Tag Archives: literature

April 22, 2013 · 7:22 pm

On further consideration

Just finished reading War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. Not the type of book that type of book that comes across my desk very often, actually has never really come across my desk. It the first book I’ve ever read in the “Urban Fantasy” genre. It’s also teh first time I’d ever heard of the “Urban Fantasy” genre. So BOOM there ya go, mind expanded.

I’m not really in tune with the fantasy and science fiction. I like them.. I’m just not in the loop for stuff like that. But I do read Scooter’s blog over at A Nod To Nothing, he reads a lot of stuff in this genre and he highly recommended this one. Sort of an interesting book, set in Minneapolis, got a goth thing going, music thing, Hiawatha Falls and First Avenue are featured. It was a decent enough book, not especially polished, it wasn’t high brow literature like say Sea of Poppies by Amitav Gosh.

But as I read it, I could help think that you know what, I could write something like this.

Ahh writing a book, a long unrealized goal. To be an author, something I’ve thought about for 25 years.

So, you say, do it.

Writing a book requires some stick-to-itivenes, something that Captain ADD would have trouble with. One the other hand some way, some how I’ve found a way to post 2300 posts on this blog. What if I’d focused that effort on writing a book?

I’da written about 7 by now. Crazy to think.

What about time? So far my net earnings from writing come to the grand total of $1500.00. And that sum, not exactly payment for what I’d written from a content perspective, rather it was because I wrote about something that sparked the interest of an attorney looking for a guy to represent a class in a law suit. And since my family has become to accustomed to a certain life style I’m tend to focus on the job, which like all jobs these days is a little encompassing, it leaves little time or mental bandwidth for other pursuits.

Need any more excuses, ’cause I have a lot of them if you want.

I even broke down this month and purchased a piece of software; Scrivener, to help with the construction of a book. Content BTW, not much of a problem, I’m long winded if nothing else.

So now I find myself starting to run out of excuses save one, this blog. There’s only so much time and writing energy in the day, updating this thing takes alot of that time.

No I’m not quitting this. But I ‘m thinking that it’s about time I get more serious about writing and try to make something out of nothing.

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March 5, 2013 · 10:24 am

50 Books a Year Update

Goal- read 50 books a year. This year, I’m off to a decent start, but to make 50 I’m going to have to mix in a couple kiddie books. Maybe my friend the Roster will let me read a few to him.

Started the year burning through three William Kent Kruger books; Iron Lake, Boundary Waters and Copper River. These are decent murder mysteries set in Northern Minnesota, and in the case of Copper River, up on the Upper Peninsula. Enjoyable reads they’re well written with good characters and strong interesting plots. I especially like the main protagonist in the series, Cork O’Conner.  Cork is part Anishinaabe, and his connection to the local band is a big part of all of the books I’ve read so far and makes the Minnesota connection even beter.

They’re a nice way to pass the time, but they’re not challenging if you know what I mean. I like to mix in something that stretches my mind every coupl’a three books or so. Otherwise I’d just watch CSI.

Somewhere in there I mixed in Saul Bellow’s Henderson The Rain King. Technically it’s literature since Saul won a Nobel or something. I came across this one listening too, and fooling around with (on the guitar) the Counting Crows song “the Rain King”. It’s a great song but the lyrics are weird so I did a little digging to learn more about the source of the song. Turns out the song is based on the book.

This turned out to be a book that I wanted to like a lot more than I actually liked it. The story is about a middle aged millionaire who, unsatisfied with his life heads to Africa in an attempt to answer a question yearning in his soul “I want I want I want”. Problem is he has everything and doesn’t know quite what it is he wants. In Africa he seeks wisdom and at the same time attempts to help the some of the folks he comes across, and basically screws up everything he touches. The book ends with his inheriting the throne of a tribe, a job he wants no part off and he has to beg off and head back home wiser and happier.

This is a book that I wish I’d written; the wit and irony are certainly right up my alley. I’m a middle-aged guy who has no idea what he wants, I only knows that I’m never satisfied with what I have. Except when I’m at the lake, there for some reason I fell pretty content about all things except the dread I start to feel about leaving. And since that happens every time I’m there, that being that I leave and come back home to my usual avocation, I’m going to chock it up as a mid-life crisis thing and call it a day.

Which doesn’t help explain why I like/don’t like Henderson The Rain King, but the thought came to me and I was typing at the time so the two of you who read this have a little more insight in my insanity.

