Well, I never thought I'd find myself in this position.
Me - Cold Molasses - a "guest author" on Bookpuddle.
For all the regular readers of this blog, I offer a warning up front...this likely won't be up to Cip's standards, but I'll do my best.
And for all of you who are now thinking "Hey, why does this guy get to guest-write on Bookpuddle?", let me assure you that it is only because I had a such a Cipriano-like moment, that Cip and I felt it appropriate to share it with Bookpuddle-nation©.
So enough with the preamble...on with the story.
As usual, I worked a full day yesterday so I arrived home a little late. On this evening [Friday] I was going out to meet my fellow Ents for a very special Friday night Entmoot - an evening with Irshad Manji at our local Chapters (by the way, given that we were going to see an author speak, this is added justification to have this story on Bookpuddle!).
So I rush into the house, get changed, and rush back out to my car to head downtown. I didn't have a chance to eat while I was at home, so I decide to stop into a McDonald's on the way (note the similarity with Cip's eating habits!).
Now to really understand what happened next, I need you to close your eyes. Oh wait, I guess that won't work since you need to read this. Fine, keep your eyes open...but try to picture a typical McDonald's drive-thru in your mind. Got it? Okay.
So I'm about to enter the drive-thru lane, but there is a car in front of me stopped in the lane. The driver looks like he might be looking for something in his car...I assume he is searching for money or something so he can pay for the grease we are both about to purchase. When I get close to his car, he pulls ahead so I assume he has found whatever he was looking for.
He pulls up to the speaker to place his order. I'm right behind him and I put down my window (okay an admission on my part...I often try to listen in on what other people order - I'm not sure why, but I do...you ever do that?). Anyway, this guys mumbles something that I couldn't hear. But obviously the McDonald's order guy can't hear him either because he has to repeat it much louder.
"I forgot my wallet so I'm going to just drive thru", he says.
Interesting. I guess he didn't find his money after all. Oh well, too bad for him.
He pulls ahead and I move up to the speaker and place my order for a Big Mac combo. I'm told how much I have to pay and that I should move up to the first counter. (Are you picturing the drive-thru in your mind? Remember...there's 2 counters...you pay at the first and pick up your food at the second...this is important for the rest of the story.)
I move ahead to the first counter with money in hand and notice that the guy who had been in front of me has stopped in the drive-thru lane again. Again he looks like he is searching for something in his car. Strange...my spider senses are starting to tingle.
I get to the first counter and pay for my meal. "Move to the next counter", I'm told.
And as I go to do so, the guy in front of me starts to pull ahead again.
Thank goodness because I need to get this food and get to Chapters. Wait...he's stopping again.
In front of the second window. Wait a minute! He's stopping in front of the second window! And he hasn't ordered anything! I heard him...he didn't have his wallet!
And then it hits me. I know what's going on here. He's pulling a fast food heist!
Move over Ocean's 11/12/13...this guy is going for my Big Mac.
Now as a kid I loved The Rockford Files. Remember that show? Anyway, if there's one thing Jim Rockford taught me, it was to get the license plate number of the crook. So I dutifully pull out a pen and piece of paper and write down this guy's license plate number. As I finish the last number, I see him take the McDonald's bag (my McDonald's bag!) from the attendant and take off with my Big Mac.
My mind is now really churning. I pull up to the second window...curious to see if this was all my imagination. But when the guy offers me 2 cheeseburgers, I know I was right about the heist. So I've got to make split-second decision. Do I bother to tell the guy what just happened? I've got the license plate number in my hand and a great story to tell...should I bother?
Well, normally I would have.
But in this case, I really had to get my food and run. And all I could imagine was a long drawn-out discussion with this guy trying to explain what had just happened. And then I'm picturing myself giving this kid in McDonald's the license plate number of the car, and I'm thinking...wait a second...this was a $6 meal...not the Crown Jewels this guy stole. Who's going to do anything with the license plate number? Nobody!!!
So how do I respond to the offer of 2 cheeseburgers? "No I had a Big Mac combo." A look of confusion on the kid's face. And then he turns to the people in the kitchen and says "You gave me the wrong order. I need a Big Mac. Hurry!"
Within 2 minutes, I have my Big Mac combo and am on my way to see Irshad Manji. For the rest of my drive, all I can think about is how many times has this guy pulled off a heist like this that the Hamburglar© himself would be proud of? How badly would one want a Big Mac to do this? And what would he have done if I ordered the Filet-O'-Fish? Ah...questions we will never have the answers to, but fun to think about anyway.
So that's my story. I hope you enjoyed it. My parting advice would be as follows...if you find yourself in a McDonald's drive-thru with a grey Cavalier in front of you with an Ontario license plate number HMB-RGLR...you may want to wait until he completely vacates the Drive-Thru lane before you place your order!***********
This is a great story Cold Molasses. Definitely up to Bookpuddle "standards". The only problem being that now, after reading it, I not only want a Big-Mac [which is a given], but... I sort of feel like STEALING ONE. This guy's got a good racket going there!
