Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Midnight in Prague and certainly not going to stay  awake for the results from West Virginia, but  fingers crossed.

I did a bit of work on my next poetry book today, which I’d originally thought I’d call “A Search for Enlightenment” because that’s sort of what writing poetry is about for me, no mantras, no organized meditation, no gurus, the  way I see it everybody has to find their own  path because if it isn’t your own path then how can  you find your own truth at the end of it, but then I decided to call it ‘Geology’ after one very short poem, this one:

The story of the Earth is told
in lithic letters, big and bold
every pile of rocks we see:
Geology

which speaks to another concept, which I’ve tried to write about many times, which is that the truth of the universe is actually written in the current of the streams, the leaves of the trees, and the rocks.  It’s like a different, primeval language.
Then I thought I might call it ‘The Written World’ after one of the much longer poems, but nah, for some reason I like the name ‘Geology.’

What I was doing today though, was just taking the list of poems I’ve got saved and arranging them, the longer ones one to a page (there are only two or three which are more than one page) and the shorter ones three to a page, which I think should give the book a nice, structured, yet uncluttered look.
I’m about halfway  through the task, but I’m coming up short.  I might need to still write a dozen or so poems to flesh it out.  If so, that’s what I’ll do.

One of my persistent fantasies is that this social media phenomenon will continue to grow and expand and become more sophisticated until it is, in fact, a group mind, a sort of hybrid artificial intelligence, a combination of the best minds of all mankind with the speed of computers, a superintelligence which can figure out the answers to all of mankind’s problems.
Of course, there are a couple of problems with that, as anyone who has ever used social media for more than 5 minutes is well aware.

Through Facebook, I’ve become involved in a few different groups. Some art, some poetry, some Bernie Sanders.  The past few days, it’s reached sort of a critical mass.  I open up my hotmail, and where I usually see between 10 and 20 new  messages once or twice a day, now I see 150-200 3 or 4 times a day.  Mostly it’s the Bernie or Bust group, but also the  Artists trying to make a living group.

Both groups have thousands of  members and, it seems, nobody in either group reads anybody else’s responses.  Because it they did, they’d see that somebody else had already said the thing they just have to say.  Original thought is the exception.  I guess that’s why they call it original thought.

The only way to avoid the flood of messages would be to not respond to any of the posts from those groups and, in that case, why bother belonging at all?
I’m still working through it.  One effect of this political season is I’m learning a bit more about how to use  social media.  I still have a long way to go.  And social media is still evolving.

I spent a couple of hours this  morning arguing politics on  the internet, and I just spent a couple of hours now arguing politics on  the internet, but in between had quite  a relaxed, lovely day.
Sam had a football  game, but we didn’t  get there until about 5 minutes before the end.   The scoreboard  said 5-0 but we had no idea who was ahead.  They looked  pretty evenly matched  to me.  Sam’s team got a goal in the final seconds, we saw the score change to 5-1, and that was that.

Pruhonice, Today

Helena and I had planned a walk in the park, but Sam wanted to go hang out  with his friends.  That actually made things a lot easier.  The park is Pruhonice, in the town of Pruhonice, and we try to go there once a year, around this time.

They have a castle, which I suspect was just built as part of the park/botanical garden.  It’s a bit on the small side, as castles go, and a little bit too perfect.  Sort of like the Princess’ castle at Disneyland.  The park is a series of ponds and streams, with flowers galore.  The specialty is rhododendrons, and if you can catch it at the peak time, which we never seem to, it is spectacular.

As we entered, in the yard in front of the castle, they were in bloom and I said “Ah, this year we’ve hit it just right” but that did not prove to be the case.  Several of the bushes at higher elevations, along the crest of the  hill, were in bloom, but those at lower elevations, in the shadows, had not bloomed yet.  Indirect sunlight.
It was still very pretty.  We walked around for a bit over an hour, sat by a waterfall and drank from the stream.

