Virtual Bohemia

Blognovels by Anonymoses Hyperlincoln

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Chapter 15 - The Last 10,000

We have reached a milestone in our little project. We have cleared the 40,000 word hurdle, and are now hurtling toward the finish line. I must confess that I do feel a tremendous relief at having reached this point in my career. As will you, dear reader, when you take up the pen, so to speak, and mount the NaNoWriMo challenge, as you must do before years end next. To fail to do so will result in permanent extrusion from the Speednovelist Synod, the next meeting of which is to be transpired in the Great Hall at Biltmore. Topic: “10 Novels in a Day? YOU BET!”

Not really. I’m just testing out my new keyboard. Any typos? The last one had too many typos.

But seriously now, folks. It is said that one reads a novel to find the author. But then again it is also said choosy mothers choose Jif, and I’m just not convinced, by my years as peanut butter aisle comptroller, that it is actually the case. Choosy is not the first thing that jumps to mind when you look at some of the folks who happen to choose Jif. Some I would even say scream bad taste. At the top of their lungs. A barbaric yawp across the rooftops of the world.

So maybe it really isn’t true that people read novels to find the author. Besides, what do you do when you find him? Stalk him? Buy him dinners? Carry out his trash? Run over him with your 1979 forest green Volvo station wagon?

So why, you ask, do I bring it up? Oh I dunno. Curious, I guess? Maybe it’s because I am writing a novel, as we speak, and I am trying to figure out what the reader is really after. Haven’t I given enough already? I give and give, never asking for a nickel, and now here they are wanting more. It’s like that old quote:

“Give a man a gift and he will love you. Give him two and he will like you. Three and he tolerates you. Four and he wants to kill you for not giving him enough.”


Maybe I overstate. Maybe it is not that way at all. Maybe my readers are showing the ultimate act of generosity by giving of their time that they might humor you with their attention, if only briefly.

To answer these and other important questions of the day, we have assembled some of the greatest minds from “The Great Chain of Conversation”, and it is their desire that your questions be answered and that they be answered in English.

“O.K. Step up to the microphone and state your name and question.”

“Uh, OK. My name is Blogtivedanta, and my question is for Garrick Ammonium, and it is this: In my country we do not have Satyajit. Why do you always twist your moustache, swint your eyes, and do the taco neck when you thin deep thoughts?”

Garrick begins to twist his moustache. “Umm…” His eyes sphincter into a squint. His head and neck twist preternaturally.

“I give up. Why?”

Thunderous applause.

“No. I wasn’t being serious. May I take back my answer?” He looks at the moderator, who shakes his head no, then looks off the stage, looks back and says, “Yes. Yes you may.”

“Thank you.” Garrick continues. “The reason that I twist my moustache, squint my eyes, and twist my neck is that I’m gonna whoop yo ass when we get outta here, Johnny May, so you better go cutting yer fartpranks in someone else’s underwear.”

Thunderous applause.

“Thank you.”


“Hi. My name is Melba Yost, and I live out yonder, third trailor on the right, near the Pickens Pig Pit Barbecue, and this morning I almost choked on my fatback when I learned that existence precedes essence. Or may it was the the other way around. Either way, wow! So my question goes to Judicael Wren. Mister Wren, who could kick who’s ice? Foucault or Wittgenstein?

Jude had been sitting in the Prince position on a sofa which sat at an odd angle to the rest of the room. 41 degrees, I believe.





Ollie: __________________________________
Ollie: IM POETRY
Ollie: VOLUME II
Ollie: by
Ollie: anonyMoses
Ollie: -
Zhoodah : hi
Ollie: hi there!
Zhoodah : hi
Ollie: oi oi
Ollie: did you read my groovy IM poem?
Zhoodah : i'm glAd i changed that marine "murder" to "killing" since USMC in baghdad is looking at it!@
Ollie: It's really groovy...
Ollie: mais bien sur!
Ollie: even still
Ollie: borrowed their lives
Zhoodah : billy blogging poet just wrote e-mail brb
Ollie: Some things may require a grade level above where we are meant to comment.