***********
Last night I met with my three friends, fellow heretics all, [The Ents] down at the Chapters store and we attended the Irshad Manji interview.
She is fantastic. Lucid. Witty. Clear-headed. Eloquent. Cute as hell. BRILLIANT.
Irshad Manji is, and was, all of the above.
Afterwards, The Ents© and I went for coffee to a place called Timothy’s and we discussed our usual plethora of topics. At one point in the evening, one of The Ents told us of something that happened to him on the way to the Manji event. It is an incredibly unusual and funny story involving…. hamburgers, and the McDonald’s Drive-Thru. [← These being some of my own favorite topics, as you well know!]
He said he may write of it and then submit it to me as a sort of GUEST piece, to be featured here on Bookpuddle. I encouraged him to do so, but so far… I do not see it in my email inbox! [← This is a hint, for him.]
Prior to all of these shenanigans I went to the Rockcliffe Bookfair, where I snagged a nice little armload of books for very little money.
21 books, for $20.00.
This year I was selective. Remember, just last Sunday I DONATED six huge boxes of books to this very same sale. In fact, as I thumbed through the shelves yesterday, in my buying frenzy, it was sort of spooky to see so many of my own books there!
So I was selective, and left with The Following Armload:
A History of God , by Karen Armstrong [I already have it but this old ancient softcover one looked more readable].
Water Into Wine, by Tom Harpur, real nice hardcover. This is a newer book by him.
Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath [real nice ancient-y Faber edition, at least 300 years old].
Sins of Scripture, by John Shelby Spong [again, I already have this but you can always use a spare Spong!]
Much Ado About Nothing and The Merchant of Venice, both in my favorite format of reading Shakespeare, the Signet paperback editions.
Two by William Golding → The Inheritors, and The Spire.
A Son Of The Circus, by John Irving [2 copies, one for me, and one for my Reading Partner].
A Widow For One Year by John Irving [2 copies, as above].
And then, four books by Margaret Laurence, all in duplicate for the exclusive Surfacing Book Club© to enjoy. [We loved reading her book The Stone Angel.] Yesterday, I nabbed 2 copies each of: The Diviners, A Jest of God, The Fire-Dwellers, and A Bird In The House.
It was quite a good haul.
It was quite a good day. And evening.
************
I’m officially getting old so I don’t need drugs anymore. I can get the same effect just by standing up really fast.
-- Jonathan Katz –
Have a great Friday!
I’m sitting at Chapters as usual, drinking a Starbucks Grande Bold. Just chilling out, reading this excellent autobiography of Eric Clapton.
I have always loved Clapton, and he has so many great LIVE concert DVD’S, I swear I could watch the guy play guitar forever.
His style fascinates me.
Not only his lyrics, but his vocal phrasings, have always made me feel that this is a man that knows much about life.
He has been around the block a few times.
The fine folks at Random House sent me a review copy of this new book, and I must say, I am eating it up! It is grand.
But then something on the shelf yonder made me put Clapton down and get out of my chair. It’s this thing, shown here, called 501 Must-Read Books.
My first thought was probably much the same as yours would have been.
Hmmmm…. how many have I read?
So I flipped through the thing. It is actually quite neat. A huge book.
I went to the Classics section. Here, I must admit, I could use some work.
According to this book, I am a bit “classics” deficient.
But I was sort of pleasantly surprised as I flipped through the Great Books of the 20th Century chapter.
Hey, I’m doing not too bad.
It was so neat to see, almost every time I turned a page, a familiar face! I’ve been here. I’ve done this.
I’ve probably read about 30% of the ones listed here.
I am choosing “good” books, I guess.
Lately, [the last two books I have read] I have been really enjoying my personal “discovery” of John Irving.
Here, in 501 Must-Read Books, they list his The World According To Garp as a must-read. So, I make a mental note.
Here in this chapter is Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and V.S. Naipaul’s A House For Mr. Biswas, and Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast.
Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies.
Books I have loved.
But, at the same time, I think… who, who can CHOOSE what are the BEST books of a century?
How would these be rated? Against what non-subjective criteria?
According to sales? According to critical reviews?
One person’s BEST BOOK may be the next person’s WORST BOOK.
I am not a bestseller type.
Yet it is nice to feel that one is reading with other people, you know?
It is nice to sense some sort of camaraderie.
Don’t you just LOVE IT when you see someone else reading a book you have loved?
A few weeks ago I was on a plane reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance.
[It is listed here in 501 Must-Read Books, by the way!]
And a stewardess saw, when I turned the book over to mix cream and sugar into the coffee she had just handed me.
“Oh my. Isn’t it good? I loved that book. I read it twice.”
“Yeah, I love it. It’s good.”
“I know, it so makes you appreciate the comforts that we have here in Canada…. like my God, the struggle, the times that these people lived through blah-blah-blah….”
CAMARADERIE!
She went on, “I’ll come back in a bit and show you what I am reading now.”
“Sure” I said, not at all expecting her to return.
But a little while later, sure enough, she did return, dragging ANOTHER STEWARDESS. [Or, as they are now called “Flight Attendants”]!
And they were both holding their current reads!
