Bread

Wheat barley out of the oven ... first taste later tonight. New dough, Wisconsin beer-cheese bread.

Colleagues

Ran into another colleague in the hallway ... a ukulele player!

Look what I found

Looking for a Wylie photo, found this ...

On the bread front

My caraway rye is a keeper. Will be a staple. Some whole wheat version will as well, I am still experimenting for one I really like, this latest to bake this afternoon, wheat barley. I am close to an olive loaf, too. So maybe ideally I'd have something like: whole wheat variety ... caraway rye ... olive ... French ... cheese for 5 basic loaves, and then of course I'd keep experimenting. But only the rye is where I want it to be.

What fun (as Jimbo used to say).

Jimbo = Jim Wylie

No progress

Didn't even open the Overlook file this morning ... just been browsing the net and farting around. No regrets! Sometimes "wasting time" is a battery charge in disguise. And I did make a decision: to come out with both versions of The Pardon in a book. Even started designing the cover. Will be a Kindle book, with a paperback spinoff, don't want to try and twist TS's arm over at Round Bend Press. He's been supportive enough already. He actually published a libretto!!

Well ... half an hour before I get ready to head out.

Just for the heck of it

As I did with SAD LAUGHTER, I think I'll do a book with both stage and film versions of THE PARDON, just for the heck of it. I like this early play very much and the screenplay is one of mine that "almost" got done back in the day. The stage play was a real break through for me, my divorce from representational form in favor of presentational..

The early play in which I found my voice

The Pardon

a play in two acts

by Charles Deemer

First performed at Theatre Workshop in Portland, Oregon, on March 16, 1979. Directed by Steve Smith.

THE CAST (4M, 4W):

Frank, the narrator

Horace, his father

Evelyn, his mother

Sheri, his sister

Carl, his brother-in-law

Les, his uncle

Harriet, his high school sweetheart

Jocelyn, his Canadian lover

THE TIME:

Spring, 1977; and other events, before and after.

THE PLACE:

Rutherford, on Maryland's Eastern Shore; and in the mind of the narrator

ACT ONE

(We are in the landscape of the conscience, where time and space are awash. The stage area is open and free: boundaries flutter, actors move through time and space in an instant, sometimes "presenting" the action, sometimes "representing" it, often quickly moving back and forth between the two forms.

The actors never leave the stage. When not "in" the action, they sit in chairs or on stools — or, in Horace's case, in a wheelchair.

These areas must be defined: a radio station; a living area; a podium area, with an open area adjacent to it.)

(AT RISE: all the actors are in their chairs. Then FRANK gets up and moves forward to speak to the audience.)

FRANK: There was a war. Perhaps you remember. There was a war but there were no heroes.

I assumed I'd never return. Who could have foreseen a Presidential pardon? So I'd learned to live with it. At least, after ten years, a few things were going my way again. I found a job in my profession, which is radio. And I met someone. You'll meet Jocelyn later. I really don't know where I'd be without her. Not that a sense of debt is the best foundation, if you know what I mean.

GO TO THE PLAY

Also a screenplay

I Wear the Badge of Socialist With Honor | Common Dreams

I Wear the Badge of Socialist With Honor | Common Dreams:

"In our country, Democratic and Republican politicians alike primarily serve the interests of big business. A completely dysfunctional Congress DOES manage to agree on one thing—regular increases in their already bloated salaries—yet at the same time allows the federal minimum wage to stagnate and fall farther and farther behind inflation. We have the obscene spectacle of the average corporate CEO getting seven thousand dollars an hour, while the lowest-paid workers are called presumptuous in their demand for just fifteen.

To begin to change all of this, we need organized mass movements of workers and young people, relying on their own independent strength. That is how we won unions, civil rights and LGBTQ rights."

Seattle is more progressive than Portland. Duh.

*The full text of the new Seattle city council member’s inauguration speech

Harassment of Climate Scientists Needs To Stop | Common Dreams

Harassment of Climate Scientists Needs To Stop | Common Dreams:

"When Michael Mann chose a career in science, he didn't think that he would be denounced on billboards, grilled by hostile legislators on Capitol Hill and in the British House of Commons, have his emails hacked and stolen, receive letters laced with an anthrax-like white powder, and become the target of anonymous death threats."