Ollie: jack he done came and went!
Ollie: dus like dat!
Ollie: make no scent ta me
Ollie: i just sitten dare minin' my owed bidness we he wawk in like he dah massuh o' the lojack.
Ollie: i don't be nowin no bedder so i sayed git me outta here, eb, but eb dun run auf wid thomas pickard and mister douglas.
Ollie: shoot! an wen he sayed dat da corn was in da hay, alls i node is dat the farmdog done start to yappin so loud we hadda smack em wit a broken toilet thangy.
Ollie: My daddy sayed not to go play'n wid da White foke, causin day got spuriority complex sump'm.
Ollie: When the White Eagle of the North is flying overhead.
Ollie: And the browns grays and puces of Autumn lie in the gutter, dead.
Ollie: Remember then the summer birds with wings of fire flame
Ollie: come to witness jesus and the teeth decaying
Ollie: night after night the hoot owl yowls
Ollie: they rean calling wild fire
Ollie: they even ran
Ollie: yes and calling said wild fire



September 11th Blue (9/11 Blue)

November 18, 2004

Great American Smokeout
Occult Day
The Clinton Library had its official opening today.

November 19, 2004

It’s also World Toilet Day.
I wake up and make a blog entry, explaining my relative absence:

My Novel-writing sabbatical
Since the first of November, I have had the exquisite pleasure of burying my disappointment with the election, in the speedwriting of a novel, I am calling "The Great Chain of Conversation", and which includes many of you, my dear and valued readers. If you wish exemption, please step forward and claim your prize.

You still have time to participate, and I would highly recommend it, especially if you have already written a lot this month on your blog, as you c an include that within your novel, and simply write around it, collect your prize, and march bravely into the future as an award-winning novelist.

The key, folks, is that they don't read it. They just count it. But since you are a person of quality, you will want to make sure, for your own sake, that it was all written in the month of November '04, or that, if you do include any old work, that you also make up for it by exceeding the 50k hurdle.

The point is the magic of deadlines, and how they can create conditions whereby Parkinson's Law may find closure where closure might be otherwise ever-elusive. Parkinson's Law, as I recall, states that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

You've got until November 25th to sign up, but it must be done by November 30th.

Hope to see some of you there...
-Nonny



Post-Election Blogosphere

Nothing pressing today. No big news, really. Not yet anyway. I am curious what other bloggers are thinking about.

Let’s go see!

Consulting my aggregator, we see the following headlines:




anonyMoses
· American Serial Killers in Iraq - 2 days
· Here we go again... Russia goes nucular - 2 days
Daily Kos
· Dollar Dump Accelerates - 2 hours
More on the DeLay Rule - 2 hours
· On Voting Irregularities And Election Integrity II - 3 hours
· Specific Tom DeLay Action Items for House Dems - 9 hours
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall
· On Deck for... - 10 hours
· Red state editorials... - 10 hours
· Alaska's sole member... - 10 hours
· Early on Thursday,... - 10 hours
· Even the Manchester... - 11 hours

Eschaton
· McPost - 1 hour
· Morning Thread - 1 hour
· Joementum into Iran - 10 hours
· Media Responsibility - 10 hours
· Late Night - 11 hours

PressThink
Two Replies to David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times - 1 day


Mathew Gross
· Heading North - 31 minutes
· Iran (So Far Away) - 23 hours
· Headlines - 23 hours
EdCone.com
· A couple of techish blogs on the local scene - 1 hour
· I've been thinking about building a local-blog - 2 hours
· BloggerCorps lives. Rebecca MacKinnon had - 20 hours
· Jeff Jarvis : "When the lady went on - 21 hours
· Zephyr Teachout says campaigns and - 21 hours

As you can see, headlines are either not the provenance of bloggers, or they are not the provenance of aggregators. Both are probably at fault…even though 85% of the people only read the headlines.
You can, however, change the parameters of your blog/news aggregator to show short clips, which would look like this:


· American Serial Killers in Iraq - 2 days
My Way News The UASK (Unwitting American Serial Killers) are beginning to tick Muslims off, who are generally not known for their sense of humor.
· Here we go again... Russia goes nucular - 2 days
See what voting for Bush'll get ya. Welcome to the past!
· Sherry Beatty and the McColl Center for Visual Art - 3 days
Sherry may start illustrating Children's Books for us soon. Keep ya posted!
· Arafat is dead. - 1 week
Consummatum est. Aujourd-hui, Yasser est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.
· Democrats: "We don't need no stinking election" - 1 week
A few weeks ago, I was talking to some fellow Democratic bloggers, and we were discussing what to do if Kerry became the president. The consensus was this: Hit the ground, running. In other words...get to work making the world a better place. It'...
· CNN, Networks do their dirty work after midnight - 2 weeks
Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM? They feel less guilty telling lies to less people...being moral and all.
· Blue State Blues - 2 weeks
Email from a blue state citizen: Don't take this the wrong way but the stupidest goddam thing I heard last night was about all the people in North Carolina and Florida and Ohio and fucking Kansas talking about how they voted for Bush because they...
· Republicans win. The rest of the World loses. - 2 weeks
Rest of the World Drawn Into U.S. Race With Uncommon Intensity - from TBO.com Republicans hold "same old same old" parties. Yawn. Get fatter.
· US Tells World to Fuck Itself - 2 weeks
So that is what the end of the world looks like... not with a bang, but a chimper. World Profoundly Hates not just Bush, but all of US. Worst case scenario.
· Anonymoses found to be reincarnation of Mohandas K. Gandhi - 2 weeks
You were Gandhi! You led a life of non-violent and highly effective protest. People were in awe of your example and followed it. Because of your actions, the nation of India won its independence from the mighty British Empire without ever firing a sing...

Notice, also, that I tweaked the aggregator such that it would produce 10 posts, and in this case over any duration. Normally I have it set for 5 posts over 2 days.

Ed Cone, as you may have seen, is thinking of creating an aggregator for NC blogs, which I think is a fantastic idea, and tell him so in the form of a comment on his blog:

I do so appreciate a protean mind! Another great idea, Ed! You ARE the cutting edge.

I was talking to Iddybud yesterday about a need for blog historians, since we are the new pamphleteers, and may well one day be regarded as being as seminal to the historical evolution of Americans society, as Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin were in previous centuries.

When I google "bloghistorian", I come up fallow. And there is not a bloghistorian.blogspot either. Along with aggregation, I think it is time someone took it upon themselves to create a History of Bloggers and Blogging. Perhaps a less ambitious undertaking would be aggregating, and historicizing NC blogs. Either way, I think you would be, or know, the person or persons who could do it justice. They fit together nicely, I think. Indeed, simple archiving might do the job. So much talent in this state!

"Ah! To be a Carolinian!", Walt Whitman once wrote.

We are lucky, aren't we!

Best, and Goddesspeed!
-Anon



I check in over at Nano. Charlotte Writers’ forum. I have a question from Diane Beck, one of the very productive writers from the Charlotte area…


Diane Beck: My photo was taken less than a month ago. I'm trying for a Veronica Lake look. Have I succeeded?

Anonymoses: I don't know... Something about the hair color...
I was thinking more along the lines of Juliet Binoche or Louise Brooks.

I really should get a newer picture. The morphology is about the same, only it looks like I have been spray painting silver into an opposing wind.

But such is the accumulation of silver...

Mucho successo!


The more I think about it, the more I think I ought to finish this novel by simply making comments on other people’s blogs. I mean, this is supposed to be a blognovel. At one time I wanted it to be a blogdungsroman, and from the standpoint of the early years of blogs, I suppose it could qualify. Of course, the word is a neologism, and is only meant for illustration. The translation probably doesn’t work, from a German language standpoint, but alas, my German is sketchy at best, and I would never profess any fluency therein.

Das ist ein buch. This is a book. Hell, I may have even screwed that up. I know the syntax is right though. English and German overlap mostly in the syntax department, if you were to ask me.