Anyhoo, now I’ve got TWO STEWARDESSES, this is what you’ve got to understand here….. two of them.
And each of them hotter than the tar melting in the cracks of Highway 401 last July!
One of them sits in the seat next to me, [the plane was not full], the other, she is perched on the armrest deal.
The first one, she was reading something by Ursula Hegi [I forget the title, but vividly remember the black-benyloned calves] and the other was reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, [written by….. E. Venbetter Calves] and there was CAMARADERIE, I tell you!
We talked for longer than I can even now, believe to be true.
Reading is fun. And people that read are fun.
I am not really sure of the literary value of speculating upon what may be the 501 Must-Read Books, like I said, my own choices have nothing to do, really, with popularity. Or sales, which are, nowadays, too often one and the same thing.
But wow, it is nice, now and then, to have two sizzling flight attendants interested in more than pouring your coffee.
As for my own general disregard for Bestseller Lists, I hear that old curmudgeon, my Splash du Jour guest as recently as, well today, saying → Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.
-- Robertson Davies --
************
Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.-- Robertson Davies –
Have a great Thursday!
It's a very romantic sentiment, but to think that you would die if you didn't write, well, I would definitely choose to not write and live.
-- Sarah McLachlan –
Have a great Wednesday!
A well proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.
-- From Thomas Hardy’s, Return of the Native –
Have a great Tuesday!
Usually, when I get home from work, I open up my email and when I see stuff from people I do not recognize, I just scroll down and “delete – delete – delete”!
I’m sure you do the same, right?
But tonight, just a few minutes ago actually, after returning from an excellent coffee time with this amazing John Irving book [I should be his agent, huh?]… I was just about to delete this one email from Chapters Rideau.
Since I practically LIVE there on weekends, they send me emails about upcoming events.
Well, I saw the name “Irshad Manji” and there was those squealing breaking sounds… you know, like when Wile E. Coyote goes careening past The Roadrunner in a cloud of dust and ends up falling off the cliff anyway, complete with severely exaggerated neck extensions, and that little final wave good-bye?
Yeah, it was like that. Because I saw the name Irshad Manji.
She’s speaking where? Down the street from me? At the Chapters store?
And it has a Starbucks in it?
WHEN? → Friday, Nov.2nd, at 7:00 p.m.
How can I be a part of this event?
WHAT?
Just show up there?
Hell, yeah! I’ll be there!
For those of you who may not be familiar with Irshad Manji, she is ummm… a radical journalist, and most notably she is the author of the book The Trouble With Islam Today.
She is a fireball. A firebrand. Iconoclast. Rebel. Self-proclaimed Muslim Refusenik. She has been referred to as “Osama bin Laden’s worst nightmare” and I don’t mind this at all, seeing as he has been the cause of so many nightmares, for so many people who do [or did] not know him or his “god” from a smoldering hole in the ground!
I loved reading her book. I highly encourage you to read the thing.
I can’t wait to hear her speak on the topic of “Faith Without Fear.”
And so, hmmm… what is her book ABOUT, you may ask?
Well, it is about the trouble with Islam!
And what is the trouble with Islam?
Well, the trouble with Islam is the same “trouble” that is the scourge of all religions, be it Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, or whatever else. And it can be stated in one word.
→ FUNDAMENTALISM ←
[Something that is never fun, but always mental!]
In my opinion, the "problem" with all fundamentalist religion is that it is convinced that even its most ridiculous and exclusivistic aspects [← and all religions have these] should be embraced by people that have no current desire to embrace them. Or adhere to them.
So yeah. I’ll be there!
Listening intently, sipping my Grande Bold.
But I will be neither as grand, nor as bold, as the woman up there, speaking.
Telling it like it is.
Meep, meep,
Wile E. Coyote ***********
If I get on a plane and see someone reading a good book, I like them instantly. I once flew all the way to Europe sitting next to somebody who was reading a book of mine while I was writing a book of mine, and there was never a word between us. It was fun...-- John Irving -- Have a great Monday!*******
Hi, Friends.
← This is a picture [actual self-shot photo] of me a few minutes ago.
Me sick.
I have a bad cold. Hence, I just thought I’d pop by to say where I've been.
Been drinking Neo-Citran© and stuff.
I asked my American friend if she had ever heard of Neo-Citran. Nope! She had never heard of the stuff.
This shocked me, because here in Canada, Neo-Citran is like the first thing a sick puppy reaches for, when feeling the sniffles coming on.
So I’ve been drinking that, and popping Benylin© and Tylenol© .
At first, these pills seemed rather ineffective with my runny nose issues. So I shoved one up each nostril. And wow, the dripping stopped immediately!
Nowhere on the package does it prescribe this method, so I’m giving you all some free medical advice here!
THESE THINGS WORK!
Besides just lazing around, I purged some of my bookshelves of unwanted books, since next Friday begins a weekend of wild used-book sales at the Annual Rockcliffe Park Bookfair.
Every year I not only attend the thing, but I also donate! This year will probably be my tenth year at the Bookfair.
