-Americans, those foreigners, those barbarians, because we're a good lot, we're the good guys, and all the world envies us. We started out as God's chosen people and we're ending up the same way. That's the bottom line here, in America.

Responsibility

So we've done it, CO2 levels over 400 ppm what the scientists warned us to avoid, the disaster line something like that highest in human history and we've really just begun. Are you responsible for this? Did you decide to base our lives on oil? Did you make sure alternative energy research got sabotaged years ago? Did you decide to build an empire to acquire our energy needs? Are you the one? No? Then what the hell did you do? Did you endorse it? Pay taxes to support it? Did you object to it? Did you raise hell to stop it? No? No? Christ, did you do anything? Did you understand what was happening? Did you get it? What? You just minded your own business? Got married, raised a family? Minded your own business? Are you telling me the health of the planet isn't your business? Survival - of us all! - isn't your business? What do you think, you're a victim here? A victim? None of this is your fault? Well, whose fault is it, then? Who is responsible for this mess? If you ever find out, let me know.

Teaching

For my first ten or twelve years at PSU, I took pride in collecting script work on Tues. and returning in on Thurs., a two day turn-around. I worked my ass off on Wed. But this gave me a four-day weekend for my own work. As I got older, and my own work less pressing, I changed the rhythm to collect on Thurs. and return. on Tues. I now have four days to read student work - and usually need every one of them! Ah, the perils of aging ...

On the Independence of the Gods

The gods can be kind. The gods can be cruel. But never do the gods show mercy or revenge. They do what they do and don't give a hoot what you think about it. Prayer is masturbation a one-way street satisfying and harmless but no way to start a family.

Starbucks At Three

(Two old men on the patio at Starbucks.) Baker: Did you hear what happened to Eddie? Curt: Another heart attack? B. He got shot. C. Shot?! B. I got the whole story from his sister. She got it from a witness. It's unbelievable. C. What happened? B. He was walking away from an ATM yesterday, broad daylight, when two teenagers come up and point a gun at him. C. Jesus. And he didn't just hand over the money? B. Worse. He starts singing at them, at the top of his lungs. C. He gets more senile every day. B. No, there was a method to his madness. You know how much he loves opera. Especially that one he dragged us to that time. Remember how he'd keep singing the ending for weeks afterwards? C. You had to remind me. B. So that's what he does. He belts out, You can dig a hole for him, you can put him in it, you can cover him with dirt ... Nothing you can do can help a dead man. C. Jesus. B. The chorus over and over, Nothing you can do can help a dead man! And the kids are freaking out, yelling at him to stop, but Eddie just sings louder, Nothing you can do can help a dead man! Eddie looked wild and crazy, waving his arms, the witness said. Finally the kid with the gun freaks out so much he fires, Eddie falls to the ground, the kids panic and run with Eddie yelling after them, You forgot your money, asshole! Meanwhile the witness calls 911 and cops and an ambulance are there in no time. C. Was he hit bad? B. Just a leg wound. C. He could be dead. B. That's what his sister told him. Eddie tells her, And bid farewell to this cesspool of a planet we've created? I should be so lucky. C. Sounds like him. B. Nothing you can do can help a dead man. Can't you just hear him?

Applause: Aram Saroyan

STARTING OUT IN THE SIXTIES: Selected Essays by Aram Saroyan (Kindle edition)

Here is a wonderful collection of essays by the author of Genesis Angels, which I consider the best book ever written about the Beat generation. My writing career started out in the sixties, too, and hence I readily identify with much written by Saroyan about the changing literary landscape, mostly to the detriment of serious writers. 

These changes are widespread through all the arts. In my screenwriting class I show my students a documentary called "The Monster That Ate Hollywood," which focuses on changes in the film industry, and to screenwriters, after the buyout of film studios by huge multinational media corporations. The same thing happened in publishing. As a result, family-run businesses by book lovers and film lovers became subsidiaries run by corporate VPs with no book or film background. The arts became a severe bottom line business.

