tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37051072012-01-03T06:05:29.530-08:00BLUE VOICEPersonal ReflectionsCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.comBlogger3101100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-5472678789791551702012-01-03T02:08:00.000-08:002012-01-03T06:05:29.657-08:00Write to Life
Reviewing a biography of Kurt Vonnegut has prompted more thinking about the difficulties if not impossibility of writing to the highest standards while being a decent human being who is fair to others. Vonnegut's biography is one of several literary exposes recently (of Joseph Heller, J.D. Salinger, and Hemingway again) that emphasize how bad they were at life. Hemingway as a Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-56130325274758336832012-01-03T02:07:00.000-08:002012-01-03T02:07:34.144-08:00
This is an early demonstration of a graph of storytelling that Vonnegut refined--but not a lot--over the years. It's about four minutes long.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-52900412739407729772011-10-06T03:33:00.000-07:002011-10-12T00:57:24.249-07:00
Three college teachers who were important to me have passed away in the past few months. The most recent was Sam Moon, the professor who sought me out and first talked to me as I was registering for classes at Knox College. I was there on the Scholastic Magazines Writing Awards Scholarship, and he was head of the writing program (which he pretty much invented.) I can see his face across the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-32379634408274270802011-09-07T22:38:00.000-07:002011-09-07T22:39:09.303-07:00Hillman on the Author's Battlefield
I was never in any military, and although I played at war endlessly for a few years as a boy, I never developed a lot of interest in the military vocabulary. But James Hillman was in the U.S. Navy during World War II, tending to amputees and other severely injured in hospitals. His last book (so far) was A Terrible Love of War, which according to the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-49295741763935180792011-09-01T01:33:00.000-07:002011-09-01T01:33:40.497-07:00"Music's not for stopping. You go till you drop...For me, it ends when it ends. Johnny Cash did his best work in the last two years of his life. That's what musicians should aim to do."
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of the Who, interview
in August 2011 "Uncut"Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-21795365716244980622011-07-27T21:37:00.000-07:002011-07-27T21:37:14.995-07:00For Ralph Waldo Emerson (that's his Concord house in the photo), the crucial unit of living time was the day. He was inspired by what could be accomplished or revealed in each new day, and frustrated by the lost hours, the plod of seemingly wasted days.
"Days" is probably his most famous poem:
Daughters of Time, the hypocrite Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-64429973683979506442011-06-06T23:01:00.000-07:002011-07-27T21:38:21.504-07:00"All my writings may be considered tasks imposed from within; their source was a fatal compulsion. What I wrote were things that assailed me from within myself. I permitted the spirit that moved me to speak out. I have never counted upon any strong response, any powerful resonance, to my writings. They represent a compensation for our times, and I have been impelled to say what no one wants Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-41547195567232852112011-05-14T00:01:00.000-07:002011-05-14T19:21:33.737-07:00
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould
White Pine Pictures
Nearly 30 years after his death, pianist Glenn Gould remains an icon. He’s one of the few classical musicians revered by peers who also has awestruck fans without expertise in that area of music. I’m one of those. I’ve collected his recordings, read two biographies, and have listened to few pieces of music—and none of classical Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-49200944104124162452011-05-05T02:01:00.000-07:002011-05-05T04:02:52.983-07:00"Find out as soon as possible what are the best things in your composition, and then shape the rest to fit them. The former will be the midrib and veins of the leaf.
