And This Is What You Can Do

“. . .and this is what you can do.”

“Brighten up the corner you’re in.”

“Work with what they give you.”

“Take what you can get.”

“This war is bullshit, but it’s the only war we’ve got.”

“Those are the things that were written on the inside cover of her notebook. She’d obviously written them there over the course of years, one at a time, whenever she ran across a phrase which spoke to her condition.”

I chuckled.

“Now, there, see? That’s the funniest thing. You said ‘spoke to her condition’ - you used Quaker talk, because you’re a Quaker, same as she was, and yet, one of the phrases she put in her notebook was ‘the only war we’ve got’. That’s kind of weird.”

“Well, it’s not as though no Quaker ever went to war.”

“No, but I suspect fewer went to Vietnam than to any other war in the last three hundred years, and that’s a quote from the Vietnam war.”

“On the other hand, it’s a war that had a big effect on Quakers - a lot of people went to Vietnam and came back as Quakers, or some other kind of pacifist, and Quakers did a lot of work to heal Vietnam veterans, and to heal Vietnam.”

“Okay, so maybe it isn’t totally out of character for her. I do wish I could understand her better, though.”

“Well, we have her notebook, and her writing, and we have what her friends have to say about her, and that’s about all there is.”

“Yeah, that’s all there is, now.”

“Hey, it happens to everybody. We come into the world, we live in it, we go out of it. It’s life. If we lived a thousand years, we’d be sorry we didn’t live a million years.”

“I know. I still wish I’d known her better.”

“Good. That means she was worth knowing.”

 

http://yearsrisingmaryoliver.blogspot.com/2010/09/mozart-for-example-september-14-2010.html

The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Get to know someone while you can."

I Have Her

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP5oylZW2uI
Depression is a cruel and painful disease. It has robbed us of many great talents besides Phil Ochs. As for whether "her" is literal or metaphorical, it doesn't really matter. People (not always heterosexual men) often personify some passion as a woman, a "demanding mistress". But also, plenty of people suffering from depression have destroyed relationships when they proved not to "cure" them, and blamed the lover. I am so fortunate that I have someone in my life who loved me enough to reach out after I had mistreated her so viciously, and ask me to try again. She hasn't made me whole, but no-one can -- if that's possible, I will have to do it myself. But she did show me that someone was capable of loving me that much. I was a glutton for love. It was not enough for me to have the love of a good woman -- I demanded the love of another, and then another, never satisfied. At my worst, I tried to have the love of three, any of whom would have been a good match for me, but trying to have everything more than just both ways made all of them miserable, hurt them terribly. I demanded that they prove themselves to me over and over, and was never satisfied. I am immensely fortunate that the true love of my life forgave me all of that, and invited me to walk away from self-indulgence onto a demanding path which led to the happiness I now enjoy. Depression is still an issue, but it's better now that I have found better footing. Ours is one of the great loves of history, even though no-one will know about it. Future generations will not speak of "John Burt and his Brightly Shining" as a metaphor for love, but that doesn't matter. The greatest soldiers didn't get medals, the scientists who contributed most never received a Nobel Prize. No-one knows who wrote "Away in a Manger" or "Darlin' Corey". No-one will know, but it happened, and it is happening now.
I have her. She isn't "nothing".

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "She's really something."\\

History, Real and Imaginary

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/the-end-of-the-slave-trade/?ref=opinion

I have just finished my second novel, Frankenstein's World.  Like The Christmas Mutiny, it's an alternate history (although a less plausible one, being based on the idea of Victor Frankenstein being a real person, and his inventions actually working as described in the original book).
I will shortly begin selling Frankenstein's World, and will begin and writing my third, also an alternate history, this one featuring three different alternate-history versions of the American South.  And none of them will be a descendant of our own world's Confederate States of America.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Outlook hazy, ask again later."\\

Death -- What a Concept

I ran into an interesting post at Susie Bright's blog, about Ariel Gore and the memoir she allowed herself to write after her mother died:

 http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2014/03/lung-cancer-noir-ariel-gores-masterpiece.html#tpe-action-posted-6a00d8341c5e4053ef01a3fcce7c30970b

It inspired me to make this comment:

I had appalling dreams after my father died, and dream logic followed me into waking life.  I discovered that not only could I not confront the reality that my father was dead, I could not even deal with the reality of death, period, for anyone.  I would find myself imagining corpses living still, drawn-out lives in drawers and back bedrooms, and saying things like, "Oh, yes, she's dead -- but how dead is dead, really?"  It was over a year before I stopped skidding over the concept of death and could say, "Dead is dead.  My father is dead."

