Blog

  • Bracket

    So, you know, they announced all the teams for the Men’s NCAA Basketball tournament yesterday. Just about every guy I know is filling out their bracket. I will fill out two; the first one will be my honest but completely ignorant choices, and the second one will another completely honest but completely ignorant choices. (I have no real reason why I do two, other than the ESPN app I use makes it really easy to make multiple brackets.) I never have picked the National Champion, and my bracket is normally busted by the Elite Eight. But, it’s that time of year, and I guess the Tournament is just another mile post on road that is each year.

    I found out recently that over March Madness is when most men get and recover from the vasectomies. Makes sense. If you are going to have to sit at home with a bag of frozen peas on your nuts, might as well spend all day watching basketball. Things you find out from friends who had vasectomies.

    Anyway, I never really gave two craps about the Tournament until I got in college, and the guys in the theatre department (yes, you read that correctly) had a Bracket Pool thing. You’d chip in five buck, fill out a bracket, and whomever got the most wins won the pot. It was fun, and made watching some the games interesting. Pretty much after that, it became something to do when this time of year rolls around.

    I’m going with Gonzaga. This will be my second year in a row picking them, but my thought is that it’s got to land eventually. Right?

  • ODDS and ENDS: Nightmares, Blogging, and Shop Local

    (Some thoughts that don’t involve Tottenham or Alt Side Parking.)

    The kid woke me up at 1am. She had a nightmare, and I tried to get her back to bed, but she was too upset. So, I did what any good father would do, we sat on the couch until we fell asleep watching MST3k. “Mitchell” was on and that calmed everyone down. In the morning, I asked the night what her nightmare was about, and she said that she dreamed she was an artist, and kept failing over and over again to paint a perfect picture. Yikes! I tried to talk to her about how failure is an important part of the creative process as it allows an artist to know what doesn’t work, and to keep trying. I don’t know if it took hold, but I did think she was a little young to be worried about painting a perfect picture.

    I started thinking again about switching to a paid blogsite, and getting away from the free WordPress.com thing that I am on now. I do this every couple of months, and I always get back to asking myself, what is the point? I have written about this on twenty different occasion, if not more, and I can never come up with a persuasive argument for myself, one way or the other. I am continually sitting on the pot over this one. I don’t know how to do what I want to do, which is what I am doing right now, sitting on my couch and writing, and make a living at it. Will a better blog site get me any closer to that goal? Honestly, I don’t think it will. BUT… I do have some free time, and it is something to do. Ahhh… I’ll sit on the pot awhile longer then.

    If you haven’t already, support small local businesses. Help your community not only survive, but thrive.

  • Why is My Eye Twitching?

    My right eye won’t stop twitching. Usually, this is a sign that I am under a great deal of stress. But, I can’t seem to place the epicenter of my stress. I cannot deny the physical occurrence that is continuing to happen to my right eye. I can look in the mirror and see it happen. I know myself well enough that this malady will only appear in times when stress becomes overwhelming. Thus, I must conclude, that I am under a boulder of stress.

    Again, where is it coming from?

    My first reaction is to always look at myself. What have I changed? If anything, I have added more healthy habits who all should have the wonderful side effect of eliminating, if not lessening stress. I am working out four times a week. We, as a family, have started eating healthier, including two vegetarian meals a week. And, my alcohol consumption is only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

    Then the next question would be; has anything changed recently in my home?

    Yes, the kid has started going to an afterschool program, which was something that we all wanted. She is spending more time with kids. Our home is calmer, with the child being gone for the working hours of the day, which helps the wife focus and work. For me, I am now getting three to four hours a day to work on writing, which makes me feel better about myself, because I am getting to do something I love, and also, makes me feel that I have a purpose outside of my family.

    So, what is it? What is causing this stress?

    Is the stress external? Is it still a result of Covid, and the changes that it brought? The war in Ukraine, and the feeling that everything is teetering on disaster? Global warming?