The plot in the book moves kinda slow to be honest, that’s the “don’t like” part. It is however peppered with philosophical insights and great quotes. I love me a great quote. One of my favorites:

I often looked into books to see whether I could find some helpful words, and one day I read, “The forgiveness of sins is perpetual and righteousness first is not required.” This impressed me so deeply that I went around saying it to myself. But then I forgot which book it was.”

Kinda the story of my life. I forget more great ideas and thoughts than I’ve ever had and at the end of the day I forget them all and have to start from scratch.

But for some reason I can remember the names of a pair of twins I played with and last saw in 1969. Weird.

My voice is not “I want” it’s “I don’t know what I want”. Hmm.

From the trash novel department, The Temple Mount Code by Charles Brokaw. Not that Charles Brokaw, at least I don’t think it was that Charles Brokaw. Not so good. One of those international thrillers that has bad guys chasing good guys across the globe. There’s so many daring escapes in this one that it’s ridiculous. I think it’s a supposed to be a kind of modern Indiana Jones deal, but even Indy doesn’t have this many escapes in a day. When the Iranian bad guys and the hero/Cassa Nova/Archaeologist burrow under the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and no one notices.. then I’m kinda done. The ending is awful, anti-climatic and lose ends.. blah.

From here I moved on to Margery Kemps autobiography. Thankfully edited and re-written by Louise Collins. The Kemp memoirs are the very first autobiography written in English. It dates to the late 1300’s early 1400’s. Mrs. Kemp could best be described as “bat-shit” crazy. She had a habit of breaking into tears and convulsions whenever she entered a church. At the time the general opinion was that she was either completely nuts, which seemed to the more popular opinion, or that she was some sort of aesthetic, the view held by some of the clergy.

Margery was remarkable in that after having 14 children with her long suffering husband she departed on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where the wrote about her visits to Jerusalem and the various Christian shrines there. Pretty amazing when you think about, not like you could board an El Al flight out of London and touch down in the Holy Land 4 hours later. This trip took a couple years and involved crossing the channel, making her way across Europe to Venice. Booking a Pilgrim Package, literally an all inclusive trip from Venice to Joppa, overland to Jerusalem and back, meals, guides and lodging all included. I had no idea they had such things. After the trip she goes to Rome and then back home.

One thing that comes out loud and clear, the woman was a pain in the ass. She gets kicked out of every group she hooks up with, in those days traveling with a group was mandatory to avoid the dangers of 14th century brigands and robbers. And it seems that just as soon as the crowd she’s with kicks her out, they feel guilty and bring her back. With the stipulation that she not preach, wail, cry, or talk. Marjory interprets this as God looking after her and blessing the groups she’s with.

There’s actually a hilarious part where she separates from her group in Joppa, only to be reunited with them in Venice a year later, and they all decide to kill themselves instead of traveling with her one more day. Not really but pretty close. Even the hired guide she employs to take her from Venice to Rome abandons here half way, deciding that money isn’t worth the trouble of hanging out with this broad.

Bottom line I love me some history, especially the first person accounts. This was a good one. You do however want someone to interpret English from that era. This was before there were standards about grammar and spelling so trying to figure out what they’re saying is difficult. My only beef with this version was the editor, Louise Collins… she made a lot of mistakes about the time and places. Her history wasn’t quite right and that always bugs the shit out of me. Good news is there are lot of other sources for this work including one called “Diary of a Crazy Woman”. Might be a better one for me. Some of you might like “Story of a Woman of God” if you want to go that route.

OK Anyone still with me here?

The Worm

I can’t even being to tell you how offended I was by Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea. His comments about his new little buddy and great leadership.. Dennis should move to North Korea and to live for a few years at Yodak Concentration camp. Which is where Kang Chol-Hwan the author of Aquariums of Pyongyang spent 10 years of his youth. He is from a family of Koreans living in Japan. His family was enticed to move to the Socialist Paradise in North Korea in late 1970’s by the local North Korean benevolent society. His father became a fairly high level bureaucrat in the party and the family lived relatively well in Pyongyang for a few years before things went horribly bad.

His grandfather was accused of disloyalty to the regime and, as happens in the Socialist Paradise, the entire extended family including 9 year old Chol were sent to a concentration camp. 10 years of near starvation, watching beatings and public executions and summary punishments Chol was released and deemed “rehabilitated”. Realizing that he was going to be arrested again he was able to escape to China across the Yalu river and make his way to Seoul South Korea where he became a journalist.

