The other day I got a Great Courses catalogue in the mail. These are wonderful opportunities to brish up on areas of little or long ago exposure, like the basic star map, or explore new curiosities, like how and when to serve what wine. I am always curious what is being offered, so, with no intention of buying a class )I have a star map and I serve whatever wine I happen to have), I peeked through.
One class was called “The Thirty Greatest Orchestral Works.” Being wrapped up in classical music (since I was a kid), I just had to look (having written a book). I found myself agreeing with most of the lecturer’s choices and was particularly pleased to see Shostakovich represented not once, but twice, with his Fifth and Tenth Symphony.
The Fifth is an obvious choice to me: it was the single most performed symphony of all that were written in the 20th Century. But the Tenth is a more obscure choice. Although in my book I called it his masterpiece. I thought of it as the Fifth in Retrospect – filled with sadness, anger, pathos, self-determination and ultimately joy. I like to think that perhaps I had a little influence on the decision makers with my own assessment.
Well, if we don’t toot our own horns, who will?
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Dealing With Iran
One of the major issues that we likely will have to face in 2012 is Iran’s nuclear program. We know what everyone is telling us about that – and how UN sanctions are not having much effect in stopping or curtailing what the Iranians plan to do. With Iran listed as one of the rogue nations about which we are continuously concerned, facing this challenge has to be one of the primary targets of US foreign policy.
A solution exists, if we think outside the box a little. This is how we should deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions – embrace them. Invest in them. It would not be the first time US economic interests dictated foreign policy, nor the first time we engaged beneficially with a power with whose politics we disagree. And besides, if we invested American capitol and perhaps even American labor in Iran in this way, we could monitor their programs better if we were on the Board.
Iran says they are seeking only peaceful uses for nuclear power. Sell them our own expertise. Sell them our own materials. Help them build that peaceful program, then hide bugs and cameras nation-wide to spy on them. It would be better than looking for WMDs that are not there, or, worse, watching a threatened Israel launch pre-emptive strikes against Iranian power plants and thereby perhaps alienating the entire region.
I know you aren’t listening, Mr. President and members of Congress. But you should be.
A solution exists, if we think outside the box a little. This is how we should deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions – embrace them. Invest in them. It would not be the first time US economic interests dictated foreign policy, nor the first time we engaged beneficially with a power with whose politics we disagree. And besides, if we invested American capitol and perhaps even American labor in Iran in this way, we could monitor their programs better if we were on the Board.
Iran says they are seeking only peaceful uses for nuclear power. Sell them our own expertise. Sell them our own materials. Help them build that peaceful program, then hide bugs and cameras nation-wide to spy on them. It would be better than looking for WMDs that are not there, or, worse, watching a threatened Israel launch pre-emptive strikes against Iranian power plants and thereby perhaps alienating the entire region.
I know you aren’t listening, Mr. President and members of Congress. But you should be.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Friday the Thirteenth
Friday the Thirteenth/
This is one of my favorite days of the year because it gives me the opportunity to use a big word and make people say, “Boy is he smart!” The word is triskadekaphobia.
Trouble is, I always called it stristodecaphobia. Close, but no cigar. And Di thought it was tridecaphobia. Her logic was sound: tri for three, deca for ten = thirteen, and phobia means fear of. In aother world that word would do. But the wordsmiths decided to make it even more elaborate and obscure by using the Greek word for thirteen, “Triskadeka.” How fearsome is that?
Anyway, Happy Triskadekaphobia Friday to you all!
This is one of my favorite days of the year because it gives me the opportunity to use a big word and make people say, “Boy is he smart!” The word is triskadekaphobia.
Trouble is, I always called it stristodecaphobia. Close, but no cigar. And Di thought it was tridecaphobia. Her logic was sound: tri for three, deca for ten = thirteen, and phobia means fear of. In aother world that word would do. But the wordsmiths decided to make it even more elaborate and obscure by using the Greek word for thirteen, “Triskadeka.” How fearsome is that?