Now that my father is definitively dead, though, I can feel his presence more than I could when death didn't exist in my world.  The other day, I saw a joke that involved Marxist jargon and a horrid pun, and I immediately sent it out to the family:

"Q: Why is it that when you flush the toilet at Karl Marx's place, you can hear the sound of stringed instruments?
"A: Because of the violins inherent in the cistern.
"This has been a George S. Burt Memorial E-Mail."

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Yes, he would have liked that one."\\

A Small But Wonderful Thing Happened Today

I almost didn't notice it at the time.

I was telling Gideon a "Gideon story" (I tell him a lot of stories, and Kathe is after me to start writing them down -- I know she's right...) in which Gideon was with a group of carolers.  They sang "Stille Nacht", and Gideon told the group that his Dad had written a book about the Christmas Truce.

Gideon interrupted to ask if it was true that I had written a book "with pages, that people read?"  I told him, not many people so far, but I had hopes that it would sell more eventually.  I opened my laptop and showed him the illustrations I had used, and he pointed to one of my advertisements and said, "I have seen that!"

  

 

 

So I guess now he knows it's true.  In the morning, I will sit down with him and page through the copy I had made at CreateSpace.

I'll try to find a passage from the book that I can read to him.  

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Maybe the soccer game?"\\

Corvallis in 2063?

The other day, Kathe and I visited the "Corvallis in 2063" exhibit at the Arts Center. It showed various visions for the future in various media. Some of the model homes were very clever in design.
I was disappointed that it did not include a print of the famous painting of "Corvallis in 2057".


In the middle there was a table on which was a map of Corvallis. People were invited to place Post-It notes describing what they would like to see in the future. Among them was a suggestion of a municipal nuclear power plant. This was surrounded by several Post-Its saying things like "NO!"

I thought it over and came to a conclusion which I thought was worth sharing:

One day, we will have the technology that will allow us to build small nuclear power plants which are safe and efficient, but we probably won't build them for the same reason that we are unlikely ever to build personal jetpacks for commuting, zeppelins for passenger travel, or humanoid robots for household help. Not because these things are impossible, but because with the technology that makes them possible we can build other things that are more practical and useful.   //The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Predictions are always tricky, especially about the future."\\

I'm Ready to Beg, Folks

Unemployed for close to two years, nobody is hiring, my books aren't selling.

If you have not bought one of my publications, please consider it. I personally think The Christmas Mutiny is a good story. I also think highly of my short stories "Hansel and Gretel Lost in the Bardo", "The Men Who Saved JFK" and my manual on massage technique, With a Friendly Touch, all of which are available for download at Amazon.com.

For the next seven days, if you e-mail me at john_m_burt@hotmail.com or text me at (541) 602-6026 to inform me that you have bought one of my stories, I will reply with 1) my personal thanks and 2) my new story "Dragons Live Forever", a 375-word flash piece which has not yet been offered to the public.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You can always ask."\\

Good Cookies

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/oatmeal-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

I make them for Kathe and me to eat on the paper route.

Still wish I could find Becca's recipe card for the recipe I used to use.

Or ask Becca about it....

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "She loved her mother. And she loved you."\\

Meanwhile, The Ice Continues to Melt . . . .

[W]ith thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
Have every pelting river made so proud
That they have overborne their continents:
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard...
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
The human mortals want their winter here...
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter...the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which....

We can't blame the fairies for this. It's us.

We are their parents and original.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It is decidedly so."\\

Christmas Truce Poem

Not long after I finished The Christmas Mutiny, I met a woman writing poems "to order" at the Saturday Market. I commissioned a poem on the subject of the Christmas Truce, but then didn't see her for several months. I learned later she had been out of town most of the time.
Yesterday, she was at the market again, spotted me and delivered the poem. I like it a lot:


The Christmas Truce, by Cassie Ruud

We will not fight today.
We will not let you order us
into these pukish
mud-blood-soaked trenches
on this day.
You took us from our families,
from the arms of our wives and children
and thrown us against each other
for reasons
we do not understand.
So we will not fight today.
We will stand a tree,
sing our songs,
play soccer out in No-Man's-Land
almost far enough away
to hide from the trench stench
We will pretend our darlings
are close to us, show
each other pocketed lockets
full of pictures,
smoke our pipes in silence and stare numbly into the fire.


