Unbaring

the news

When it is overwhelmingly sad

A news day like today sucks. Not only is it so sad that it is unbelievable but the people who knee jerk their responses are out their knee-jerking. It is a sad day.

A literary mind is different from a journalistic mind. I remember hearing an announcer, a man, who announced at the Lakeheart air strip during the Hindenbery explosion ruined his career by breaking down on the microphone. I supposed that there might be journalists shorting out their keyboards with tears to day. Just sit a little furter back. Blogging is a physical exercise. There isn't anything you can do about it. You can type until your fingers hurt and the only 'spin' is your head from grief.

So, as a more literarilly minded guy let me say that I have new respect for journalists, real journalists. Some guy gets a call from his local and goes off to a school and he has to tell the story that no one can stop listening to. He has to do it because otherwise how will the public know?

Self control. Respect for others. How does someone loose his way so far that he (or she, but it is mostly he's) decides to do horrific acts best not described for eternity to remember past the memories of those who are alive today? What mooring of decency comes loose? How are people of moral character achored? Why am I using an anchor allegory? That is what a literary person does. That is why Politics for Poets, and that idiot who spouts off in that one, is such a mine field of possible explosions of awareness. the idiot who writes it hopes to have explositousiees in the minds of his readers. He is trying to effect change where it actually matters: in people's conscious and subconscious behaviors. Mind over matter. Give them a jungle and see who they write the story when they are older and have been able to deal with it. Depending on the person who writes the narative that jungle might be a heaven or it could be a lower-down sheol or form of purgatory. But the chances are that the kind of person who writes the story of his (or her) descent to lower urges and baseness of character (like going into a brine or iodine pit) would write that kind of story about going up as well. So if you put such a person on a mountain climbing expedition wouldn't they just then make going up just a , and it is hard to think of the right (correct) way to express the ideas without using a word that has another meaning as to elevation or altitude.

Sad day, yes. And it's heartbreaking. And wwe know that all of the political nudgers are going to keep nudging for the controls that they want to put on things. So, for instance, will we start to hear 'groundswells' of raving people in the news going on about how our system of laws has failed us, that the institutions that we create have put our people in danger,that the automatic door of free-for-life corpro-governance (with requirements to purchase this or that thing or promise for future service) is crushing people. Government is failing the people. The things that government could do to make the stituation different so that kids wouldn't have to be put in harms way . . .

So, perhaps the people who call for such changes in law to make things safer for kids would suddenly be full in force behind the idea of home schooling. Or, perhaps we have a better place to bring our kids. Perhaps we have more eyes on the scene. We could provide the same kind of protection that we do for important people through secretive service-orient governmental guys (and gals) (or in the case of some of these women, they really were dolls in a sense, but that just sounds kind of counter-sensitive to issues of gender and femininity)

So, today, aplaud the people in the journalism industry because this is the hardest day of all for them. They have to face the bad news all day long, remain sternfaced, don't shed a tear, don't show emotion, don't break down for the public to see . . . is this a new kind of news? We ask that, at this time, reads the anouncer, tha tyou refer to our online source because this story is just too sad for emotional people to hear, or images to see, in full screen while you out at a store shopping for television sets, not knowing what is going on. Seeing people weeping. How do I shut off all of these TV s so my three year old doesn't see this stuff?

Let God Bless anyone who is weeping now. And make the pain less.

I was doing some readiong about an earlier time on line by parusing some materials that I like to look at concerning events from long ago. There are a lot of interesting things that you can find out when you look into past happenings on-line. You can learn a lot.

I was considering writing a series of short fictions that would stem from the vibe that I get from reading old cards, letters, and post cards. I have thought about this as a way to craft a more authentic historical fiction. Historical fiction is a difficult genre if the writer tries to adhere to authentic period vibe. I've read some things, lauded about by fiction-pulp critics, that upon accessment of the material I realized that the concerns of the characters, who were supposed to be from the 13th century, were actually the concerns of some high-born literary dude from Oxford, thurouly schooled in all of those things that English high-born schools school about . . . and that the characters of the novel were like typecast characters from the golden age of film, post Eisienstein pre Woody Alan. I am not saying that it wasn't a good novel, and that it wouldn't ahve been a fabulous teleplay (which it did become). I am saying that I found the characters to be inauthentic.

