incipit vita nova

Which Would You Rather Have, a JOB or an ALLOWANCE?

According to academic C. Bradley Thompson, "very few people are willing to defend Capitalism as a moral solution."

Also, as reported in this really great book I'm reading, The Secret Life of the Human Brain, people over age 40 do have cognitive strengths and advantages, and one of those is the ability to "cut to the chase," or to quickly determine the solution to a problem.  In the first chapter, author Barbara Strauch, who is also the health and medical science editor at the NY Times, points up that the growth of myelin in a middle-aged person's brain increases during this time of life, especially if that person consistently "exercises" their brain in a variety of areas.  Barbara is such a good writer that I can easily forgive her for her day-job, and clearly, the paper's editorial and reporting policy weaknesses don't preclude it from being a home for outstanding individual writers and editors.

That said, this whole "socialist" vs. freedom debate became so clear to me this morning.  No matter what you've been "taught," or what economist you've read, or how you think about personalities and yes, even skin color issues, this is what it comes down to:

Which would you rather have:  a job, or an allowance?

They do not call it "unemployment compensation" or "unemployment insurance" in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and a portion of Ireland, for those unaware of where and what the UK is).  The UK is strongly socialist, thanks to the collapse of Empire and since it's a small cluster of islands, probably the deaths of too many people with brains and initiative in WWII.  It is struggling today with the fact that if too few people have jobs and too few businesses produce sufficient income, it's mighty hard for Big Daddy to pay all those allowances.  That's right, in the UK, unemployment payments are called "Jobseekers Allowance."

No other discussion or argument is needed.  The U.S. is over the breaking point right now.  With average people struggling to keep up, and with many people who might otherwise take their ideas for new inventions, medicines, technologies, products and concepts and start new business ventures in full retreat, or simply reluctant to start due to the onerous taxes, regulations and general lack of public respect for anybody who does anything other Parrot Politically Correct Party Lines, there isn't money to pay all the allowances required at present.  Daddy's mansion doesn't have anywhere near as many rooms as the real Big Daddy's mansion (in the sky).  In fact, there aren't very many rooms left at all, and soon, all the kids are having to double, triple, and even quadruple up in their garrets. 

Soon, the kids are going to lose their bathrooms, and have to line up for showers down the hall.  They won't have much choice in what they eat soon, either.  And there won't be any new Nike Air Jordan releases for them, either.  Those big flatscreen HD TVs aren't very exciting when there's just one channel to watch (Current TV, I guess).

Or, as I point up sometimes to students, "Like that gum?"  Whatever the cool, tasty new flavor is.  Right now I have both packs of Stride Shift gum - Berry Mint (Bmint) and Citrus Mint.  They are both pretty great.  Stride is made by Cadbury Adams USA, by the way - not a US company.  But they pay taxes and employ people here.

Maybe someday money will be eliminated and replaced by (????).  But until that day comes, right now the question for everybody in this country is this:  which would you rather have - a job, or an "allowance"? 

That's the difference between capitalism and socialism.  Or possibly, you might ask, would you rather have the ability to a) work for yourself; b) choose which employer and which job you want; or c) get your allowance from Uncle Sam.

Thanks, Barbara Strauch.  QED.

Rajput Warrior vs. Roman Centurion

The story of the newest episode of Deadliest Warrior is that unlike some previous episodes of group warfare, like Yakuza vs. Mafia and the Jesse James gang vs. Al Capone and his mobsters, the Centurion vs. Rajput Warrior matchup focused on one-on-one combat.

Primarily because the Centurion was leader of his 80-member Century, the Rajput warrior's martial arts discipline and variety of weapons led him to the clear victory.

