tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26961310678140578572024-03-13T10:12:35.894-04:00NovelismoFord Madox Ford, B.Traven, Sybille Bedford, Marguerite Duras, Jacques Tati, Jean-Luc Godard, Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf. Lina Wertmuller, Francois Truffaut, Alexander Kinglake, Jane Austen, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Jean Renoir, Robert Altman, Charlottesville, Woodstock, Los Angeles, Onteora, The Magic Meadow, the Blue Ridge, the Catskills and
Beaujolais, Beaujolais, BeaujolaisChristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-4842439898930823762016-12-13T12:37:00.000-05:002016-12-13T12:37:17.292-05:00A Couplet for YOU ... <h2>
Love is a beautiful dance that spins</h2>
<h2>
Into the world when the day begins</h2>
<h2>
<br /></h2>
<h2>
<br /></h2>
<h2>
--- my Christmas Present to all my friends </h2>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-25327595619984381682016-05-23T10:48:00.000-04:002016-05-23T10:48:02.491-04:00Some of you will probably be very glad to learn that the incomparable Elaine Shaffer's recordings of Bach's Flute Sonatas -- which have never been released on CD -- (Odd nose why ...) are available, at least for the moment, on youtube; you can find the sonata in B Minor here, at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZz4E7ZmgvU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZz4E7ZmgvU</a>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-58239155311297063682013-05-21T08:24:00.000-04:002013-05-21T08:24:04.892-04:00The Beginning of beloved Gravely (Scribner's, 1984)(the term "my omniscient friend" indicates I was already a Fordie even way back then)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A little while ago, some of those
friends who were accusing me of writing books less well than I write rock and
roll songs were also kind enough to tell me there was not much rock and roll in
this one.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They are probably right, because
this book is about me and my friends and the women I loved before I met the
young girl I'm about to marry, whose blue eyes and red hair may well be the
death of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But for the benefit of
anyone who never heard one of my songs or read the notes on any of my record
albums, I would like to say a few things here, before we start out toward the
first edition of the floating opera.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A lot of the same people who accused
me of writing books less well than I write rock and roll also accused me of
confusing all the times and the flow of time and the interactions of the
different times, and they too are probably right, because I don't believe that
time is, or that time has to be, or even that time ought to be as regular as
distance in a Flemish painting.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I think every moment in the past is
just as distant as the last breath I have taken, and they are all equally
unreachable and far away, because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">things
grow at different speeds.</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But sooner or later they all end up
in the magic realm of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maybe Once</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sir, If Only</i>, where it's all unreachable,
it's all imagined – like the naked lunch tomorrow and the voice, Carl Phillips,
which can sing inside your head.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I was starting on this book, I
wanted to begin with a little picture of the way Middleville, Virginia, looked
when I lived there, which was pretty much the same time as all of the events
described in this book – about ten years ago – and I started that way more than
once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote about how beautiful the
dogwood and the redbud are each spring at the time of the Dogwood Festival, and
how Thomas Jefferson used to live outside of town on a little mountain when He
was alive, and how the Blue Ridge Mountains sometimes looked all blue and hazy,
like they might be islands floating on the sea of Earth, but I kept getting
stuck. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then my omniscient friend suggested
that I might want to start at the end of the book, as is commonly done by
European authors, according to this person; so for a couple of weeks I tried
starting the book by describing the way my next door neighbor, Christian Gehman,
is riding around and around and around his gigantic front lawn on his beloved
Gravely tractor here in Cismont, Virginia, but I kept getting stuck at that end
of the story too.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However, some good came of the
attempt, because those two words – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">beloved
Gravely</i> – kind of got fixed in my mind, and after I had written them what
seemed like several thousand times, they took on an unnatural significance.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By then I was so sick of the project
I would gladly have forgotten the whole idea, only I had <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">promised</i> a certain blue-eyed young lady I was going to write it all
down.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And if you break your promises you
lose your soul. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So I was sitting on my porch one
afternoon, listening to Christian's tractor go around and around and around,
and I was thinking about how much I hate Gravely tractors, because they're all
the same and they all try to thump you with those wicked handlebars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to have a Gravely tractor of my own,
and it tried to kill me more than once before I blasted it with Spook's old
Purdey shotgun.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And if you don't believe me you can
see the rusting carcass in the woods behind my house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So I was listening to Christian's
tractor and falling asleep when suddenly it occurred to me that I did not have
to start at the beginning of the story, like an American writer, and I did not
have to start at the end, like Europeans do; I could start in the middle
anywhere I wanted to start if that made it come any easier, and after a while,
if I had been doing it right, nobody would care where I had started as long as
the story could walk and talk all by itself.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Acting on this principle I kept
those words – beloved Gravely – because by that time I believed thy sounded
mystifying and momentous and majestic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I wrote them at the top of every page, and it was just like magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as soon as I stopped trying to do
things in a particular way – just as soon as I didn't have a single idea in my
head, the way I do when I am writing a new rock'n' roll song – why, I thought
of something else to write down, and then I thought of another thing, and
another, and pretty soon I was clipping along without ever having mentioned
once upon a time.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some of you will probably be glad to
know that this book is not written in dialect or spelled funny, and I hope you
believe I did my best to make it easy to understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I changed
it completely so many times that my eyes wore out and I had to buy new
spectacles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fortunately, I had kept a copy of it
just the way it was when I first wrote it down, and, with a few minor additions
and corrections that my omniscient friend suggested, that version is what you
have already begun to read.</span></div>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-19354821638280192352013-04-29T07:40:00.000-04:002016-12-13T21:40:34.866-05:00The Skaters Dance<!--[if !mso]>
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<h1>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thoughts on </span>what happens when we write .... and read. </span> </span></span></h1>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">THE SKATERS DANCE</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></h2>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">by
Christian Gehman</span></span>
</h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now. Maybe … </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Please, can you <i>imagine</i>? … now … that
somewhere in a foreign country, not too far from here, where it is winter—out
in the country there, she lives—a skater?
