One Hundred Seventy-Eight

Posted on June 27, 2015 by John Swinburn

Solving problems generally requires acknowledging their existence. That’s why many problems never seem to go away. For example, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Ted Cruz. Perhaps if I did, he would.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

Consciousness

Posted on June 26, 2015 by John Swinburn

We assume creatures like crustaceans and caterpillars have no consciousness of that “thing:” we call emotion. How could they, after all? They are not human so how could they possibly possess a human characteristic like emotion? Yet we do not hesitate to ascribe to dogs the capacity not only to feel emotional ups and downs like humans, but to influence our emotions. Where, then, is the dividing line between consciousness, in the human sense, and simple existence?

Perhaps we believe only mammals are capable of emotion. But we tend to think of cats as cold and emotionless (at least I do), self-absorbed creatures capable of caring only for and about themselves. And what about goats and raccoons and anteaters?

Quite some time ago, I wrote a few comments about an experiment that suggested the possibility of plants responding to external stimuli (in the form of temperature or wounds) in a way akin to the way animal respond to pain.  I had always assumed, as I think do most people, plants lack the physical structures necessary to feel pain. But that assumption is based on so many other assumptions that have no basis in known facts; our assumptions rely on our incredibly limited experience. The experiment gave me pause; just how myopic is my view of the world?

Our experience is based solely on our experience; we cannot experience the world around us as anything but ourselves. We cannot realistically hope to know how a dog or an otter or a dragonfly experiences the world. But, often, we behave as if we know how they see the world. Most of them, we believe, are automatons who experience the world entirely in instinctual reactions to both internal and external stimuli. Ants behave in biochemically predictive ways. Cardinals and pigeons fly through life in similarly reactive states; not thinking, but simply being.  Or so we assume.

Why is it we have no compunction about killing a spider or a cockroach, yet we respond in horror when we hear about someone killing a kitten or a seal?

Somewhere in this confused jumble of thoughts on the consciousness of living things is a theory of life, but it’s just an embryonic idea that needs time to grow before attempting to crawl out of my head.  I think an article by Micheal Gerson, sent to me by a friend, reviewing Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” may have nourished that seed of an idea.

Posted in Just Thinking, Nature, Philosophy | 4 Comments

One Hundred Seventy-Seven

Posted on June 26, 2015 by John Swinburn

Frequently, I will allow someone whose perspectives differ radically from mine—even when I believe their perspectives are biased and immoral and fundamentally wrong—to make their case without allowing myself to automatically reject their arguments. Usually, I find their arguments weak and unpersuasive. Occasionally, though, my mind will not be changed about the position on the issue, but about the immorality and bias I assigned to the person making the case.

So it was today, when I read an impassioned argument that the Confederate flag should not be “thrown into the wastebin of history.” Though I still believe the Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred, I believe it is not always a symbol of hatred. For some, it really is a symbol of heritage. That notwithstanding, I have not changed my position on the flag; it should be preserved in museums and not in homes or in public buildings. But we should not ban it, any more than we should ban books. We should feel free to condemn it and the hatred associated with it. But we should take in account those who want and need a symbol of their heritage and help them identify other symbols that do not carry with them the pain that flag inflicts on others.

Posted in Ruminations | 2 Comments

From Dust

Posted on June 25, 2015 by John Swinburn

Too many smiles.
Too many smiles in a time of sadness.
What are they thinking?
Don’t they see what’s
happening all around them?
Aren’t they aware of
the ugliness on
every street corner?
I don’t understand
how they can ignore
the unraveling of
humankind.
Yet they just go on smiling.
Singing as they brush the dust
from their shoulders,
they pick up bricks from
the bomb-shattered wall,
and stack them in neat piles.
They must be blind
to the hopelessness
buried in the rubble.
They must be deaf to
the cries of pain.
They must be crazy.
Only the insane would
smile when all hope is
lost. Only the insane
would sing in the
face of death.
I watch them smile,
day after day,
wondering what will become
of them when all the rubble
is cleared, neatly stacked.
I watch as new walls emerge
from their salvaged brick,
new homes arise from the dust.
I, too, have been made crazy
in this time
of sadness,
this time of
hopelessness,
this time of
impossibility.
I smile as I
dust off a
brick from
a newly
wounded
wall.