If you don't know what or who Rajput warriors are, the name means "Son of the King," and they are hereditary warriors from Northwest India practicing one of the world's oldest forms of martial arts.  Western audiences may be most-familiar with a recent film interpretation:  what they did to Captain Nemo in the pretty-awful League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

I think I understand the idea of Rajput Warriors better than the representatives on the show presented.  For example, the demonstration of the Khanda sword completely hacked the sides of beef to shreds, but apparently, this long, straight and heavy sword was replaced by the Talwar, or curved sword that we may be more familiar with from films and paintings.  The Rajput swordsman was also using his circular motions that are typical of Rajput martial arts, but he was turning around slowly, and if I could see a gladius blow opportunity after every strike he made, real life would surely bring such an opportunity.

However, the Rajput swords weren't the only switcheroo.  I wasn't surprised to learn that a large, heavy, straight sword of similar length and size to the Khanda sword called a spatha was used by Roman cavalry, and it relatively quickly replaced the gladius, especially among the officer class like Centurions.

This is a guy that I could probably beat using a modern replica Spatha on such violent, frightening opponents as plastic water bottles, cans, bamboo stalks and possibly metal whisky flasks.  Anyway, this thing looks like a reasonable opponent to the Khanda sword, and probably something that would easily overmatch the curved Talwar blade, if that had been used.

The show brought an awesome Sikh warrior on, trained in the use of the Aara, a flexible circular whiplike bladed weapon (called a sword, but it is more like a sharp, flexible metal whip).

Here is an amazing, beautiful video of the weapons of the Rajput and pictures from many generations -

In just one of the achievements of the Rajput warriors, for 1,000 years, they successfully defended against countless attacks by Islamic invaders.  Many know of the Mughal Dynasty in India (which produced among other things, the Taj Mahal), and today, there are Muslim Rajput warriors, but the majority of Rajput are and always have been Hindu.  You really owe it to yourself to read and learn more about them.  These guys are men upon men and often fought to the last man, always valuing death before dishonor.  I think that this should have been covered more in the show and in this case, I have to say, much as my emotions go with the Centurion, I have to recognize the amazing history and character of Rajput warriors. 

Profiles in Courage: Carlos Hathcock, Lech Walesa, Queen of Jhansi

Most people have probably heard by now of the pathetic "Profile in Courage" award given to California Assembly and Senate Democrats Karen Bass and Darrell Steinberg, and current job-seekers, former Republican state legislators David Cogdill and Mike Villines.

These four received the "Profile in Courage" Award from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library for voting and wheeling-dealing in the largest state tax increase in U.S. history last year. 

This brings me to my main point, which is that I never read Profiles in Courage.  All my life, I believed that the book was about heroes in WWII.  Au contraire!  It profiled previous politicians who'd fit the "profile" of the book - someone who crossed party lines or did something unpopular, just because they thought it was right.  The original lineup was so undistinguished that I sort of question the alleged ghostwriter and researchers for Pres. Kennedy.  Because if they covered this type of thing, they sort of left out people like Harry T. Burn, the Tennessee state representative who became the single vote by which the 19th Amendment was ratified and made part of the United States' Constitution.  Mr. Burn had said ahead of the vote that he was likely to vote against it, and changed his mind at the last minute, having received a written request from his mother.

The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote in the United States - in August, 1920.  Mr. Burn seems to have experienced negative results from women's suffragists - according to Wikipedia, "after the vote was ratified, angry anti-suffragists chased Burn through the Tennessee Legislature Hall, and Burn was forced to conceal himself for a short time until the tense situation had been defused." (Another website says that wasn't true).

But why would becoming the one deciding vote on allowing to women vote in the United States, and getting criticized by the very people you voted for be "courage"?  Voting for the largest tax increase in U.S. history just in order to keep the horrible status quo going in Sacramento:  That's a real "Profile in Courage."  Profile in Courage book itself?  A bunch of pathetic party-line crossing losers.

Just in case people forget what "courage is," courage is exemplified by GySgt. Carlos Hathcock, one of America's greatest warriors, and the most-feared sniper in Vietnam - respected by enemies and his fellow troops alike - modest, brave, but deadly-effective.  Carlos' courage continued over the years, as he bravely faced life with multiple sclerosis and remained courageous to the end.