She is beautiful; she looks like someone you have loved, and someone you
still love today, and someone you will love tomorrow.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She has those beautiful kind
hazel eyes, or bright blue eyes, or the warm brown eyes you will always
love. She may have green eyes,
even. Not for jealousy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Imagine you can see snow
everywhere: a wintry landscape, Currier and Ives, perhaps a barn and cows, a
farm yard with some chickens, a log cabin with a porch. Around this peaceful snowy paradise are
snow-covered fir trees: and a wisp of smoke curls up from the cabin's field
stone chimney.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Just outside the kitchen window
live some chickens in their chicken house, and they are happy making eggs. In the barn live cows; the horses there are
stamping, munching hay, blowing steam out their noses in the cold frosty air.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On this day, our skater gets up
early, rising from her sleigh-bed in the rafters of the cabin, fluffing back
her goose down comforter—she gets up
early <i>knowing </i>she’ll go skating. Our skater dresses all in green: green
skirt, green tights, green leotard, and her form-fitting green skater’s jacket
has been trimmed with pure white ermine at the collar. Each green is slightly different. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Downstairs in the kitchen she
prepares a cup of creamy, warm hot chocolate: a dark liquid not too sweet but
creamy and well-frothed with bubbles.
She drinks it sip by sip gazing into the fire.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then, dangling her figure skates
across one shoulder, our Skater sashays out the door. She walks through the
wintry landscape with its dark green, snow-covered trees: she sees her breath puff
in the frosty air as she walks down to the pond, a light snow crunching under
her warm fleece-lined boots.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It has been a cold winter, so the
old quarry pond is blessed with black ice three feet thick. The water in one corner, as our skater
knows, is deep enough to swallow you forever if the ice lets go.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She sits down at the end of the
short wooden dock to lace her skates up tight.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The pond’s black ice is smooth,
unmarked. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Her green skating costume trimmed
with ermine; and the way she looks around so kindly, with her eyes: these are things you will remember. Also, how she moves: her swoops and twirls and arabesques, her
lutzes, axels, doubles, triples, triple-doubles: how she spins and bends and
pirouettes. A champion of skating, now
she's practicing for her performance at the next Olympics.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Each move our skater makes cuts a
distinct mark on the ice. Her skate
blades cut these marks quite clearly on the smooth black ice. Her skates make a slight scraping, grinding,
slicing noise, but she is not too much aware of that noise, while she
skates. It is part of her skating
process. Sometimes she might sing or
hum or maybe even <i>talk </i>to herself—from pure delight and from enjoying what she’s doing: how
she’s skating.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She can glide, she can soar, she
can swoop; she can twirl, she can leap, she can spin and she can make your
heart stop, fascinated, with the loveliness of all her movements, skating:
until finally you <i>know</i> she loves to do the skater's dance for <i>you</i>.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">And in her heart <i>someone</i>
is always watching. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> At long last, after skating to a great sufficiency,
she goes back to her cabin, stopping at the barn to say hello to the big bay
horses and the Guernsey cows, making sure they have plenty of water. Back home at last, she makes another cup of
that sweet dark hot chocolate whose foamy breaking bubbles glisten creamy in
the cup.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Before long, while she’s still
drinking chocolate, another skater comes over the hill from a neighboring
farm. He looks down at all the marks <i>she</i> left on the ice. A young man, and he hopes to be a champion
one day. He sits down on the dock and
pulls his skates on, lacing them up tight, then glides out on the smooth black
ice. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">This second skater, puzzling out
the marks that <i>she</i> has left, finds
that <i>by skating over them</i>, so that his own skates run where hers ran: he
finds that the figure of the skater's dance repeats itself in his own
movements: all her swoops and twirls and arabesques, the lutzes, axels,
doubles, triples, triple-doubles: all her swirls and bends and pirouettes are reproduced
now in <i>his </i>movements. And
sometimes the next skater adds in his own movements or re-skates again some of <i>her </i>figures that he’s already skated
over—just to learn them better, maybe—or because he likes to skate them? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Skating in <i>her</i> marks, he
feels the same emotions and sometimes almost thinks to see reflections of the
kindly look that he has seen so often—in
<i>her </i>eyes.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> But of course, he makes a few mistakes, or maybe
puts in—now and then—his own material, improves a little here and there on her
dance; he grows bored or fascinated by the dance she did and by his own
reinterpretations of that dance. His
mind moves with his body as her mind moved with her body when <i>she</i>
skated. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes his mind goes off
completely on a wander of its own, some wild new tangent—and calls up a new, completely different series of
movements, which we might call “the dream of skating”<b>—</b>but before long it returns to what he has been doing, <i>skating
over her marks</i>, and he becomes aware of the wander only when he
"wakes" to find himself still tracing out <i>her</i> marks on the
ice: that mad, mad whirl of marks whose meaning can be puzzled out only by
someone whose ability to skate has been not just well-learned but also
practiced.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> This puts him, somewhat, in the same position as
you, dear reader, looking at this text and reading, falling, maybe now and
then, into your own sweet dream of reading.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Did you like skating into this fable?</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Is it time for some hot chocolate? … for the foamy
breaking bubbles glistening at the cup’s edge: maybe <i>chocolat</i> with
whipped cream on top?</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">At long last, after skating to
his heart's content, the second skater finally takes off his skates and puts
his boots back on. He walks home past
the skater's cabin, stopping in her barn to say hello to all her horses and her
cows (because they’re old, old friends); then he knocks on her front door, she