Anyway, Happy Triskadekaphobia Friday to you all!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Looking at the Upside for 2012
I have been feeling down as this new year arrived. I have looked at myself with regret, thinking about all the things I want to do but do not have the means to pursue. In so doing, I forgot about the things I have done and am still able to remember with a fond heart and a clear – or nearly clear – mind.
This is part of it:
I have been so fortunate in my life. I have gotten to do things most people never get to do, see things most people never get to see, and share all of it with a partner who has managed to stay with me and put up with me for 37 plus years, and counting. I have walked on a hillside where Charlemagne once stood overlooking his empire. I have watched Christiaan Huygens’ pendulum clock working in his father’s summer house. I have seen The Girl With The Pearl Earring—so close I could have reached out and touched her. I have found Delft Blue dildos in Amsterdam’s flower market and screamed in bemused delight. I have walked on the Third Floor at the Belleek Factory in Northern Ireland and survied driving on the wrong side of the read.
I have gotten to travel, not once but several times, to the land of my birth and the land of my wife’s ancestry. I got the travel bug and always am itching to go back. My regret is that travel is only a distant possibility. My joy is in knowing what I am missing.
This is part of it:
I have been so fortunate in my life. I have gotten to do things most people never get to do, see things most people never get to see, and share all of it with a partner who has managed to stay with me and put up with me for 37 plus years, and counting. I have walked on a hillside where Charlemagne once stood overlooking his empire. I have watched Christiaan Huygens’ pendulum clock working in his father’s summer house. I have seen The Girl With The Pearl Earring—so close I could have reached out and touched her. I have found Delft Blue dildos in Amsterdam’s flower market and screamed in bemused delight. I have walked on the Third Floor at the Belleek Factory in Northern Ireland and survied driving on the wrong side of the read.
I have gotten to travel, not once but several times, to the land of my birth and the land of my wife’s ancestry. I got the travel bug and always am itching to go back. My regret is that travel is only a distant possibility. My joy is in knowing what I am missing.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Soul of a Poet
Ultimately, I think of myself as a poet, with a poet’s soul if not his talents. I think I am talented, but I have very little opposition. I have sold poems in the past, although many many more were rejected than accepted.
Still, talent or no, I write. Nothing stops me from writing. Millions of things stop me from submitting.
So bear with me if I decide to put some of my poems together into a volume or chapbook for publication on Kindle while working on my ghosts. As I say elsewhere, it has come time for me to put my Self and my Stuff out there where people can choose to read it or not, and if they choose not I have to accept that it’s their mistake.
My mistake would be to sit on it forever.
Still, talent or no, I write. Nothing stops me from writing. Millions of things stop me from submitting.
So bear with me if I decide to put some of my poems together into a volume or chapbook for publication on Kindle while working on my ghosts. As I say elsewhere, it has come time for me to put my Self and my Stuff out there where people can choose to read it or not, and if they choose not I have to accept that it’s their mistake.
My mistake would be to sit on it forever.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Montana Milestone
My second blog of 2012 is an apology to my new home state of Montana. A major change has come to you, one that you have managed to avoid for your entire existence. Your population surpassed the one million mark, and I know that two immigrants from the Salinas Salad Bowl contributed to this new statistical level. Whether you are proud or a little disappointed, we, Diane and I, are a bit sorry but majorly glad to be here.
Now, for perspective, the entire state population is still less than the population of the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and just about the same as the city pf San Jose in California. The area we escaped from, Salinas, has 144,000 people all by itself and is considered a smaller town by California standards. So, Montana, we may be more than a million strong, but we’re still spread out, less stressed, and definitely more friendly on average, and want for nothing.
Now, as for winter! We are still waiting. Personally, I am not unhappy that there isn’t a foot of snow on my driveway, but we came up here expecting a long hard winter like they told us they had last year. It’s January and yesterday the thermometer tickled 50. many are promising that we will have a tough spell yet, but I am at the believe it when I see it stage. My friend Clint reassures me, though, that precipitation is at 80% of normal already, with the season still going strong, and the snowfall above 5000 feet will provide runoff for the summer. Last year they wound up with 175% of normal and flood issues.
