Thus Endeth This Blog

The cowboy rolls up his knapsack/pup tent combo, slings it over his shoulder and steps into his rocket boots to pursue a lifelong dream.

Where he rides, there are no sunsets.

The path he takes is a lonely one, as usual.

It's always been about you, me, us, as usual, too.

He issues a voice command and off he goes.

"Giddyup, boy, let's get this show on the road!"

Whoooooosh!!!!

There was a time, long ago...

...when I wanted to see my name in writing.

I forgot to tell myself to want to see my name in writing after my writing saw an editor and proofreader.

The ABNA judges were kind.  So was Publishers Weekly.

I kindly returned to the woods and wrote about words, instead.

Hermitically Sealed

Normally, I would sit in the front bedroom, look out the window at the squirrels and the crows, open my Italian leather-wrapped handmade paper journal, and write.

Instead, I waste energy on myself, listening to Bach on Pandora Internet radio playing through a set of Boston Acoustic speakers in one room, and through a surround sound system in another room at the same time, to boost my mood.

The outdoorsman is absent today.

The well-placed writer absorbs and reflects.

A result/tool of the society/sub/culture within the framework of living fractal patterns.

Trying to tune out echoes to promote something approaching originality.

Tired of living or tired of making a living?

Keeping orchids and birds of paradise alive.

Buried under the piles of virtual dust of previous lives.

Avoiding caricature of self long lost in cardboard cutouts curiously curling in corner curio cabinets.

Do you dare dare your favourite deity to show itself?

Unaware that alliteration is your deity's favourite display of delightful dervish whirling?

A hermit, digging ditches, watching a hawk miss a squirrelly meal by inches.

The Old New Face of Journalism

What is the worth of a journalist in today's economy?

Ask an elephant.

Peanuts, of course.

To Dream, Perhaps to Wake...

States of energy in constant flux

The Award For The Paragraph Outside Of Time a'Goes To:

[pardon me while ah rustle some papers]...

Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker!

Blair’s and Pettegree’s work on the relation between minds and machines, and the combination of delight and despair we find in their collisions, leads you to a broader thought: at any given moment, our most complicated machine will be taken as a model of human intelligence, and whatever media kids favor will be identified as the cause of our stupidity. When there were automatic looms, the mind was like an automatic loom; and, since young people in the loom period liked novels, it was the cheap novel that was degrading our minds. When there were telephone exchanges, the mind was like a telephone exchange, and, in the same period, since the nickelodeon reigned, moving pictures were making us dumb. When mainframe computers arrived and television was what kids liked, the mind was like a mainframe and television was the engine of our idiocy. Some machine is always showing us Mind; some entertainment derived from the machine is always showing us Non-Mind.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/02/14/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1EArWw6Kr

Now, back to reading about the fascinating, nail-biting, suspense-filled tale of the invention of the fireplace grate.  How ingratiating.

Too bad DEJr is little more than a shadow of his father and a little more than his half-brother, Kerry (in other words, I'm envious of their racing pedigree).

A New Nod to Dmitri N. Smirnov, An Old Nod to Margery McDuffie Whatley

In the past year or so, I have talked with many people who shared a specific timeframe with me.

And yet, if time does not exist, then what to make of musical scores?

What to make of past relationships that stopped but never ended?

What of the 48-year old woman with whom I shared our first kiss at 9?

Or the 49-year old woman with whom I continue to share my thoughts as if we live outside time, 18-year loops of silence between us notwithstanding?

Or the 48-year old woman who remembers our relationship at 15/16 as if it happened yesterday, repeating our relationship and breakup in emails turned into a storyline that merged into a novel just as her daughter passed through the 15/16 ageline?

These circles, so close to home, remind me of works by Smirnov and their descent/ascent keeping time.

The music in my head plays here in spaces, pauses, syllables and other symbolism familiar to you, but it is not the same as hearing it in real time.

Would your unmarried son look at a job application and interpret "marital status" as if it read "martial status"?  Does that speak volumes about looking at marriage like war?

This is the 34th day of 2011 and I have a lot to work through in the remaining revolutions of our planet upon its axis in this calendar year before it reaches its arbitrary starting place which begins 2012.

Do you know which pebbles' waves are affecting you right now?

Are you comfortably positioned in your set of beliefs?

How much do you let your social connections reposition the perceived centre of the core of your being?

If you could see the full set of actions available to you on this planet, then what would you want to do next?

I want to read a book but I don't know which author I want to influence my thought set.

I want to take a walk but I'm tired of seeing the same rooftops and neatly trimmed lawns passing by my view.

If freedom is whatever I want to do on this planet, what if it's not enough?  Too much?  Too little, too late?

Only one life to live, one narrative to attempt to fabricate, one set of moments to imagine calling my own.

Life is a jazz improv jam.

My part in it is what it is.

I'll just have to live with the fact that the music in my head has no instrument(s) that'll make it sound right to everyone who listens.

Practice makes the next practice more perfect - the perfect story has never been told because it requires knowing the music in everyone's thoughts, virtually impossible, at least at this time.

Approximation is the best we can do, cutting the distance to perfection another half-step closer.

If I can't have the whole thing, will half of a half of a half of a half of a half suffice?

Three more points: census data, space stasis, education status.

Thanks to Margery McDuffie Whatley's recorded performance for accompanying this blog entry.

