autumn

The autumn sun has made its first real appearance here since I returned from the East Coast. It’s briskly cool…and, of course, that’s fair, it’s autumn even here in South California after all…but at least the grayness that has hung over my community has gone away for the nonce.

(I’m trying to finish my novel before Thanksgiving…I like the odds of achieving that goal…but I can’t find the muse assigned to that project today so it lingers in the background while I attend to other matters.

I keep myself busy by finishing a review of Santana’s new CD (posted here) , making beef stew and cornbread for supper, and listening to Fiona Apple’s aptly-entitled Extraordinary Machine.)

When I was young (so very long ago), spring was my favorite season but now, fittingly perhaps as amble towards my dotage, I find more to savor with the coming of autumn. The days are shorter and the air is bracing (even here where we have a better chance of getting stricken by lightning than of experiencing a snowfall)…the leaves from the trees in the front yard change color and drift in brittle blankets upon my lawn and walkways…change (subtle and inevitable and inexorable) is all around and it’s all good.

Autumn brings football and rainstorms…and children wandering one magical evening as ghosts and princesses and whatnot (I’m too old for Halloween but not too old for It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and I don’t sweat the irony of that); golden harvest moons and lazy, looming hunter’s moons and a time to slow down (just a bit at least) and reflect…Thanksgiving just in the distance and beyond that the heralds of Christmas and a bright new year…

Autumn…the transition between bright summer and dour winter, the beginning of an end and the end of a beginning…it is, when I allow my practiced cynicism to slip, indeed a magical time.

She Would Not Be Moved

Rosa Parks
February 1913 - October 2005

a brief political aside

Ah, politics…and especially political ads…you gotta love ‘em (or at least you gotta try to find the humor in them because otherwise you might start to seriously wonder if this is really the way we want to choose our “leaders”.)

I thought the war of words and slick televised character assassinations going on between our Governor Arnold and his most vehement adversaries, the unions for public workers (teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc.) had gotten nasty but 10 days in Virginia showed me that both sides in that little fracas are just lobbing puffballs at each other compared to the hell-raisin’ broadsides being hurled over the airwaves in the Old Dominion State.

The typical ad (no matter the office being contested: governor, lt. governor, delegate, dog catcher, whatever) went something like this: “My opponent is THE SPAWN OF SATAN! And if you elect that rascal, life as you know it will come to a cataclysmic end! They’ll be dogs and cats living together! Anarchy in the streets! Save your very souls and vote for me! I’m the reincarnation of any great leader you ever liked and I approved this totally factual ad. ” (Okay, I may be paraphrasing a little but that seemed to be the gist of it…)

And then 30 seconds or so later would come this: “I am not the spawn of Satan but I’m not surprised that my opponent is telling you that because he is EVIL INCARNATE! I love God and puppies and lowering your taxes and if you elect me I will use my mighty powers to make traffic disappear, stop hurricanes, and make life in our great state paradise on Earth! So remember: I’m the good guy, he’s EVIL INCARNATE…the choice is clear. I’m not the spawn of Satan and I approved this ad.” (Again, these may not be the exact words but that was the general flavor of the thing.)

Ah, politics…you gotta...

39,000 Feet

The world seems utterly at peace at 39,000 feet. The clouds drift aimlessly, no time to bother about where they're going or when they'll get there.

The mountains and plains and fields...the rivers and lakes and oceans...and even the cities and towns and villages...free, or at least so it seems from that lofty vantage point, from the maddening, thrilling, unpredictable, totally mundane affairs of humankind.

At 39,000 feet the world makes placid sense and it's laid out with wondrous precision and grace.

I'm not a big fan of traveling...I don't mind being elsewhere I'm just not enamored of the process of getting there...but, that said, I really don't mind at all the different perspective you get when you're high above the world.

I flew out of California yesterday morning...making my way to Virginia by way of Georgia...and I dashed off these thoughts somewhere over Texas (the in-flight movie...the insipid movie version of "Bewitched"...having absolutely no appeal to me and thus presenting me with too much time on my idle hands and my feverish imagination.) Next week I'll make the return trip and gain a bit more perspective...at 39,000 feet.

embracing chaos

It's hot. Not oppressively hot...but uncomfortable enough for we South Californians who are slaves to our usually temperate climate (the Santa Ana winds...blowing dry off the desert...are no friends to us.)

But we soldier on (being the troopers we foolishly imagine ourselves to be.)

My less frequent updating of this site is not at all connected to the weather. It is, instead, completely related to the progress of a novel...an extremely intimate work that waited for years (after several abortive starts) to come to flower now (I wasn't ready...or able...to write it before but, for whatever reason, I am now.) The eventful greater part of a year in a boy's life...it's not autobiographical (except for the parts that are.)

I eschew continuity in the writing this time...capturing scenes and chapters as they come to me and then placing them into the narrative as they fit (some entire scenes may end up not fitting at all and they will be sacrificed for the greater good of the finished work)...a modular novel of sorts.

More than two dozen characters have claimed speaking parts thus far. The prologue and first four chapters are set...the final chapter is almost completely finished...the longest, most emotionally taxing chapter (the heart of the piece) is done...other scenes and chapters are in various states of completion...the epilogue is sketched out in my head...

It's chaos. And it makes perfect sense. And, thus far, it's working (knock on wood.)

I love writing.