Posted in Poetry | 1 Comment

Growing into Something

Posted on June 25, 2015 by John Swinburn

As I was driving to Little Rock yesterday morning to take my wife in for a “pre-colonoscopy consult,”  I listened to a fascinating program on the Diane Rehm show on NPR. Diane and her guests were discussing a book, Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng. In spite of repeated suggestions that people who had not yet read the book should turn down the volume, I listened. I’ve not read the book. But now, I must!

As I listened to the plot and the intricate paths the author took with the story line, I became more and more enchanted with the writer and her writing. I decided I have to read the book.  Part of that enchantment and desire to read it emanates from a storyline I have contemplated for months: a young black man, an adoptee to a progressive young white couple, confronts the reality of race and bigotry, just as does his sister, an Hispanic child only a couple of years older.  There are other characters. They may be unnecessary.  But I cannot let the book die just because another one with a backwards plot might be in the running.

I may have finally outlined the basics of a novel I may one day write. Or maybe not. I cannot be trusted to finish things I start.

 

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

One Hundred Seventy-Six

Posted on June 25, 2015 by John Swinburn

Honestly, now. Wouldn’t your life be a lot calmer and your time on this earth more serene if you ‘d just stop blaming people, including yourself, for the state of affairs? Wouldn’t it be easier just to change the world? You know it would. Start with yourself.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

On Mood and Meaning and Waiting

Posted on June 24, 2015 by John Swinburn

This morning, I could write about a thousand ideas, but none of them seem sufficiently relevant to me to warrant the expenditure of enough energy to bring those thoughts to life. I start writing about something that’s mildly interesting to me, then stop when I realize the requisite fire is just not there.

This is nothing new. Looking at my “drafts” folder for this blog, I see that I have started, but not finished, fifty-five posts. A few of those drafts contain the seeds of ideas that, with nourishment, have the potential of growing into essays or stories or even chapters of a novel. Some others, of course, I will eventually delete because they were dull or stupid from the start, wastes of the energy required to tap letters onto the keyboard; their deserved malnourishment will, ultimately, lead to their demise.

Today, the obstacle to writing something that matters is a combination of anger and the inability to properly articulate complex thoughts. I am angry this morning because I made the mistake of reading drivel complaining about immigrants and immigration posted by people whose words show clearly how willfully ignorant of the facts they are.  Yet I cannot write clear sentences exposing those words for the bias and hatred that launched them.  I am in a dangerous mood, the kind of mood that makes sharp machetes look like better tools than keyboards—precisely the kind of mood that launched the idiotic diatribes that led me to allow myself to respond the way I am responding.

Knowledge is such a precious thing.  It can, when married to experience, lead to flashes of insight that have the capacity to solve staggering problems and make lives richer and more complete. Anger, though, can burn through knowledge like a hot piece of steel can burn through wax, leaving nothing but a useless puddle in its wake. I dare not, in this state of mind, attempt to turn one of those fifty-five drafts into something meaningful, because I might risk turning one with potential into a puddle.

So, I will attempt to douse the flames in my brain with coffee.  And maybe I’ll imaging myself sitting in a chair on a desolate beach on a cool, cloudy day, the odor of the ocean filling my nostrils and a beautiful puppy sitting comfortably in my lap. I’ll listen to the sounds of the waves lapping against the beach and watch the shore birds skim the surface of the water. Maybe that will do it.

Posted in Just Thinking, Writing | Leave a comment

One Hundred Seventy-Five

Posted on June 24, 2015 by John Swinburn

You approach me, your eyes fiercely blue and focused, as a friend. But you leave me as a lover. Is this something you dreamed or something you experienced? Or both? And, for me, what can I say but I am simply an active observer of what might be, or could have been. Imagination is stronger than steel, yet more malleable than clay.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

A Constitutional Rant

Posted on June 23, 2015 by John Swinburn

I wish, sincerely, Second Amendment advocates and “strict constructionists” of the Constitution would do their effing homework. Just for the record, here’ s a brief synopsis of the real world:

  • U.S. Constitution (absent the first ten amendments) was adopted in September, 1787, but it was not ratified until June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth of the thirteen states to ratify it.
  • The Second Amendment (one of ten amendments that form the Bill of Rights) was adopted on December 15, 1791.  People who can read calendars will understand that the Second Amendment, then, was not ratified until three and one-half years after the Constitution was adopted.  What this means, among other things, is that the original document can be changed, augmented, and otherwise clarified in light of circumstances and events that take place in an ever-changing world. So, for example, just like the twenty-first amendment overturned the eighteenth amendment (prohibition), the second amendment could be changed to reflect changes in the world in which we live.
  • In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that (and the emphasis here is my own), “The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence” and limited the applicability of the Second Amendment to the federal government.
  • In United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court ruled (again, emphasis is mine) that the federal government and the states could limit any weapon types not having a “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia”

It has only been much more recent that the Supreme Court has broadened and radically expanded the applicability of the Second Amendment to permit such nonsensical bullshit as gun lobbyists and the sheep they groom in the form of NRA members, and their ilk, are promoting today.

The “strict constructionists” need only examine the real records of our democracy to discover that our forefathers were not the same sort of right-wing gun-nuts we have in Congress today.  If they want to, truly, live by the words and deeds of our founders, they would ignore the Bill of Rights altogether, wouldn’t they?  Or, at the very least, they would read history and would educate themselves about the principles enumerated at the outset. But of course they will not do that, because that does not serve their present purpose, i.e., the total consolidation of power by the monied class, who wish for nothing but absolute control.

Don’t these fanatics realize that it wasn’t until 2008 that a deeply politicized and conservative Supreme Court ruled expressly that the amendment protects an individual’s right to possess and carry firearms. That, my friends, was seven years ago.  Yet we’re told the Constitution has “always” guaranteed our rights to climax while holding assault weapons close to our bodies in public parks and churches and public schools. The imbeciles, and I use that term charitably, who claim the Second Amendment has “always” guaranteed individuals’ right to own and brandish dangerous and stupidly ugly weapons are stupid in the extreme, or they simply choose to rewrite history to suit their twisted political perspective.

Does this issue piss me off? Oh, $&##!#*@#$$$ yes!

The twenty-first amendment to the Constitution repealed the eighteenth amendment, thus ending prohibition. The second amendment is not sacred; it, too, can be repealed. Do I advocate that?  No. I do, though, advocate for a clarification of the second amendment, along with a variety of other clarifications and laws, if need be, to make and keep access to guns difficult.

I’d also be in favor of mandatory education for everyone, whether they want to learn or not. Make it a requirement until at least age…twenty-seven.

Posted in Politics, Rant | 5 Comments

Explosive Income

Posted on June 23, 2015 by John Swinburn

Tents spring up all around Hot Springs and Hot Springs Village, beginning June 20; a few weeks before Independence Day. Inside, vast quantities of fireworks are offered for sale. Signs promote 500 firecrackers for $1.99. Curious as to the genesis of these tents, I did a bit of research and found some interesting information.

A company called A-1 Arkansas Fireworks, the top of whose website proclaims “Bondservants of our Lord Jesus Christ,” offers up the positives and negatives of operating a tent for the company.  Among the positives, the site claims, is the potential for “tremendous monetary benefits.”  Some operators, the site says, earn $20,000 for the season (June 20-July 5); many earn $10,000.  Among the negatives: the tent must operate from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. and the operator (or someone) must be in the tent twenty-four hours a day during the season; a cot must be provided and the operator must sleep in the tent.

There may be other distributors; I suspect there are. But I didn’t bother looking. The topic doesn’t hold enough interest to warrant more than a cursory exploration.

None of the up to $20,000 an operator might earn for the season will come from me. Well, maybe indirectly, if an A-1 operator sells the fireworks that will be used for the Hot Springs Village fireworks extravaganza over Lake Balboa.  Our neighbors have invited us to watch the show from their boat. I suspect it will be quite a shindig and I’m looking forward to it.

