The Golden Words, Opium, and my dog Charlie

The big vacant lot, Weed, California, July 4, 2008: I was walking with my dogs, and I got to talking to my dog Charlie, who is young and impulsive. He's a great listener. I can say any kind of nonsense and he's still interested.

But I was talking to Charlie and I asked him if he liked poetry. He didn't answer, being a dog, and I asked him if he like Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He didn't answer that either.

But it got me to musing about that story. Do you remember how Coleridge was an opium smoker?

Well, he was.

And there he was, high as a kite, and in his mind's eye he saw this really swell poem, and he went to write it down. It's really quite wonderful. Has several paragraphs, and the first one goes like this ...

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."

But at that moment, a guy to whom Coleridge owed money came banging on the door! Interrupted our Samuel, and that was the end of the swell poem.

Bummer.

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Fearless? Or Fear Less?

Weed, California, June 18, 2008: The other day I woke up thinking about the word 'fearless.'

Have you ever known anybody who was actually fearless?

I haven't. Pretty much any human, any mammal, has fear. And that makes sense, because if a creature didn't have any fear at all, sooner or later that creature would come a cropper. Adios muchacho.

And critters coming a cropper leave no progeny.

We are, therefore, the progeny of the timorous humans. Or at least of the humans with a healthy dose of fear. Oh we could call it 'prudence,' or something that sounds better.

But it's fear.

However, the other thought is that, over the years, things change.

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Word for Today: Synchronicity

Wikipedia, 6/14/2008: Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events which occur in a meaningful manner, but which are causally un-related. In order to be 'synchronistic', the events must be related to one another temporally, and the chance that they would occur together by random chance must be very small.

The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined by the relationship between ideas, is intricately structured in its own logical way and gives rise to relationships which have nothing to do with causal relationships in which a cause precedes an effect.

Instead, causal relationships are understood as simultaneous — that is, the cause and effect occur at the same time. [You're thinking of calling Suzie. You reach for the phone, but it rings. It's Suzie.]

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Walking Legacy

San Anselmo, June 24, 2003: Tonight it is so hot I am unable to fall asleep, and in the wee hours encounter a black mood. Before long the mood will pass, but I think about what we leave behind in this world.

My sometime nemesis, Emmett Chapman, in my opinion, hopes to be remembered for the musical instrument he designed, and for the two-handed tapping technique he pioneered. It might be so, for a while. For forty years, or a hundred, perhaps even longer as a paragraph or footnote in music books.

For most of us, our works do not stand much chance of enduring. Perhaps the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. His works endure, but who knows his name? Perhaps the Taj Mahal. The sultan's name can be found in history books, as can the name of the woman he so loved. But even history books will some day fade.

For most of us, we have no works likely to endure the long seasons. For a very few of us, we leave works which might last a few hundred years, maybe. The blink of an eye in our cosmos.

I have no children. Some day I will be a memory, slowly fading, and when that memory has faded, will be gone.

But I think of Adrienne who has grown daughters. I think of my brothers and sisters who have children grown and children yet growing. They leave a walking, talking legacy which might endure for a time.

Any guarantee of eternity? None whatever.

But they have a chance.

Where do Stories Come From?

Mount Shasta, April 8, 2004: Where do these stories come from? I mean, mostly they're true, except for a lie or two. But what makes this story or that story emerge into memory? What makes this memory or that memory form itself into a little story?

Sometimes something seen, or other people's stories, will trigger my own, though there seems little (conscious) connection between stories, not that I'm too proud to steal!

Will steal for food!

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Why I Like Dogs

Mount Shasta, May 9, 2003: "Because they have beauty, and they're friendly. And also," Adrienne told me this morning, "Because they have that ... that wildness in them."

I agree. I think that's why men generally like dogs. Dogs are friendly and, no matter how domestic, there is a wildness in them. And isn't that exactly how every man, including myself, wishes to be?

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The Secret to Good Teeth

Mount Shasta, in the kitchen, March 2003: "Why do good things happen to bad people?" Adrienne wails. She's trying to get my goat, as my grandfather used to say.

She's had trouble with her teeth all her life, whereas I have been blessed in that regard.

