Memoirous

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Yesterday while walking past the Jewel parking lot I smelled pine. Already the Christmas trees have arrived. Suddenly I was engulfed in a James Schuyler poem “December” by James Schuyler Il va neiger dans quelques jours FRANCIS JAMMES The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound, this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center. I thought I saw a cold blue dusty light sough in its boughs the way other years the wind thrashing at the giant ornaments recalled other years and Christmas trees more homey. Each December! I always think I hate “the over-commercialized event” and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank shops and how can I help falling in love? A calm secret exultation of the spirit that tastes like Sealtest eggnog, made from milk solids, Vanillin, artificial rum flavoring; a milky impulse to kiss and be fri...

I have only the most tenuous hold on my time and schedule lately. Since returning home from a bike trip to the Adirondacks and Vermont I have been working hard on a manuscript about bicycling--not a travelogue. There are so many loose threads I'm trying to hold together--I need two or three monitors for this book! Right now I have about 40 tabs open--which drives my friends crazy--except it should be me going insane and not them! Anyway, apologies for being a slacker at the blog. The blog slog. This past weekend I experienced a first: the first time I presented a seminar and met someone who traveled to get there. Meaning: she said she came up the night before and stayed in a motel. Wow! I thought, I'm just like a real author. My talk was about flash writing and flash being the building blocks to longer writing--such as the novel. About 12 people sat through my rambling. They did seem to get something out of it. Kathleen definitely won the prize for coming from the furth...

A cascade of coincidences. Kyle White and Jane Hertenstein, both writers of flash and THE SAME BIRTHDAY. I discovered Kyle’s work, Wisconsin River of Grace, when he was doing a reading at Everybody’s Coffee. I never intended to buy the book, but had to once I opened it and read a snippet (the good thing about flash is you can dive in anywhere and get a taste). Since that 2012/2013 publication he has continued fermenting flash. Bear With Me is a field journal that reads as a contemplative children’s book. In the sense that I could see it being shared with the whole family, the meaning explicit on so many levels. Just like a good Jon Scieszka book—there is something there for the adult and younger folk to hang their hat on. Mostly I enjoyed the pace of Bear With Me : short, pithy haiku-type entries with a unspoken “selah” at the end where one can sit and pause, ruminate over the importance of hibernation, relaxing, listening to your body, nature calling, living in tune with t...

Last night I heard the most disappointing news about Abraham Lincoln. As an Illinoisan (formerly Ohioan) this was really bad. I mean I always knew as a lawyer he defended corporations and slaveholders, but he also fought a case in defense of a black woman. There are at least two cases where Abraham Lincoln worked both sides of an issue. In 1841 Lincoln argued before the Illinois Supreme Court a case involving a slave girl named Nance. A man by the name of Cromwell sold Nance to his neighbor, Mr. Bailey. When she left Mr. Bailey’s service after six months declaring herself free, Mr. Bailey refused to pay for her. Lincoln argued that the girl was free because in the state of Illinois it was illegal for a slave to be bought or sold. Lincoln won the case. On another occasion, though, in October 1847 Abraham Lincoln defended a slaveowner. Every year Robert Matson brought his slaves up from Kentucky to harvest his fields in Coles County. They were only in Illinois a short time befo...