Egregious Reader

Aint no one in line,   I take out my heart, and then I fire it from a cannon With such a sound over the hills and   every trouble is abandoned Into the mercy wheel,   See it spinning in the twilight From Mercy Wheel off When the Devil's Loose.  I also like this song (American Hearts): We were raised by wolves And we are still wild And we howl when the troubled wind blows And in the TV's blue light Oh, assassins will lie Every wail just a-goin' down slow So don't tread on me For I am your brother I was born with an American heart And don't tread on her For she is your sister She was born with an American heart All the people you meet Down in the streets May be good but they don't wanna know So they cover their eyes, for Who wants to be sad? Life is sweet at the bottom of the sea And don't tread on me For I am your brother I was born with an American heart And don't tread on her For she is your sister She was born with an American h...

On another planet the sun is hidden behind a mountain and the moon stands full with its eerie light. The inhabitants are in constant search of escape, of finding some passage around the mountain, some way to find the sunlight. They are tired of night living, they are tired of moonlight. There is a deep place that craves the direct light of the sun.  But, one day the people become convinced that the moon is the only real thing. They are convinced that the moon is their God. They give up on their strange search for the other side. They lay it down and choose to combat the pain with simple things, numbing things, hard work, no work, drugs or health food, piety or hedonism. They lie down in their large bedrooms or they stand up on an underground train.  The search is forgotten. It is no longer receiving attention from the best minds . .. it is sheer madness and utter foolishness. No one looks upon the great mountain with anything but disgust and occasional fear. Disgust...

I have been watching the Wire, the HBO series about drugs, police and Baltimore. On one hand, I think its incredible, seriously good writing, amazing character list that keeps expanding, complex world. But I also hesitate to recommend it because it is rough in every way possible. The second season is at the docks and deals with the plight of blue collar workers. The center of that world is Frank Sabotka who is the head of the union for the long-shoremen. He has watched the decline of the port and regularly can't get work for his son (Zig) or nephew (Nick). So here is the interesting part and the part that got me thinking. Frank is a working man. He shows no flash in cloths or vehicle. I haven't seen his house, but I doubt its much. But all around people are busting trying to survive ... its perhaps not abject poverty, but its on the borderline and might easily tumble downhill. The other character is The Greek. He is into money and power and is running drugs and prostitutes...

Have you ever noticed how fast language expands? New words pop and swell out everywhere and vocabulary is corrupted and polluted left and right. Texting and twittering continue a downward spiral, but at the same moment television is constantly disseminating local jargon into the wide world. Destroying and expanding. But none of this is what I sat down to say. I sat down to write a story. So, a man is working furiously on his Monday load. He is one of those desk job people who spends all his time typing and looking at screens and needs afternoon coffee to keep it together. Well, this corporate person was typing away and decided it was nigh time to speed to the starbucks and get something for his head. He locks his screen and picks up his phone. He is thin and likes to take the stairs because he has a desk job. There is no concern about getting fat, he hasn't been fat since he was 9 months, but he does worry about all of his joints beginning to atrophy and figures a little runn...

What you do on the earth, the earth makes permanent.                                             Wendell Berry (1967) Everything we do lives after us.                                                                                      Wallace Stegner (1976) "The gravest sin for a Jew is to forget what he represents. We are God's stake in human history... We carry the gold of God in our souls to forge the gate of the kingdom."                                                                   Abraham H...