December Song

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of our country.

It has been months since I last had an inclination to write with the intention of posting to this weblog. If pressed for a reason why, I suppose that it was because I've been resisting the temptation to contribute to the uncivil discourse taking place in online society.

Of course, it was only slightly problematic to find something to ease the pang of withdrawal from what had become the habitual monthly casting of a seemingly quite harmless missive into the widening cyberswamp that many of us poor, lost souls had found ourselves gravitating toward, pulled-in, held-fast, and perhaps, not altogether charmingly, sunken.

I had, because of an apparently incurable genetic disorder, to find another outlet for my creative impulses, another lowering activity that I believed would be of some small value during my hiatus from even this mostly tamed patch of social media. I thought about painting (no tools), or maybe drawing or cartooning (no talent); I even contemplated learning music theory and composing (not really), and writing poetry or fiction or essays (no inspiration).

What was a mind to do?

I continued to read with gusto, but for the first time in my life I found myself reading to truly escape from reality. I delved deep into Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber multiverse (10 volumes -- and still counting, post-mortem), Stephen King's seemingly bottomless body of work, and tragedies Greek and Elizabethan. Nothing, however, could keep me from returning to our ever darkening realpolitik.

I have risen from those past myths to our current familiar ones, and the constantly up-creeping, self-made, all-encompassing, bothersome, smothering fog.

A Prospero notwithstanding, there is no island refuge in sight.

And yet, cliches be damned! "Come Hell or High Water" "By Hook or By Crook" -- Today! On the gosh-darned gol-durnedest pre-dawning of this -- my 80th annual recycling! I am intent on picking up the pieces of a broken year and with the hope that only a cautious pessimism can offer, I am sending out this drear note in a dark green bottle to roil and spin upon a raging sea of troubles.

The Year of Not Living Dangerously

While keeping a journal of the plague year might be of interest to some readers I'm positive that I wouldn't be one of them. I was never tempted to mine Daniel Defoe's work in that vein, even though I see myself as being possessed of a congenitally curious nature and despite having all the downtime in the world.

This has been an incredibly fruitful year, and I've been reading a host of major and minor novels, short stories, large and small works of non-fiction, essays, tracts, poetry, and have even delved softly into the murky depths of the ancient, medieval, and Restoration worlds. 

In between these breathless forays into which I was propelled up, down, across and roundabout my own visionary expressway I've listened to and watched hundreds of lectures on literature, literary lives, societies, cultures, and yes, even many on the meaning of life. As well, I've attempted to keep up with most of the local, national, and international shenanigans that pass these days as news.

So, that being said, I, twice-vaccinated, but with no physical place to go, shall be perfectly content to continue my incredible journey in the coming year, or years, as long as I am able to read, listen, and learn.

Infinite Yeast

It feels like some farshtinkener uberchef has baked something peculiarly rotten into the American zeitgeist. A bitter taste has been left in our mouths, but one that's hard as hell to identify. Deep down we know that it's rooted in the eternal fight between those who love and those who hate white bread.

RTFM: A QlockworQ Harangue

 

I must confess that although these folks are scarier and more dangerous than I'd care to admit, I do genuinely feel something, almost bordering on compassion, for them. Let me put it to you this way, as it cannot be expressed easily, but calls, I believe, for a modicum of circumscription, or indirection, if you will.

All of us, of a certain age, can remember when VCR technology burst forth upon the scene and we poor souls were thoroughly taken with the idea of enjoying Hollywood features in the comfort of our own dear little hovels. I was one such who became enamored of the gizmos and plunked down, after too little deliberation, a bit of scratch to become a lifetime member of one of my community's flourishing video rental outlets. A greater future, to be truthful, I couldn't espy.

One downside to that whole affair was the egregious infernal blinking of the 12:00 digital reminder of how bloody ignorant I, and a fair majority of my friends and relatives were; and that we all had, therefore, to suffer a haunting indignity for many years to come—as we became the brunt of jokes about this small disability which so often, and so cruelly, was pronounced by stand-up comedians and latenight talk-show hosts.

So there, in a nutshell, I lay before you the seeds of our current conundrum. Those elitists—and we know who we are—who have known what time it was and what to do with and about it for decades, now have to contend with the many of those poor folks who never have—and, probably, never will--

<Q>uite—get it.

Calumny in the Wing

Only a cruel, selfish, and cowardly person can find for Donald J. Trump an acquittal of his high crimes and misdemeanors. He gripped the fate of his nation in his angry maw; he tore at it; he shaked it wildly; he tried at once to swallow it whole while spitting it out. Given half a chance he will try again.

Those who fail to convict him; those who would unleash him to prey upon the people of this nation and the world, too, will be judged an existential threat.

Justice, therefore, shall prevail regardless of how they, in good conscience, or with none, choose to cast their vote.