If you trace English back, you pass through the West Germanic, the Germanic, and on to the Indo-European. French and Latin only entered English after the Norman Conquest, at which point more delicate terms were added. Since then, Greek, Aleut, Hindi, Japanese, Arabic and all sorts of other languages have been absorbed by the English language, and have added to the character, power, and grace of the language. Just as the influx of these different peoples have added character, charm and grace to the American landscape. We are a blessed lot. And those that disagree should consider the wise words of Richard Schultes, who warned: “Monoculture breeds disease.”

Hey! I wonder if Schultes has a blog? I know he is dead and all, but…he did live among the natives in the deepest jungles of the Amazon, and was the world’s expert on hallucinogenic plants. Maybe he is only in that limbo place where Leary can be seen poking his head around the corner, not really dead, as thought by Moody Blues, but only outside looking in, as also thought by the Moody Blues.

Do the Moody Blues have a blog? Let me go check…

OK. The Moody Blues don’t appear to hava a blog. Too bad, really. Kinda dumb. And Schultes has no posthumous blog either, although Dave Winer at Harvard Law has a few entries on him and his work.

Oh well. Back to the standards…

On my main blog (I have several, each covering different topics, such as genealogy, travel, idea consulting, sculpture, and so on) I have what is called a sidebar, where I can put, along with my archives and other important links…a blogroll. A blogroll is just a list of blogs that you want to have a link to on your own blog, and oftentimes, they will also put you on their blogroll.

This is one thing that separates blogs from many, say, company websites, where the trick is to keep people within your website, rather than have them go elsewhere. Bloggers are a little more generous than all that.

One of the groupings I have in my blogroll, I call “Friends and Blognoscenti”. Some of those listed I cannot really call friends, as I have only had cursory online conversations with them, which have not added up yet to friendship. A. Whitney Brown would fall into this category. He is the first blogger in that list.
Whit and I had a brief exchange in the wee hours of the morning, over on Daily Kos, where we are both members and bloggers. It was most pleasant, since he was, perhaps my favorite of all players to have danced on the stage of Saturday Night Live, which, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it is not simply called Saturnight Live…as it would have been in the olden days. SNL could certainly use his dry, rapier wit, now that the show has devolved into an adolescent food fight, with only two or three segments holding up to historical standards. Ah the soft bigotry of BushWorld! See how it squelches humor? The reason there are so many “reality” shows on today is because of said BushWorld paranoia. No writers to suffuse the text with subversive innuendo in a “reality” show. And this begs the question…Are these shows really portraying Reality? Or are they just using non-actors who perform non-scripts for non-producers…and a braindead audience? You decide!

Anyway, Whit’s blog, is woefully out of date. I wonder if he has switched over? The one I have shows his last post as being back in April. But another thing that keeps crossing my mind is…why is he not way too busy to be doing even that? Well, maybe he is now. I hope so. Hate to see a talent go to waste…

I may come back to this later. I need to write about Bigus Diety.


November 20, 2004

Saturday. The birthday of Robert F. Kennedy, Alistair Cooke and Duane Allman. What a trio! It’s also Absurdity Day, Beautiful Day and Universal Children's Day.

I look up at the clock. It says 11:11. This is significant to me. Relates to Mayan Eschatology. Endtimes stuff. I take a swig of coffee and ponder the fact that I will probably exceed the 50K finish line today. Not a bad day to finish either. It is the King of Hearts day. King of Hearts is one of my favorite old movies. I could have finished yesterday. It was an Ace of Clubs day, and I know a lot of Ace of Clubs. Maybe laziness also played a part in my decision to postpone until today what could have been done yesterday. But then again I did spend much of the day doing yard and house work over at The Folks.

I ponder over the meaning of this day, November 20, Two thousand and four. Is this day different from any other day? Indeed. Is December 25th or Septermber 11th any different. I guess that depends on whom you ask.