This is a really gripping book about life in North Korea that reads like a realty show based on George Orwell’s 1984. Loyalty to the Party and the Kim’s is ingrained in every aspect of life. Kang writes that as bad as Yodak was, it was by no means the worst camp in North Korea. There were others where no one left alive. This is the family that Dennis Rodman has decided to embrace. This is his “Friend for life”. These are the people that Dennis calls “great leaders”. 3 Million starved to death in the last 10 years. People eating rats and cockroaches. Summary executions of 10’s of thousands.

I’m sorry, fuck you Dennis Rodman, you deserve to live with your new friends and see what life is really like in Hermit Kingdom. I think digging coal with you hands in a forced labor camp eathing 500 grams of corn a day would do you well.

Soo, I’ve read a bunch of stuff lately because I’m avoiding my next one. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I’ve been avoiding this one because I’m intimidated by the length of it. It’s a tome and a half. Might need to augment reading time to get through in 2013. BUT, from everything I’ve read it’s right up my alley. If found it because I submitted my blog to a “Who do you write like” site and Wallace was the guy that came up. Snarky and smart I’m supposed to write a lot like he does. We’ll see.

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December 5, 2012 · 7:30 pm

Exactly 1000 words on 1000 words

I like pithy little maxims, particularly ones that have been around forever. I suppose there’s a school of thought that would say that all the good things to say, have probably already been said and so quoting a proverb or saying is really just an exercise in reuse. What I like about them, makes me sound literary and smart, a nice ruse. One of my prouder moments; when I was about 15 or 16 years old I had a crush on a girl who had just moved into the neighborhood, I think her name was Dana but I might be wrong. She had this gorgeous mane of long jet black soft curls, piercing blue eye and few other attributes which proper decorum prohibits my mentioning. Just say’n, I was 16 after all. Not that at 50 I would feel all that different but I probably wouldn’t mention it.. or wait I just did. Shameful.

Anyway.. I put a decent amount of time and effort into trying to foster a little relationship with Dana, to no avail. To put it bluntly she was not a fan. But, she was nice enough one fine afternoon to let me know all the reasons she was not a fan, something I would later learn is called feedback, and would learn even later than that,should be considered a gift. BTW, this feedback is a gift thing.. good gifts come with gift receipts and can be returned if you don’t like them. This has not proven to be true in the case of feedback.

ANYWAY- I hit on her for a couple months, until she sat down one day and said something to the effect of “I’d like to present you with a list of reasons that me, and every other girl in high school I’ve talked too, find you undesirable.”

Cool. Bring it.

“Reason number one- you use big words.”

I remember that comment like it was yesterday. And I seriously can’t remember another thing she said, despite her rambling on for another couple hundred reasons. I couldn’t get past the “use big words” comment because in my mind this little dish was now in the category of imbecile, which if you are also uncomfy with big words is a an archaic word which was used to describe people with IQ’s in the >;50 range. Amazingly enough she became considerably less attractive at that point, I moved on and started dating a girl in the school choir who was also attractive, but more importantly, brilliant.

Words matter. Numbers.. .

Numbers matter too, but I’ve never been comfortable in the world of numbers. To the contrary I’ve always relished in language, I love navigating complicated conversation, my head seems to have a handy thesaurus at the ready, not a dictionary mind you, spelling remains an issue. I’m almost always able to insert just the right word to evoke just the right nuance to a conversation. My children however are far more comfortable in the quantitative world, the exactness found in the realm of mathematics is their preferred space. For them, diving into a complicated formula and solving an equation brings a closure that they just can’t find in literary pursuits. When I see a perfectly good sentence corrupted with numbers and odd symbols I find myself beyond intimidated, and maybe even a little sick to my stomach. It’s like it’s a secret code and I have no decoder ring.

My kids… the only time I’ve ever heard any frustration about their college work came when papers were due. The oldest kid at Michigan Tech has even gone so far as to proclaim his humanities coursework, which frankly was about three classes, all which were for engineers and as such only required the bare minimum of any sort of writing, as “lame”. Why lame? Because he had to write not one, not two, but three, count’um three papers in these classes and these papers had the unreasonable requirement of having to be at least 1,000 words long.

A THOUSAND words.. “Do you know how long a THOUSAND WORDS is” my son would complain over Skype. From his expression and tone, this was insurmountable, it was an injustice, it was a distraction from real work, important work, work in laboratories and computers, it infringed on his analytics courses, which were much easier because at least in math, there’s a correct answer, you either have it or you don’t. This writing BS is all subjective and therefore a waste of time.

