Reading, Writing, and Other Stuff . . .

The reading and reading of stories and stories again and again over the multiple years has affected me and still affects me in a two-fold way, attracting me to the positive pole of inspired emulation to bask in sheer admiration and utter awe of such artful word conjunctions, while simultaneously repelling me from the negative pole of fearful failure where the unlettered lout is rightly left to quake alone in quotidian darkness at night enclosed in a shroud of lightless fright.

Considering, for example:

Here is a short excerpt taken from Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien:

So Paul Berlin winged it. Flat out through the Anatolian flatlands and down the townless, lightless country toward the sea, hell-bent for water, knowing now the full meaning of desperado.

Clear, direct, incomparable artistry.

And that's all I have to say about that.

. . .

Yesterday was Sunday, a day of rest, so I sent myself out for a relaxing walk along a sand-packed rocky desert path with my camera to seek out some substance in nature's abundance of such.

Below are samples of what I saw along the way:

(Click each picture to see a larger view)

There are more, but . . .

Yet Another Weak End

Saturday, if I remember correctly was, in olden times before my 1991 retirement, a welcome day of freedom, a happy surcease from the workaday routine of mindlessly slogging through seemingly endless hours of forced labor or of circumstance-necessitated torturous toil. Is Saturday still, in this modern era, a day of relief from tension? A day spent openly in much needed rest and relaxation that it once was?

I wonder.

Of course, my thoughts on this matter run deeper than the mere mention appearing in the above opening paragraph. But this is not the proper venue for elaboration. In fact, there is only one form of expression that I know of that is suitable for this potentially embarrassing or possibly hurtful bit of questionable exposition, and that is within a supposedly fictional narrative.

Oh for pity's sake!

I do indeed whine and whimper my coward's way through this temporary term of biological life. A writer? An author? Me?

Hah!

. . .

Yesterday's mail yielded up to me a book I had ordered five days ago from one of Amazon.com's used book vendors, a soft-cover novel that I had purchased online for three dollars plus shipping and handling. The book's title is Going After Cacciato, written by Tim O'Brien and (endorsed?) suggested in passing by my friend Anthony V. Toscano --and thus became a must-read in my own mind.

Since I finished a re-reading of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God last night I will begin my first reading of Going After Cacciato tonight in bed before going to sleep.

. . .

Mike and JoAnn, those two beloved workaholics, are out playing golf, finally relaxing on this beautiful early Saturday morning in Tucson and Eva is sleeping in boneless repose on the carpet in the front parlor so I am alone here in front of my computer terminal with my always roiling thoughts tumbling madly around inside the mysterious something that I choose to call my mind.

Is it apparent to you that I am typing down words as they occur to me without benefit of a censor? A first draft, as it were? That's exactly what I am doing. Believe it or not.

"So what?" you might ask.

Good question.

I have no answer.

None is needed.

(Am I really going to post this piece of drivel?)