It is the birthday of Bobby Kennedy, Alistair Cooke and Duane Allman. Have I any connection with these guys? Well yes…sort of.
Although I like and respect Cooke and Allman, and have enjoyed their products for many years, Bobby Kennedy holds a special place in my heart, and so I see today, November Twentieth as being a day to ruminate on his life and legacy. And actually it is his legacy, his offspring with whom I have a passing acquaintance.

You may recall the story about Clare of Brighton, and howe we lived together there for a time. Well, Joe Kennedy lived just a few houses in the hill from us on the same side of the street. Much bigger house though. And when he was in campaign mode, he was most approachable. Once, while buying cigarettes at the “7 Days Until Midnight”, I saw Joe standing out front, and when I came out, he asked if I would talk a while, and he asked me what my concerns were, after introducing himself and such. We talked for five or ten, until others came up for him to accost.

I jest, of course. A real pleasure and honor, actually. He probably didn’t know that we were probably related on my mother’s side, but then again, I didn’t either at the time. Some people don’t realize that a lot of the Kennedy clan are long-time North Carolinians. The connection, however, goes back to the old country. Ayr and Culzean.

I was also doing some substitute teaching, and wound up one day at Brighton Elementary. And who wound up in my class, but the grandson of Bobby Kennedy. A very handsome young lad, but one who cried when he got knocked out of the spelling bee…on the first word.
The looks of the teachers and administrators peering in from around the door, upon hearing his cries, told me: “Give him another chance.” And so reluctantly I did, and no one was the worse because of it.
I did, however, hate to deny others the same privilege, but it was almost as if, even at their tender age, they knew. They knew he was destined for greater things than a silly spelling bee hosted by some substitute teacher from down South. I didn’t argue.


November 20th is also Absurdity Day, Beautiful Day and Universal Children's Day. The second one is easy to celebrate. I’ll just pull out my “It’s a Beautiful Day” album and play it, while I’m writing about the other two. “White Bird” was the song from the album that I most enjoyed. In fact, I listened to it profusely back on my hitchhiking expedition back in ’74. “White bird must fly…he will die!”

I was not the only one smitten by the song. Indeed, it was, in many ways, an anthem for the age.

Anthems of the age. Hmm. It would be interesting to compile lists of anthems of different ages. What, for example, would be anthems of this age? And who the anthemizers?


Come To Get Him
(to the tune of "Come Together", Beatles)

Here come old Chimpy he come thinkin' so slowly
He got greedy eyeball on those holy rollers
He got Dick down to his knee
Got to be a poker he just poke what he please

He bring no sunshine he got Enron baseball
He got monkey finger he shit coca-cola
He say "I screw you, you pay me"
One thing I can tell you is you're not to be free
Come to get him right now offa me

He Oil production he got Walker midname
He got bigtime sidekick who one final cracker
He got brain down below his knee
Hold you in his hostile you can get his disease
Come to get him right now offa me

He neither-coaster he give yellow warning
He cause muddy water he one money filter
He say "One and one and one is four
Got to be a-cooking books he such a cash-whore.
Come to get him right now offa me...


The anthems that pop into my mind are:
Ohio
Chicago
For What It’s Worth
Revolution
People Have the Power
What About Me?
I’d love to change the world
Find the Cost of Freedom
Paint it Black
The Country Joe “Fish Cheer”
Billy Rose
Hurricane

God so many. Haven’t even tapped into Baez, Mitchell, and the women of rock.

But today? I dunno. Eminem?

I guess the answer would be found at those Kerry concerts, with REM, Dave Matthews, Springsteen, Taylor, Raitt, and the rest…you know…the Professor and Mary Ann. I bet they hated being considered “the rest” in those early season. “The rest”. What is there not room for two more names? Are we that insignificant?

Sorry, I just get emotional when I think about it. All those old shows. So so sad. Astronauts stuck in prehistoric times. Ozzie and Harriet. Oh! And speaking of which…did you hear the latest on Ollie and Harriet? Yes! Rumour is that Oliver Sutton was moving in on Harriet Hoover! Had designs, if you will. And they’re both going to be at the Thanksgiving Party! Should be juicy! Shh! I think they’re thinking about us thinking about them. Pretend you are thinking about something else. Current events.