I have gathered up six boxes of books, perhaps 70 pounds each, ready to go. In one of them is a 25 volume set of The Complete Works of Honore de Balzac.
I put a special note on the top of the box, explaining that the contents are valuable.
I wonder what these will be priced at?
If I attend the sale on Friday and see those things going for $500 or something I will promptly jump off a bridge. I am too lazy to put them on eBay.
Reading-wise, I am thoroughly enjoying John Irving’s The Fourth Hand.
I really loved my previous read, also an Irving book, A Prayer For Owen Meany.
I wish you a great Sunday afternoon / evening, and I hope you do not catch my cold from reading this blog!
But if you do start to sniffle, I advise you to drink some Neo Citran, and shove some pills up your snout.
Cheers,
Cippy Sickpuppy*********
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon, and by moonlight.
-- Robertson Davies –
Have a great Friday!
Hey, this is totally cool.
← Last night I was informed by the lovely Amanda over at A Patchwork of Books, that I won this book, shown here.
It’s a new autobiography of singer, Amy Grant. I LOVE Amy Grant.
The book is called Mosaic.
Thank you, Amanda.
Here’s an excellent quote, from Amy…
If you went to your closet today, would you pull out the same outfit you wore 10 or 15 years ago? You wear feelings and faith differently as well.
-- Amy Grant –
Have a great Thursday!
I was a moody kid. I was an aloof kid, I kind of kept to myself. I think that an early sort of pre-writing indication that I had the calling to be a writer was how much time I liked to spend alone. I wasn't anti-social. I had friends, but I didn't really want to hang out with them after school. What I saw of them at school was enough. I needed to be in a room by myself even before I was writing, just imagining things, just thinking about things. If there was a weekend with too many cousins or other people around, I got a little edgy. I think the need to be by myself, which I've recognized in a couple of my own children, is one that was respected by my grandmother, with whom I lived until my mom remarried. . . when I was six. And I was fortunate to be in a big house, my grandmother's house, and there were lots of places to get off by yourself and imagine those things that I didn't know. And I find -- I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.
-- John Irving –
I may have discovered a NEW favorite living author, in the reading of his Prayer For Owen Meany. Look at the guy. He is like a George Clooney but with even better hair.
Have a great Wednesday!
Isn’t Murphy’s Law something along the lines of "whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way."
Or whatever?
Well, tonight, Murphy had my number.
Disclaimer: For those who need their blog-reading to have plot and excitement, quit reading this one, NOW. I beg you.
If you go on, against my advice, all you are going to hear is Blog-Catharsis.
I just want to vent, as to why it took me so long to get home tonight, and how a simple problem ate itself into my Starbucks reading time.
And that last thing I mentioned [my reading time] is no small matter, because my Reading Partner© has already indicated that if I don’t get through Irving’s Owen Meany soon, she is going to trade me in on two twenty-somethings.
I cannot keep up to her, in our recent [and non-recent] reading ventures!
Then again, she is a high-school English teacher.
And so… she doesn’t really work, per se.
Even Owen Meany himself would agree with me here.
He says, to John Wheelwright, in Chapter 6 → “YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON’T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO WHAT SOMEONE WANTS YOU TO SEE – TO WHAT MAKES SOMEONE ANGRIEST, OR THE MOST EXCITED IN SOME OTHER WAY. IT’S SO EASY; I THINK THAT’S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS.”
But of course, I jest.
She is so brilliant, and industrious, and witty, and hard-working…… no, wait a minute, scrap that last part, but she is all the others. A savant. A genius.
And I love her and our life-long project of Reading All Of The Good Books In The World©.
But back to Murphy.
So, today I wanted to get out the door in a hurry. I was the last one there.
I was thinking only one thought → SOON READ BOOK!
I was setting the damn alarm.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh-uh-huh uh-huh….. → NOT FRIGGING WORKING!
The alarm is not setting.
Says there is a security breach in “Zone 57”.
Well… where the hell is Zone 57?
The warehouse in which I am now trapped is like [how to describe it]…. you could literally have several Boeing 747’s in there! All of them... LOST!
And doors? There’s got to be 800 doors in the place!
Where would I START, to check!
Forget What Would Jesus Do... a rubber bracelet is not going to help you tonight.
What would MacGuyver do, is more like it!
So, I had to call my Supervisor on the radio. He’s never even heard of Zone 57.
I feared that very response.
And in one section of the place, we have had contractors working for weeks and weeks. So, how am I to know if they have left a door ajar in one of their work areas? As I waited for my Supervisor to arrive [from home] I walked the perimeter of the buildings, in the drizzling rain, checking all of the miserable doors in the place. All looked good to me.
I went back to the Alarm Panel.
And started just pressing every button on the thing.
All of a sudden, the fire alarm went off in the facility. Whoa, that’s damn loud! How do I stop that?
[Pushed way more buttons....]
When in severe doubt, always press something that says “CLEAR”.
I did. That stopped the bells.
However, in my wild…. pressing of buttons, I had forcibly called Police, Ambulance, and Firetrucks to the building.
My Supervisor, en route, called my two-way radio and asked me what the hell I was doing?