So if you were looking to understand people from the 13th centurey you really won't find out about them from reading that series of pre-movies (I don't call them novels, though that is insulting, isn't it).

I am not telling you which writer or which novels because that would be me being an A-ho. Like I said, I was being picky. The stories were, in fact, very enjoyable and played to various stereotypes which are common about Catholocism by people who are against religion in general. It does not seem fair to me to write a story that demonizes clerics of long ago like this one did and nver present the side of it where the clerics were akin to the town clerks of today: a class of functiaries put there to try and maintain some semballance of public order. Demonizing people like that I found very uncool. But anti-catholic rants are very fashonible and the publishing houses print what the public is buying . . . so these things get to slide through as history.

When bad things happen, like today, people can act weird for a while while they deal with the news. So give a little bit more love today. And if you find a novel that someone recommended to be a slight on your belief system, your religion, then don't read the stupid book.

Propaganda still is a big force in the world. Anti-whoever-they-are propaganda should not be patronized. But when the reviewers and the critics chime in chorus over how laudible something is in the modern media . . . it is usually a paid-for promotion for some new movie. It is very hard, given the volume of false-reviewing (paid for fluff pieces) , to find honest and non-paid-for reviews about modern film.

Fortunately we have people who rate the various reviews. So they will tell you if a review you want to read is a good one or a bad one. I like to read the most glowing review, but also the one that pans the material in an extreame. But I want to read it from someone who isn't a paid-for writer for some agenda (like promoting a movie or just having hangups about some particular media personality involved with the work in question) to read both of them and see how they compare.

So, today, with the sad news, I can retreat to my reading of reviews, my writing of exposition that few people read, and my avoiding of removing the mute from the television if I turn to a mainline station. I can write about reading critiques of novels, plays and movies on line.

And for those of you who would like a tip on what to look for to read? I found a very excellent essay by Edgar Allan Poe on-line that explained how he crafted (and I do mean crafted) The Raven

I am sure it isn't very hard to find it so I won't give you a link. There are probably multiple people mirroring that content because Mr. Poe's works are in the public domain . . . so I could type it in myself and put it up here. But I would have to do it like that. Or find an old printed copy of it and do some kind of character recognition. I won't. Others have already done that. So go find their stuff. Read some interesting essays. Read reviews of plays, biograpies of famous presidents and poets. But maybe don't read the news for the rest of the day. Unless you like being sad.

Itallo's Indestructible Stairs

Let anyone, governments, anyone, try to build indestructible stairs and they may accomplish it but . . . Ozzimandais, king of kings, beckons you to his memorial.

November 14, 2012

"got anything? I got nothing."

Looking for Reason he found chaos. If only he hadn't asked so many stupid questions that have even stupider answers. And he didn't heed a one. Then he was done too young.?

Sometimes even the stupid answer is a lesson one does well to learn.

 out in the tide
 he fell apart
  all broken up about
  his lost
     wantted it to 
   wish it coulld a's
 that didn't geminate.

 Dude, thats
    a pack of seeds
 you didn't
  plant
 and a bag of soil
    and some empty
    pots.

 Thanks. 

    Thanks for
  pushing my
   nose down in it.

    But it wasn't any work
   for handy Andy.
 Before they'd burned through
      the rest of the evening's
       Andy had all the pots filled
 and the seeds put in them.

 They indoor
   flowers
    by the first of February.

Sage advice immortalized in the psalms: Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord for his deep and unfailing love for us!

Sage advice immortalized in the psalms: Thank the Lord! Praise the Lord! Thank and Praise the Lord for his deep and unfailing love, for his overwhelming generousity, and for sustaining this world for us to inhabit!

He has established it on the seas and made still the waters.