And therein is the paradigm between literary thinkers and the analytical thinkers. I look at mathematicians and scientists with sense of awe and wonderment. They’re doing magnificent work, complicated mind bending work in a space I can’t even imagine. I work with some PhD’s with degrees in quantitative analysis who can develop algorithms which will predict my behaviors on a given day better than I can. I’m in awe of the calculus which can put a plane in the air or calculate age of some Neolithic ancestors missing molar based on radio carbon decay. I have trouble balancing my checkbook, so much so that I haven’t done it since Quicken was installed on my homemade 286 computer in 1989.

The analytical folks, at least in my family, in contrast tend to look at us literary types as cloud chasing dreamers, quaint and fun to talk too, but not really adding a ton of value to the betterment of humanity. A generalization I realize, but one based on solid field research, I’m on to something. It’s hard to make the argument that literature can advance the human condition and help explain our world to a group of people who are quite proud to boast that they never cracked a book that wasn’t a technical manual.

Whiners. A thousand word essay. I apparently don’t appreciate how long 1000 words are. Really? I respond, it’s exactly the length of this post, or about 15 minutes or work. Get over it

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November 27, 2012 · 10:01 pm

I write a lot. And it shows.

Man this blogging thing can be a challenge. Write write write.. I did a little work to see just how much I’ve been able put out there on the internets, part of the 2000 posts celebration deal.

So just how much have I written over the years. And before I lay out the statistics let me point out a few facts-

 

  1. All content is original, I haven’t copied anything, stolen anything, blah blah blah, it’s from my head to your screen.
  2. I’ve been at this for a long time, almost 10 years now. Writing about 5X a week, more sometimes, less sometimes.
  3. I don’t pretend to be a good writer, especially if the definition of good has anything to do with spelling. I think faster than I type, and then, subconsciously, I skip words to catch up. At least that’s what I think I’m doing, I suppose I’d need a psychologist to tell me why I do it. Then again I could apply Occam’s Razor and deduce that I’m lame. We do have to keep all options on the table. BTW, if you send me little nasty grams to tell me that my writing sucks and implore me to proof read and try to do better because I’m hard to read as is, my suggestion to you stop reading the blog. Better for everyone.

 

WIth that out of the way, I’m estimating that I’ve written about 8M words, given the average length of my posts, that converts to about 8,000 pages or 28 300 page books. That’s a lot of writing.

No wonder I occasionally run out of things to say.

Or why friends who read this space, don’t have anything to ask us when they see us. Its all been said. The funny thing is I never seem to have writers block for more than a day or so. My mind seems to be constantly working, I find myself constantly in “content acquisition” mode, hunting for things to talk about, ruminating over issues in my head, or seeing absurd humor in every day occurrences. Or, one of my favorite topics, exposing the hypocrisy or self righteousness of others. There’s nothing more satisfying to me than hearing about some anti-gay politician getting busted with a male prostitute in their car, or a gentle environmentalist song writer an poet who runs a dog fighting kennel as a hobby.

 

So enough self indulgence. Cutting to the chase, I write alot, once in awhile it’s good, often it isn’t, but this is a blog, not a book. Read the blog, buy the book. When it ever goes for sale.

 

Hah.

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November 26, 2012 · 10:04 pm

I Want, I Want, I Want to be Inspired.

What influenced you to become what you are today? Was it someone you wanted to emulate as kid? Maybe a family member who you looked up too. Was it a celebrity, maybe an astronaut or a famous doctor, politician? For Mrs S she found inspiration a series of  books; Cherry Ames Student Nurse. The books featured a student nurse who solved crimes in her spare time. Proving, and this was rare in books from the 40′s and 50′s, that empowered women could do anything they wanted.

This came to mind recently because I found a bunch of these books at a used book store in Saint Paul, and the find triggered a thought, what inspired me?

These books inspired more than a few girls, Mrs S included, to become nurses, and during the early years of the series, helped the war effort by recruiting nurses for the cause. I didn’t have such great direction in my childhood. While my bride to be was reading about Cherry, Super Sluth Nurse I was reading the Hardy Boys series. I didn’t realize it at the time but the Hardy Boys were a couple of xenophobic borderline racists and, we now know, they were closeted homosexuals.