I said…. “Umm. Pushing all kinds of buttons.”
He said, “Don’t do that. DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! I just got a call on my phone to verify whether or not we want every emergency team in the city at our building.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “OK, I’ll just wait…”
When he arrived, we did a thorough search of the interior of the place.
About an hour into it, as we were walking through one sector for the second time, I noticed a ladder leaning on a wall that had a sort of double trap-door affair at the top of it…. and I asked God if this was Zone 57. This was where the contractors had been working.
As usual, God said nothing, but from down below I could see that there were those white plastic Security contact things. I climbed up and shut the doors and we went back to the Alarm Panel. Sure enough, now we had the all-clear.
Set alarm. Get in car. Drive like hell.
But it’s no use. I did not finish the book.
Now I am in Jeopardy. And I don’t mean the game show.
She may trade me in on those two other guys. She is all hot and heavy to begin reading the next book, and I have not even finished this one yet!
I’ve gotta “get in the Zone” as it were.
Maybe if I get a better job? Like one where I am not even required to set Security Alarms at the end of an already-too-long day?
Maybe if I…. become an English teacher?
Oh! Was that "Meany" of me?********
My earliest recollections of writing are not really recollections of writing at all, but of... transposing. Before I could even read one word, I used to take my mother's handwritten recipes and type them out on dad's typewriter. One painstaking character at a time. Not even really knowing what I was "writing".
But the letters themselves just always fascinated me.
I would then hand my astounded mother perfectly typed recipes on 3" X 5" cards, which she would put in a little recipe tin.
She said I was undaunted... I just kept going.
-- Cipriano –
Have a great Tuesday!
Have a great Monday!*******
Forgive me, dear readers, for embarking yet again, and so soonly, upon another absolutely nothingful blog.
This afternoon, as I left my apartment building I had only one thought in my mind. → READ BOOK!
Because of certain distractions lately, I have not had the kind of reading time I would prefer.
Basically, I would prefer my reading time to be umm… constant, and never-ending!
So there I was, walking down the street on my way to Starbucks, excited about some afternoon time with Owen Meany.
A Vivacious Blonde Woman walked toward me.
Hey, it’s my neighbor.
She lives right next to me on the 14th floor. [Alas, she is married].
So I nodded, and we exchanged a “Hi” as we passed by each other.
Then I walked backwards for a bit.
My God, it’s warm out all of a sudden. Why am I wearing a jacket?
Whoa! Unseasonably warm!
A minute or so later, I set my backpack down and, while stuffing my jacket into it, noticed that I had forgotten my book! Owen Meany is NOT IN HERE!
Damn!
Now I’m walking back to my building.
Took the elevator up and retrieved my book. Just as I get back to the elevator, the stairwell door opens and into the hallway walks The Vivacious Blonde Woman.
We say “Hi” again.
My God! Did she just run all the way up the stairs to our floor?
Seriously, as she’s unlocking her own door I say to her, “My God! Did you just run all the way up the stairs to our floor?”
“Yep,” she says. “I try to do it as often as I can,” and there is not even the slightest huffing and puffing going on. No chest-heaving cardiac problems whatsoever. Just a nice little flush on the face. And a beaming smile.
So I am horrified.
I say to her, “If I had just run all the way up those stairs,” and I point to the door that is still slowly closing shut, “I would be right now trying to stuff my lungs back into my throat.”
She laughs a bit, shrugs apologetically, and goes into her apartment as my elevator door opens.
As I was hauled on down to the main floor again, I must say, I did not feel vivacious at all. I shuffled on out to the street, realizing that even taking the damn elevator tired me out!
Hmmmm.
Could part of my cardio-problems be connected to the fact that the closest I ever get to eating from The Five Daily Food Groups© is when I’m handed a bag of bun, pickle, cheese, mayonnaise, and cow at the Drive-Thru window?
***********
Hi, all.This is a poem I wrote, last night.Cheers.
******
The Hermit There was a troglodyte. A hermit. Deliberately ignorant of all things going On outside his dripping cave and brown Beard. Craggy, shaggy, each. Not knowing Tuesday from Friday He ventured out, to gather seaweed Or clams. Whatever lay stranded, left Behind. On the mild, wild, beach. Near a boulder, between driftwood Ducking and alert, he stooped. Never, Not ever, squinting, had he ever seen This, before. Dove, love, needing. It cannot be. Forgotten, every longing Now awakened, stood to claim him. In a white dress, the sand held golden Tresses. Flying, sighing, reading. She flipped a page. He leaned, as though Her hand could move his soul. And Tears like drops of cave-dew sent a ripple Through his heart. Drop, plop, but... Turning, the hermit stumbled headlong Up the crags to what he knew. Two sticks Will give me heat while I sleep hungry, and The stone, will keep me. Sleep me. Shut. © Ciprianowords Inc. 2007
Forgive me, dear readers, for embarking, this very minute, on the writing of the most nothingful blog in the world.
I’m sitting in the Starbucks section of a Chapters bookstore, and I’m reading John Irving’s A Prayer For Owen Meany.
Fabulous book. I am loving it.