Back when these prizes, such as the Nobel Prize for Peace, were occasionally given to those who deserved them, Polish union leader and inspiration to the world Lech Walesa stood up to the communists and organized non-communist trade unions, later founding the Solidarity movement and freeing the entire nation of Poland from oppression.

I'll let King of the Badasses Ben Thompson describe Indian heroine Rani Lakshmibai, Queen of Jhansi: "Over the years, the Queen of Jhansi has become a near-mythical hero among the people of India for her role kicking ass during the 1857 Rebellion.  She fought bravely, refused to surrender, and died the death of a martyr for freedom.  She now has a couple statues in her honor, is included in all Indian history textbooks, met Flashman a couple times, and is so synonymous with being an asskicking chick that when the Indian National Army put together an all-female infantry unit during World War II they had the good sense to name it after her."

Look, I know my personal answer to this question, but do you?  Which would you rather be - one of these four loser politicians all fighting to get their sweaty mitts over this questionable 'prize', or a real hero?  Do you need an absolutely idiotic, bankrupt thing like this award to tell you what "courage" is?  I'm confident in saying that very few people do, and I hope each of these awardees enjoys their little stick of pewter or whatever it was they got.  That award they're fighting over looks like it would be pretty uncomfortable if forcibly applied where it really deserves to be.  Shun them.

WIWSWTMWISO: Ideas Into Stories

That means "What I wish somebody would have told me when I was starting out."

No, that's not me - I'm too lazy to scan the one of me painting. 

There's so many fine details about how to handle ideas that I guess one thing I wish I understood in the beginning is that "idea discernment" is very important.

Ironically, the very idea that I wish somebody had explained to me clearly is explicitly stated in my bad example story, "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson.  Now, in 1983, I could not have understood the context of this story's Hugo win and its "insider nature."  This story would mean nothing to, and be unreadable by, the average person.  I think most familiar with the sci fi field, especially that generation (story dedicated to Virginia Heinlein), can see why it got the Hugo. 

Now, this story contains the line, "Senator, if I try to hoard the fruits of my husband's genius, I may cripple my race.   Don't you see what perpetual copyright implies?"  I'm sure everyone can understand the incredibly high stakes in this tale.  Also, it has a "Senator" and treats him with respect (dated, much?).  For all I know, he's some sort of Heinlein analogue - and of course "fruits of my husband's genius . . ." (and his loins!) (the more I think of this, the more I think it crystallizes everything wrong with the hollering fool that cleared the room phenomenon).  But enough of that!  Also very unfair since everyone says what a great person Spider Robinson is, and he has written many cool, entertaining stories.

See what happens?  ANYTHING can spawn ideas and it's the discretion to understand which ones work that is such an important part of writing.  Also to be fair to Spider Robinson, who was writing something about Robert Heinlein's work, and the endless desire of the certain subset of peculiar sci fi readers to coopt their favorites (plagiarism, cheating, "information" confused with story - which is set forth at great length in Spider's tale - I read the unreadable, guys) - he did take this idea, he did run with it, it is perfectly done for its subset audience.  So actually, my "bad" example is a good one.

Spider has his female "character" (I use the term loosely) explain copyright cases of the time after presenting an argument that musical composers were getting really bad, with few new melodies, because all the other ones had been "used up" over time.  Then, she tells the Senator (not sure Spider knew exactly what a great analog the old beast would be for "EEEEVILLLL!"), "That ended the legal principle that one does not copyright ideas but arrangements of words.   The number of word arrangements is finite, but the number of ideas is much smaller."

Well we all know from mechanics that any line of dialog that relies upon excessive italics, bolding, or other techniques to show hollering doesn't really work . . .

But there you have it - "The number of word arrangements is finite, but the number of ideas is much smaller."

False.  However, the way the ideas are executed . . . that's the ticket.  We are nowhere near using these combinations up, and I doubt that it will ever be, as Spider suggests in the story, exhausted due to a simple time factor, with people living longer, and others "using up" all the good idea combos.

That said, what is it about ideas?  How do we decide what's a good one, and which one we should run with?