I have perfect teeth.

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Carbon Paper

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor. -- Ring Lardner

Mount Shasta, March 25, 2004: This morning Adrienne told me she learned, in journalism classes, not to send a stamped, self-addressed envelope. She went on to say that beginners think their work is so precious that someone might steal it, but, she says, any thief could just make a xerox copy.

I had to argue, of course.

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Cosmic Dance

Mount Shasta, May 20, 2004: This morning over coffee, Adrienne told me about how Chakras get clogged up with bad events, and I told her how Dianetic auditing is said to clear up clogged events. We came to agree that Dianetics was really Chakra theory, which will amaze and alarm any student of either Chakras or Dianetics, but it's swell for Adrienne and me. To agree, I mean, if you follow me.

We then discussed the upcoming dog park in Mount Shasta, and Adrienne had made a collections jar that she took to the Pet Wash, and she said it was an "apocrothary" jar. I said "apothocary." She corrected herself. I said it was no problem, and that such mispronunciation just showed the moo treening of a munctioning find.

So the morning was off to a great start, and the coffee pretty good.

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Bloggito, Ergo Sum

Bloggistry, noun, the artistry of blogging. From O.E. Blaugt, to fall into a well, yelling loudly, from Arch. Lat. Bloggum, to chew with one's mouth open, in a loud and disgusting manner, showing one's table-mates more than they wanted to see of the mastication process.

Earliest known quotation: "To bleaugh, to plough whyle burping, 'tis blaggy, blaggy dew. Bloggum, bloggum, all thee day long, 'tis not so naice of yew." -- from the Three Canticles of Clackmeyer mss., circa 1502.

Daisy and the Fish

Mount Shasta, July 7th, 2005: Daisy, our little white border collie is one year old. From the basement today Adrienne brought the plastic swimming pool. It's just a Toys 'R Us special, about four feet across and perhaps eight inches deep. She'd bought it for the dogs, for the hot weather.

On the back deck, she filled it up with cool, clear water.

Tonight after supper, with the sun aslant from beyond the mountains to the west, and the mountain beyond our back yard glowing peach-colored, we sat out back drinking iced tea after supper.

Daisy noticed, for the first time, the little fish printed on the bottom of the plastic pool.

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Adrienne's Philosophy

She says it's this --

Now you know.

Telemarketers, More

[From Bankrate.com:] Further responses for your telemarketer-calling pleasure --

TRIXIE'S
Assuming that you have caller-ID, and know it's not your friends or your mom, you answer: "Trixie's Call Girl Service. Press 'one' for an appointment. Press 'two' if you are seeking employment. Press 'three' if you are a law enforcement officer."

Then, no matter what they say, or what touch-tones they press, repeat the above.

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Liberal and Conservative

"A man of 20 who's not a liberal has no heart, and a man of 60 who's not a conservative has no brain." -- variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill

Is it true? I don't know, but it sure describes my experience.

We in America, lulled by years of prosperity, find it difficult to believe that barbarians still exist in the world.

But, yes, Virginia, there are humans who are not "civilized" as we know it. People who will kill you for your sneakers, and people who will torture you for the giggles of seeing you twist and scream. These are facts.

In our shrinking world, the far-away barbarians are now next door. With our transportation, communication, information, and weaponry, they're here among us.

We got trouble. That's a fact. And talking liberal at them won't do a bit of good.

Some folks just need killing to dissuade them from their foolish ways. Maybe we don't like that, but we don't get to tell the Universe what's true. We must have the humility to listen. The Universe will tell *us*.

And it's telling us loud and clear, soldier.

Musing on Time

What if time actually speeds up and slows down, but we don't know it because we are inside time?

For example, suppose you and I are standing in the back yard and I toss a basketball to you. It goes up in the air and comes down in your hands.

Now suppose that time slowed *way* down as I tossed it, and suppose that time then zoomed like lightning just as you caught the ball. But because you and I are both inside the same time, we just saw the ball go up and come down at the usual speed, because you and I with all our perceptions were slowing down and speeding up inside the same time span.

How can we know this is not happening?

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