This book sat on my shelf for years and years before I finally picked it off of there and opened it up. It had dust on it! I’m only halfway through but I already know that Irving is an author I will want to continue to discover, through his many other novels.
So I’m sitting here and in walk the two girls I once mentioned → a while ago.
In fact, since this current blog is absolutely nothingful, I would encourage you to click on the above link and and read that former one.
Then return here, if the two girls intrigue you.
Same girls.
And as they sit across from my table here in the little alcove area, there is the occasionally wafting of air that tells me they still smell good.
They still smell very much… “like a woman!”
What intrigues me about them though, is how much they do not study.
Apparently they are here to study something. They have dragged a small endtable out in front of them and have filled it with papers and pens and highlighters and textbooks. Then they squeezed the two chairs together, so they could be nearer each other.
“AND THEY HAVE NOT STOPPED YIPPING AND YAPPING AND TALKING AND LAUGHING FOR EVEN ONE SECOND IN THE PAST HALF-HOUR,” said Owen Meany.
STUDIES BE DAMNED!
PHOTOCOPIED ARTICLES GO TO HELL!
HIGHLIGHTERS BE CAPPED!
In a way, it so refreshing to see such happy friends, so thoroughly enjoying each other. So primed for fun that they can utterly forget their studious intentions.
Smelling so good, and teeming with such a fret-free measure of Friday-night frivolity that they frigging forfeit their fact-finding faculties in favor of frolic. ***********
Romeo: O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
Juliet: Why, what satisfaction canst thou have tonight?
Romeo: The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.
Juliet: I gave thee mine before thou didst request it:
And yet I would it were to give again.
Romeo: Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love?
Juliet: But to be frank, and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
Have a great Friday!
The world is full of people who are gifted and cynical.
Rare are those who are gifted - aware - even broken by life - and yet joyful. With an upturned face...looking always forward.
-- L.B., a.k.a. → ‘O Great One’ of Illinois --Have a great Thursday!
Here is a poem I wrote about 300 years ago.
I address it to all the slimey slugs out there...
To All Slugs In The Grass
My gardening debut will be on morrow morn
When this field and thy home shall together be shorn.
At seven precise, while dew on the grass
Still glistens, my rotors will merciless pass;
And if you would escape the unfeeling blade
Where ‘tween lawn and slug no distinction is made,
Then heed thou this edict, my slippery friends
For on vacancy then your existence depends.
And publish it wide, from Slug King to Slug Peasant
That shunning advice would be naught but unpleasant.
Be blessed, I have oft been acquainted with pain
And I have no desire to render thee twain,
(As groundsmen before me who came without warning
And clogged up their mowers with thee in the morning.)
Now leave slimy trails, and freedom pursue;
Make haste, lest at seven, thou be snipped in two.
And forgive in advance my disturbing your sod.
I pray for thy safety, commit thee to God
Who alone knows I have no intention to kill…
And as for my own soul, I pray that I will
Receive His forgiveness, if any be torn.
Now “Away, get thee hence!” and with these words I warn.
© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.-- e e cummings –- Have a great Wednesday!*******
The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man’s complexity and the strength and decency of his longings.-- John Cheever – Have a great Tuesday!******
So there I am, well, just moments ago, at the Foodcourt in the Rideau Mall, and I am immersed in Irving’s, A Prayer For Owen Meany.
You know when your face is downwards into a great book, you only notice things around you in a peripheral, half-hidden, inattentive, way?
There I was, the book was drawing me into its vortex.
In this state, I half-noticed a woman sit down at the table across from me… no, I only ONE-QUARTER noticed, I barely noticed her at all. I kept reading, acknowledging nothing other than what John Irving was trying to tell me.
By the way, what a tremendously engrossing novel!
At some point, the woman got up and walked away. Again, I did not really notice this, it was just a smudge on the outer fringes of my peripheral consciousness.
All of a sudden, a guy walks by, scruffier than last week’s hailstorm.
Stops.
My eyes lift, for about half of one second.
He sits down in front of the plate of steaming food!
Takes his jacket off.
Now I look up, and try to concentrate, calling all of my recollective powers to the foreground.
Owen Meany, Owen Frigging SHMEANEY!
Wasn’t a woman just sitting there, before this guy?
He seems to be salivating over this windfall… this sudden, unexpected, good fortune… and he is just as oblivious to my squinting eyes as he is to the fact that he did not order, nor pay for, any of this grub… this → manna from heaven… and just as he reaches for the fork…. the woman returns!
Looks at him!
She has chopsticks in her hand.
She only left her meal for a few seconds to go back and get some chopsticks, and in the meantime, Johnny Anonymous has usurped her meal!
He mumbles something like…. “Oh, umm, crap, hello, bye, yeah, umm, errr, whatever..." grabs his coat and runs away!
[I’ve forgotten all about Owen Meany now.]
I want to see what this woman is going to do.
She looks around.
I look down at my book…. I’ve been reading the whole time.
I’VE SEEN NOTHING!
She sits down.
Frowning.
Looking at her plate of sprouts and rice and noodles and broccoli florets.