Well, here's a model.  As I always say about models, it's a model, not "the" model.  Try it on for size and see if it works for you:

• context:  is the idea suited to our time and place and the audience?
• resonance: is the idea something that has meaning to, or can be presented as meaningful, to the audience?
• compelling: does the idea compel you to explore it further?
• stakes: is the idea something that can mean something very important to a character or characters?
• scope: is the range of the idea suitable to the type and length of story you want to tell?

Now, as to scope, that's the subject for an entirely other examination, as there are ideas that "fit" every length of work.  At a certain point, I can't say precisely when, I became able to take the "natural length" that all my stories seemed to fit in and understood that I was simply selecting ideas and types of stories that fit in that length (novelette, 8,300 words, in case you wondered).  Suddenly, I became able to "hit" various lengths, because it was simply a matter of envisioning the mechanics of the story - what was the conflict, how was I presenting it, how many scenes would the story need, etc.  An idea with large scope is what makes most novels run. 

In fact, I think those books that people think are pointless and "about nothing" are things with an idea-base that lacks the scope to hang a story of that length on it.  Because our world is flexible and nothing is perfect, a small sub-audience does like these types of books and stories, just as "Melancholy Elephants" seems to be one of the most excruciating stories I've ever read, when it's really just an essay in dialog form presented as a "story."  There's an audience for that, too - even a Hugo audience (I DO think the voters, some of whom are the same today as they were in 1983, might go for this one again if it appeared today and not back then).

But that said, neither of these is the main body of short fiction or novels.  The main body of both of those are stories people can understand, that are about conflicts and challenges happening to the people of the stories. 

So, I am "god" of the ideas now, but I so wish that someone had explained "how to choose" back then.  I spent hours listening to people (Ray Bradbury et. al.) saying they "had more ideas than they could write," - file cabinets, card files, filled with IDEAS!!!  Yeah, well if it isn't working for you, don't jam a square peg in a round hole, and devote sufficient time to the workings of the idea and its use and meaning and best communication - before you invest days, weeks and months of your life - writing something that fails on the most basic "idea" level in that it is not resonant enough or not appropriate to carrying the story you have to tell.

Preaching to the Choir When the Song Has Changed

Washington insiders, and their hangers-on in local government and various other sycophantic constituents like the terrifyingly tone-deaf Andrew Sullivan ("I'm a gay rights advocate - and my advocacy consists of outing everyone gay or not - whee!!") - let's hope that Andrew is at least getting paid well for his public boosterism of the current U.S. national political administration, as well as side-projects like thrashing candidates in entertainment-oriented areas where Andrew hopes to get a job, like California (see his recent whaling on Meg Whitman - nice, Andrew - what if she was giving you your paycheck?).

It takes all kinds, and da dumb sheep-kine is definitely flailing around looking for their trough of free oats, headpats, comfortable daily livings for doing jack-diddley and making fun of other people as long as they're straight, white or don't want to share their sexual orientation or personal problems with the entire world . . .

This is first of all, one of the biggest karma-fests the world has yet seen, and those to which karma is coming, and will come for in the weeks and months to come, truly do not seem to "get" what's happening to them. 

We have fables like "the boy who cried wolf" to tell us what happened when the kid who lied about the wolf coming finally had the wolf really show up.  No matter what media spin there is, it is now one month after the Gulf oil spill and the government response is a website, with logos, and it's not even a good web design.  Almost all government websites are bad, blank, or worse.  On this website, the "current operations" page is blank.  Had the oil spill occurred in 2005, this minimal response would have certainly spawned the firestorm of internet forwards to the effect that President Bush had responded to the puppetmaster command of Dick Cheney to release sharks in the flooded streets of New Orleans to eat all the black people.  The thing is - feels good, doesn't it?  Feels great - awesome.  I mean to descend to that level and denigrate those in charge because you are satisfied with the performance of 3-term senators like Barbara Boxer, who has cosponsored and/or sponsored less than one bill a year during her 18 years in the U.S. Senate and whose main claim to achievement is her own re-election campaigns.  It feels so awesome to politically champion the elderly and entitled, such as Arlen Spector and Harry Reid - the claims to fame of which are equally undistinguished records of 24-7 entitlement for a lifetime. 