Don’t know much about what is going on in the current world, newswise, mainly since I AM TRYING TO GET THIS NOVEL DONE. But I suppose I could give some educated guesses about what is going on.

EDUCATED GUESSES ABOUT BREAKING NEWS

I dunno. A little hokey. Doesn’t really flow right. Maybe something like “Educated Guesses about the Current World”. But we can fix all that later.

Educated Guesses about the Current World

ARAFAT STILL PRESUMED DEAD
AMERICA STILL WONDERING WHEN TO BEGIN CELEBRATING BUSH’S VICTORY
WORLD STILL LIKES US LESS EVERY DAY
THE AIR IN AMERICA IS GETTING WORSE
THE WATER IN AMERICA IS GETTING WORSE
THE GAP BETWEEN THE RICH AND POOR IS GROWING EVER WIDER
FALLUJA, WAS, OF COURSE, AND AS USUAL, A HORRIBLE MISTAKE
ISRAEL WANTS THE US TO JOIN THEM IN A WAR ON IRAN
WHAT’S GOOD FOR OIL COMPANIES IS TREATED AS IF IT WERE GOOD FOR AMERICA
TOM DELAY GETS RECAP ON HIS TEFLON SUIT
BILL O’REILLY TELLS SOMEONE TO SHADDUP!, ADMITS TO BEING A SADIST
RUSH LIMBAUGH’S SOUL NOW THE SIZE OF A QUARK
ZELL MILLER IS NO DONNA REED
YOU HAVE GOT LOTS OF GOOD CLEAN CHRISTIAN YOGURTS
EVAN BAYH LOST IN SNOW STORM
BLOGGERS HOLD KEY TO FATE OF WORLD

Or for ye Francophones:

ARAFAT PRÉSUMAIT TOUJOURS L'AMÉRIQUE MORTE SE DEMANDANT TOUJOURS QUAND COMMENCER À CÉLÉBRER LE MONDE de la VICTOIRE de BUSH AIME TOUJOURS LES USA MOINS De CHAQUE JOUR Où L'AIR EN AMÉRIQUE DEVIENT PLUS MAUVAIS L'EAU EN AMÉRIQUE OBTIENT PLUS MAUVAIS MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE L'ESPACE ENTRE LES RICHES ET LES PAUVRES ACCROISSENT UN FALLUJA TOUJOURS PLUS LARGE, ÉTAIENT, NATURELLEMENT, ET COMME D'HABITUDE, Une ERREUR HORRIBLE ISRAEL VEUT Que LES USA LEUR ADHÈRENT DANS Une GUERRE SUR L'IRAN CE QUI Est BON POUR LES COMPAGNIES PÉTROLIÈRES EST TRAITÉ COMME SI IL ÉTAIENT BON POUR L'AMÉRIQUE TOM RETARDE OBTIENT LA RÉCAPITULATION SUR SA FACTURE O'REILLY de COSTUME de TEFLON DIT QUELQU'UN À SHADDUP !, ADMET À ÊTRE ÂME Des PRÉCIPITATIONS Un LIMBAUGH De SADIQUE MAINTENANT Que La TAILLE D'un QUARK ZELL MILLER N'EST AUCUN ROSEAU De DONNA VOUS AVEZ UN BON NOMBRE De BON CHRÉTIEN PROPRE YOGURTS EVAN BAYH PERDUS DANS La CLEF De PRISE De l'ORAGE BLOGGERS De NEIGE Au DESTIN Du MONDE


So yeah, nothing which is not completely predictable.