In an MFA program in the sixties, I never met a single writer who was working on a story about vampires. Many of my students seem to want to write about nothing else. "Literary novel" was a badge of honor, not the pejorative term it is today. Saroyan writes:

elimination of the mid list book is, I think, a euphemism for the elimination of literature itself as a part of our mainstream culture. There are, of course, many reasons why

Saroyan talks frankly about his writing career in the essays that dominate the focus here. I didn't realize Genesis Angels was trashed by some "heavyweight" reviewers (idiots!). But there is much more to relish, especially his reflections on well known writers and artists he's known over the years. It's a versatile collection well worth your time.

Applause: Tom Strah

Tom has a new page at an art website, let's call it: The Art of Thomas Strah.

how I spent my summer in Idaho

Justice in Cleveland

In a more primitive, less humane day far different laws would come into play: you'd cut off his dick and throw it away.

Against Shock

He's a good guy said the neighbor of the man who for ten years kept three young women captive he comes over for a beer and plays with the kids and cracks jokes just a real good guy so imagine my shock! to learn the truth the good guy was a monster who wore a mask but I wasn't shocked having been through this doubting my own perceptions about my own wife it only takes one intense moment to bring perception into doubt after which nothing, nothing at all is secure in its meaning

Applause: John O'Hara

Article in LA Times on America's best forgotten writer, John O'Hara, with wonderful news that his masterpiece, Appointment In Samarra, has been reissued. Just got the digital book. Extraordinary novel! I can't wait to get into it. Hemingway was a great admirer of O'Hara, who others called "the real Scott Fitzgerald." I think Samarra is better than Gatsby myself.

Dos Passos, O'Hara, nice to see these forgotten literary giants being remembered.

Appointment In Samarra! Incredible book.

Now let's add James Agee to the revival list.

A Call to Creation

Listen up, artists! whatever your tools writers, musicians, painters whatever your medium these are grave times filled with mayhem filled with butchery all demanding response which is your challenge why Nature is calling you in this zero-sum universe in desperate need of balance against rape, your poems against torture, your songs against greed, your landscapes against murder, your dances this is no time to rest this is no time to retire Nature is calling you Nature needs you Listen up, artists!

Wonder

I look at the world in wonder and marvel at our diversity from poetry to perversion from greatness to greed from sacrifice to sadism from brilliance to butchery from music to mayhem such extremes of behavior such extremes of possibility no wonder my dear sweet mother said so often before she died "People are more interesting than anybody."

Sign my petition: National Death With Dignity Act

Go to petition.

Well, my petition is up! One signature! Me!

I cannot in  my wildest dreams imagine 100,000 in 30 days, the requirement to get "an official response." However, the We the People site seems filled with libertarian paranoid nuts, maybe this would appeal to them ha ha. Personally, if I break 100, I will be almost ecstatic! This is an experiment.

But I let the Death Cafe folks know about this. Who knows? It's kind of fun to join the paranoid nuts online ha ha.

Master narration

It doesn't take long into John Fowles' master work to realize you are in the company of a great artist of dramatic narration. The Irons reading is first rate - but abridged. I'll reread the novel entire when I'm done and also revisit the film for the dozenth time.

Genius at work. It's exhilarating!

National Death With Dignity Act

At age 75 any American citizen is eligible to receive a medical prescription for a "peaceful pill" with which to terminate life. No questions asked, age being the only requirement. ---------- This is my petition to the White House. The site is down at the moment. Hmm. I'll keep trying.

Irons reads Fowles

Started an audio book last night, Jeremy Irons reading an abridged version of The French Lt's Woman. Really like it early on. Art like this really raises the spirits.

Russian gypsy music

Found a radio station dedicated to this - a perfect find! No music is sadder and more energizing at the same time, giving bad fortune, giving history, the finger. Soulful not with vocal histrionics, which is interpretation, but with minor keys and changes in rhythm, soulful in the very bones of the musical structure.

Learned a few of these at the language school, later covered a number of songs on Bikel's brilliant album of the music. Man, tonight - in these times - the music sounds like the voice of the gods. As deep as Caruso.