See, there were not that-great responses during President Bush's term.  It's highly likely that the Iraq War was a cluster*** manipulated by those who were very emotionally certain that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but whose beliefs were easily manipulated by those invested in making sure that war happened.  It sounds so familiar to me.  It sounds like spending 20% of the school year on "global warming" and launching a media campaign against childhood obesity when decades of studies have concluded that there is really no such thing as "food insecurity" in America - there's a lack of nutritious food and places/ways to safely and enjoyably exercise and play in inner-city areas.  Food Stamps are associated with greater obesity rates in women and children because many food choices in inner-city areas are poor or fast-food or high fat.  Sedentary, urbanized, tv- and internet/game-addicted people also voluntarily make poor dietary, meal-planning and exercise choices.  Blame McDonald's, television, video games, George Bush and . . . blame blame blame - well for Pete's sake at least figure that the Food Stamps given to feed genuinely poor, malnourished children decades ago are now providing extra junk food in sedentary lifestyles and go from there!

We are all about "appearance" and "emotion," not even reality.  I'm certainly known for being passionate and emotional, but I've absolutely had it with the lies. 

If the U.S. Government and most mainstream "media" commentators were teenagers, I would cut their allowance off and make them get a job and earn their living.  As to those who read, and comment, on the same lies all day long, the girls sitting around ooh-ing and ahh-ing over Justin Bieber are more in-touch than they are, and have just as much, or more, chance of success in getting what they want right now.  Just in case anyone thinks Jerry Brown is a real hot candidate for California Governor!  This remarkably Barbara-Boxer-Botox-like woman does . . .  And gets paid for it, at least for the time being.  It's like she's singing "Nearer My God to Thee," on the deck of the Titanic. 

The New Rules of Marketing and PR

Marketing, advertising, PR have all been irreversibly impacted by the rise of user generated content, social media, social networks and blogs. Chances are, as a TypePad blogger, you are already well aware of this. Chances are that you're already making the most of this shift in communications - in fact you're probably leading the way among your friends.

via everything.typepad.com

As I'm planning my own start-up for-profit business right now, this true, excellent article could not have been written at a better time.

Igor & Grichka Bogdanoff: Their Mother Would Be . . .

I covered these guys about 18 months ago, but their surgeon has been busy.  Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff or Bogdanov are French twin brothers who once starred on television.  They are also physicists, or something close to it, and had a popular science fiction series in the 1980's as well.  I swear, I knew nothing of the science fiction when I first featured them for their awful cosmetic surgery habit.

Many know that I'm a mini scholar of awful cosmetic surgery.  I'm the first to admit that once was beautiful-me, is now middle-aged me.  I've never been "perfect."  But the quest for "perfection" and "youth" that strikes some of us produces terrible results, from Michael Jackson to Jocelyn Wildenstein, the famous, or infamous "Bride of Wildenstein."  Poor Hang Mioku is the Korean lady who was so addicted to facial injections that she resorted to injecting cooking oil in her face, with awful, disfiguring results.

But I think the once very handsome Igor and Grichka have simply been sold a line of goods by their cosmetic surgery providers.  They've, uh . . . had a bit more work done since the last time I saw them.

Here's how the chaps looked at the 150th anniversary party for jeweler Chopard - and they're 60.  Er - 1,060.  Er - let's just call them "timeless," shall we?

Here's their "before" picture.  Old, gray-haired, wrinkles . . . guys . . . guys . . . Look, if you made some cryogenic freezing arrangements for your heads, I think the foreign material you've injected in there could cause some problems over time.  I do - really.

 

Here they are at a Jules Verne film festival in France in 2008.  It's not just the cheek implants, it's the eye "thing."  Bad cosmetic surgery that tightens the eyes to an unnatural appearance is very distressing, especially on men.  Both were so very handsome when young, and to my mind, had dark, good skin and lovely hair - all things that usually age very well, in a very nice way.  I just don't understand why two guys like this would ruin their looks this way.  It's so sad.

