Day: April 6, 2017

Playing With A Full Deck

I’m riding on last week’s epiphany. To explain, only now exists. How now takes place and the scenes associated with it can be treated as a deck of cards. This has empowered my writing imagination. The principle isn’t mentioned in the novel, except one person notices it and treats it like a metaphor, but for me, understanding that each scene is another card permits more intelligent thinking and treatment.

The characters’ and their traits also open up. Pram’s decisions surprised him. He always thought he would put his team first. That it’s a challenge for him to do it opened up a window onto himself that he didn’t know was there. From this, he discovers weaknesses that he hid from himself but also grasps the observations others made about him. It’s a struggle to be stronger and more idealistic. He admires his team members even as he ponders betraying them. Exploring the scenes and permutations, I play with the frequency in which decisions are not value based or driven by logic or principles. Emotions, whims, weariness and frustration color and shadow choices. Sometimes our nature is stronger than ourselves. The battles with ourselves can be deep and endless.

None of the characters are inherently evil or good. Each seek to make the best choices they can, sometimes demonstrating callousness about others’ welfare, but justifying it through logical and philosophical acrobatics. Things happen fast. They make mistakes, and as now collapses on them, what’s going on isn’t always clear for them. Brett, in the center of this, is more removed from these debates and decisions. Being in the center puts him in a bubble where he can rarely see past the impacts on him and his existence.

Handley has been great fun to write. She surprises me. Her role grew. Her metamorphosis and the development process drove her into new territories. New skills were discovered, as was greater strength and determination. In all of this, I ended up asking and pondering, do we have one core person who dictates our behavior? One true being? 

Back to the Wrinkle, River Styx, Avalon, Lucky Gypsy and Mo Faux. Back to Handley, Pram, Brett, Richard, Forus Ker, and Philea. Back to the Travail, Humans, Sabard and Monad. Back to space.

Back to writing like crazy, at least one more time.

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Hate & Ignorance

Amazing that we have hate and ignorance being exposed here in liberal Ashland, Oregon.

A man, hair dresser by trade, has confessed that he’s frightened and bought a gun for his protection. Dark skinned, he’s from Hawaii. Ignorant people assume he’s from Mexico. “Go back to your own country,” they tell him. “Go back to Mexico.”

What needs to be expressed about such ignorance and hate? They’re being empowered by their pathetic legislators and are being fed a diet of such ideas out of right wing media, false news sites, and the tRump White House. I want to assume they’re ignorant; I don’t want to assume they’re making a conscious choice to be so hateful. I know some, like Steve Bannon, make a conscious choice to be hateful. That renders it sadder yet.

The others may have personal issues. Threatening people and acting violent and hateful may be an outlet for their own toxic lives. It compensates for their lack of direction, purpose and intelligence. I don’t know. Perhaps people that I think are lovely are actually such haters. I’ve been fooled before.

We had another Resist protest march this past Tuesday. The topic was SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch. We applauded Senator Claire McCaskill’s comments regarding Gorsuch. She splendidly recounts why Gorsuch is such a horrible choice: “I cannot support Judge Gorsuch because a study of his opinions reveal a rigid ideology that always puts the little guy under the boot of corporations. He is evasive, but his body of work isn’t. Whether it is a freezing truck driver or an autistic child, he has shown a stunning lack of humanity. And he has been an activist — for example, writing a dissent on a case that had been settled, in what appears to be an attempt to audition for his current nomination.” The entire read is worthwhile.

We ended up detouring into side conversations, like Russia’s role in our last election, the fact that Republicans kept Obama from filling the vacancy and now claim that the ‘people have spoken’. Oh, the reek of bullshit.

Republican legislators are trying to avoid their constituents as their constituents express their anger and frustration with what’s happening in and with the Federal government. Voters have taken to attending town hall meetings with red disagree cards. Those brave Republican legislators are having anyone with such cards on them turned away. They are such cowards, and demonstrate fear and ignorance themselves. How can we expect more from their followers and supporters.