opens her door smiling at him just because he looks so handsome in his tight
black skater’s outfit! -- and then he drinks a nice cup of the hottest creamy
chocolate with her, looking up to her kindly hazel green eyes.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Will they both hope that possibly
"Tomorrow we can skate again" …? </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps together?</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Smiling. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now perhaps, dear reader, what I have been getting
at is that the important thing about reading the great books is the “dance of
the intellect among words” – producing which dance, after all, is the main
purpose of “education.” </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span></span>
<br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Copyright 201<span style="font-size: large;">3</span> Christian Gehman
all rights reserved.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Posted to blogspot / novelism<span style="font-size: large;">o April 29/2013</span> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">1,279 words on Tuesday, May 01,
2012</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">1,167 Words on Friday, February
17, 2012</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">1051 words on Monday, July 13,
2009</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> and
tomorrow is Bastille Day! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Copied to Niagra folder, Monday,
July 16, 2009</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">20130130 the skaters dance for
laura hartman</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">1,272 words on January 30, 2013 </span></span></div>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-76780639480419906842013-02-12T12:24:00.002-05:002013-02-12T12:24:30.904-05:00The Past<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 9.333333015441895px;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 9.333333015441895px;">Nostalgia may be a plague to history (or perhaps more pertinently, to historians?) ... but seems essential for writers like Conrad, Ford, Steinbeck, Trollope ... the past must be real enough to be important if you're going to write about it. Otherwise you're limited to reporting on the vagaries of a present moment.</span></span>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-17503842097096169572013-02-12T11:57:00.000-05:002013-02-12T11:57:09.117-05:00DEADLINES AND WRITING ANXIETY<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 15px;">Since "SITTING IS THE NEW SMOKING" ... don't sit. Get a stand up desk or use a bureau. And as for fast walking and other exercise: the first twenty minutes are the most important; thus, two twenty minute walks -- or even three! -- will do the most for your metabolism. Walking does help restore the brain to its usual potential for writing, but ... it's even more effective to "read something fun" -- a magazine, a comic book, the novel you're reading, Scientific American, Allure -- whatever works for you as an amusement. Simenon works well for some. Others like browsing through cookbooks. So perhaps combining these two will give the maximum boost: 20 minutes of reading for fun, followed by 20 minutes of fast-walking arm-waving moderate exercise in the great outdoors. Or try 10 and 10 -- whatever works for your deadline. It's perhaps worth noting that though "healthiness" may be your aim, a good many of the world's most prolific and acclaimed writers have found that coffee, nicotine and a mild hangover were essential to their writing process -- even more so when the deadline looms. Remember this: "The deadline IS the deadline" -- it's not three days before the deadline (when panic may well set in), perhaps because "the prospect of being hanged wonderfully focuses the mind." Sometimes, however, the deadline's anxiety may prevent setting pen to paper; if this happens, try copying by hand with a pencil for 10 minutes from a book; preferably a book with some literary value. And remember this: some editors are like dogs: Never Satisfied with the smell of Anything until they've pissed on it a few times." </span>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-47653815278047412432012-12-28T16:44:00.000-05:002013-05-21T16:03:01.591-04:00<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">For Paul Krugman: Please
analyze, if you can, the effect of the Bush era tax cuts on creating jobs in
America. My notion is that we gave the super rich a nice piece of lagniappe,
which largess they then took and actually did create jobs -- in China. So, if
it is possible to track differential rates in overseas investments by
America's wealthiest as a result of the Bush era tax cuts, I believe the study
would be extraordinarily entertaining to most of your readers. It is now
possible, I think, to describe the Republican party as being in thrall to
Currency Cranks, Abortion-Nots, Teahadi partisans, whose elected members are in
thrall to big money contributors like Sheldon Adelson. Lundberg's book The Rich
and the Super Rich could be updated by a bright graduate student to cover the
last 30 years of criminally silly tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans -- and
to track the lobbying money that supported ramming this down the throats of
ordinary Americans. It is possible to speculate that higher tax rates on the
wealthiest Americans would (a) balance the government's books and (b) spur the
kind innovation in domestic industries that brings augmented profit. I'd be in
favor of a direct tax on shares similar to the real estate tax -- if it would
do any good. Corporations not registered in this country, and whose shares
aren't traded here could be taxed at a higher rate to encourage them. My very
best to Sarah Murphy, and best wishes for the coming year. </span>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-48319959983029027542012-10-03T08:12:00.004-04:002012-10-13T13:33:42.479-04:00Papa -- From Millersville University's Archive<table border="10" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="3"><tbody>
<tr><td><br /></td>
<td><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img align="LEFT" border="2" src="http://library.millersville.edu/sc/manuscripts/manus/gehman.jpg" /> Richard Gehman was a journalist, biographer and free
lance writer. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on May 20, 1921 Gehman attended
local public schools and graduated from McCaskey High School in 1938. Prior
to his graduation he worked for Lancaster's two major papers the <i>Sunday
News</i> and <i>Intelligencer Journal</i>. After his graduation until 1942
Gehman worked as a reporter for the Lancaster <i>New Era</i> and the <i>Philadelphia
Record</i>. In 1942, Gehman was drafted into the United States Army and
was stationed at the military base in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. While in Oak
Ridge he edited the base's newspaper the <i>Oak Ridge Journal</i> from 1943
until the close of the war. Following the war, Gehman moved to New York
and began working for the magazines <i>Good Housekeeping</i> and <i>Cosmopolitan</i>.
