Memoirous

I woke up today to hear about a meteor hitting the earth. Actually somewhere in northern Russia. Why is it that they usually hit Siberia? Good thing, eh. Anyway, I wasted the better part of this morning looking at YouTube clips of the bright streak in the sky and the sonic boom or “blast wave” that rocked nearby towns and blew out windows. I’ve always been interested in nightsky phenomena. Is it good luck or bad luck to see a comet? I guess it depends on the society. Halley’s comet—the most predictable, coming every 75-76 years and the easiest to observe with the naked eye—throughout recorded history was either a sign the world was ending or a time of cyclic uniqueness. In his autobiography, published in 1909, Mark Twain wrote, “I came in with Halley’s comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley’s comet.” Twain died on 21 April 1910, the day following the comet’s ...

I mean Missouri--not Nebraska Missouri home to Mark Twain, T. S. Eliott, wasn't Marianne Moore, Kate Chopin from St. Louis. Tennessee Williams spent time there before relocating to New Orleans and NYC and Tennessee. Many great writers are from Missouri--home of the excellent Missouri Review which holds annually this contest: Editors' Prize Contest Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize in Fiction, Essay and Poetry Not Just Any Contest! Select winning entries in the past have been reprinted in the Best American series $5,000 Fiction | $5,000 Poetry | $5,000 Essay As artists no one can afford to lose funding. I googled defunding and read a little bit of a tea party blog called Liberty, I think. Really, who cares. Anyway the blogger said that it would be fine by him if the governor defunded the arts council because that was big government and big government is bad. His argument was that the market should dictate who gets funded. I mean if people want to ...