//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Peace on Earth."\\

So, I Hear There's This Doonesbury Strip . . . .

Some newspapers don't want to run it.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/assets/pdf/BK186474313.PDF

Others are only putting it up on their web sites -- that way, kids won't see it, I suppose.

http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2012/03/12

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Some people have no sense of humor."\\

The Christmas Mutiny, Now Available

My novel, The Christmas Mutiny, is now available for download at Amazon.

I hope people read it, and like it.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "They will, John. It's good."\\

New Web Site Coming Soon

Soon, if all goes well, the link above these words will be live, and my web site, designed by Kathe's son Jake, will be up and running, offering my stories for sale.

Jake asked me to write summaries of some of my stories for the site:

The Christmas Mutiny, a Young Adult novel of alternative history, about 50,000 words.
Several young people are present at the famous Christmas Truce of 1914, in which for a brief moment enemies lay down their arms and enjoyed a moment of peace. History says that after the truce, they went back to killing one another for another three years -- but perhaps there are other worlds than ours...?

"Rattler Lil", a Western fantasy, about 4,000 words
An adolescent boy finds a surrogate mother, as do many other strays in a frontier town. Miss Lillian Clay seems to be a good person to have around, especially where children and rattlesnakes are concerned. And there may be more to "Mama Lil" than the neighbors suspect.

"The Right Man", a story of alternative history, about 2,000 words.
It's the fall of 1932. The Great Depression is at its worst. An army of unemployed men are occupying the Mall in Washington. How will President Hoover remove them? He needs to find the right man for this job.

"Frankie", an incident at a 1930s candy store, about 1,500 words.
Is Frankie really that Frankie? What race is pulp magazine her Dusty Ayres? Why doesn't Frankie listen to The Romance of Helen Trent? None of these questions will be answered.

"Secret Identity", a writer's thoughts at work, about 1,000 words.
What makes a man a hero? Can we always tell? Do we need to?

"Gandhi Versus Hitler", a story of alternative history, about 1,000 words
Everybody knows Gandhi could never have stopped Hitler. Everybody knows that....

"The Salmon Cage", a science fiction story, about 5,000 words.
An old man ties his boat to a salmon maturing cage while it drifts across the Pacific from Macao to Canada. A silent boy stows away. Much against the old man's wishes, they gradually bond during a very difficult crossing.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Good. Now go make some money with it."\\

Questions From Sierra

My niece Sierra sent me an e-mail:

Could you please answer some questions for my family history project? here are 5 questions.


1.What was your life like when you were young?
My parents were college students, living in rented accommodations until I was six years old. I didn’t really understand what all of that meant, other than that Daddy went to “the school” every day to collect “day-da” for his “diss-ree-tation”, and that this was very important work.
Spending my childhood in an academic setting, I learned a great deal, and developed a large vocabulary from an early age. I absorbed concepts like cultural parallax and the need to test an hypothesis. I also absorbed an intellectual snobbery that I didn’t notice for the longest time, making it all that harder to discard.

2.What were people afraid of when you were young?
People talked a lot about pollution and about social changes that seemed to threaten civilization, but above all about the threat of nuclear war. Although my parents tried to divert me from thinking about it, I lived under the threat of destruction until I was twenty-nine years old. I went to school suspecting I would not live to grow up. I joined the Navy because I thought it might be safer than being drafted into the Army when Ronald Reagan inevitably went too far. I got married and had a child still under that shadow, because life did have to go on. It was not until Kathe and I saw the Berlin Wall being demolished that we really believed it was over.

3. What is a story from your childhood?
One day, Dad had been working on an old radio, the kind that was the size of a cabinet and stood on the floor, with a huge green light like an eye at the center of the dial. He talked about how much fun he and his siblings had, listening to old radio shows. He turned it on, joking that since it was an old radio, perhaps it would bring in an old radio show…and it did.
We listened, rapt, to an episode of Chandu the Magician. When it ended, the announcer came on and told us we were listening to the Old Time Radio Hour on KEX 1190 AM. We wound up listening to KEX every night, and recorded episodes on cassette tapes. But I will never forget the eerie experience of hearing those voices and sound effects coming through the radio just as Dad had predicted.