Gasp. Not that it matters but it is kinda funny looking back. If you think about it, they didn’t really hang with their girl friends, they really like to hang out with Chet and Biff. Chet went to art camp in my favorite book, The Haunted Fort and Biff, as the Joe Hardy was fond of saying, had “muscles of steel”. Who knew. I think I probably had 20 or so of those books laying around the house when I was growing up, not sure where they landed. Mrs S has a few Cherry Ames books down in the basement, she got them from one of her Aunts, the same person who first exposed her to the candy striper with logical head for solving crimes adult men couldn’t. And while Mrs S has retired from the nursing profession lo these 18 years, she has maintained her interest in crime fighting, which she does today vicariously through her “stories”, her love of mysteries in film, TV and in print.

To the point that she’s not all that fun to watch a mystery with because she has it figured out way before I do.

I did have one role model, kinda, growing up. I thought my Dads brother was about the coolest guy around. Wonderful family man, cool house deep in the heart of Texas, great career as an anesthesiologist, well loved in the community, unfortunately I lacked a certain gumption when it came to the world of academia, especially when it came to math and science. Sort of an idiot savant without much savant. But I might have got the family part right, my kids seem to be doing ok.. then again that’s more their mother than I, I think they’ll remember me as a raging lunatic who liked to yell at them for thing not flushing the toilet.

I’m still looking for my inspiration, and at this point time is running out. At 50 I’d'a thunk I’d'a figga’d it out, apparently not. I have two books I’ve recently read that are inspiring on some level. Saul Bellows Henderson the Rain King. What’s better than an middle aged man, in his midlife crisis, his inner voice saying I want, I want, I want… who goes to Africa and clusterfucks his way through one village to another, eventually becoming an unwilling King of a tribe and winds up going home to get away from the responsibility, still wondering about fulfillment.

The other book I’ve found interesting of late, oddly enough, the Book of Samuel, I and II. Yeah I cracked a Bible, a readable translation of the Hebrew Bible from the Jewish Publication Society to read about David. Why? Because I recently overheard a discussion about David and his flaws, his strengths and his own personal midlife crisis, so I thought I’d check it out.

Very interesting. He kills a Philistine, and later lives among them to hide out from the king he will eventually ursurp. Sends a husband to his death in war so he can marry his wife, has one kid kill another and finally winds up with absolute power over his kingdom and yet, no control over his family or the course of events in his own life and is a miserable old dude.

David had the same nagging question if you ask me, I want, I want, I want and like Henderson, and a certain fat ass 50 year old, couldn’t answer it either. I guess angst is all part of the process of growing up and out.

 

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May 8, 2012 · 9:11 pm

50 Shades of Crazy- A Cultural Phenom

Wake Up Men, there’s a cultural phenom in EFFECT, and you’re gonna wanna know about it.

The top 3 books on the New York Times best seller list-

  1. Fifty Shades of Grey
  2. Fifty Shades Darker
  3. Fifty Shades Freed

And down there at number 9: Fifty Shades, the complete trilogy.

9 weeks on the list.

Don’t know when they came out.

I’m guessing that these books are single most compelling reason women are buying E-Readers at 10X the rate men are. (my own personal research)

It’s a cultural phenom.

And I knew nothing about it until about three weeks ago. I work in an office where the ratio of men to women is around 10:1.. hence my research. I discovered these books when I walked in on a rather hushed hallway conversation, hands over mouths, women giggling. 40 year old women giggling.

I’ve seen stranger things, not many, but some.

Topic of discussion was “those books”. Apparently, if the story goes right, one of the women received the first book in the trilogy as a present, or a loan or something from some other women. Guys, little lesson for you, your wives and girlfriends have drinking societies that go under the name “book club”. No one reads in these clubs but they go through a ton of 3 buck chuck. I want to join a book club. Especially after I learned more about these books.

This woman became so engaged in the story that she managed to read the entire tome in one afternoon. The next day, she called in sick to work and read the other two. 17 straight hours of reading with breaks only for the bottle opener and trips to the can.

A fellow I work with bought the books for his girl friend as little present of some sort, odd as they’re not even married yet.. she went missing for 27 hours, emerging from her apartment, bleary eye’d and weepy after consuming them, again all three, in one sitting. Three novels in one sitting!

Seriously.

I have trouble getting through the box scores of a day’s baseball game in one sitting. These things must be something else. But what are they?

My Newsweek had an article about them last week. These novels were described as a new genre of novel writing; they called it “mommy porn”.

That got my attention. Anything with the word “mommy” in it is of interest to me.

Ha. OK I’ll admit it, it’s the porn part. Further research into the plots of these books describes some innocent young chick, I think a law school or medical school student, same thing, who meets some older dude and together they explore his dark sexual fantasies. And they talk and explore their relationship. I could care less about this except the things they talk about; handcuffs, spankings, blindfolds, fantasies, well, hear tell that they do so in some detail. In some explicit detail.