There is always some accident in the best things, whether thoughts or expressions or deeds. The memorable thought, the happy expression, the admirable deed are only partly ours. The thought came to use because we were in a fit Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-10723745299327022132011-04-11T00:59:00.000-07:002011-04-11T00:59:22.350-07:00
So here's the dream: I'm in the driver's seat of a car, coming up to a huge truck. It is so big that my car could fit under its carriage with plenty of room on both sides. And that is what starts to happen--my car is moving slowly forward under this dark truck. You might expect I'd put a stop to this, but I then realize that I have no steering wheel in front of me. Instead I have a Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-19504329987353016402011-01-08T00:34:00.000-08:002011-01-08T00:36:23.379-08:00“The function of an artist is to work for a)himself b) to leave something memorable, for the future, to shore up the ruins.”Bruce Chatwinpainting: Self-Portrait by Gino SeveriniCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-50327765551240549042010-12-28T00:20:00.000-08:002010-12-28T00:21:19.889-08:00“Writing is always my metre of health—writing, which a sane philosopher would probably say was the surest symptom of a diseased mind.”Emerson Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-25661261084821612482010-12-26T12:35:00.000-08:002010-12-27T00:40:12.746-08:00Among the many things my mother didn't live to see was me, making pizzelles for Christmas, dancing around the kitchen to Glenn Miller. At this distance from family members and old friends, much of my Christmas is imaginary anyway. But as the years go on, my imagination is peopled by an increasing proportion of those who aren't around at all.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-15913582394167009482010-12-20T19:20:00.001-08:002010-12-20T19:20:57.811-08:00"The difference in the intelligence world between very clever and very stupid is often very small. It's the same in writing."John Le CarreCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-77786873161249566562010-10-29T01:50:00.000-07:002010-11-21T03:04:41.556-08:00Update: In the comments, Robert Z notes that November 11 is Kurt Vonnegut's birthday, and that a Vonnegut Museum is opening this week. Here's the hotlink.Second Update: Here's the New York Times story on the opening.Why I thought of Kurt Vonnegut when I was in the U. library looking for something else entirely I don't know. But I did, and I found two fairly obscure books which contain interviews Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-52138032579523282232010-10-25T03:26:00.000-07:002010-10-25T03:48:21.425-07:00 This is Amy Tan's talk on creativity that is posted at the TED site. One of our local cable access channels runs a package of TED talks probably every day, and I really enjoy seeing them on my TV rather than going directly to particular ones on my computer. Probably a result of being a TV kid.Although the audience laughs a lot during at least the first part of this talk, she is really talking Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-62306027569452743612010-10-11T04:43:00.000-07:002010-10-11T04:44:54.460-07:00“We measure ourselves by many standards. Our strength and our intelligence, our wealth and even our good luck, are things which warm our heart and make us feel ourselves a match for life. But deeper than all such things and able to suffice unto itself without them, is the sense of the amount of effort we can put forth...He who can make none is but a shadow; he who can make much is a hero.”WilliamCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-69472494539879141352010-10-04T00:41:00.000-07:002010-10-04T00:43:17.841-07:00 "He is a poor writer who does not teach courage of treatment."Emerson Painting: Heroic Roses by Paul KleeCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-62500724087104363682010-09-28T15:10:00.000-07:002010-10-01T00:56:33.968-07:00 "I lose days determining how hours should be spent."EmersonCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-81882036491774141292010-08-26T00:19:00.000-07:002010-10-25T04:17:24.035-07:00Returns The school year is starting and my paying work is taking more time. So the writing I've been doing on my own is likely to slow even more. But it's been interesting and rewarding in its way. I don't know that this writing will ever be published, so it needs to be its own reward, especially the process of it. And it has been, in unexpected ways.There's the intellectual/artistic challenge ofCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-85597693333475640962010-07-27T00:57:00.000-07:002010-10-25T04:23:17.995-07:00Patterns I've been writing a little about my grade school years. In the 1990s I researched and wrote about my family at the time of my birth (and well before.) I have revised those chapters many times, especially using the Internet and information shared by relatives. Then my early childhood, using what artifacts and information survived from those years. (Prime example here.) This summer, the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-41299522119285706962010-07-07T01:39:00.000-07:002010-07-07T01:46:04.910-07:00Mankind's Greatest Invention"Surely mankind's greatest invention is the sentence." So begins John Banville's essay on Robert C. Richardson's books on Emerson, in what has to be my favorite quote of recent years, perhaps of all time.When you're a writer, no matter how famous or obscure, whether you're one of the handful anointed by income or crowned by royalties to bear the title of writer, or Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-76151021432145068752010-06-28T23:23:00.000-07:002010-08-08T00:53:09.678-07:00PurposeFor ten years, between 1984 and 1994, Jeremy Brett played Sherlock Holmes in a series of 41 stories for Granada TV in the UK. His performances earned him the reputation as the definitive screen Holmes for his time, perhaps for all time. Any starring role in a long-running television series tends to absorb the life of the actor, as well as define these actors for their careers, and beyond. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-45910358377939474462010-06-16T23:32:00.000-07:002010-06-17T00:44:29.059-07:00The Proposal Driven LifeI wasted what probably amounted to a decade or more of my writing life on the futile efforts involved in creating book proposals. An agent I knew, a kind and intelligent man, was a particular advocate of writing elaborate proposals, which he gently insisted be written to his own formula, derived from his experience, and detailed in a couple of books he'd written. In an Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-71902812318185957492010-04-09T00:07:00.000-07:002010-08-08T01:03:53.605-07:00"Those lines on your palm they can be readfor a hidden part of your life that onlythose links can say--nobody's voicecan find so tiny a message as comesacross your hand. Forbidden to complain,you have tried to be like somebody else,and only this fine record you examinesometimes like this can remember whereyou were going before that longsilent evasion that your life became."William StaffordCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-89829136409414104102010-03-03T00:41:00.000-08:002010-04-05T04:41:39.557-07:00 My mother was born in Italy, and her family and the community of their friends who came over together were all a major part of my young life. Plus, when I was growing up in the 50s, there were prominent Italians in Hollywood, in music and sports: the era of Sinatra and DiMaggio. There were even songs on the hit parade in the Italian language.But it's been downhill since then. For years now, Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-16060962251139748712010-01-04T02:32:00.000-08:002010-02-03T15:17:28.715-08:00 “Chaplin’s great virtue, aside from his comedic gifts, was his emotional readiness. Those who don’t respond to it will be quick to deny that emotion, or to call him saccharine—and indeed, Chaplin did have a tendency to pull out all the emotional stops and risk bathos. But it always felt real. His was not false sentiment but rather a naked display of raw sentiment. And that’s more than forgivableCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-43461934296496145862009-11-05T01:43:00.000-08:002009-11-05T01:47:09.917-08:00 "The contrast between the wisdom of our literature and the folly of our rulers and voters is a melancholy proof that people get nothing out of books except what they bring to them, and that even when the books explode their prejudices and rebuke their villainies they will read their own dispositions into the books in spite of the authors, and hang up their instruments of torture and their Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-44398122713713556182009-10-31T01:18:00.000-07:002009-10-31T01:21:51.785-07:00 "The riddle of the age has for each a private solution."--Emerson "Fate"Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-8809429241393025802009-10-15T00:22:00.000-07:002009-10-15T00:23:52.410-07:00 "He had to choose. But it was not a choiceBetween excluding things. It was not a choiceBetween, but of. He chose to include the thingsThat in each other are included, the whole,The complicate, the amassing harmony."--Wallace StevensNotes Towards A Supreme Fiction Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-80242531708275489642009-09-20T02:38:00.000-07:002010-04-09T00:40:38.261-07:00 Woody Guthrie, bard of the Great Depression, who wrote so many great 30s tunes like "Hard Travelin'" and sang others like "The Hobo's Lullaby." That's one way I learned about the Great Depression, and another way quite recently was through letters to my father, as I write about in the post below. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-9761661682430950382009-09-20T02:29:00.000-07:002010-04-09T17:41:07.149-07:00Talking Great Depression BluesI posted this on my Stage Matters blog, in connection with a Dell'Arte School original production here on the North Coast about the Great Depression. But since it's about family and history, and what I learned on my summer vacation, it seems to me it also belongs here...I saw the Dell'Arte original show about the Great Depression, called The Body Remembers, shortly Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-7659386828437806712009-09-08T22:45:00.000-07:002009-09-08T22:54:52.282-07:00Little CoincidenceWithin the past few days:I was about to go back to some writing about H.G. Wells and The Time Machine for about the hundredth time. I turned on the TV, which was on the Turner Movie Channel. What was on? The Time Machine.I was towards the end of reading The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson, which includes stories about characters who appear in his Mars trilogy of novels (which ICaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-91981569731164904412009-07-14T00:22:00.000-07:002009-07-14T00:24:09.132-07:00In the "day time" I am what others expect, seem to want and need me to be.At night, I am what I need to be.