Then we had lunch at an outdoor cafe just outside the park.  Fried cheese and french  fries for me, with a ginger flavored house lemonade.  Ginger  is one of those flavors that you have to get just  right.  Not too little, not too much.  They did a good job.  Helena had gnocchi  with chicken and a creamy spinach sauce.  I  rated it excellent, she wasn’t quite so impressed

Then we got a bit lost walking back to the  car, but that was O.K.  The local residents,it seems, take their town’s reputation as a city of  flowers seriously, and we saw some very nice gardens.

There’s no real point to any of this.  It was just a nice day.

We were  arguing  about that case in Arkansas that’s been  going around the internet  lately, that happened back when Hillary was an attorney in Arkansas, when she represented a guy who was accused of raping a 12 year old girl.  First of all (and I did say this in the comments section as well), First of all I think this is a bogus argument  for we Berners.  We’ve got her dead to rights on corruption, war mongering, anti-environmentalism and election rigging, we should stick with that.  After all, as a lawyer, she was just doing her job.  She didn’t rape that little girl.

But, I also said I thought maybe the fact that she got the guy off was due mostly to the fact that she was the Attorney  General’s wife, and maybe the prosecutors ‘lost’ that cut out piece of the gentleman’s underwear accidentally/on purpose, because maybe he  was wealthy and/or somehow politically connected.  I didn’t say I had proof.  I said it could be.

Well, the self-appointed lawyer of the thread started raging about  how I had no proof and it wasn’t right to just make stuff up.

Well, screw you, lawyer dude.  It’s facebook, it’s not a court of law, and people are allowed as many “sounds like to me”s as they like.

For instance, I just read an  article saying that the only race that doesn’t have any Neanderthal DNA is the black race, and my first thought was “Aha, maybe the lightening of the skin wasn’t over the course of thousands of years, due to the greater solar absorption of pale skin leading to greater surviveability in less sunny climates, but maybe it happened in a single generation, just from a bit of inter-racial rumpty bumpty.”  (I really don’t see how Neanderthals can be considered a separate species, if we were able to interbreed, and not with impotent offspring like mules.  That makes them no more than a different race)

It’s speculation.  I’m not an anthropologist.  I’m just one guy in the conversation, who has a different idea.

When somebody invents something, I speculate about  how it could be used and misused, I’m constantly speculating about aliens and how likely we are or aren’t to meet them, and whenever I see a video of somebody going crazy in a fast food restaurant or shooting themselves in the leg I speculate about what drugs they are on.

And when there’s a court case?  Hoo-boy, I ain’t the only one speculating.

Today was my 62nd birthday.  That’s a big one.  After 18 and 21, it’s probably the most significant birthday that doesn’t end in zero.  It’s retirement age, the beginning of Social Security – in America, at any rate and, even though I don’t live there, I’ll be getting it, and damned glad of it.

Of course, it doesn’t  mean I’m finished working.  Writers work forever. I imagine I’ll be maintaining this blog, writing at least one tweet a day, churning out the books of poetry,  and maybe  even a  few  novels, until I die, which hopefully will be very  far in the future.  I just saw a headline that one  scientist thinks people will start  living forever from 2029.  That gives me a goal.  Gotta stay in it to win it.
I also intend to keep teaching English, because  that’s just  what  I do.  Money aside, it has become an integral part of my identity.  Having such  a sharply defined identity is a good thing.  It gives me reassurance.

There was a funny moment in one  class today.  4 to 6 year olds, and they were getting totally  out of line.  We were playing “Don’t Pick Your Nose,” which, admittedly is  not a very challenging game.  No more skill required than candy  land.  The boys were just throwing their cards  all over the place.  The girls weren’t being quite so bad, but they were laughing with the boys.  We came to the card that says “You are sitting  on a crowded bus and an elderly lady gets on.  What do you do?”
I felt it was time  for a change of pace, so  I pulled out 4 chairs and we played bus.  If I can’t teach them English, maybe at least I’ll teach them some manners.

Then, because I had a serious point I wanted to make, I started speaking to them in Czech.  My point was that  English may be a different language and there are lots of languages in the world, but some things are universal, and giving your seat to an old person on a crowded bus  is one of  them.
One of the girls  was looking at me totally wide eyed and she suddenly blurted  out “You speak Czech!”  The lesson about  international public  transportation  etiquette was totally lost.