A woman wrote on Facebook, “Oh, you liberals. Quit whining. We’re not like North Korea. We’re not beheading people like ISIS is doing, or kidnapping people like they are in Africa.”

Such comments anger me. We’re striving for the highest ideals of freedom, justice, equality and tolerance, and you’re trying to lower the bar. No wonder you’re behind such an ignorant President.

Weeks like these are good for my waistline. I don’t eat too much. Reading about the political and business insanity kills my appetite.

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Catcism

Today, in a more serious tone, I need to address catcism.

Catcism is making decisions upon who you’ll spend time with and how much you like them based on their existence as cats.

Many catcists don’t acknowledge they’re catcists. “I like people,” they protest. “It’s just that cats like me. They like following me around, watching  me bath and shower, licking me dry afterward, sharing my food, sleeping with me, supervising my activities, marking my clothing with their fur so other cats don’t try to take me over when they let me out of their sight….

“I’m not the one with the problem. You people that complain that I spend too much time with cats are the ones with the problems. You’re just jealous because cats don’t like you like they like me.

“Sure, yes, I’ll admit, I do like cats,” they’ll continue. “I admire their independence and cleverness. Their antics amuse me, and they really love me. They ask nothing in return except that I feed and obey them, and make room for them wherever I’m sitting or sleeping. Most of all, they’re honest. They’ll never betray me.”

Yes, sadly, catcists can’t see their catcism for the cats.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

We’re streaming some Blues Traveler out of the Wayback Machine today.

The day has a retro feel to it. It feels like 1995 all over again. That wasn’t bad for me, nor great. Likewise, for the rest of the world. The US ‘had swung to the left’ again, and Bill Clinton was POTUS. He wasn’t left, but a master of the center. The voting population still remained left of him on our political spectrum. Still does today.

Back in 1995, I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. I’d just retired, so I had my military pension. My wife was working for an ad agency but income from those two stories didn’t carry far in the Bay area. It wasn’t as bad as it is now, but the rising house and land prices were harbingers of what was to come.

Anyway, to the music.  The Blues Travelers had been around for a while but were making it onto the pop charts with ‘Run-Around’ in 1995. John Popper’s harmonica was unusual for pop music of that era. It’s a good song for putting your left foot in front of your right a few thousand times and perambulating down streets, sidewalks and trails. Singing it while walking about provides a fine feeling of freedom.

Sing it with them.

 

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The Pilgrim Effect

He awoke in a leather recliner that he didn’t know and stared at the large television screen.

White on black, 04/08/04 was shown. Beneath it said 3:02 AM. The two pieces of information floated around the screen like they were tied together.

The room was cold around him. He needed to pee. He needed to drink. He felt parched but also like his bladder was ready to burst. He stood to attend those matter.

Mental cohesion began undoing. He didn’t know the chair or the floor. The walls weren’t familiar, nor was the other furniture. He didn’t know them, but then, he did. They came to him like long ago learned and forgotten information, forgotten because it wasn’t used. Then he was saying to himself, “Oh, yes, I remember buying that recliner.” He regarded it with deeper thought.

But then, he didn’t remember this body. Taking in his hands, he processed their shape and condition. He understood, these are not the hands I fell asleep with. He understood, but these were the hands I fell asleep with.

Trying to reconcile the dichotomy between what he saw of himself and his furniture, he looked again at the television. At 3:04 AM, he should be going to bed. He should turn off the television. He looked for the control to do that, asking with irritation, “Where is the remote?” It should have been with him at the recliner. With that reasoning, he considered, maybe it fell between the cushions.

As this was thought, he saw a remote in his mind and knew that it was a virtual device generated by a chip in his skull. He just needed to think of the remote and what he wanted it to do, and the remote would do it. This was information that he should have already had, because he’d been doing that for years.

He reconsidered the date. He’d fallen asleep in twenty seventeen. That date said 04/08/04. The oh four was for twenty one oh four. Yes, because that’s what year it was. His hands looked different because he’d received a new body in twenty fifty-six for his one hundred birthday.

They’d told him this might happen. Becoming unstuck in time, he’d time-traveled in his dreams.

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