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-7349734833459100992009-07-10T00:33:00.000-07:002009-07-10T01:35:13.803-07:00Who you are includes who you've been, and that includes who you've imagined being.Woke up thinking--I've been here over 12 years, and I've not attended a single wedding or funeral.I went to bed thinking--the complacency etc. of my parents and their generation drove me nuts when I was young. But the future disasters I saw for my lifetime are mostly still in the future. They'll shape the lives of Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-4945595916790717342009-07-05T03:07:00.000-07:002009-07-05T03:09:38.728-07:00 From Synedcoche, New York, an unusual film I just saw on video, described in the post below.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-3083502584727058822009-07-05T02:35:00.001-07:002009-07-05T03:03:15.503-07:00Synecdoche, SynecdocheI just saw a video of the film Synedoche, New York, written and directed by Charles Kaufman (who wrote Being John Malkovich, which I didn't much like, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I did kind of like.) This is an unusual film in form and content, which covers in dreamlike fashion some forty years in the life of Caden Cotard, a theater director in Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-65491555240835532642009-05-05T00:31:00.000-07:002009-05-05T00:38:20.501-07:00Of course everyone wants to be famous. Everyone wants a story. And if you aren't famous by 30 or 40 you'll never have a story. At best you'll be an anecdote in somebody else's story--a character in the subplot. Or an illustrative example--the old man who couldn't get health care, the young woman who got pregnant and dropped out. Some politician will use it in a speech perhaps. But you don't Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-68248804900932034482009-05-04T19:02:00.000-07:002009-05-04T19:13:49.523-07:00My school year work is mostly done, in a final spring paroxym of Music and Theatre department shows. So it's time to clean up the mess, go through the notebooks, file and throw away notes etc. I've made along the way.But this time, instead of just tossing the notes into folders for projects that seldom seem to escape those folders, I'm going to post some of them, as whim indicates.Some, that haveCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-76072490069264150142009-05-01T23:58:00.000-07:002009-05-02T01:10:55.328-07:00My maternal grandfather was a tailor. It was a craft with a long history-- in some ways, as old as civilization. My grandfather worked in a tailor shop in Pittsburgh and then in Greensburg, near the train station and the town's major hotels. But for most of his life after his children were born, he had his own tailor shop on Depot Street in Youngwood, an even smaller railroad town. I visited him Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-46334396723686792622009-05-01T23:34:00.000-07:002009-05-02T01:11:12.538-07:00When I was growing up in the 1950s, my father sold and repaired sewing machines for the Singer Sewing Machine Company. That logo was on the side of the gray panel truck he drove. For about a century, women used sewing machines at home to make and alter clothes for themselves and their families. Presumably that meant people made a living selling and repairing sewing machines for at least a Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-41556109192618814972009-05-01T22:04:00.000-07:002009-05-02T01:11:55.772-07:00Tools of my trade over the years...Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-65681073046126626352009-05-01T21:46:00.000-07:002010-06-01T01:58:43.895-07:00So I've worked at the writer's trade. Writing has been what I've done for income, in one form or another, as well as what I've mostly done, for one medium or another. Apart from my book, I've published in major newspapers and national magazines, and even some international ones. My writing for clients included some big projects. My resume looks pretty impressive.People have been writing Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-91713249337519898682009-05-01T20:45:00.000-07:002009-05-02T01:22:14.215-07:00 More tools of my trade, among the oldest, and for me they will likely be the last to go...Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-23604099073987920172009-05-01T19:28:00.000-07:002009-05-02T01:43:18.685-07:00Here's his main point: "But on the whole, the writing game seems likely to become even more a province of the upper middle class and flat-out wealthy than it is already. The offspring of the affluent, branded college degrees in hand, can afford to give it a go. But anyone hailing from more hardscrabble environs may find it too difficult to get traction before succumbing to the dismal economics ofCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-20841135831918506212009-03-17T23:31:00.000-07:002009-03-27T03:12:09.800-07:00Danny Boy It's a big St. Patrick's Day in Pittsburgh. Because in Washington, President Obama named Dan Rooney to be U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. Rooney, owner