Which makes me interested. Kinda. As long as it’s in short sentences. Actually sounds I’ll wait for the movies but I digress.

These damned books are literally burning through the 20-40 female demographic like fire on gasoline. The buzz around the office, friends, casual encounters with friends and confidants, is deafening. Even SNL picked on up on it last weekend.

http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1400037

According to Newsweek the “new” professional woman is interested in career, kids, and light S&M.

Whaaa.. I dropped my coffee cup right on the floor of the bus as I read that.

Seems like something this big I would have noticed. I must only know “old school” professional women in my world. They’re more interested in money, chores and what my plans are for the day, especially Saturdays. They’re also occasionally interested in my hygiene and my dress.

At a recent little cocktail soirée with a few couples I mentioned these books. The women I was with hadn’t heard of them. I described the phenom.

Fiction for women.

Yawn.

They’re sweeping the office like a disease.

Yawn.

They’re all about relationships.

Yawn.

Half the ladies on the bus are reading them.

Yawn

They’re about spanking and a chick getting it on freaky style with some dude. And lots and lots of talking.

“I’m sorry, what did you say they were called?”

Mobile Amazon app got three hits that very evening and before my eyes three people incapable of operating a remote control were successfully able to go out and order these babies in 10 seconds flat, all from smart phones.

And three husbands did silent high fives.

And she thought it was wasteful for me to buy Amazon Prime.. ha. Might pay off for one of us. Maybe.

E-Readers are blowing off the shelves as women realize that these devices provide anonymity when reading these sorted titles in public. Not that those faint beads of perspiration on your forehead and your slightly watery eyes doesn’t give you away as you read on the bus next to this observer of the common culture. Certainly it isn’t sitting next to a fat bald stinky guy with a comic book on his lap that makes you do that.

I’ve always wondered, when pursing airport newsstands, who is it exactly that buys all those raunchy porn titles they have on the shelves, and they have a lot of them. Do fellows really, while waiting for a flight, realize that the new issue of Biggins just came out and then are willing to stand in line with kids buying candy and housewives buying water, porn titles in hand, like it’s nuthn? Do business travelers buy them? I’ve always wanted, and just for effect, to sit next to some stranger on a plane, to whip one of those plastic wrapped magazines out of my carry-on and start reading the articles. Especially the articles that make me turn the magazine sideways so I can take in all the text.

So now woman have their version of this same deal, and since, according to Mars and Venus.. which I admit I had to be told about since reading about relationships is right up there with skinning eels on my to do list, well according to Marsian Theory, we men are visual. Which we are. Woman are something other than visual, what that is I don’t know. I’ve certainly thought about it, for minutes at time sometimes, and boils down to this eternal question:

What makes women tick?

And then I remember how much I enjoy a fresh hot batch of tater tots and I’m off to find some.

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April 29, 2012 · 10:37 am

I hate April

April showers, snow and rain, high at 40, spring time bane.

So the proverbial shoe dropped yesterday. The bill came for us, after an incredible run of weekend weather around here, reaching all they way back into February, we had our come=upIt was freezing. Rained all day. As Hal Borland wrote; “April is the promise that May is bound to keep”. Well they say that around here anyway. I often think of T.S. Eliots poem The Wasteland this time of year, which opens with the line “April is the cruelest month”. For those of you who didn’t take a lit class you won’t recognize the wasteland for what it is, perhaps the most important poem of the 20th century.

Personally I like the first stanza

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Exactly how I feel about spring around here, weathers promise oft belated by winter’s last gasp. Which when I thought of when it was snowing yesterday.. just say’n.

BTW if you don’t get around to reading The Wasteland allow me to share an even better quote from it;

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

I really really really like that last line, Eliot could turn a phrase huh? Did I mention that my oldest kid’s middle name is Eliot?

He can not turn a phase however. He can however, solve equations which require similar sorts of mental acuity and abstract adeptness with which great writers hone their craft. Or so they tell me, mathematics for me being one of those disciplines where I have to take other peoples word for it since I can’t get my head through it’s secret codes.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Shakespeare said it best in Hamlet I think, when discussing the dread that comes with the contemplation of mortality;

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Ooo I’m a little dark today. Probably because the weather yesterday had me house bound. The weather on Sunday was much nice, but I still found myself house bound, one of those days where nothing sounded good.

Oh well, tomorrow I’m off to Las Vegas for a few days for work. Weather out there should improve my attitude.

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