 

Posted in Just Thinking | 1 Comment

One Hundred Seventy-Four

Posted on June 23, 2015 by John Swinburn

You can’t see the stars unless you go outside on clear, dark nights.

Posted in Ruminations | 1 Comment

Loathing in the Natural State

Posted on June 22, 2015 by John Swinburn

I am having serious reservations about staying here. I do not know whether central Arkansas is really the place for me.

These doubts have little to do with the ugliness of the political environment and everything to do with the entomological climate. Yes, it’s chigger season and, for the second year running, I am the victim of horrible chigger bites.

I have no idea when or where the vicious little beasts are getting on me. I know only that they are biting me and causing itching the likes of which I’d never felt before moving to Arkansas. Last night, while sitting in front of the television, I felt an itch in my nether regions. It has grown progressively worse, despite my immediate application of a sticky ointment, sold locally for approximately one million dollars per ounce, said to be THE solution to chigger bites. Since then, I have felt, and now have seen, bites on the top of my right foot and behind my left knee.

Chiggers are, as far as I can tell, invisible. They come from nowhere, latching on to the body and travelling up one’s flesh until they find a spot that seems, to them, perfect. And then they feast, causing painful itching and hideous welts in the process. I have visible scars, just above the belt line, from last year’s attacks. Once these creatures get their claws or jaws or whatever they use into you, their presence is perpetual. They leave scars.

The thing is, I really have no idea where they get at me. I try to avoid walking where there’s grass that might brush up against me (which is where, I’m told, they’re most likely to be lurking in wait).  I suppose I could lather insect spray on my lower extremities whenever I venture out of the house, but the odor and the oilyness argue against doing so when I plan to be around other people.

Damn!  I just don’t know precisely what to do in response to the attack.

Here I sit, at four-thirty in the morning, hating the fact that I’ve been targeted by chiggers in three places in the last ten hours. The itching is almost unbearable, even after applying the costly anti-chigger-itch ointment. I guess I’ll  finish my coffee, then shower, then dab more of the liquid gold onto the growing welts, in the hope that the itching becomes tolerable.

According to a flyer produced by the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, I should not wear the clothes I was wearing when attacked by the miserable beasts until after washing in soapy hot water (125 degrees) for at least thirty minutes. For protection, I should wear: long pants tucked into my boots or tightly-woven socks and long-sleeve shirts tucked into pants.  And I should use DEET on my skin and Permethrin on my clothing. It seems U.S. military uniforms are impregnated with Permethrin, which lasts through 40-50 washes; I wonder how I get my hands on a Permethrin-impregnation kit?

Or, maybe, I should just move to the Pacific Northwest, where chiggers are not a thing.

If I can last until the temperatures drop to 60 degrees, they will stop biting me. And at 42 degrees, according to the materials I’ve just read, they’ll die. I long for winter. Cold, chigger-killing winter.

Posted in Health | 3 Comments

One Hundred Seventy-Three

Posted on June 22, 2015 by John Swinburn

When you watch her smile turn into a sneer, you know things have changed. And that’s when you transform from loving friend to unyielding protective shield, a shield with sharp claws and no compunction about using them.

Posted in Ruminations | 1 Comment

Thinking with Sad Ears and Fingers

Posted on June 21, 2015 by John Swinburn

I begin to write this at 10:29 pm on the evening before I will post these words. That’s the time I started writing this post; time will tell when I finish it. As I write this, I am listening to Surrexit Dominus – Tempo Pasquale: Ad Cenam Agni Providi.  Something about this Gregorian chant disturbs me. It is not a calm chant; it is full of energy and chaos. It does not calm me. As I listen to it, I am not happy with it. I want something different. But this is what I have; I have choices, but none I can make at this instance.

All right, I’ve abandoned chant in favor of Los Centzontles playing Voy Caminando.  That’s better. I feel closer to the musicians and singers; they are my people, despite my inability to speak their language.  Now, I continue listening to Los Centzontles, but I move on to Sueños, with Taj Mahal singing. I love it!

So, now I move on to Nina Simone and My Baby Just Cares for Me, then What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.  Then, changing gears abruptly, I listen to Old Number Seven by The Devil Makes Three.  Then, Land of the Bottom Line by John Gorka.  And then to Antje Duvekot’s Lighthouse.

