Memoirous

Ever notice on road trips those historical markers by the roadside. Here Once Stood or Here in 1874 there used to be etc. I was struck the other day that photographs do the same thing. They ask us to stop and remember. I help curate the art shows at Everybody’s Coffee . We met with a photographer whose work isn’t exactly limited to but is somewhat devoted to: the everyday. Such as signs, or rusty locks, or chain-link fences. Sometimes it isn’t the people in a picture but the fact the girl is wearing a certain coat that cause us to go, oh my God, I had one of those! We react to the memory and not the subject. We are struck by the familiar or thrown backwards to our childhood/youth. A good artist will do that, create a touchstone or bridge with their listener, reader, viewer. Spark an emotional connection. But it’s only a stupid sign! The artist told us that people who buy his prints are drawn to his photos because they remember: hey, we got engaged at that restau...

I’ve mentioned here at my blog that I’m working on a non–fiction project that I’m loosely labeling a cycling memoir: Francis and Me. There are several junctures, actually multiple junctures, where I ask myself: does this make sense? Regarding, will the reader get this, believe it? Mostly dealing with kids on bikes. You know what I’m referring here to: the 1970s. To that period of time where –for some reason—kids were not supervised. This past weekend I was in Sheboygan, WI for the Stoneboat literary journal 10th anniversary open mic reading (I was a contributor). One woman made an interesting observation. When she was a kid it seemed as if women had limited freedom, but kids could do whatever they wanted. As opposed to today, where women have greater latitude when to comes to work and academic options, and kids have little freedom. I’ve appreciated and blogged here before about Jonathan Goldstein’s writing on This American Life. He has a podcast called Heavyweight (Gim...

from my monthly stats--twice as many Russian readers than ones form the US see my earlier post https://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2020/01/shouldnt-we-be-worried.html Pageviews by Countries 16 16 1,690 1,690 Entry Pageviews Russia 1690 United States 891 United Kingdom 64 Germany 44 Canada 35 Unknown Region 26 France 24 Ukraine 23 Indonesia 21 South Korea 16