New study has my interest

White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (Chicago Studies in American Politics) ... a book worth looking at, about how millionaires run the country and we are, in fact, a plutocracy.

The Writer Stops Writing

He'd always assumed his life had a purpose:
his work would add to the literary wealth
of the culture. Now he believes this is bullshit.

The culture has no use for him
or others like him. Without reason to stay,
he still hangs around like an unwelcome guest,
taking it all in -- but with nothing to say.

Office sweet office

To my office early ... this is one of the moments I'll miss after retirement, coming in, running into colleagues in the hallway -- as a moment ago, a ten minute great conversation about Raymond Carver (I so seldom have the literary conversations I used to have regularly over coffee when my best friends were alive) -- out of the classroom moments. Maybe I can replace them somehow.

At any rate, should work on Overview and get back on that track but I have less energy now that I've learned what I need to know about marketing, and don't like what I see (although I understand it does work if that's your bag). I need to finish two more to wrap it up with 4 x3 anthologies. Then move on, hopefully to a new CJ adventure. New working title. CJ's Last Will and Testament.

Eager to get home and bake bread! Get to try my wheat barley, which I hope is good enough to become a staple. I only have one, caraway rye. I'd like three or four.

Well, stuff to do. Like get down a new poem in my head.

Rye + Rustic w/sesame seeds

Bread line

Rye in the oven ... rustic on the peel to go in next ... whole wheat barley brewing prior to refrigeration. Sanity!

Wonder tool

If I could only keep one of my bread-making tools, I would make a very easy choice: the Danish whisk. Makes mixing flour sooooo easy!

Off and running

A good first day ... home baking bread! ... Chinese food out later.

Glad to be back

Getting back into the teaching rhythm, thank the gods. Feels good to be in my office, looking forward to class. Early couple weeks are pretty easy.

And looking forward to baking bread this afternoon! My new form of relaxation or something. Stopping by store on way home for bread items, olives, cheese.

My office mate likes rye bread ... will bring her a loaf this term since it is one of my standards now. Still experimenting with variations of whole wheat ... with barley today, for example, for baking later in the week.

So far, olive bread and rye bread are my personal favorites.

Tomorrow I need to spend a lot of time on ukulele studies, including new recordings. Been falling behind a tad ... sore wrist part of it. Interesting that it's not my fingers that are sore but my left wrist.

Well, an hour to go. Eager to get started.

Seattle Swears In a Socialist | Common Dreams

Seattle Swears In a Socialist | Common Dreams:

Why Seattle is so much more progressive than Portland.

Writing the spec screenplay

14 minute video.

Caruso

Used in sound track of Woody Allen's Match Point quite brilliantly to evoke mood.

 

Mahagonny finale

My favorite dramatic ending of any narrative work, the end of the Brecht-Weill opera, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Brecht: "Nothing you can do can help a dead man."

Week 1

In the office bright and early, winter term begins. Late getting mentally ready for it -- but I am now! Time flies when things get going, which is good, before I know it, spring is here, my final term teaching is here, the days are warmer.

Speaking of weather: yesterday 85% of the country was below freezing! 23% below zero! Not here. I bitch about the weather here a lot but, man, I am thankful for it compared to the rest of the country. I'll take rain over snow and ice any day.

Want to finish Overdrive #11 this term, #12 next term, then call it quits. Make 3 more collections of 3 each ... and then let it go. Marketing works but it is too time consuming and the profit margin is too small with my short inexpensive books to make any financial sense. Not only that, I find the emphasis of packaging over content culturally obscene.

This afternoon, after I get home after class, I am ... baking bread! Two loaves, rye and rustic 4, and preparing a new batch of dough, wheat-barley, and getting ready to try my first cheese bread soon. I haven't made scrapple since I've been baking. Interesting.

2 more shots at teaching screenwriting "right." I do my best but I am also confounded by a few students who never do "get it" and I can't figure out why, or what I can do to turn them around. But the vast majority do get it. When I judged those 34 scripts recently, only a handful were really "screenwriting," the rest being re-formatted fiction writing, writers shooting themselves in the foot. The poor quality of screenwriting education -- or perhaps just the lack of it, because this is a hard craft to learn on your own because of the different kinds of scripts out there -- is astounding. My students, if nothing else, leave class knowing what a screenplay is and is not.

Well, welcome to winter term!

Boycott

Not watching game in protest of Heisman outrage. Futile but makes me feel cleaner.