Some evenings, my melancholy can be kept in check only by music; those nights are the ones I think I should have attempted to be a song-writer. I can write the lyrics, as I often do, but the tunes elude wme; I am incompetent with the mechanics of music. Maybe I would have been a good partner to someone who writes tunes; that’s a “what if” I’ll never know, though, isn’t it? Occasionally, the pain of knowing what will never be is more than a soul can comfortably abide. Yet the soul just keeps on going, doesn’t it?

And that leads to what’s on line now. Hey Joe. Jimi Hendrix. “Where you going with that gun in your hand?” And so now I’m back to the real world. The world in which we kill people who don’t conform to our expectations and demands.  Better turn that off!  There’s better music, music better suited to improving my mood, don’t you think?  Yep. “Castles Made of Sand,” another Hendrix piece is better.  But still more ugliness. Crap! Can’t I elude this mood-murdering stuff?

Cat Stevens. Morning Has Broken. It’s a piece of religious music!  Not my style! But I love the tune, I love the words. My eyes cannot remain dry when I listen to it. I melt into an emotional heap when I hear it. I wonder what the hell it is about this music that impacts me so much? It’s raw and powerful; it tears the fabric of my soul. If only I knew what the fabric was; and what that soul is.

The mood has changed!  Memphis in the Meantime by John Hiatt has done it! My melancholy has transformed into something radically different.  I am ready to dance, something I don’t do…ever. I wish I had learned to dance, though. I have always been embarrassed to dance; I’m a clutz. But I think dancing has the ability to fix a broken mood, or maybe even a broken soul.  Some day, maybe.

But then Have a Little Faith in Me, came up, another John Hiatt tune. My mood drifts south a little.

And now, Janis Joplin, Piece of My Heart.  I hate that she died so young. She was a rebel who deserved to live and teach us the value of rebellion. We lost a lot when we lost her. Like we lost a lot when we lost Molly Ivins. I never heard Molly Ivins sing; I wonder, did she? Probably, but not in public.

Okay. I’ve changed gears again. Dejame Vivir by Jarabe de Palo. I love the music, though I can only barely (or not at all) translate it.  And, also by Jarabe de Palo, Depende.

Music has the ability to spread salve over pain. Even when we don’t know what the hell the pain is all about. What is this pain? What pain?  Is it something I’m making up? If so, why? If not, what the hell is it?

I feel like I’m at the bottom of a well, feeling the water flood from the surface down on me, not knowing how to break loose of what’s tying me here to the bottom, but knowing if I can’t find it I’ll drown. Somewhere, in words, there’s salvation. In words there is a path to the surface.

I am relatively certain I’ll regret having written this stream-of-consciousness drivel in the morning.  But I’m scheduling its publication, nonetheless. I’ll be up earlier to write my rumination for the day, so I can stop this from “going to press.” But if I have guts, I’ll let my odd little rant go online as I’ve written it. Maybe, in the morning, I’ll know more about what all this means. I’ve been in front of this screen for an hour. I deserve some sleep. I really believe I do; anyone who’s had to endure these thoughts for an hour deserves sleep.

A night of sleep has cured the melancholy mood. This morning, I’ve re-read a short story by a writer friend and offered comments and suggestions. I’ve been through two cups of coffee. Even though I arose later than I expected to, I’ve been reading and writing for long enough this morning that I know words really are salvation. Words are far better than drugs at fixing what ails you; they target malaise.

 

 

 

 

Posted in Just Thinking | 3 Comments

One Hundred Seventy-Two

Posted on June 21, 2015 by John Swinburn

When a person says he doesn’t need your help, the message is clear: it’s not the help that’s unwanted, it’s you. Accept reality and lend a hand to someone who wants it. Everyone who matters will be happier.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

Mind of a Writer

Posted on June 20, 2015 by John Swinburn

MindOfWriterFrom ScreenwritingU.com

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

Seeing

Posted on June 20, 2015 by John Swinburn

My first memory of my clairvoyance is from my early childhood. I was five years old when I sensed my father’s automobile accident.  As I sat at the dinner table with my mother and my little sister, I suddenly saw the windshield of his car shatter and heard crunching metal. I heard an unfamiliar shriek come from his mouth, then saw him slump against the broken steering wheel. I blurted “Oh, no, Daddy’s hurt!”