It comes down to this: we added to the population and we may have brought a bit of moderate weather along with us as well. At least for now. Sorry, but not.
Now, for perspective, the entire state population is still less than the population of the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and just about the same as the city pf San Jose in California. The area we escaped from, Salinas, has 144,000 people all by itself and is considered a smaller town by California standards. So, Montana, we may be more than a million strong, but we’re still spread out, less stressed, and definitely more friendly on average, and want for nothing.
Now, as for winter! We are still waiting. Personally, I am not unhappy that there isn’t a foot of snow on my driveway, but we came up here expecting a long hard winter like they told us they had last year. It’s January and yesterday the thermometer tickled 50. many are promising that we will have a tough spell yet, but I am at the believe it when I see it stage. My friend Clint reassures me, though, that precipitation is at 80% of normal already, with the season still going strong, and the snowfall above 5000 feet will provide runoff for the summer. Last year they wound up with 175% of normal and flood issues.
It comes down to this: we added to the population and we may have brought a bit of moderate weather along with us as well. At least for now. Sorry, but not.
Monday, January 9, 2012
A Beggar In Montata
Welcome to the year 2012. We have seen the interesting and difficult 2011 pass away, and, oddly, the world did not look very different Sunday morning from how it looked on Saturday. I think I remember saying that 2010 was an interesting and difficult year, too. And 2009, 2008 . . .
I begin 2012 looking toward my writing, with some trepidation. To commit to the creation of a book length manuscript, as I have done, is daunting, as I am sure I have said. I also plague myself from time to time with doubt, that horrible monster that lurks in everyone’s closet. Will the book work out? Am I the right one to write it? Once written, can I sell it? Will anyone ever read it? Those doubts ring inside my head, sometimes more loudly than the voices begging me to write down their stories. And then there are other projects that await in the wings, so to speak, that would be easier to finish. And there are poems and reviews and stories I could be writing for Helium and other publishing alternatives. I have been ignoring that part of my craft.
Which brings me to something that occurred to me on New Year’s Eve, I need a patron. That would make life easier, and would allow me to focus on the writing much more intently than I do even now. I need to find a generous, flexible patron of the arts willing to gift me around $20,000 for the joy of seeing their name in the acknowledgements, or even in the dedication. If you know someone just itching to give that kind of kindness to a struggling writer, let me know. Better still, let them know my plight!
It could be two patrons at ten grand each, or five at just $4,000, or ten at two grand each, or twenty investing a thousand bucks in my future. Hey, if you don’t ask, you will never receive! Am I begging? No – I am offering solid product for any genuinely philanthropic human or humans who believe that artists and writers need to be encouraged.
To the patrons I do not have -- Wouldn’t that be nice?
I begin 2012 looking toward my writing, with some trepidation. To commit to the creation of a book length manuscript, as I have done, is daunting, as I am sure I have said. I also plague myself from time to time with doubt, that horrible monster that lurks in everyone’s closet. Will the book work out? Am I the right one to write it? Once written, can I sell it? Will anyone ever read it? Those doubts ring inside my head, sometimes more loudly than the voices begging me to write down their stories. And then there are other projects that await in the wings, so to speak, that would be easier to finish. And there are poems and reviews and stories I could be writing for Helium and other publishing alternatives. I have been ignoring that part of my craft.
Which brings me to something that occurred to me on New Year’s Eve, I need a patron. That would make life easier, and would allow me to focus on the writing much more intently than I do even now. I need to find a generous, flexible patron of the arts willing to gift me around $20,000 for the joy of seeing their name in the acknowledgements, or even in the dedication. If you know someone just itching to give that kind of kindness to a struggling writer, let me know. Better still, let them know my plight!
It could be two patrons at ten grand each, or five at just $4,000, or ten at two grand each, or twenty investing a thousand bucks in my future. Hey, if you don’t ask, you will never receive! Am I begging? No – I am offering solid product for any genuinely philanthropic human or humans who believe that artists and writers need to be encouraged.
To the patrons I do not have -- Wouldn’t that be nice?
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