Another fine film

Quiet, a gem from Alexander Payne. Perfect. Light where Davis, that other gem, is dark.

Oregon women give #23 Cal a game

101-98. Much better than Stanford blow out.

Ain't it the truth

Caraway rye + Rustic 4

Stanford QBs!!

Down 28 in 2nd half, with 3 interceptions, Andrew Luck brings Colts back for 45-44 win over KC. Another momentous comeback by a Stanford QB. Man, these guys are bright and keep their cool. Right up there with Plunkett and Elway comebacks. Love it!

A review

Of Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones ...

At its core, SODOM is about CJ's journey to the realization that "the world can't be fixed," and maybe "he wasn't supposed to change the world. He was supposed to live in it." That's a pretty big message, one worthy of Thoreau. Deemer offers a hope that perhaps living in the world, focusing not on its evils but on its wonders, may eventually cause a little part of the evil to die - if we're "not around feeding it anymore."

SODOM, GOMORRAH & JONES is a unique and original look at the world we live in from the perspective of someone who has done a lot of living. What's happened to the world in the last century is sad; the American Dream used to be about having a family, a house, a car, and a comfortable life without worry and stress. Now it's about getting rich, and then getting richer. And to hell with anyone or anything that gets in our way. If this speaks to you, so will this novel. I recommend it to those with an open mind, a progressive spirit, and a lust for life. I still have a few years left before I'm 75 (not as many as I'd like, but enough!), and I hope when I get there I can find half the joy CJ finds.

---

Always rewarding when someone "gets it" ...

Looking ready to 3-peat

A poem for the new year

From A Majority Of One ...

Coming of (Old) Age

Let's say you've been reading

American history most of

your adult life, over half

a century now, and in that time

you've reached some conclusions

not taught in high school

the usual suspects about

genocide against American Indians

lynchings of black citizens

concentration camps for Japanese citizens

and the most extraordinary atrocity

of all, November 22, 1963,

a coup d'etat orchestrated by rogue

elements in the government

and you accept all these

things as true

and you widen the focus

to the world, where good deeds

get lost in an historic avalanche of

war and genocide and butchery

mass graves, killing fields

(inspiration for future video games)

hard to keep track of it all

and all this, too, is true.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion

that the United States is no better

than a Banana Republic, though

more livable than most, with

perks like shopping and mythology

and escape valves for discontent

like talk shows and voting

and it's hard to avoid the conclusion

that civilization is an asylum

run by sadists.

A lifetime studying history

two sad conclusions

so the question naturally arises

how possibly to live here?

1. lay low
2. reduce your universe
3. remember Nature wins
4. lay lower

Unwired

A part of me wants to pull out the wires. But I won't ... I enjoy books and audio books and video on the Kindle too much. But I can downsize online. Big changes after I retire. BIG CHANGES !!! I definitely am ready.

Bread rhythm

It becomes this: on the counter, half a loaf of walnut wheat, half a loaf of rustic 4, what we're eating. In the refrig, dough for a loaf of rustic 4 and two of caraway rye, either of which can be baked in two hours (includes prep).

Not sure what next batch will be. Want to try some exotic flours.

Nice to know fresh bread only 2 hrs away. Make nice gifts.

Reality check

Stanford 96, Oregon 66

R.I.P. Phil Everly

Phil on left

Fish stew

Friday

Decided on fish stew today after all: tomatoes, chicken broth, clam juice, white wine ... leaks, zucchini ... salmon, red snapper, scallops, shrimp , clams, oysters ... Portuguese corn bread.

Rustic 4

My own bread recipe ... four flours.

Zzzzz

Back to bed.

Davis commentary I agree with

The Coens have given us a melancholic, sometimes cruel, often hilarious counterfactual version of music history. It’s a what-if imagining of a cultural also-ran that maybe tells us more about the truth than the facts themselves ever could. (Time Out London)
*
 "Inside Llewyn Davis" isn't about someone trying to make it big, but someone just trying to make it, and the Coens celebrate the hard road that can inspire great art. (Playlist)
*
Above all, “Inside Llewyn Davis” is a revelatory showcase for Isaac, who sings with an angelic voice and turns a potentially unlikable character into a consistently relatable, unmistakably human presence — a reminder that humility and genius rarely make for comfortable bedfellows. (Variety)