Within a few years he chose to become a freelance writer contributing articles
to numerous magazines including <i>Newsweek</i>, <i>Look</i> and the <i>Saturday
Evening Post</i>. During the 1950's and 1960's he published over 3,000 articles,
wrote five novels and a dozen nonfiction books. He also taught writing classes
at several major universities including New York University, Columbia University
and Indiana University. By the late 1960's he had become known by his peers
as the "King of Freelance Writers". During 1970's the demand for his articles
had waned and before his death had practically ceased. He spent his final
years in Lancaster financially bankrupt and emotionally troubled over his
declining popularity. He died on May 12, 1972. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-73242989134966154962012-09-12T09:42:00.001-04:002012-10-10T12:48:39.273-04:00THE DRAGAS-SULLIVAN SHAMBLES AT UVA<span style="font-size: large;">I thought you might be interested in this article from the NYT on<b> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/magazine/teresa-sullivan-uva-ouster.html?pagewanted=2&adxnnl=1&ref=general&src=me&adxnnlx=1347451287-GR83alwUqxJExqqtTCwt/A&pagewanted=all" target="_blank">the Dragas-Sullivan shambles at UVA</a></b> .. the demonstration was
the most fun I've had on campus since ... 1974?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't think the controversy is over yet. The trend to "online
education" seems counterproductive to me in light of artist Kyle
McDonald's covert photographing of<a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/openframeworks/videos/25958231" target="_blank"> <b>people staring at new Apple computers</b> </a>with
robotic expressions on their faces. Perhaps McDonald was just recording the
usual facial expressions of people absorbed in what <b><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pleasure_of_the_Text">Roland Barthes calls "the dream of reading"</a></span> ....</b></span> <br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(See <b><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2011/jul/12/artist-apple-store-camera-project" target="_blank">Guardian article on Kyle McDonald</a></span>, </b> and some of <span style="color: red;"><b><a href="http://kylemcdonald.net/" target="_blank">McDonald's other projects</a></b></span> are also entertaining, as is <a href="http://vimeo.com/groups/openframeworks/videos/25958231" target="_blank">this video</a>.) </span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">As I noted in a<b> </b></span><b><a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/online-schooling-is-exploding-in-us/comment-page-1#comment-32084" target="_blank">comment on Kurzweil AI</a></b></span><span style="font-size: large;">,
even though online education is being ballyhooed just now, perhaps
primarily as a cost-saving measure, probably a
great deal of intelligence, including what are possibly the most
valuable parts of education, are transferred most efficiently in
a human to human interface that allows the student’s <span style="color: red;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neurons">mirror neurons</a></b></span> an
opportunity to learn these intellectual behaviors in a process similar
to learning to dance. It seems possible that students won't learn the
most important elements of what we might call “the dance of
the intellect among facts” just by staring at a computer ... but then,
reading books and attending lectures have never been very important to
the ill-educated. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Hoping to see you at the Messiah Sing In on
Tuesday, December 8, and 8 p.m. in Old Cabell Hall (not free any more,
but not expensive)</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bVJEBBSDP1o/UFCcD8iQzJI/AAAAAAAAAWk/maZk3OCe_ek/s1600/UVA+Sullivan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bVJEBBSDP1o/UFCcD8iQzJI/AAAAAAAAAWk/maZk3OCe_ek/s320/UVA+Sullivan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-67811780781011293402012-08-13T15:45:00.000-04:002012-10-10T12:48:46.772-04:00UVA - The West Lawn - The Rotunda I wrote this 20 years ago. It's from from <i>Why I Love Brunettes, </i>an unpublished novel that is the exact opposite of <i>50 Shades of Grey</i> -- not only is it reasonably well-written, but also -- it makes repulsive behavior seem repulsive in a way that alters the behavior. I hope <i>you</i> love this bit about The Lawn at the University of Virginia.<br />
And my fondest hope is that you get to visit The Lawn as often as I have done. I saw Queen Elizabeth there from about 10 feet away. I saw the Dalai Lama there3. I once catered a party for Edgar Shannon and his wife Eleanor at Carr's Hill, long ago. Please go to the Messiah Sing at Old Cabell Hall as often as you can -- this year it will be on Tuesday, December 8,.2012. And afterwards, walk up The Lawn for me. In 1988, we found a miniature model of the Rotunda modeled in packed snow, with fresh snow just drifting over it one year. My friend Patrick Tompkins and two other graduate students witnessed this. No one at the C&O believed our tale. It was
before cell phone cameras or I'd have a picture. <br />
<br />
Read this now?<br />
<br />
But you and I, <i>mon capitaine</i>, wild tchopitoulas that we are, we're going to stand here just outside the door of Number 8, The West Lawn, watching how the clean white dome of old Tom Jefferson's Rotunda gleams above the shadows deepening like smoke across the green cove of The Lawn. We’ll see the dome of the Rotunda change as dusk begins to purple into evening; we’ll watch how the catalog of column styles and types of portico changes with the shadows as the east side of the dome reflects the clear blue skies above the Grounds, and we’ll see the dome reflecting, orange gold and purple, the 'candescent sun’s red ball of glory settling behind the Blue Ridge Mountains at the western edge of Albemarle.<br />
<br />
The shadows and the columns amplify the peaceful stillness of what you and I – remembering the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge – might call:<br />
<blockquote>
“A holy and enchanted place.”</blockquote>
Or else, remembering a few lines of the poet Baudelaire, we might conclude that:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>La, il n'y a qu'ordre et beauté<br />
Luxe, calme et volupté ....</i></blockquote>
Because no one who wanders in that place can ever quite believe its timeless promise of unchanging grace and beauty can be false.<br />
<br />
On the steamy hot days Doc liked best, the timeless promise of the columns and the dome – a cool, serene lucidity connected to the world and yet apart from it – inspires a belief in what, for lack of any better term, we may as well call:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Man's immortal soul.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<br /></blockquote>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-86357569829270378992012-08-10T17:54:00.000-04:002012-09-12T11:20:52.922-04:00Helen Dragas Must Go Clearly, Governor Bob and Helen Dragas see some opportunity for corporate profit in lowering the quality of education at UVA so he can then award privatizing contracts for computerized online "education" to private companies. Perhaps Ms. Dragas will start one of those companies -- soon after she retires from her position on the Board of Visitors!<br />