of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, is not only known as a statesman of the NFL, "Mr. Rooney was in Washington last night to be honored by the American Ireland Fund, the group he has nurtured as a force for peace in Northern Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-42145222495879432212009-02-09T03:01:00.000-08:002009-02-09T03:13:10.277-08:00 First, before I purge my junk email file, I want to record the subject line of the latest from one of the many kind strangers in foreign countries who want to give me money: Your pleasant response is required. My pleasant response to a day of rain and a forecast for more is, hey, I really enjoyed the sunny Saturday at Trinidad--as did everyone I saw and met on the beach and on the head--but it Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-16989011203930263112009-02-02T21:50:00.000-08:002009-02-02T22:05:16.616-08:00 Happy birthday, James Joyce. Other people remember it's Groundhog Day. Every year I remember February 2 is James Joyce's birthday. It was an important day to him. He arranged to have several of his books published on this day. He was an important writer for me, beginning with the day in high school when a renegade nun slipped me a forbidden copy of A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man. His Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-48397989553975563422009-02-01T23:35:00.000-08:002009-02-02T00:58:45.647-08:00 Again, it wasn't pretty. The Steelers couldn't punch it in close to the goal line. Both the offense and defense ran hot and cold. And it sure wasn't easy, but it was true to their pattern: one amazing defensive play--in this case, an interception and the longest run for a touchdown in Super Bowl history--and a last minute drive engineered by Big Ben for a touchdown. Santonio Holmes got the MVP Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-16535217485609853822009-01-23T00:22:00.000-08:002009-01-23T00:42:05.395-08:00 The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Baltimore Ravens, so on February 1 they will play the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl. It was a typical Steelers win: dominant defense and an offense that did almost everything that usually loses the game: blown touchdowns, stupid and costly penalties, a fumble, short yardage failure etc. Which only meant that they weren't leading 31-0 at halftime. The Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-77847570258177626082009-01-13T03:37:00.000-08:002009-01-14T23:12:21.740-08:00By beating San Diego Sunday, the Steelers bring home another playoff game to Pittsburgh. What a year! The league's media darlings--the Patriots, the Colts, the current champion Giants, the Cowboys, Fauvre and the Jets, Miami, even San Diego was a sweetheart for awhile--they're all gone, out of it, finito. All that's left are four scrappy never say die teams who often win ugly and sometimes lose Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-21001195442987593032009-01-04T02:01:00.000-08:002009-01-12T01:44:34.039-08:00PlayoffsSteeler Update 1/11: Steelers 35-24 over San Diego. The Steelers rediscovered the running game, with a finally healthy Willie Parker, and pass protection. Since the Baltimore Ravens won their game, the conference championship between the Steelers and Ravens will be in Pittsburgh, which means another $20 million or so for the city, and a lot of partying. The Steelers ended their seasonCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-60580145063696926592008-12-25T04:47:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:48:45.130-08:00"Christmas 1951," a narrative complete in posts and images, below.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-91793986080697598282008-12-25T04:05:00.000-08:002011-12-21T03:17:53.903-08:00Christmas 1951: An Introduction
What follows (in a series of posts punctuated by images) is the latest version of a fictional account, "Christmas 1951."
It is set in 1951 mostly because of the age of the protagonist. It is his last Christmas before starting first grade. But it turns out to be a year for certain other innocences and connections with the past to end, or begin ending. The trolley Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-11381813034944801402008-12-25T03:58:00.000-08:002010-08-08T00:54:50.370-07:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-34875472924303257332008-12-25T03:54:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:31:59.945-08:00Christmas 1951Flora had some last minute shopping to do before going to Arnwood to help Mum with Christmas Eve cooking, so Walt came home for a few minutes in the afternoon to pick them up. He was working at the store on Main Street today. She told Billy to call and remind him, and watched as Billy asked the operator for 409, which was the Singer store number. He knew that number and their home Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-45062027798064534432008-12-25T03:31:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:03:19.010-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-58517893401616246332008-12-25T03:04:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:09:32.405-08:00When Billy saw the golden court house dome at the top of the hill he knelt on the hump between the built-in seats of the truck to look at the gray stone courthouse itself, the