4. What is the bravest thing you’ve ever done?
Bicycling home from work after a night shift, I came upon a group of men standing over a fallen jogger. None of them seemed to know what to do. She had a pulse but wasn’t breathing, so I dove in and started giving her mouth to mouth. I gave her breaths until I couldn’t find a pulse, and then started CPR. To spare the others from the risk of infection, I gave her all of the breaths while they took turns giving chest compressions.
One of the men peeled back her eyelid and said, “There’s no pupillary response. I don’t think we need to bother.” I heard the voice of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon shouting, “We will continue until we are relieved!” – and it was me. That’s literally how it felt at the time.
An ambulance came and took over. I went home and went to bed. I heard later that the woman had died, but I knew we had done our part.
They always tell you at CPR classes that the person in charge at an emergency was whoever spoke up first, but I never thought that would be me.

5.What is one thing you’re proud of?
I am very proud of whatever role I have played in how my children have turned out. Some of them were half-grown when I got them, and none of them were related to me genetically, but I did what I could for them. They had many difficulties to overcome, and some of their problems could not be solved, but all four of them have faced and are facing life on their own terms with tremendous courage and persistence.


//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Teach the children well."\\

Zoe Cook: No Longer Improving

She isn't planning to return to her apartment anytime soon.

But she is surrounded by family and taking a positive attitude. We'll see what comes next.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "There is never anything to do but see what comes next."\\

My father left very few things undone. One that comes to mind is that he never published or wrote (so far as I know) a science fiction novel like the ones he so liked to read.

One story that he mentioned he would enjoy writing is one in which the Central powers were victorious in the First World War.

I'm not writing that story either, but I am right now engaged in a project inspired by the Christmas Truce of December, 1914, and it does involve an alternate history and a different outcome for the war that his own father fought in. And I do think of my father and his father often as I write.

I feel another affinity for my father as I work: I am doing it in no small part because I have a family to support.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Filius est pars patris, for better or worse, like it or not."\\

Walden and Mary Got Married

Wow.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Amazing."\\

Plan For Armageddon, But....

My father once told me a story about a congregation which had been thrown into great anxiety by their pastor's lurid sermons about the imminence of Armageddon, until someone passed the word that the pastor, although doubtless quite sincere in his belief that the end could come at any moment, had been seen in his yard, planting fruit trees.

I thought of that the other day, while collecting more of Dad's things from the barn, walking past the small grove that lay between the house and the creek.

He planted those trees. I have eaten fruit from them. Now he is dead, and his ashes are nourishing their roots. The trees and the house and the land are all going to be sold soon. The people who eat the fruit from those trees are unlikely to know the name or the life of the man who planted the trees. But the trees are still there, and will be for years to come.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Be prepared for the end to come at any moment -- but plant fruit trees."\\

Who Said That?

I don't recall who said it -- not one of those famously thoughtful or witty persons, but someone famous -- and for that matter, I can't recall exactly what it was he said, but it was something like,
If I had my way, I would start life as a little boy, following which I would be a young girl, after which I would be a young man, then a mature lady, and end my life as an old gentleman.
Something along those lines, anyway.
The other day something reminded me of that thought, and I turned it over in my mind and saw the sense in it. But my next thought was that this is rather like the way we do live today:
Pretty much everyone, regardless of gender or race or social class, has a childhood that includes riding bicycles and playing soccer and collecting cards.
Pretty much everyone spends their adolescence deeply concerned about clothing and grooming and social events.
Pretty much everyone leaves school as an adventurer: going to college or starting a business or joining the Army or doing something else reckless and glorious.
Pretty much everyone tries to arrive at "a certain age" with some measure of gravitas and respectability and if at all possible, some degree of financial security.
And pretty much everyone would like to end their lives with a few good stories to tell.
It's not a perfect model, but I do think we live closer to that now than we ever have.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Find the good in being who you are, and welcome whom you are becoming."\\

Happy Holidays*

*Whichever and however many you care to observe, and anyone who wants to be exclusive and hog all of December for themselves can go do it elsewhere.

We didn't buy a tree this year, but while we were looking for a convenient way to display our incoming cards (the mirror where we usually tape them up has been removed while we restore the living room wall -- note the nice fresh drywall in the background), we saw the ladder leaning against the wall and decided to set it up. And having once done that, it seemed like a good idea to drape a string of lights over it.

So there you have it. Our Yule Ladder for 2010.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "For goodness' sake, do please ring in the new."\\