I have not yet heard of any move to ask all members of the Board of Visitors to require themselves to adhere to the University's Honor Code. <b>And that seems to me the key element.</b><br />
Extending the term limit for Helen Dragas, who has shown herself to be not only a truly <i>dishonest </i>but also a <i>dishonorable </i>human being, not just in her business dealings but also in her work (no, her devious machinations) as Rector of the Board of Visitors, where her dastardly actions brought discredit on the University and made its Honor Code a laughingstock ... is a travesty.<br />
I find some amusing parallels to the John Hawkes novel <i>Travesty</i>, in which three occupants of a car are speeding toward a rendezvous with a tree in Southern France ... that will kill them all. At the end of these ridiculous shenanigans, Governor Bob will be out of office permanently, the not-Rector Helen Dragas after having puked on her own shoes a few more times, will go back to building shoddy houses in some of Virginia's more densely populated districts, and the power of Terry Sullivan to do good on The Lawn will have been circumscribed.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The Sun Is Beer! </span></div>
With regard to computerized online "education," it seems worth nothing that people staring at computer screens often adopt robotic, trance-like facial expressions, and though they may perform well on some low-level multiple choice tests, they rarely learn anything important. They don't, for example, learn or absorb any of the transfer of personality and attitudes that takes place by way of interactions between two human beings within the mirror neuron system. That's what real education is about; and that is why it civilizes the barbarians.<br />
Helen Dragas made plenty of money building houses. Let her go back to that -- it is a business she understands. And she did the right thing for her customers when some of those houses, were outfitted with defective Chinese-made drywall. But I am willing to believe that none of that drywall was as defective as her paltry notion of how to "transform" the University of Virginia. Ms. Dragas didn't bother to write or "craft" her own oracular pronouncements or official "statements," rather, she hid behind and concealed the involvement of a non-Virginia PR agency like Hill & Knowlton. So She's Gotta Go!
Will Someone please make up a batch of buttons .... with a flattering picture of Helen Dragas on them?
<i><b> </b></i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">SHE'S GOTTA GO!</span></b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">If Ms. Dragas doesn't yet understand
how dishonest and dishonorable she was by claiming Hill & Knowlton's
work as her own, I'll be happy to explain it to her over a beer</span>. </span></span></b></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-58325004316545069372012-07-18T23:30:00.000-04:002012-10-10T12:48:57.918-04:00The Secret King -- from beloved Gravely -- (Scribner's 1984)<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Spook’s book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Secret King</i> demolished modern
economic theory by demonstrating the utter unreliability of conclusions based
on such highly unstable data as government statistics, corporate reports, and
the fluctuating value of <i>modern</i> currencies; Spook said the Never-Never Land
approach just ignored the fact that any overall treatment of “the economy”
always reflected the author’s innate political bias, and usually little else.</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He then went on to
point out some of the similarities between modern times and the last stages of
dynastic monarchism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In both cases,
according to Spook, the principal sources of wealth were controlled and/or
owned by what he called “immortal agencies.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The principal source of wealth in modern times, of course, is industrial
production.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under the last stages of
dynastic monarchism, it was agricultural production.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In modern times, the immortality of industrial corporations, subject only to the very realvicissitudes of mismanagement and cut-throat competition, is not a matter for
dispute because it is one of the attributes of the “legal fiction” which
created corporations in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pretty much the same thing was true under the dynastic monarchies; even
though individual members of the ruling class might die, the titled offices or
patents of nobility from which their privileges derived did not die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In both cases the “immortal agencies” –
corporations or princes – were granted an immunity from prosecution on capital
charges for all but the most atrocious crimes, and even in the event of those
crimes it was only the individual who was prosecuted, not the “immortal
agency.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Modern corporations, said
Spook, have been created by the state in much the same way and for many of the
same reasons that dynastic monarchies created patents of nobility: to enforce
the laws, to regulate production, and to collect the taxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A reciprocal relationship exists in both
cases, and both systems are characterized by heavy taxes laid on the less
wealthy citizens, and also by vast differences in wealth between the rich and
the poor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was a real
revolution in America, but unfortunately it occurred just as the source of
wealth was changing from agricultural to industrial production.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Spook said that anti-monarchist
sentiment in America and in most of the rest of the world was so strong that
those people who were naturally a part of the monarchist party had been forced
to call themselves by a different name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, he went on, the history of the “secret monarchy” that they
controlled could easily be traced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
monarchists, before the Revolutionary War, were by far the stronger party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fully a third of the population were avowed
Royalists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geographical factors, along
with their reliance on the English armies – mostly hired mercenaries – coupled
with some French intriguing, were responsible for the defeat of the Royalist
party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the Royalists themselves
went right on prospering even after losing the war – whereas the starry-eyed
idealists who had signed the Declaration of Independence, for the most part,
suffered a decline in wealth and died poorer than they had ever been under the
Old Regime.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For several years,
however, the apparently inexhaustible reserves of new land in the West retarded
the reconsolidation of power in Royalist hands; before too long, however, even
Jackson had to fight the bank, and after the rise of finance capital and the