largest building he had seen so far in his five and a half years.Just before Main Street, Walt pulled a little ways into an alley to let them out. Once she and Kathy were down, Billy climbed out and watched the truck Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-1770910343314158912008-12-25T02:56:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:07:54.248-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-88740340397761700012008-12-25T02:39:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:32:47.181-08:00“Billy Boy!” grandma cried and gave him a big hug and kiss. First it felt warm and then too hot and he wriggled away. Pup pup was standing behind her at the door and he laughed. Pup pup's face was scratchy when Billy kissed him. He smelled like his after shave, Old Spice, which came in a white bottle that they got him for Christmas. Daddy's aftershave was in a green bottle, it was Mennen.Mummy Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-14030265138132199232008-12-25T02:27:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:19:14.408-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-1030568240055573482008-12-25T02:19:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:33:16.364-08:00They rode through the dark to United, along winding roads with rounded hills occasionally outlined in dimly seen snow. Billy watched the roads and tried to recognize where they were going, but apart from the darkness he didn’t take this ride enough to remember it. He knew the route to Arnwood pretty well but not this one. When they suddenly slowed down and turned down a road with houses around itCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-66270141745939178182008-12-25T02:02:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:23:39.095-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-80412922783624592702008-12-25T01:23:00.000-08:002009-01-13T03:46:43.602-08:00Billy awoke early the next morning in his own bed in his own room. He wondered if it was too early, but he was awake right away. He had a double bed, his mother had told him, because someday he might have a brother. Kathy had her own room, too, but she slept in a crib that mummy said had been his. Kathy is still a baby, just learning things. He has to help her once in awhile because he is older. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-5598469731537033612008-12-25T01:09:00.000-08:002008-12-25T04:31:05.124-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-86945229250013172252008-12-16T14:33:00.000-08:002010-05-23T23:50:43.331-07:00 Jane Austen in Hollywood: celebrating her birthday with a DVD (see post below.)Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-28843530247943906322008-12-16T14:01:00.000-08:002010-05-23T23:52:31.751-07:00On Jane DayIt's Jane Austen's birthday. We recently saw two of the Austen-themed movies on DVD. Becoming Jane was ostensibly about Austen, puffing up what biographers consider a brief acquaintance into a major love affair. Apart from that, it was somewhat true to Austen's life. We see her madly writing Pride and Prejudice in response to this affair. Though she didn't publish Pride and Prejudice Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-68058786033526487672008-12-08T02:39:00.000-08:002008-12-18T03:59:13.893-08:00 Pema's Progress: Before her original discovery of laps, Pema enjoyed sunbathing and philosophy. Click photo to enlarge.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-48923435234488561662008-12-08T02:00:00.000-08:002008-12-08T02:52:02.375-08:00Pema's ProgressMy last Pema update was nearly two years ago, and I said that our previously semi-feral cat was near to discovering laps-- optimistically, as it turned out. Because she only became clear on the concept within the last couple of months. And of course, she now owns it.I think it may have happened because we got rid of our old couch before we got a new one, and substituted two chairs Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-89104635180154633602008-12-08T01:28:00.000-08:002008-12-08T02:29:41.320-08:00We don't know anything about Pema's family background. I doubt this photo off the web is it--but it could be...Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-328212540794759512008-11-30T17:41:00.000-08:002008-12-08T01:59:48.155-08:00So far, so good: in their first big test of these final five games, the Pittsburgh Steelers used opportunistic defense and offense to dominate the New England Patriots, 33-10 at Foxboro. Considering that the Patriots have routinely dashed the Steelers' playoff hopes in past year, this one was especially sweet. The Steelers stay atop their division at 9-3, while the Patriots may have lost their Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-37596869469812277332008-11-28T01:11:00.000-08:002008-11-28T01:11:00.162-08:00Steeler UpdateDespite injuries to key personnel, a sub-par year for (injured) quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and a schedule that is acknowledged to be the toughest for any team in the NFL this year, the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers are currently 8-3 and leading their division.I pause to note this now, because this could be the high point of their season. The toughest part of that tough schedule is Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-38070961008913868462008-11-10T15:08:00.000-08:002008-11-28T02:53:56.489-08:00Math MisapplicationI'm not exactly a math whiz. I can still remember the day in grade school when I looked up at the long division examples strung out in a display above the blackboard, and I realized this was a language that was rapidly getting beyond me. So that's my disclaimer, and take the rest of this for what it's worth.Math likely began as a way to describe and use elements of the real Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-29434034642773501082008-09-21T02:53:00.000-07:002008-09-21T02:54:09.084-07:00The student film that launched a movie empire:"Amblin," now available on YouTube!Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-12348502322146188152008-09-21T02:22:00.000-07:002008-09-21T02:49:23.683-07:00Still a MysteryIn 1967-68, I was the go-between on my campus for an experimental film series. Compilations of films were sent from Hollywood or somewhere, and I booked the room, put up the posters and, not incidentally, saw all the films.They were short films, probably a lot of student work. As I recall, there was a lot of trippy animation and even trippier live action films, all very Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-78963584183191770342008-09-11T01:20:00.000-07:002008-09-11T01:22:14.013-07:00 It's 1960 on AMC's Mad Men. Or is it?Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-59365564911337180922008-09-11T00:47:00.000-07:002008-09-11T01:24:38.151-07:00Mad MenI'd seen ads for the AMC series Mad Men, but missed the first few, so I gave up trying to follow it. Too bad, because we enjoyed their previous original series, Remember WENN (about a fictional early-- Pittsburgh radio station; in fact, Pittsburgh had one of the first radio stations and a couple of the first TV stations in the country.) That was back in the days before AMC started running Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-45855720275306077012008-07-25T23:59:00.000-07:002008-12-10T04:08:37.411-08:00Valjean in Mexico just this spring, a photo postedby her friends. May she rest in peace. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-10441535497547256262008-07-25T23:51:00.000-07:002008-07-26T05:09:21.782-07:00R.I.P. ValjeanI mentioned her to someone earlier today, so tonight it occurred to me to check the blog she started when she was diagnosed with lung cancer last December. The last time I checked, she had successfully completed her final round of treatments.But it turns out that earlier today, her ashes were buried in Chicago. Valerie Jean McLenighan died on July 9. She was 60. Fortunately, she hadCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-84644307664168220642008-07-22T01:56:00.000-07:002008-12-10T04:08:37.655-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-52938630861939696762008-07-22T01:42:00.000-07:002008-07-22T01:58:24.199-07:00Seventh Inning StretchApart from these personal reflections (below) on my birth and that year, I feel an urgency that given my status in life is faintly embarrassing. Although nobody else seems to care one way or another whether I accomplish anything more, or leave anything behind, it matters a great deal to me.I want to make something of my past, so that it survives for those who may not be all Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-86424366515251766952008-06-30T23:50:00.000-07:002008-12-10T04:08:37.858-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-55962770791058841692008-06-30T15:40:00.000-07:002009-11-19T00:49:18.695-08:00Birth DayI was born into a much different America on this date in 1946. There were half as many people in it, and these days it seems they were also about half the size of people today. Since I was the first born of my generation on both sides of the family, there were a lot of relatives who came to see me. My grandfather Severini was just 53, and he had survived poison gas in World War I in Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-21350011152790796882008-06-17T16:32:00.000-07:002008-12-10T04:08:38.481-08:00Waters RisingWe were about an hour from Burlington, Iowa--the first photo, pictured today--and I went there a few times when I was a student at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Out of the five years I was in the area (there and at the U. of Iowa in Iowa City), I can recall going out to fill sandbags and so on during three springs. That's sandbagging this week in Iowa City in the second photo,Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-21980985601926276442008-06-17T13:44:00.000-07:002008-06-28T00:08:25.749-07:00Sports UpdateTiger Woods held off Rocco Mediate in a marathon U.S. Open. How Woods did it, while dealing with knee pain, for an extra 18 holes and then a sudden death hole, is quite an epic story. But so is Rocco, at least where I come from. He's from Latrobe, PA, about 10 miles from where I grew up, and where one of my sisters and her husband have pretty much always lived. Latrobe was also the Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-59909222331258414472008-06-15T22:29:00.000-07:002008-06-28T00:06:52.253-07:00FatherMy father and I had a difficult and incomplete relationship. Now I'm in the decade of my life that was the last of his.There are times that I am astonished by his life. He came from a coal patch, growing up in a company owned house. By then the coal was about played out there. He was young in the depths of the Depression, when