Glances at me as I look at my book, which is totally upside down by now!
And she digs in.
My question is simple.
Would you?
No, really!
I mean, here, some total other person, [a homeless vagrant, no less….. and we all know, these have the worst germs of all] this total stranger who had those sort of radiation fumes coming off of his body, the same kind that you see on the highway ahead of you on the hottest day of last July… THIS guy was just sitting at your plate of food!
Are you going to eat it, now?
What if he burped on your broccoli?
Spit on your sprouts?
Touched your tabouli?
She waited a while.
She weighed the medical possibilities.
And then dug in, with the sticks.
I kept reading my book, but all the while, I was wondering what I would have done.
What would you have done?
Would you have sat down, as though this was totally acceptable behavior?
Some sort of excusable societal misdemeanor?
Would you have thrown the stuff away, and ordered some more?
Or… pretended that YOU were returning to the wrong table?
Taken those chopsticks, and stuck them each into this guy’s eyeballs, left and right?
I mean, the options are plethora!
As for me?
The question does not even apply.
I would never have left the table in the first place.
Because I don’t even know how to use chopsticks.
************
IF THERE IS NO GOD, WHY BE GOOD?
Posed like that, the question sounds positively ignoble. When a religious person puts it to me in this way (and many of them do), my immediate temptation is to issue the following challenge: "Do you really mean to tell me that the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base thought." As Einstein said, "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
-- Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion –
Have a great Monday!
Today is the birthday of a very important figure in American letters.
On this day in 1894, Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
That makes him a cool umm… 113 years old today.
Does he really even need any sort of introduction?
His accomplishments are remarkable. He turned poetry on its head with his inimitable, unconventional style. Although most of his poetry is demanding, as in, one must read and examine and re-read it to truly “get” it, other poems are so simplistic that I recall reading and “getting” them back when I was in elementary school.
Here is an example of one of my favorites.
you shall above all things...
you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young,whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever's living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation's dead undoom.
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
e.e. cummings
For more of my own commentary on the work of e.e. cummings → CLICK.Or → HERE.
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.-- e.e. cummings –***********
I am finally back home.
Well, back to my apartment.
I am back home, from being back home!
All of my family is out west. Far from me. But Jack, my cat, is here.
So, in a sense, home is where the cat is!
My new catsitter, Angela, did an excellent job of taking care of my boy. I can tell. Everything was ship-shape when I returned. Jack’s plaintive meows were… plaintive, but I could tell that he was treated well, in my absence.
This is the longest time, in the history of my Bloggitry, that I have been away from the Bookpuddle. I hope that I have not lost you all, my dear friends.
It was a good visit, with my mother.
An important visit.
My mother does not read my blog, so I am able to say here, that it was difficult to see how she has dwindled away, since I last saw her, at Christmas time.
Leukemia is ravaging her once capable frame. I must hold her hand as she walks.
This is new for me. Just as it is new for her, to ask me to do it.
And yet, she cooked a wonderful dinner for me, after we had gone to church, last Sunday. I had not been to church for years, but it was her one wish, that we go. So, I walked to church with her, holding her hand the entire way.
And afterwards, mom made me the best steak I have ever eaten. I am not kidding. It was wonderful. I wanted to help. But she wanted to do this for me. She chopped up onions, and I cried.
She had this steak spice, and [stupid me] while things were sizzling, I said I would sprinkle it on, and she said, “No, no, no. After it’s done. Not now.”
And she was right.
It was the best steak I have ever eaten.
And I have eaten a lot of steak, in my day.
One look at my mother, and anyone would know that even the most optimistic doctor would not have her ringing in the New Year, of 2008. But mom keeps telling her own doctor that she will see a minimum of five more.
Years.
I hope she is right on that. I love her.
Her doctors have to admit they have never seen a better attitude.
But…
But time does its thing. Life does its thing.
In some ways, I have never felt more at home, coming back here to Jack, and resuming with my normal life.
But, when I try to go to sleep, there are times when I do wonder if “home” is where my mom is.
**********
← [Me and my addiction. Hamburger!]
I haven’t been around much lately.
Well, actually, it is more accurate to say that my computer/desk workstation area has been in a state of non-existence, and hence, it has been really uncomfortable to be online, and nearly impossible to do any quality blogging.
All of the units here on the top floor of my apartment building have had to be fitted with some sort of water valves in the ceiling, and [Murphy’s Law] it just so happens that the place where the work needed to be done is directly above my computer universe!
So, I’ve been dislocated for about a week now, having to do any computer work on a rickety cardboard box I have set up. And it is still in this state, until next week sometime.
Aside from this, I am going home to visit my mother. In a matter of hours, I’ll be flying back to Saskatchewan. So I probably will not be around for a while, in Bookpuddle-land.
She is not currently in the hospital but she is not at all well. Her visits for full-scale blood transfusions are becoming more and more frequent, and that is not a good sign of…. well, it’s just not good at all.
So I really want to have a great visit with my mom and do a lot of talking with her, over the Thanksgiving weekend.