I began to cry. Wail, actually. The scene was so fresh and real, it was as if I’d actually been in the car with him. I just knew he had been injured. I tried to tell my mother, but she just said, “There, there, honey, it’s going to be okay. Daddy will be home soon.” But he wasn’t home soon. It was almost a week before he came home, his head bandaged and his leg in a cast.

That first experience tested my mother’s skepticism about clairvoyance, but it didn’t eliminate it. In fact, she didn’t really believe in my ability to perceive events across time and distance until I was eleven years old. She thought my statement, just before my eighth birthday, that the baby Uncle David and Aunt Grace had been expecting would die in childbirth was coincidence. But, three year later, on October 10, I had a vision of a major earthquake. I told my mother about the quake and described the damage it would cause. I told her sixty-seven people would die and that cars would be crushed as the upper deck of the Nimitz Freeway collapsed onto cars below. I remember what she said when I told her what I’d seen: “I hope to God you’re imagining this, Sandro. It’s one thing to have a gruesome imagination; it would be horrible to really foresee such awful events.”

We were sitting in front of the television to watch the third game of the World series between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants when it happened.  The pre-game commentary was underway when the screen went blank for a few seconds and then a world series graphic appeared. We felt the quake, of course, but for some reason it wasn’t as bad for us as we’d learn later it was for others. On television, the announcers’ voices could be heard for a couple of minutes against a backdrop of pandemonium. Suddenly, the screen shifted to a television news desk with the anchor, who began describing early reports of damage. She was joined by a reporter who stepped in to say a major fire had erupted in Oakland.

The anchor then encouraged viewers to shut off their gas supply lines. “If you don’t know how to shut off the gas to your house, look in the front of the phone book; it’s described right there in the section about what to do in the event of an earthquake. Now that we know of at least one major fire, it’s important that you take immediate steps to turn off your gas.”

My mother’s ashen face revealed her terror. “Sandro, get the phone book!”

Posted in Writing | Leave a comment

One Hundred Seventy-One

Posted on June 20, 2015 by John Swinburn

When you peek into the deepest recesses of your own mind, you’re standing precariously close to the edge of everything you’ve been told to avoid, things too dangerous for adults.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

An Open Letter to the Writer Within

Posted on June 19, 2015 by John Swinburn

Take a breath and write what’s buried deep down. Write what hurts most and has the greatest potential to destroy you. Reveal things you’ve never told another living soul. Commit to the page experiences you wish you’d never had. Tell of things you’ve done for which you’d trade your soul to undo. Share so much of yourself that you feel alone and naked and afraid of every glance cast in your direction. Bare your desires and wishes and dreams, even the ones you find silly or infantile.  Expose the weaknesses and strengths that drive you. Do all of this so that the rest of us know we’re not alone in our personal versions of hell, that we’re not the only ones who live life as the contemptible bastards we believe ourselves to be.

But if you can’t reveal these things, if you don’t have the strength and fortitude to expose yourself for who you are, at least create characters based on what’s hidden inside. Bring them to life and tell their stories, their full stories, so we can see there are others like us, even if they exist only in your imagination. Write about the monsters, but give them depth; let us see the youthful bully helping a crippled child cross a busy street. But don’t hide his flaws; let us see him shake down someone else for lunch money.

 

 

 

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

One Hundred Seventy

Posted on June 19, 2015 by John Swinburn

Take stock of your wishes and dreams every day, not only for yourself but for those who matter most to you. Never let them grow brittle and tarnished; strive toward them with the fierceness reserved for love.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

Cruising

Posted on June 18, 2015 by John Swinburn

Yesterday afternoon, we visited a travel agency in the Village.  Then, later, we attended a program designed to acquaint interested parties with two cruises offered under the auspices of the Kiwanis Club.  One cruise, the one of most interest, goes from Boston to Portland to Bar Harbor to St. John New Brunswick/Bay of Fundy to Halifax and return to Boston.