people in such places were starving. The only story I know aboutCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-35912344449273690952008-05-26T01:02:00.000-07:002008-06-28T00:09:30.965-07:00OriginsWhy did human beings need religion? Most attempts to imagine origins of human behavior in pre-historic times are remarkably uninformed. People make suppositions based on imagining the thousands of years when we became human about on the level of a Flintstone cartoon.I don't claim deep knowledge but thanks primarily to reading Paul Shepard I can do better than that. So my answers may be a Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-42116756706726098952008-05-25T18:33:00.000-07:002008-06-28T00:04:05.743-07:00MomentsWe partake of timelessness even in the rushing flow of time. What is “the moment” but a piece of timelessness? It cannot be measured. Once it is perceived, it is over. Yet we return to certain moments all our lives, even unconsciously. How are they time? And how are they not? Neither apart from time nor of it, the moment stands in for nearly everything else of significance in our lives. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-46735377835234062832008-04-01T01:32:00.000-07:002008-04-01T01:57:20.323-07:00The Cruelty of HopeIn 1968, this was a happy day. There weren't many that year. But the night before, on March 31, President Johnson ended a TV address with the words we thought we would never hear, "I will not seek, and I will not accept" the Democratic nomination for reelection to the presidency.I watched it on the nearest TV set, which was several doors down First Street in Galesburg, IllinoisCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-67183867846056920622007-12-27T04:17:00.000-08:002008-12-10T04:08:38.663-08:00Another North Coast variation--instead of buyingand/or cutting down a fir tree, we use the pruningof a redwood tree in the yard. This is last year's.Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-64563216132622476072007-12-27T03:21:00.000-08:002007-12-27T04:21:07.009-08:00Christmas Past PresentWe had a quiet but good Christmas. We visited with our far-flung families by phone: I talked with my sisters in western PA., Margaret with her mother in Virgina, son in New Mexico and daughter in San Francisco. They and their families, and the rest of our families, all are healthy and solvent, so that's a good Christmas right there.Our Christmas dinner included wild salmon, Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-86243020976021141572007-12-21T02:48:00.000-08:002008-12-10T04:08:39.256-08:00Big Ben earlier this season in an old-style PittsburghSteelers' uniform, celebrating the team's 75th year. Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-14317280677667410292007-12-21T01:56:00.000-08:002008-01-13T17:05:48.563-08:00Them Steelers 2007Last night the Pittsburgh Steelers broke a two game losing streak in St. Louis, winning 41-24, but losing their star running back, Willie Parker, for the rest of the season with a broken leg. It's been that kind of season, in an odd kind of year.The year is odd because there are several teams with exceptionally good records, and a number of teams with very bad ones. With three Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-1537208956359194052007-12-04T01:02:00.000-08:002008-12-10T04:08:39.388-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-63199754470980618972007-12-04T00:24:00.001-08:002007-12-04T04:28:04.702-08:00A Book Sale and SadnessI recently attended a book sale at the Humboldt University Library, and not for the first time. They sell books that have been donated, and books the library is discarding. I have complex feelings about both categories, and the sale itself.I don't mind buying books that have been donated, though when I donate books to the library, I mean for them to wind up on the library Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-3206789812797465672007-04-30T00:08:00.000-07:002008-12-10T04:08:39.647-08:00 from the Knox MagazineCaptain Futurenoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-81810280315260577722007-04-30T00:02:00.000-07:002007-12-04T01:09:57.218-08:00Captain Toothpaste ReturnsWHO IS CAPTAIN TOOTHPASTE? asked the bold print on the last page of the Knox Magazine spring 2007 issue. That’s easy. I am.Or I was in 1968. I cut a record under that name, which was included in an issue of the Knox College literary magazine. The song was called “Nightdove.” Thanks to Knox Magazine, you can hear it yourself, right here. That’s me singing and playing Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-51909999692525978382007-04-23T21:24:00.000-07:002008-12-10T04:08:40.011-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-81839915182449238362007-04-23T21:07:00.000-07:002007-04-24T21:11:10.981-07:00Shakespeare's BirthdayApril 23 is designated as Shakespeare's birthday. It's also the date of his death. There's some factual basis for this date--William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, when it was the custom for that to happen 3 days after birth. But there's some evidence his family celebrated April 22 as his actual birthday.However it is parsed, it's appropriate for the greatest known Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3705107.post-61000167111241436462007-04-12T02:03:00.000-07:002008-12-10T04:08:40.195-08:00Captain Futurenoreply@blogger.com0