    Possible, though I have never had stress caused by that before. But, that does make a little sense, such as life at home is good, but outside of the house, it’s all a dumpster fire.

  • Short Story Review: “The Biographer’s Hat” by Cynthia Ozick

    (The short story, “The Biographer’s Hat” by Cynthia Ozick, appeared in the March 14th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (I spoil things…)

    When it comes to these reviews, I have a rule that I adhere to, which is I do not read up on the author or inspiration for the story I am about to review. The reason for this is to try and stay as objective and uninfluenced as possible. You know, review the story on the merits. Now, obviously, there are a few writes that I know before hand, so it’s not a perfect system.

    I know nothing of Cynthia Ozick, but I do respect that she got a short story in The New Yorker. And when I started reading her piece which is in the latest issue, “The Biographer’s Hat,” my mind began to wander and wonder a little. The story’s beginning felt like it was from a bygone era of literature. I wasn’t sure if that was a purposeful style choice, or if this was a story that was written in the 90’s by some respected but relative unknow writer, who’s had a prolific output spanning over 40 years.

    In a nutshell, the narrator is an older woman who once took a class at The New School which was taught by Emanuel Teller, who was a performer of some minor fame years ago. A biographer has contacted the narrator for an interview, and we learn that just about everyone who knew Teller is now dead, except for the narrator. When the interview happens, the narrator is stuck by how odd the biographer is, and when the interview is over, the biographer leaves a hat on a chair, which is claimed to have belonged to Teller. The Narrator never hears from the biographer again, so the hat, which is slowly collapsing, is stored in her closet and forgotten about. Time moves on, the biographer returns to the narrator, and talks her into allowing him to stay for a short while, as he completes the biography. Soon, the narrator takes part in the creation of the biography, helping the biographer create a narrative that is fictional. When the manuscript is complete, the biographer leaves, and the narrator never hears from him again. Then one night, the narrator retrieves the hat from the closet only to find that it has completely collapsed.

    Oh, this is a story, and it is told sparsely and efficiently, and takes you on a journey. But most impressive, Ozick was in complete control of this story, though I didn’t see it at first. I see now that my reaction to the start of the story was purposely constructed, that I and the narrator are both wondering what is going on. It is done so well, that when I got to the part where the biographer returns, and starts to weave his idea that the narrator should help him in creating this fictious reality for the biography, it dawned on me that Ozick had planted seeds in that first part of the story; The Village of old, the writers, the people who supported writers to make then successful, even the narrator’s desire to be on stage. I saw how the biographer played on the narrator’s desires, and how she almost knew she was being lied to, but it was a pretty lie that validated her existence.

    It all made sense. The structure that the story was built on, how the tumblers of the narrative feel into place, the character’s motivations, all of it worked. I’m sorry that I doubted you Cynthia Ozick. You knew exactly what you were doing, and played me like a mark.

  • Talking to My Daughter about Ukraine

    It’s been very hard over the past week to talk to my daughter about the war in Ukraine. A hard conversation, but one that I know we need to have. She’s seven, and sees the world as good guys vs bad guys, which I do think makes explaining this war to her a little easier. Putin is the bad guy for starting this war, that’s the easy part. Everything else has been challenging.

    I have found that the “Mr. Rogers Rule” works really well. That rule is simple, “Look for the helpers. When things are bad, there are always people wanting to help.” Luckily, there are still parts of humanity that aren’t garbage, and we have been pointing out how the people of Poland, and other nations as well, are helping with the refugees; giving food, shelter, medical care, and safety. We have even talked about what we can do here, to help all the people over there.

    Now, we don’t purposefully have her watch the news. Most of the time, when we tell her that we are going to put the news on, she will leave the room as that stuff is boring to her. But now and then, she’ll walk into the livingroom and catch something, an image; a building on fire, a blown up tank, or a dead body in the street. My gut reaction is that I don’t want her to see these things, but I don’t want to shield her, nor stop her from asking questions about difficult subjects.

    The one thing that I think she is grasping is that war is not good. Even the “good” wars were still awful.