Trees in the Forest

Blessings --autobiography --mental health --home (Harriet, Sketch, roof, income) Comfort --breakfast --leisure --sunshine (rare) Routine --making scrapple --preparing iced coffee --evaluating student work --blogs Downers --American mythology --American history --ignorance --pop culture --politics Uppers --changing demographics --Sketch's instincts --favorite artists --world outrage Lessons --Nature wins --"an old, old story" (Norman Brown) --"my best friends are writers and are dead" (Q. Pizzini) --"what the people expect, they get; what they get, they deserve; always" (C. Deemer) --"the Way is to the crematorium" (C. Deemer)

The Corporation Film: Welcome

The Corporation Film: Welcome:

"The global response to the film has been amazing with over 200 grassroots screenings being self-organized by individuals and organizations in over 25 countries, and more being added every day. The largest community screening so far took place in Porto Allegre, Brazil on April 11th attracting a whopping 1,500 attendees!"

A powerful documentary. More optimistic than I am but hopefully they are right and I am wrong. Everyone needs to see this.

Midterms

Still need to read today ... evening, I suppose. Got a tad of yard work done. Mellow day. Mellow life! More or less. Mellow for Puddle City.

Manfred

In the dark silent morning
my thoughts rule the mindscape
and I realize how effortlessly
I could slip into oblivion.

In Lord Byron's dramatic poem
Manfred, the hero on his death bed
tells a priest, It is not difficult
to die.

Manfred never lived in America
where much money is made
keeping old folks alive long after
their quality of life is gone.
America runs on numbers and
a 90 year old human vegetable
is more impressive than an
80 year old human vegetable
and modern medicine can keep
anyone alive for a price.

If you've had enough, good luck,
you have to become an outlaw
to decide to die in America
and nothing is made easy
for you. No understanding,
no help, no admiration. Anything
you do to end your life will
put you in jail. America doesn't
understand the absurdity here.

Manfred, an existential hero,
can face death with honor but
America has no room for heroes
like this. We alienate them and
turn them into criminals and
question their sanity.

There are no Manfreds in America.

BIRTHING LITTLE RICHARD

BIRTHING LITTLE RICHARD:

"I became a teenager in the right place at the right
time. Although you could count on one hand the number
of blacks enrolled at Woodrow Wilson Jr. High or
Pasadena High School, Los Angeles County had large
enough a black population to justify the existence of
radio shows that played "the very best in Negro
entertainment" around the clock. One such show was
Hunter Hancock's afternoon "Harlematinee" on KFVD."

Click title above to read more.

The Man Who Shot Elvis and other stories.

Since I Must Die

Since I must die
let it be
on a clear hot day
so I feel good

Since I must die
let it be
during the summer
when I'm not teaching

Since I must die
let it be
during the day
when not in bed

Since I must die
let it be
when I'm alone
making no disruption

except for Sketch
who would understand
more than others
and lick my face

Since I must die
let it be
on some other day
surely not today

when it is hot
here on the deck
and I'm alone
except for Sketch

so not today
surely not today

Derby day

Almost a holiday for me, important growing up, attention continued through life. I'll be rooting for two longshots, each of which would make history for the jockey.

Hot haiku

Sunny day at last!
I want to work up a sweat
outside, mowing lawn

THE TEACHER (1969)

THE TEACHER, from The Colorado Quarterly, Summer, 1969 (click title for complete story)

" If I were a menial clerk, to whose gloom a Dostoevski or a Melville could give cosmic importance, then readily would I win your understanding. We are in an age the sensibilities of which are riveted to the absurd and what, after all, is more absurd than filling a ledger book with numerals, sorting out dead letters, filing away last year's purchase orders or pulling a lever in a factory? If I made my livelihood in so dreary a fashion, you would accept my gloom as being inevitable, deem it significant, and find in it an occasional metaphor for your own misgivings, whatever your employment; you would offer me understanding, empathy, sympathy, at least something more meaningful than what you now offer me, which is flattering but undue praise, or what usually is called "a good press." "

Memory

It's essential to remember
when you remember the past
that your memory is in
the present tense.

Sketch

Since this dog
Kindred spirit
Entered my life,
The world is
Charged with
Humorous comfort.