Two notes from a friend in need

> Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011
> Dear Friends
> "Into each life some rain must fall" -- If I remember correctly, the second line of that old song was "But too much has fallen in mine."  But until 5 days ago that was not really true in my case.  My doctor had just recently given me, at the age of 77, a clean bill of health, and remarked on how "benign" my medical history had been.  I could only agree that "yes,  I have been very lucky."
>  6 days ago, my luck finally ran out.
>
> Although I still have no memory of the incident, so  violently did it occur, while taking one of my usual early morning walks in Santa Barbara, I was struck by a car while crossing a street in a residential neighborhood not far from my home.  Although the police have all the relevant information -- it was not a hit and run -- details about the driver, who was, I believe, young, the vehicle, and the. exact place and time of the accident, have not yet been made available to me.  Nor, so far as I know, has anybody involved in it yet attempted to get in touch with me.
>
> Most of what I have to tell you so far will be distinctly downbeat -- so let me at least preface that by saying that, although badly banged up, it appears I have good chances of a full recovery within a few months.
>
> All the best
> Ashleigh Brilliant
>
>
> Please reply to: ashleigh@west.net
>
> Ashleigh Brilliant
> 117 W. Valerio St.,
>  Santa Barbara CA 93101 USA
> (805) 682 0531
> www.ashleighbrilliant.com
>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT, 117 W. Valerio St. Santa Barbara CA 93101 USA. Phone (805) 682-0531 Orders:(800) 952-3879, Code #77. Creator of POT-SHOTS, syndicated author of I MAY NOT BE TOTALLY PERFECT, BUT PARTS OF ME ARE EXCELLENT. 10,000 copyrighted BRILLIANT THOUGHTS available as cards, books etc.World's highest-paid writer (per word). Most-quoted author (per Reader's Digest.) Free daily Pot-Shot cartoon: www.ashleighbrilliant.com CATALOGS:[h&m included]. Starter $2. Complete Printed version: $25 Electronic Text-Only (emailed $25, on CD $30). Electronic Illustrated Catalog/Database (CD only) $105 (includes shipping anywhere). Details: www.ashleighbrilliant.com/IllustratedCatalog.html

> Thur Feb 3 2011
> Dear Friends,
> Forgive me for imposing these thoughts on you, but if my accident of a week ago had killed me outright instead of just leaving me a mangled wreck, it would probably have been better for everybody -- but certainly for me.
>
> I  am currently a patient in the Mission Terrace Convalescent Hospital, having been moved here 2 days ago after 5 days in Cottage Hospital (both in Santa Barbara).
>
> I LOOK terrible, and feel worse than I look.  My face is a gory Halloween mask.  My mobility is extremely limited.  I have been constipated and suffering much insomnia for several days.  My appetite is negligible.  But those are the worst things, and I must admit that there are also many hopeful and encouraging signs.
>
> For one thing, I am urinating OK on my own, even though my Urologist had been threatening to put me back on a catheter, despite the fact that I feared and fought this,  because of a previous experience with catheter-caused infection.
>
> For another thing, it cannot be denied that there are a lot of good kind people
> out there, who really want to help.  You know who they are, and you yourself may actually be one of them.
> Of course, the most remarkable are those who devote themselves to people in situations like mine -- especially the workers who are willing to deal with the revolting details of physical functions which have gone out of control.
>
> Then there are the friends and visitors  --and particularly my wife Dorothy, struggling at 79 to deal with her own problems of scoliosis and spasmodic dysphonia -- and our long-time helper Peggy Sue Lemkuil, whose own mother is currently in hospital with knee surgery.
>
> Then, although modern medicine doesn't have all the answers, it can alleviate
> pain and provide sleep in dramatic ways.
>
> So,  since we must still be here on earth a while longer, let me share with you the most positive reaction I've had to this experience so far:  The automobile accident, which includes, as in my present case, pedestrians being struck by cars, has always been to me one of the most significant aspects of American social history, and particularly associated with Southern  California, which is where the Mass Automobile Culture first emerged anywhere in the world, in the decade of the 1920's. Forty decades later, when in my own twenties, and newly arrived as a graduate student from England, I chose to make the Automobile the subject of my own Berkeley PhD in American History.  The result eventually became my book, THE GREAT CAR CRAZE:  HOW SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COLLIDED WITH THE AUTOMOBILE IN THE 1920's.  And it had a whole chapter devoted to what I called "The New Terror."  Not long ago I had a chance to write a review of  a new history of the automobile in California, (in the Journal Of The California Historical Society) in which I took advantage of the opportunity to quote just one sentence from my own work:  "This reviewer's one appearance in the text hereby happily acknowledged--is my observation, concerning the streets of Los Angeles in the 1920s, that
> 'Never before in human history, except in time of war, had so many people been exposed in the course of their daily lives to the risk of violent death.' "
>
> All the best
> Ashleigh Brilliant
>
> P.S. You can buy my book "The Great Car Craze" -- and thereby (dare I suggest it?) express some solidarity with me in this ordeal -- on my website at www.ashleighbrilliant.com
> The price is $25, Including U.S. Shipping, or $30 which includes shipping anywhere else.

Another Reminder To Self...

In telling myself I am not original, I give my thought set over to the storytelling of my ancestors, both direct, through bloodlines, and indirect, through indebtedness to my elders.

Wanted: A Nonrecombinatorial Novel Approach

I can't remember the last reader comment I received.

Thus, instead of flipping bits in a server stored in a data center I know not where, I return to my paper journals.

A spot guaranteed to garner zero reader comments (other than mine) or my thoughts uninterrupted (other than by the cats).

THE END once more