immortal agencies that controlled it, the die was cast; the agrarian democrats
were no longer fighting agrarian monarchists, but the far stronger forces of
the capitalist plutocracy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then as the
source of wealth shifted more and more from land to capital, so did the
government shift back to “secret” monarchy from what had been American
democracy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This conflict ended
with the War Between the States.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Secret King,
triumphant in the war, proceeded to consolidate his power; and his vassals, the
new corporations, soon were abusing their privileges to such an extent that the
central government itself was forced to make efforts to curb the power of
capital, but now lacked the necessary philosophical justification for doing so.</span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>According to Spook, the
problem was precisely that the government had – either intentionally (at the
behest of the Secret King) or inadvertently (through clumsiness and
inattention) – allowed the re-creation of a monarchical system of government
controlled by immortal agencies: much the same as things had been before.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-font-kerning: 1.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The results of this state of affairs
– the creation of a permanent underclass, the establishment of a society based
on differing degrees of privilege and entitlement in which the poor pay taxes
and the very rich do not – could not be ameliorated, except temporarily, Spook
concluded, without attacking the problem at its root – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">e.g.</i>, by breaking the power of the federal government and the
corporations in the same way that the power of the English kings and their
vassals had once been broken.</span>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-43856477210340773842012-06-30T11:59:00.000-04:002016-12-13T21:30:07.659-05:00The Merkin Way?Posted in <i>The Atlantic, months before the date of this post </i>-- Though I paid so little attention to news regarding the OWS protests that I can't "parrot" any of their slogans (in fact, I never heard that they had a slogan other than "Down with Corporate Greed") -- it would be fair to note that a very distant cousin, Joel Gehman, seems to be an organizer of the Occupy protest in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I never met the man. I doubt you'll try reading Ferdinand Lundberg's book <i>The Rich and the Super Rich </i>because you don't really want information about the history of favorable tax treatment paid for in the halls of Congress by the 10% of the American population that owns 90% of the wealth. It's not quite fair to opine that they got so rich by cheating the rest of us. It's an old, old story in America -- but I doubt you'll pay any more attention to Alexander del Mar's notes on the Greenback Bond Scandal after the Civil War than you will to the even older news about the Yazoo scandal. Funny, ain't it, how "the facts" often seem so strongly biased <i>against </i>special deals for the rich and their pet politicians and <i>toward </i>liberal theories of prosperity? And how liberal, centrist American politicians -- like Nelson Rockefeller -- have managed to produce long periods of the sustained prosperity that comes with rational government? "A rising tide lifts all boats" is the Liberal shibboleth. If you're not appalled by the notion that Warren Buffet pays tax on his income at less than half the rate his secretary pays, I'll need to remind you again that "_______ don't have politics, they just have enemies." Fill in the blank any way you like -- "fascists, corporatists, the Rich and the Super Rich ... or even liberals." It would be unfair to assume that your politics depend on willful ignorance .... Greed and personal interest likely have a stronger influence. I'm not sure we all want to agree that "Work hard and pay for tax breaks" has often been the American Way to get rich -- but those are the facts. Real and lasting general prosperity, however, means a strong, relatively stable market for bonds -- not the false promise of artificially inflating equity values during the boom phase of the Keynesian cycle. We're all paying for that last boom now.Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-9422305313725948402012-05-31T15:19:00.000-04:002014-08-21T06:47:47.477-04:00The Sheltering Sky<i>The Sheltering Sky</i> is a novel by Paul Bowles. I love everything Bowles wrote. Bernardo Bertolucci filmed this novel. I found the
movie less entertaining than the book; scarcely worth watching, is how I remember the film (and a big letdown after <i>The Conformist</i>). It's fair to note that, alas, Bowles's novel struck
me as scarcely worth finishing: it seemed to me, while I was trying to read it, that after writing about a third of what could have turned out to be a
very, very good book indeed, Bowles just got bored with it .... but continued
writing it anyway. He had got hold of a theme that wouldn't support a whole symphony? Not even a film score? Bowles is much better at writing short stories -- he's really at the top of his form, perhaps because they hold his
attention. Or because he doesn't get bored before they are over? Possibly a logline for a film would be his ideal length? Maybe <i>The Sheltering Sky</i> was just too big and too ambitious (as a book); or perhaps it needed a strong passionate romance at its core, and I don't think Bowles was temperamentally any more capable of writing a strong passionate romance than he was of living through one himself. Bowles spent much of his life in, and preferred living in, Morocco, a country where most of the natives despised him as a foreigner. What hapened to Bertolucci's flim, I don't know. Got lost in Morocco, I guess. Don't miss visiting the great Moroccan / Mediterranean restaurant <span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="background-color: yellow; color: red;">Aromas</span> </i></span>in Charlottesville. Next time you're here. It is at Barracks Road. You might be here at the film festival, maybe -- at the beginning of November 2012? For the Messiah Sing In at Old Cabell Hall in early December? Thank you, NetFlix for making "a life with film included" possible here
in Bumpass, Virginia.Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-59965130624834863742011-10-14T17:29:00.003-04:002016-12-13T21:43:08.939-05:00The Swamp We're In -- came from NOT TAXING THE RICH<br />
Seems to me that the 53% of us who pay taxes -- and especially those like you who are in the middle third of that bracket -- are the ones who really got screwed by the cockeyed Trickle Down scheme for not taxing the Rich and the Super Rich at all -- or maybe only at half the rate their secretaries pay. So our current tax scheme probably needs an adjustment it won't get.<br />
<br />
You might spend some time parsing Paul Krugman, who has many interesting takes on why continuing to think inside the box will get us deeper into the swamp.<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/opinion/rabbit-hole-economics.html?_r=1&ref=opinion<br />
<br />
Of course, Krugman won't go for the Trickle Up! Economics miracle that would actually pull us out of the mess fairly quickly. The problem now is that there's no liquidity at the bottom of the system. The top's doing fine ....<br />