I am sure they asked for it, but whomever did the chin implants should be shot - they look like deformities.

Truth About Arizona Immigration Law

You're not going to hear this information in any "major" news outlet.  It requires some memory, and some caring for the victims of crime.  Far from being reminiscent of "Nazi" checkpoints, the Arizona Immigration Law that gives guidelines for police officers as to how to handle investigations into crime was inspired by the senseless death of a Phoenix police officer, Nick Erfle, who was killed by illegal immigrant on September 18, 2007.  Nick's widow Julie has been active the entire time to push for positive change.  The truth is, Phoenix police have been using the strategies outlined in the so-called "Arizona Immigration Bill" since May, 2008.  They pushed through the changes after Nick's death, because the previous "sanctuary" policy did not work for them or the people of Phoenix. 

The so-called "Nazi" Arizona Immigration law is all about giving law enforcement the go-ahead and guidelines to contact ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when a person has been arrested or apprehended for committing a crime.  The reason?  The man who killed Officer Nick Erfle had been, in Julie's words, "deported twice previously and fought violently when her husband tried to stop him for a minor violation.  He had a record almost as long as his life," she said. "And, there are people like that who are over here and, as a country, we have every right to make sure that those people do not stay in this country."

Phoenix police, in a city whose Mayor, politically, and Police Chief, politically, have been happy to take headlines and publicity for "opposing" the law, have been acting in accordance with the words that the law sets forth since May, 2008.  No complaints of racial discrimination have been made during that time.

Everyone's outrage and concern was that the man who killed Officer Erfle was in the U.S. illegally, and that was just one of his many violations of the law.  He had been arrested time and time again, yet never deported.  And if just one person had taken hold of him and sent him back to his country of origin, Nick Erfle might be alive today. 

One of the newspaper articles at the time quoted a Phoenix immigrant "rights" advocate attorney Antonio Bustamante. "When a mother goes out and happens to be pulled over, she's going to be referred to ICE. Or a father coming home from work is not going to return to his family that night. . . ." Bustamante said.

That's nice.  What about when a police officer is murdered in cold blood by a man he's questioning for obstructing the street - and HE doesn't return to his wife and two children - EVER?

Officer Erfle is far from the first Phoenix officer to lose his life to an illegal alien criminal. This website features dozens of victims of illegal alien criminals, mostly in our Western states:  murders, kidnaps and the most senseless crimes imaginable. The common thread between all is that the criminals committed less-serious crimes before these murders.  They were either ineffectively prosecuted, or not prosecuted, and nearly all were not deported.  Only a few of the criminals returned to the U.S. to commit more serious crimes after earlier deportations.

And what about Jamiel Shaw?  His killer, Pedro Espinoza, known illegal alien and gang member, whose family even called authorities shortly before Jamiel's death and informed them that Pedro was brought to the U.S. illegally at age 4 - in a desperate attempt to keep this killer off the streets - is still undergoing the slow, inefficient, horrible legal system, after which - he may well be released AGAIN to roam the streets.  Anyway, Pedro is also an official "person you'll see in Hell."  Gang members and "advocates" continue to try to blacken Jamiel's name with gang slurs - as if there is any possible defense for what Espinosa did.

Phoenix has also long-been the kidnap capital of America - thanks to it's "sanctuary city" status.  I guess that drug cartel money goes a long way:  to the Mayor's office in Phoenix, to the offices of the Phoenix Suns, and of course to local newspapers and national news outlets.  And, I guess, Homeland "Security" Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Wire Me Up, Beulah (or Bueller . . .)

Love Ben Stein.

Oh, wait!  This is about the famewhore promotional article by Cody Brown, "Dear Authors, Your Next Book Should Be an App, Not an iBook."

You mean with visuals like this, Cody?

This one's so "fresh" it's a GIF.  And oops - a "cypber" punk?

Just can't stop the music . . .