Having been on only one “cruise,” we are novices. Especially since that one cruise was an overnight trip to spend one day in Helsinki (from Stockholm) and then to return. It was on a Swedish cruise line, Silja.  We’re told it is unlike ships of whatever flags that sail in North America. We are novices, but we are interested. We (well, I can speak only for myself, really) have little interest in the nightlife that cruises so often offer. We like the idea of visiting ports of call that offer interesting possibilities. But are one-day excursions into Bar Harbor and Halifax sufficient?

But maybe a cruise would be interesting.  Perhaps, instead of starting with a 7-night cruise, we might want to go with a 3 or 4-night cruise in the Caribbean. We were told of another cruise, one that departs from Galveston, that visits Cozumel and Belize.  Maybe that would be better to start with.

Or maybe a personally-planned trip on our own would be best.  Yet the idea of going with a group, with its potential of enabling us to develop a small group of like-minded folks to do a bit of exploring, has its merits.

Well, enough of that for now.  I’m off to pottery soon, making more masks and maybe a bowl or two.

Posted in Travel | 1 Comment

One Hundred Sixty-Nine

Posted on June 18, 2015 by John Swinburn

Abrupt changes in personality are rare. Abrupt changes in behavior are common. When the two marry, that’s the time for either stark terror or overwhelming joy.

Posted in Ruminations | 1 Comment

Peeling Back the Veneer

Posted on June 17, 2015 by John Swinburn

“Your writing is driven by your attitude of personal prestige, an air of disdain for others. It’s stuck in the middle of that unearned sense of superiority you so readily use to belittle the real emotions people feel. You’ve become a bitch with a pen. If you don’t change, your writing won’t change. And if your writing doesn’t change, it will no longer be published.”

Jennifer recalled those words and the force with which they were delivered. Linda’s face had been square and hard-edged, as if chiseled in stone when she spoke them, a huge contrast to the normal soft, roundness so associated with gentleness and love. As she looked in the mirror, she watched real tears roll down her cheeks.

She tried to remember her last real apology, the one she actually meant, but the memory just wouldn’t come. Every recollection was of her practicing her thespian art. Every memory was of artificial contrition meant to assuage hurt feelings that, to her way of thinking, had emphasized the fragility of the egos of weak people.

Linda had been Jennifer’s editor and closest friend for ten years. She had suggested “Dear Jennifer,” the regional newspaper’s version of  “Dear Abby.” The enormity of its immediate success was as much of a surprise to Linda as it had been to Jennifer.

The novelty of the column’s success wore off quickly. Jennifer got used to the celebrity and the growing compensation her writing generated. Her first major purchase, just six months after the first column had been printed, was a new Acura to replace the ten-year-old Honda. The car in the garage now is a brand-new Jaguar.

After ten years of being told she was a genius, ten years of accolades washing over her like a tide of unrelenting worship, it was hard not to believe them. Ten years in the spotlight can change a person. Or, perhaps, ten years can reveal the person hidden beneath the veneer.

 

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Writing | 2 Comments

One Hundred Sixty-Eight

Posted on June 17, 2015 by John Swinburn

Mired in the gumbo of a thousand years of experience, we try to extricate ourselves from the destiny that is as sure as the rising sun.

It’s of no use to attempt to change absolute certainty. If drowning is the only option, there’s  no point in bringing in a firing squad.

 

 

Posted in Ruminations | 2 Comments

Creative Glazing

Posted on June 16, 2015 by John Swinburn

Today has not been much of a day for writing, but it has been a day for thinking and other creative endeavors.  For instance, I raku fired the two masks below today. The one on top was glazed with copper luster number 4; the one beneath with dragonfly glaze.  Last week, I made another one similar to the one on top, but it was not dry enough for bisque firing last week, so it may have to wait awhile for glazing and firing.

I could have done more today, but I managed to leave my pottery/sculpture tools at home this morning, so I had nothing to work with, aside from firing. In two more days, or less, I’ll have an opportunity to make amends.

JSBlog06-1 JSBlog06-2

Posted in Art, Just Thinking | 17 Comments