<br />
Sometimes it seems to me that all economic theory is just cleverly disguised political theory aimed at promoting the interests of a particular class at the expense of the others. We've mostly been fascinated by one variant or another of eitehr Keynesian economics or Trickle Down economics since the thirties -- since, in fact, Keynes proposed it. And the result has been that 37% of this country is stuck below the poverty line, while 10% of the country owns 90% of the wealth producing assets. The "middle class" -- YOUR 53% -- has been shafted by the R&SR clique, and even worse, the "middle class" by and large has bought into the notion that "cutting the deficit" will somehow ameliorate our current economic malaise. The ill-gotten gains enjoyed by the super rich combined with a climate of financial de-regulation and two long-running very expensive foreign wars to produce, first -- the housing bubble and (2) now a self-defeating spiral into what seems long-lasting, if not a terminal recession. <br />
<br />
Quite a lot of the smart money went over to China during the last 20 years -- chasing high returns in Chinese industries blessed with very low wages and a government that provides neither health care, health insurance, a social safety net, financial regulation nor any pollution controls. Without those blessed benefits of the pirate/slave economy, bolstered by Western investment, your iPhone never would have happened at a cost-effective price, and Steve Jobs would have continued floundering along like he did with the NEXT.<br />
<br />
Jeffrey Sachs has argued persuasively that general prosperity won't return to America during my lifetime because there has been little investment in education, worker training, infrastructure ... and without a balancing overhaul of the tax code, we're all down the tube anyway. <br />
<br />
My favorite part of the Chinese swindle over the last 20 years is the reverse mergers scam -- 18 Billion dollars worth of good ole American dollars contributed mostly by medium and small investors.<br />
<br />
You could simplify it all by opining that Trickle Down economics and/or Keynesian economics produced disproportionate prosperity for the rich and the super rich, who invested in China. But at least we can all be glad we sent the pollution overseas and got back some really cool gizmos that make it easier to send email and take pictures. That was a fair trade, right? mmmmmm ...<br />
<br />
You might loke at Oliver Stone's documentary South of the Border if you'd like a clearer understanding of how difficult it is to change the corporatist economic policies that prevent real general prosperity. Those policies were part of the American hegemony that impoverished most of Latin America.<br />
<br />
More of the same will only get us more of the same. <br />
<br />Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-28483445156197516582011-10-09T17:10:00.002-04:002012-10-10T12:49:18.526-04:00Writing and the InternetThree important notions apply: 1. Color Screen Addiction; 2. The rat experiment demonstrating that the absence of an expected reward produces increasingly frantic performances of the conditioned task (rat pushes button frantically even though no reward appears; and finally -- a basic concept equally applicable to rats, adults and children: 3. Internet (and television) usage should be rationed or even prohibited while working. And while writing. If you're working on a long piece, don't look at the net before you begin or even during a break. Interacting with a color screen is rarely a creative act. Turn on the typewriter sounds and go go back to composing in Word. Better yet, order some new Palomino Blackwing 602 pencils and write your draft by hand, then retype it -- seems clunky, I know, but often it's the only way to get your focus back. If all else fails, start a chapbook and copy passages from your favorite and most inspirational writers for 5-7 minutes to reset your mind from "watch naked color pictures dancing on the screen" to "Write It Now." Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-12683505757036519692011-10-05T15:04:00.002-04:002016-12-13T21:43:31.311-05:00The Swamp! Let's get out!A sensible and fair tax policy creates prosperity. Trickle Down
Economics, on the other hand, created a plutocracy by impoverishing 37%
of Americans. Trickle Down gave us an unending cycle of boom and bust,
plus endless expensive foreign wars. Printing money is not the answer:
nor is lending money to corporations and stock brokers. Lending money
to human beings, on the other hand, as an advance against future tax
refunds during prosperous times, will work very well. See note below regarding Trickle Down Economics. It's time to get out of the swamp!Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-67548214457789064682011-10-05T14:44:00.003-04:002016-12-13T21:41:41.417-05:00TRICKLE UP! ECONOMICS<br />
<div class="postText">
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Money belongs in the pockets of the people. </i>-- Thomas Jefferson </div>
<br />
Written in 2011.<br />
<br />
Paul
McCulley did a good job at PIMCO before the economy got
stuck in the current liquidity trap. But based on a discussion reported by John Mauldin, McCulley can't really think outside the box. The liquidity trap results from
America's 40 year war on the working class. This war solidified the
position of the American Plutocracy -- 10% of the people own 90% of the
wealth; 37% of the people are living below the poverty line. The result of 40 years of Trickle Down Economics: an endless
cycle of boom and bust, along with a continuing series of expensive
foreign wars. Right now the bottom of the economic spectrum -- the
bottom third of all taxpayers! -- doesn't have enough money to spend.</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
That is the trap we're in, and it is the swamp from which flow all our
other stagnating ills. The solution is Trickle Up Economics: </div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<br />
1. The IRS can lo<span class="text_exposed_show">an
every individual who has filed a tax return in the last five years
$20,000 in equal monthly installments to as an advance against future
tax refunds -- to be repaid over the next 20 years, all money to be
spent on items produced by American labor. </span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">2. The minimum wage can be
doubled in three increments of 33% over the next 18 months -- or, just
double the minimum wage. </span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">3. Payouts on all entitlement programs --
Social Security, Railroad Retirement, welfare and food stamps can be
doubled, with a requirement to spend the extra money on goods produced
by American labor (penalties, with rewards for whistle blowers to be
built in). </span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">4. The renminbi can be revalued upward to a rational level,
and at the same time we can put a substantial tariff on Chinese imports
-- this will raise enough money to upgrade our airports and roads. And put a tariff on all imports from countries that don't have health, retirement and environmental protections -- a tariff sufficient to level the playing field. </span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">5.