And here it is. The last 1000 words. In less than 1000 words, I will cross the 50,000 word line and suddenly and magically be rendered a novelist. Just think. In the same profession as Joyce, Sterne, Amis, Burgess, Rabelais, Chaucer, Burroughs, Carver, Faulkner, Barth, Robbins, Vonnegut, Cheever, Bellow, Melville, Hawthorne, Crane, Price, Wolfe, Hardy, and so many more simply fantastic human beings. And these were just some of the guys. Think of Wolfe (Virginia, not Thomas), Gortimer, Welty, McCullers, Chopin… I think I could get used to this crowd.
I’ve often thought, and indeed, advised, that one should consider who are at the top of whatever endeavor they may choose to pursue. Can you imagine having a good time with those people?
I tried to imagine hanging out with white men in business suits, but this never appealed to me. The ones that appealed to me were comedy and humor, and writing. Nothing else really fit.
I enjoy doing sculting and music, but artists tend to be so then skinned. Not that writing isn’t an art, mind you. But I do think writers have thicker skins. At least down there.

And writing needn’t be a pauperly art. Of all the folks I grew up with, the highest paid are the writers. Just not the poets.

And I already know a handful of writers. Tom Trainor, Tom Simoneaux, Anthony Burgess, Ra Bourbon, Jon McVity, Iddybud, Ed Cone, Matt Gross. And I’ve met a few others as well. John Dean, Robertson Davies, Miss Manners. A number of my old professors also have written books. Arthur Kleinman, David Buss, David Funder, Peter Gomes, Brian Silver, Cal Watkins, Norm Daniels, Hugo Adam Bedau. And others I have met, who also happen to be writers, if not entirely on the side. The Dalai Lama comes to mind. Baba Ram Das, Chogyam Trungpa, Alan Ginsburg, Bucky Fuller, Edward O. Wilson, Richard Schultes, Carl Sagan…

I must say, in defense of Music, that I have also been blessed by a relative embarrassment of musicians and composers who also have passed within my sphere, or I their’s. Ginestera, Berio, Subotnik, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, David Byrne, Frank Zappa, Yehudi Menuhin and such. And among this level of musician and composer, I could find sweet repose, and yet I am unwilling to submit to all that which one must go through in order to achieve such ends.

Better to stick with writing.

But…of the writers, who would I most want to either emulate or be in the spiritual company of?

I find myself to be in the tradition of Joyce, Sterne, Swift and Rabelais. A certain ribaldry, word-drunk, playful, exploratory, picaresque… Even sexy, irreverent, baudy. And yet, at times, high-flown, with high sentiment.
Toward that end, I ding great inspiration in the works of Gurdjieff, Schopenhauer, Eckhart, Suzuki, Yutang…and early religious works, like the I Ching, Tao te Ching, Rumi, Ramayana, Mahabharata, the Nag Hammadi Library, the Pseudoepigrapha.

If I can mix the high and low, the sweet, sour and bitter; if I can create a virtual encyclopedia of emotions, thoughts, and ideas; if I can excite readers into the process of creation, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, humor, advertising, or linguistics; and if I can get that sweet someone to come over and give this poor word-weary scribe a neckrub…then I will consider myself a success.

When manifesting your vision, whatever it may be, it is YOUR vision you want to manifest. Not someone else’s vague notion about your vision. Success and failure depends not on what they think, but on how closely to came to your vision. And if you exceeded your vision…yet no one else likes it… you are still a success. The proper reader may just not yet be born.

I suddenly see the almost magical number, 49,831, appear under my Tools menu, and a certain relief washes over me, yet again. Less than 200 words left before hitting the truly magical number. And I do not believe this is happening to me. I have completely run out of things to say. And what a damn shame! “Missed it by that much!” I can almost hear Maxwell Smart right now, snickering at my misfortune, ever the schadenfreudist.

Maybe I can call Ginger L.! She can tell the rest of my thoughts, and maybe she will find things I cannot see. Where is that damn number!

Oh well, I thought I had a plan…

And with 61 damn words left.

Maybe the news will help. (Turning on the TV)

OK. Looks like we are trying to urge Putin to join us in clamping down on Iran and North Korea. I knew we would go to war with Iran if Bush was reelected! And here we go…

Whatever happens, this sentence has got to have at least eleven words.

There. I’ve done it. I am a novelist now. Hand over the money.

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