She is clear across the country, and it is frustrating sometimes to be this far away from her and the rest of my family, when she is so ill.
So, I just thought I would let you all know that I may not be around much, probably until the end of next week.
And now, just a word or two about my own health problem.
My struggle with A.H.A.
← [Advanced Hamburger Addiction]
See, in the first picture, at the top of this blog, I am in a state of relative equilibrium.
I am focused.
I have only one thought. → BURGER!
I am at peace. Content. One with the cosmos.
But, in this second picture, you can see that there is trouble in paradise.
Someone, in this case a brave and undaunted photographer named Corinna, has encroached upon The B.E.P. [Burger-Eating Perimeter].
Gotten a bit close there.
She did not even have the sense to approach downwind. You can see that I am alert and ready to snap. Ready to pounce.
My left eye is locked onto the situation.
Things could have gotten out of control but the photographer did the right thing. Hearing the low-pitched growl, she slowly backed away. Backed…. away.
And then ran like hell.
************
I regard music as something that transcends the labels of gender, class or creed, which is why I think it's such a powerful medium. And as a fashion plate? I have to tell you that I've been given many opportunities to collude with the fashion industry, but I declined because I don't want to be a clotheshorse for anyone.
-- Annie Lennox –
Have a great Friday!
Being Alone Surf pounds relentless into shore, yet, instead of the roar is heard the ocean of silence behind it.And the breeze itself whispers that though it be near the most ardent embrace cannot find it. This is being alone. Golden blue, they clasp each other these waves in moribund procession, dying in rhythmic monotony, like the feeling… of night’s four walls and ticking, ‘til the heartbeat seems aligned and the eyes know every nuance of the ceiling. This is being alone. Now the morning, and the wandering of gulls in their circling dance, remind him that his own heart has no home. And there in the azure horizon of this unframed canvas meant for two, his mind sees written, “This is being alone.”© Ciprianowords Inc. 2007
← One of my favorite books, ever!
As a writer, I am a firm believer in serendipity, in accident and chance. Some things just happen. Some images occur. They insist. They reoccur. Suddenly you have a motif on your hands. Then you look at what you’ve got laid out before you, and you ask, Could I use this? Can I turn this into something significant, meaningful, even powerful? There’s a lot of alchemy that happens right in front of you as you write. I believe that artists must possess an inner sense of aesthetic balance, just as musicians have an “ear” for their music, to help them deal with the accidental nature of creating art. That’s why I create so many drafts when I write; then, when I feel the time is right, I start sifting.
In terms of efficiency, I’m probably the most wasteful writer there is. I edit a lot. I generate hundreds of thousands of words, then go back for the cull. I see the assembling of the big mess of words in the earlier stages of the novel as the search for the right block of marble in the quarry. Only after you get your hands on the right block can you start chipping away inch by inch. Hopefully, with a couple tons of crumbling, excess marble at your feet, you get your little, perfect, six-pound statue to show for it, gleaming and smooth, as if it existed in that block of stone all along and you were the only one able to see it.
-- Dennis Bock –
Have a great Thursday!
As seen on a Starbucks Cup:
The Way I See It #230
"Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring. Clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can’t wait to go, like a luxury hotel. Maybe blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century, but Heaven has to step it up a bit. They’re basically getting by because they only have to be better than Hell."
-- Joel Stein,
Columnist for the Los Angeles Times. –
Apparently, the above message on Starbucks coffee cups caused quite an uproar at Safeway Stores.
Listen to this guy: → "I work for a Safeway Starbucks, and we are going to lose the 'The Way I See It' cups because of a few grumpy old people with no sense of humor. The cup that started it was #230, Joel Stein's comment about how ‘Heaven is overrated...’ Its freakin' dry humor, people! So now the Safeway bigwigs are trying to dump the whole program so that no one is offended. We had to go through every single sleeve of Venti hot cups in the store and pull out every single one with #230 on it.”
Hey! Chill out, people!
And have a great Wednesday!***********
Have a great Tuesday!********
I love a good mystery, but not in the conventional sense of that word: the mystery of right behaviour, moral choice, responsible action. I’m put off by novels that pretend to answer the questions they raise. There can’t be answers – not sincere or meaningful answers – to the questions of moral action raised in a great book. A serious writer, in my mind, attempts to expose the flipside to any commonly held belief. It’s a shell game of sorts, with each shell containing – or seemingly so – the seed of truth. Point to it with anything resembling conviction or certainty and you will be proven wrong.
That being said, a novel isn’t a game. It doesn’t try to cause the reader to stumble, but in resisting an easy answer to justify a character’s choices, readers may find themselves in the confusing position of simultaneously loving and hating characters, their choices, their beliefs. For me, a novel is at its best when it brings contradiction to the surface of a character’s life, and when those contradictions are highlighted by a dramatic conflict between characters. In exposing those contradictions by the right positioning of character, setting and drama, you approach the heart of what it is to be human. There is in this world, instead of the simple black and white universe of poorly imagined fiction, an infinite variety of greys.
-- Dennis Bock –
Have a great Monday!
Well, I never thought I'd find myself in this position.