All legally constituted operating companies doing business in or
producing goods in America, whether corporations or partnerships, that
have been in business for at least three years (unless their main
business is investing in the stock market), can receive a $1 million
dollar loan from the IRS to be repaid over the next 20 years. </span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">6. </span>And certainly, the Rich can pay taxes at the same rate as their secretaries, no
matter how much they lost at the Wall Street Casino last year. <span class="text_exposed_show">Will
these measures cause some inflation? Let's hope so. We need the money
at the bottom -- for small businesses and the people those businesses
employ. We don't need more money poured on the top -- that won't
stimulate aggregate demand. But Trickle Up Economics will do the job
handily. It's time for McCulley to stop flapping his hands and saying
"I hope I'm wrong." He's not wrong. The current game is rigged against
American prosperity -- which means the prosperity of the working
classes. America is prosperous when grocery baggers and assembly line
workers can make enough money to live on working one job, and by working
two jobs or a job and a half can make enough money to save up to get
into a properly-valued house. </span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
</div>
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4e8ca06758ed40d21613011">
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">7. Finally, it's time to tax shares directly --
in kind, at the same rate as real estate is taxed -- on average --
around 2 or 3%. A hundred years from now the dividends on the
investments held in trust will pay all our healthcare and infrastructure
expenses. </span></div>
</div>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-80276136959473317252011-09-17T19:30:00.001-04:002011-09-17T19:30:47.100-04:00Clutter produces DitherAlways .....Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-21077203459254337902011-09-17T19:29:00.002-04:002012-10-10T12:49:42.397-04:00Of Story<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Waking in <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">your arms<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">the ink <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">jar's
full .... </span>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-28333812210805695752011-09-17T19:15:00.002-04:002012-10-10T12:51:13.698-04:00For All Writers<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Can't write when
you're broke? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">When you don't have a
job? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Are you <i>much </i>of a writer .... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I know, I'll just
wait until I'm rich ... until I have a job that takes all my energy ... and <i>then</i> I'll finally begin to write? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-38772962529502646922011-03-28T12:48:00.001-04:002016-12-13T21:45:29.738-05:00The Rich and Their Wars<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I voted for Hilary. When I had a choice. The last Bush seemed at least misguided and impossibly corrupt; he embroiled us in several wars, which helped his friends the Saudis -- and others -- profit from the huge cost of the wars and the run up in the price of oil. Wars, and especially wars of revolution, come about when the rich are too rich by comparison with the poor. That is the lesson of the last 2,000 years. It is difficult for me to believe that anyone could think the last Bush was "the sexiest candidate;" he looked a little too much like Alfred E. Newman to me. And he created the Great Recession almost single-handed. No one gives him enough credit for that. The only difference between this Recession and the Depression is the flow of money from the government. Trickle down economics never worked for anyone but the rich. The playing field's not level. Read <i>The Rich and the Super Rich</i> and as much of Alexander Del Mar -- <i>The History of Monetary Crimes</i>, for example -- as you can find. It's time for trickle up economics. Time to set the minimum wage at $20 an hour with an annual increase pegged to inflation. Time to build a sidewalk/bikepath next to every country road in America. Put people back to work -- that's the real trickle up. Pay the highest wages possible. Double the minimum wage. At least set the minimum wage high enough so a 40 hour job puts anyone who has a job above the poverty line. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Let grocery baggers earn enough to live on. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">You don't understand fascism very well if you think the right wing has ever been good for this country; however, in a similar way, Hitler was good for Germany. The last general prosperity we saw was during the Clinton administration. Clinton was good at bond issues. And that's what we need more of. Sensible bond issues. Not just borrowing our current account deficit from Red China so we can go on fighting yet another war at the crossroads of nowhere in Central Asia. That's your idea of <i>prosperity?</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> </span>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-58450923483168993082010-11-11T14:17:00.001-05:002010-11-11T16:19:40.927-05:00The House of Breath"I came out and felt alone and lost in the world with no home to go home to and felt robbed of everything I never<br />
had but dreamt of and hoped to have; and mocked by others' midnight victory and my own eternal failure, unnamed by nameless agony and stripped of all my history, I was betrayed again ." -- William Goyen, <i>The House of Breath </i>(still in print)<i><br />
</i><br />
<br />
"My side is on the side of the human being, and the human being moving in nature, which is spirit; and nothing else seems important to me, and if I thought I could not spend my life laboring to perceive and to understand and to clarify what happens to us in the world, then I would want to die." - William Goyen, <i>Selected Letters</i>, 114–115Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-44201494817176429792010-07-13T21:35:00.003-04:002012-06-19T15:58:24.657-04:00Today - Nombre de ______Love is a beautiful dance that spins<br />
Into the world when the day begins<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Sometimes the beautiful are good<br />
And true as they are fair<br />
Sometimes they say please call me up<br />
-- Build castles in the air .....<br />
<br />
Her <i> hands.</i>Christianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2696131067814057857.post-20456161123132912762010-07-13T21:34:00.001-04:002012-10-10T12:50:09.923-04:00Now Snow AgainNow snow again —<br />
“Snow everywhere.<br />
A cold house.<br />
The bright colors of the women”<br />
And my mother<br />
Dying<br />
As if peacefully<br />
at Ten Broek; I<br />
Can’t cry about that <i>much</i><br />
Nor about being here<br />
In Yankeeland<br />
Not just so close to homeless, but<br />
So far from homeChristianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07830865814321191424noreply@blogger.com0