That's all the slickness I'm willing to do for the day.  As everyone has hashed this devil over and over again, I'm going to share why it's great for people to create apps - but every author should not feel obligated, nor should every reader feel disobligated to keep reading the things they enjoy reading, regardless of the platform on which they are presented.

An app is an app.  Do I wish I was the guy that invented the "beer" app for the iPhone?  No.  But I bet that guy's happy.  Who would have thought that "pouring a virtual beer" on your phone (or I guess, bigger on your iPad, like maybe close to life-sized) would be so popular?

If "you rather past the time hacking into a mainframe" than, as this charming badge suggests, "deal [ing] with the state of the world," by all means - a semi booklike app product might well replace books for you.   After all, you are already a cyber-book collector, are you not?  I mean, you are doing your part to preserve the world's "information" by creating massive databanks of binary representations of words.

Words that differ from one nation to the next, differ within nations, differ between city and country, differ between man and woman and child.  Mutable syntax, mercurial diction, and that strange transmutation wherein one person reads one sequence of words, and another also reads them, and each imagines a different parallel imaginative universe to that the other dreamt.

Someday, and it is certainly not a day as portrayed in our already-antique "future vision" as shown in the above profile badge, there may be another way for us to translate the abstract to the concrete to another person's abstract.  Another way other than the written word, that is.  I am not saying that wordless visual expression does not do what it does, nor musical expression, nor film, TV and even apps.  They all do what they do.

But the peculiar institution of the written word does what it does.  It says what we cannot say with our mouths.  It accesses every sense that we have, not just sight and sound.  In search of lost time . . .

one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.

Which would be ever so much poignant as a "madeleine app," n'est-ce pas?

As if we do nothing, Mr. Brown.  As if there is not, among the best of us, the tumble and spill of a vast stream of words carrying ships with travelers through our inner worlds, a stream of words which carries, as masterful readers know, a world of their own to hold, to savor, to cherish - to invent and dwell in for a time, from which they return, either subtly, or greatly - changed. 

I'll Show You The Life of the Mind!

Just as with most people, my life has gone through cycles.  I was speaking with an acquaintance the other day, who mentioned that his wife had formerly written and regarded herself as a writer, but had moved away from it.  He was encouraging her to try it again.  I asked him how old she was, and when he said she was in her late 20's, I told him - I did that, too.  For 8 years after I quit writing Time #1 after the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop (not an "immediate quit" - two years later, so it oughtn't be counted as the Clarion slump or that the workshop culled me to the field because I had such a poor experience). 

No, I quit writing because my body was urging me to live an immediate, physical life, and to focus on other people.  These where the years when my friend Carolyn hurled her purse at my head because I somehow attracted favorable attention from "Shane" from Days of our Lives (the handsome actor Charles Shaughnessy, who later became the reason most women ever watched "The Nanny" and put up with Fran Drescher's accent). It was Carolyn who had the giant crush on Shane, you see - and there were women in the audience swooning "Shane!  Shane!" - and I swear, I saw sweater sets, beehive hairdos, and . . . I seriously never saw women dressed like this before, but they emerged from the unknown for this one special event - such was the awesome power of "Shane." These were the years when my friends at the "Y," seeing how quickly I was developing muscle, urged me to take up bodybuilding (also the years before average people knew a whole lot about steroids or used them) - and I actually considered it!

I still read books. I read them while working out.  My favorite author at the time was Jackie Collins.  I was always up for a Jackie Collins book, or a good, brainless mystery book, but really - my real favorites were celebrity tell-alls and descriptions of horrific crimes.

An important part of my reawakening mind was the Coen Brothers' film Barton Fink (1991) - and one scene that no one who sees the movie ever forgets.

I've heard a lot of people say that John Goodman should have gotten an Academy Award nomination for his performance. But you know, I'll show you the life of the mind!  I'll SHOW you the life of the mind!

Some people might not understand this.  If one thinks in terms of Shiva and - the movie was somewhat inspired by writers' block!  Well, this is one way to get past it, but I was so stuck that it took me another four years to . . . go back to the life of the mind.

To think.